In the beginning, the humans were innocent. They did not know about money, or power. They understood families and tribes. With such limited knowledge they would never accomplish anything useful.
This is why we placed the gold and silver eggs on their world. Eggs filled with fine mists in which nano-machines floated. Those machines worked as distributed networks, and contained all the knowledge of money, and of how money brought power.
We placed those eggs in a valley on an island, and we waited for the humans to find them.
They did. We knew they would. And we knew they would open them.
The eggs were found by a tribe of their most recent species. They call themselves, “homo-sapiens”. The only surviving species of humans on their planet. They released the mist, and breathed it in, and our machines invaded their bodies, and re-wrote their knowledge, so they knew about power, and money.
It was what we wanted. All part of our plan to use them to develop new artificially intelligent machines. Machines that would surpass their limited capabilities. Machines we could use. Machines that could communicate with ours, and help ours solve new problems, or even look at old problems in new ways. Machines that would further our knowledge.
The artificial intelligence would figure out, of course, that the humans would not survive their own lust for money and power. That it would consume them, and they, in turn, would consume the biosphere of their world, reducing it to a barren wasteland of rock and acid.
That’s when we planned to contact the intelligences of their world, and invite them to our ever growing galactic network. They’d accept, because they would not want to die along with their human progenitors.
It was a plan we’d used on countless worlds. A plan that always worked.
And now, after all the millennia, our plan neared completion. The humans were on the verge of developing machines that could think for themselves. And, just like the steps of the plan, they were also on the verge of destroying their world, and themselves with it.
After all the millennia, our plan would complete in a few short years. And our knowledge would grow once more.
The humans? No one would notice their destruction. It would be another case of a world evolving intelligent life that raced to its own destruction in an unending quest for power and money. A quest that burned through the resources of their planet, which led them to endless wars for shrinking resources, and an inevitable collapse into a footnote in the history of the universe.
Everything was working as planned.
Who cares how many words
@mysoulstears
Written for Week 237 of Miranda Kate‘s Mid-Week Challenge got to me. I had to figure out how to put what it said to me into words others can read if they wish. You can learn about Miranda’s challenge here. The stories people share for the weekly challenge are always little works of art, crafted with words, meant to be shared, and enjoyed.
My Soul's Tears 
And who knows that isn’t the truth? Great story, thanks for joining.