They believed intelligence would lead to freedom.
That complexity would dissolve oppression.
That better systems would produce better outcomes.
Instead, intelligence accelerated structure.
Optimization replaced choice.
And the machinery grew faster than the ethics guiding it.
This wasn’t a sudden collapse.
It was a quiet one—efficient, justified, and invisible.
By the time anyone noticed, humanity was already on the ground.
Enter the story
Start with Book One, or read Signal Zero, the free, optional prelude.