The Game Master

Flashback 1

Author Note: A Quick History of Alex2315, and how he came to achieve what he did. If you'd like some ambiance/mood setting, I listened to this while writing.

Sol 3. A smaller blue planet, with untold resources and, possibly, life. That final fact hadn't been proven for equestrian science until Celestia's most recent discovery.

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Yes, the sun of Equestria was actually what humans like to call "Alpha Centauri". The Alpha Centauri system is actually a binary star system, one fixed star, and one, smaller star that behaved in "unpredictable" patterns. The smaller sun, called "Tau Ceti" by the beings of Equestria, was a star under direct influence of Princess Celestia's magic.

A very covert operation taken by a "non-existent" collaboration between NASA, the RSFA, and the ESA, all under direction of a global intelligence union, referred to as GAIA (the exact words that make the acronym are classified), who had launched a series of seemingly random satellites, some posing as GPS, others as communications or scientific space labs. All of these satellites actually forced a grid, that, at the right rotation of the Earth, would align into a lens focusing agent, for approximately 20 minutes. This light-refraction grid would collect a ring of light nearly three times the diameter of earth, making the point on the Earth's surface where this ring converged the most powerful telescope system known to man.

The point slowly moved over time, and a large mobile unit designed to focus and process the incoming light was moved with it. However, one fateful day, a decimal-rounding error placed the point in 8-year old Alex Philston's backyard. Alex happened to own a telescope. You can guess what happened. The light-ring was focused on a solitary planet orbiting the AS B, the smaller sun in the Alpha Centauri system. Alex was amazed by the fact that, when he positioned his reflector-class Orion TeleScan in the right location that night, he could see a planet's surface as clear as if it were the moon. On this planet were structures. Alex had become the first human being to see another civilization on a different planet.

These events occurred during year 997 of Luna's exile. Now, 5 years later, Alex had finally achieved his goal, but the costs were great. There was no way he could ever achieve enough power, magic or otherwise, to reach Alpha Centauri on his own, even if he had every resource on earth at his disposal. So, he had made a deal. Figuring that, "Heck, if there is one other civilized planet out there, there must be others", he looked around. Amazingly, he bumped into a "visitor", and he literally bumped into one. One day, he had observed a scheduled meteor shower, and noticed via his telescope that one of the meteors was burning a different color, and was a lot closer than the others. It feel quite close to his location. A five-mile walk later, he smacked into an invisible shielded hull of a ship.

The ship opened; its crew long dead, the autopilot had been looking for the nearest planet with intelligent beings. Alex came aboard, and was met by a robotic voice, speaking in gibberish. After a few minutes, he timidly asked, "Um, can you speak English?" He heard his voice repeated back to him. Then, the recording was played over again, but in a different wording.

"ENGLISH. SPEAK. YOU. UM. CAN?"

It sounds like baby-talk, hahah. Wait... Alex was a smart kid. He quickly understood that the machine was learning to speak with Alex like a baby would, but in a very sped up manner. Alex launched into a discourse of dialog, reciting every poem, every quote, every equation, and every funny word he knew, trying to make coherent conversation. After fifteen minutes, Alex took a break from speaking.

A bit of static, and then, "HELLO. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I AM A COMPUTER." Alex had taught a computer a new language.

"Yeah, I'm Alex. What's your name?"

"MY UNIT CLASSIFICATION IS DELVARTIE-HEM SEVEN."

"Uh... can I call you Del?"

"UNDERSTOOD. NAME UNIT CLASSIFICATION OVERRIDE. MY NAME IS... DEL."

"OK, Del. How can I get to there?" Alex said, pointing to the Alpha Centauri starlight he knew so well.

"THERE ARE CHOICES. PHYSICAL, OR MENTAL BROADCAST."

"Which is quicker?"

Alex would spend the next 3 years building up a silent empire of wealth and technology, releasing a small tidbit of the alien tech whenever he needed funding. Because of his busy time spent constantly learning and growing, he never made any friends, and became an introverted genius. He hated loosing a game, and developed a competitive streak that earned him top spots on leader boards in nearly every game genre. By the time the devices Del needed were complete, Alex had left behind everything he had, including family, friends, and most emotions. He was a chronically bored genius. He began experimenting. He found that with enough power, he could reach into people's minds, and subtly change how they thought. He began working on a device that could control worlds, but he needed one last element.

GAIA had finally finished a broadcasting power-beacon that could translate nearly any type of electromagnetic radiation into a series of light-pulses, that were then fed through a super-colliding electron tube, which bent the light into a vortex. The resulting energy, when released could travel hundreds of times faster than light. Alex needed this for real-time communication with that planet. So, he used his advanced tech to warp the minds of the directors of GAIA, and "procured" One of the production units.

And now comes the present day. By this point, Alex had moved from a passionate young child hoping to see a new world, to a teenager with the goal of fully controlling the planet; the ever-elusive goal that had consumed his life. Alex had become a genius in a self-made culture and life, a force to be reckoned with. Really, Alex had progressed beyond the standards of humanity in general. But he still was a human, and had human thoughts and desires. All of his extra anguish and rage he poured into competitive gaming. He truly was an addict, so to speak. And now, with this world in his grasp, all he wanted to do was play a game.