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Destroy Apollo: Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Ophir Star 1
“Edith, tell me—how much time do we have? Before Apollo realizes what’s happening and the M5 main brain breaks free of its control?”
Currently, it was Gaia’s generated replica, not the original main brain, that was connected to Apollo; the original brain still governed everything on Planet M5, but now it granted me full access.
In other words, I was the super administrator.
I wanted to give Greta a clear timeframe, but in truth, I couldn’t calculate it. All I could say was, “Once the arrow is released, there’s no turning back. We’ll proceed as planned.”
Planet M5, being the frontline closest to the interstellar war, held a wealth of resources needed for such conflicts.
And now, these resources were ours.
M5 had already dispatched an advance team aimed at subjugating another group. We analyzed past data Apollo sent to the M5 main brain and reached a conclusion.
The destination near where the advance team was heading had an interstellar graveyard—a black hole.
“Is Apollo sending them to their deaths? Could it… awaken into a sentient life form, and turn to subjugate and wipe out humanity instead?”
Gaia replied, “If Apollo wanted to exterminate humanity, it could do so with a flick of a finger—there’d be no need for such elaborate schemes.
Only humans would do this. Human history is filled with such stories, where the ignorant are sent to die for meaningless causes. Apollo’s central system algorithm is still a black box to us. So, who knows?”
“Planet M5 has always been weak among the bases, situated on the outer edge—it might have been intended as cannon fodder from the start. And speaking of war, it’s only the M5 main brain that clamors for it; the other bases aren’t nearly as enthusiastic,” Greta said.
“Or perhaps it’s just the inevitability of that order?” The speaker was Frida, Greta’s girlfriend, whom we had just rescued from the sanatorium.
Frida spoke of history with conviction, “The order Apollo represents is a cycle of rise and decay. That’s how history was in the old epoch—especially during the feudal era: in the early days of a dynasty, everything needed rebuilding; gradually, land consolidation led to chaos.
The prevailing academic views in the old epoch placed the key to feudal order and chaos in land, suggesting that people naturally recognized honor and shame once their granaries were full. There’s some truth in that, but it doesn’t explain why, even as the old epoch entered the high-tech age, some regions were overflowing with wealth, yet the lives of women there… were still less than ideal.
I think the true essence of Apollo’s order isn’t about land at all. Land is just the surface; buried beneath it are the bones of women, which reveal the truth of order and chaos.
In peaceful times, women are sacrificed; in turbulent times, there are no women left to sacrifice. Too many surplus men, and war becomes one way to consume them. Apollo’s order will always end up this way, forever trapped in this cycle.”
“Then it’s time to let this cycle collapse completely.” I smiled and sent the advance team the message, “Proceed,” through the main brain.
I didn’t warn them. I didn’t save them. For a brief moment, I did consider using them, instigating mutual slaughter among the humans under Apollo’s rule, reaping the benefits from the chaos.
But in the end, I found it unnecessary.
My mothers sacrificed so much for Ophir District, yet in the end, they couldn’t hold onto it. If there’s one lesson I could take from their story, it would be—
“Eliminate evil thoroughly.”
Besides, in the end, am I seeking to destroy Apollo just for a position of power above all others?
The day those few starships from the advance team lost contact forever, I felt a rare sense of satisfaction. But then I glanced at Greta, gazing at the distant nebula, her expression dazed.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “It’s just… Edith, I haven’t been sleeping well lately. It’s not that I think you’re doing anything wrong—I looked through the profiles of each man in the advance team. Not one of them is innocent. The men in the reserves are all notorious; using them as cannon fodder isn’t a loss. But what about the majority of people on Planet M5, the ordinary women and men? What are you planning for them?”
“Whatever needs to be done, will be done. In time, we’ll cut off the connection between humans and the main brain. The humans on Planet M5 will be forced to learn how to think, to fall into bewilderment and chaos. Our new order must quickly fill this vacuum. Otherwise, the momentum of Apollo’s order will be difficult to resist once it gathers.”
“Changing customs and values can’t be done overnight.”
“Greta, do you know the concept of the spiral of silence 1? Trust me, once someone steps up, more will follow.”
“What worries me is that… most people still support Apollo. Compared to the majority, those who’ve broken free from the steel seal are too few.”
“Men are the main beneficiaries under Apollo’s order, so naturally they support it; among women, some hope to scrape a few crumbs from men’s plates and become accomplices, while others simply mind their own business.
For the beneficiaries, naturally, they must give back every bit they’ve taken. As for the women—it’ll depend on whether they seize this chance.”
Those who still cling to the old order with a death grip, of course, will be abandoned.
We announced the severance of the connection between Planet M5’s main brain and humanity. We implemented the new policies from the Ophir District, radically rewriting parts of Apollo’s order.
For example, the upper limit on female quotas in any profession would no longer exist. Under Apollo’s rule, certain jobs had previously capped female participation at no more than 15%, under various pretexts.
Another example: we decreed that giving birth confers motherhood, and denied any buyer custody rights over children born via surrogacy, effectively banning it.
In truth, Blue Planet’s humans had researched artificial womb technology, which should have reshaped humanity’s reproductive dynamics. But catastrophe and migration forced them into hasty flight, and once settled, their focus in restoring technology centered on adapting agriculture and industry to the bases. The points of innovation targeted interstellar resource utilization and the development of intelligent machinery.
Moreover, under Apollo’s rule, surrogacy was legal, and childcare relied heavily on robots. Apollo’s expansionist order promoted reckless reproduction, and the surging population, in turn, fueled further plunder.
Other reforms included the legitimization and decriminalization of same-sex relationships between women.
But, regardless, one can’t deny that those in power are always more attuned to power. Many women, long deprived of agency and influenced by the main brain, struggled to voice their opinions on the new policies; the men, however, were in an uproar.
Planet M5, already among the human bases with the most mediocre natural conditions, had its regiments restructured for war. Many were subsequently dispatched under the guise of main-brain orders and eliminated without resistance.
Nonetheless, a faction of male supremacy supporters still emerged, rallying former soldiers, intent on crushing us.
They formed a predominantly male militia, calling themselves “Obey the Will of Truth,” opposing the pro-women articles of the new policies and vowing to “restore order” against “shameful lunatics” and “Apollo’s traitors” like us.
We engaged in several medium-scale battles with them. But from the moment we gained control over the main brain, we also took over part of Planet M5’s industrial system—factories of industrial robots directly operated by the main brain. Our production capacity was superior to theirs, while they had to scavenge resources everywhere, waging war recklessly, hoping to sustain themselves through combat.
Thus, more often than not, they wandered aimlessly, harassing civilian women, threatening them; attracting civilian men, inciting them to join. Among the civilian women, the majority were content to live passively, but now that the main brain no longer controlled the overall situation, they were forced to make a choice.
They could either submit to the old order or embrace Ophir District.
The encouraging part was that our strength continued to grow.
From the moment we rescued Frida from the sanatorium, we noticed that the proportion of women in these places was unusually high. According to Frida, the institution operated a shady business under the guise of providing women with “rest and recovery,” stripping them of their autonomy or property.
Some were diagnosed with “mental illnesses” so that their husbands or sons could hold their assets; some were sent there for loving other women, under the pretense of rehabilitation but in reality for control; some were discarded by their families like burdens for speaking “incorrect” thoughts; some had tendencies toward violence or mania.
These were all “madwomen” and thus stripped of any voice in Apollo’s algorithm.
But for the new order we aimed to establish—Ophir District—they were invaluable talents and allies. If a male-dominated society could brand a woman as mad, she must possess something exceptional.
Later, many civilian women joined us as well. The new policies offered a promising, female-friendly future, and they were willing to fight for it.
The specifics are unnecessary; in short, after some twists and turns, Planet M5 finally fell under our control.
Ophir District was rebuilt here.
And our ability to operate undetected by Apollo was thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Gaia and Greta. Gaia had originally accepted her modifications partly because she was once the leading computer scientist in Ophir District, and now, working with Greta, they combined their skills to simulate an M5 main brain that could deceive Apollo, even interfering with it.
The Worm Plan.
With the last faction of male supremacy supporters on Planet M5 eradicated, our time had come. The Worm would use Apollo to broadcast a message to all humanity on Planets M1 through M4—
Planet M5 declared independence, renaming itself Ophir Star. A new order, belonging to women, had been established on Ophir Star.
“Will we be besieged immediately?”
“It’s hard to say. The main brains of each human base differ greatly, and Planet M5 never had much resource exchange with the others, nor was it a travel destination. By declaring independence and leaving the system, we won’t have much of an impact.
At its core, Apollo is an abstraction of human will. The decision to go to war was made initially because the M5 main brain proposed it at the annual meeting, and Apollo’s main system approved it. And the M5 main brain’s proposal was based on discussions held at the annual assembly of M5’s humans.
I don’t think the people on Planets M1-M4 will react right away.”
“But…”
“But after our announcement, women from other planets will inevitably be drawn to us. After our announcement, someone will realize what Ophir Star has overturned. The other bases will catch on sooner or later.
And when they do, the real war will begin.
After all, fighting wars to defend one’s own order is as old as human history itself.”
For this unprecedented war, Ophir Star is fully prepared.
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- The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory which states that an individual’s perception of the distribution of public opinion influences that individual’s willingness to express their own opinions. The theory claims individuals will be more confident and outward with their opinion when they notice that their personal opinion is shared throughout a group. But if the individual notices that their opinion is unpopular with the group, they will be more inclined to be reserved and remain silent. In other words, from the individual’s perspective, “not isolating themself is more important than their own judgment”, meaning their perception of how others in the group perceive them is more important to themself than the need for their opinion to be heard.[↩]