No.438[Reply]
The Secret Service couldn't keep up. As consumer-grade Universal Constructors flooded the market, people began using them to manufacture satellite weaponry. The unthinkable became routine: holding Senators hostage with the mere threat of a strike, coordinates programmed into hastily assembled, orbiting death machines.
Page, ever the schemer, had seen the writing on the wall long before the chaos erupted. He ordered us to clone the entire Senate, ensuring his precious legislation remained untouchable and live, regardless of the threats. Now, the real Senators were hidden away, their roles played by perfect duplicates, indistinguishable even under the closest scrutiny.
But that was only the beginning. Page had his secret plan. He implanted the cloned Senators with advanced augmentation devices, giving him unprecedented control. Through SSH, he now wrote laws directly, bypassing the sluggishness of democracy. His clandestine augmentations turned the Senators into mere extensions of his will, puppets executing his commands with unerring precision.
In the midst of this upheaval, Everett, our once-diligent watchdog, had retreated into silence. He wouldn't even read the news, overwhelmed by the sheer impossibility of the world we had created. Page's grip tightened, his influence expanding as he bent the Senate—and by extension, the entire nation—to his vision.
The cloning chambers hummed quietly beneath the Capitol, an eerie testament to the new order. The real Senators, unaware of their own replacements, continued to languish in secure locations, kept alive only as a contingency. Page's machinations ensured that any dissent was swiftly quashed, his synthetic Senate unwavering in its loyalty.
As we watched from the shadows, the implications of our actions weighed heavily. The power to shape reality had shifted dramatically, and the boundaries of ethics and governance blurred beyond recognition. The lines between savior and tyrant, protector and oppressor, became indistinguishable, leaving us to wonder if this brave new world was truly an improvement, or a descent into an even darker age.