On top of that, a decisive blow arrived. The Monopole Super Flare attacked again. Just as the anemones and shrimp and crabs and sea cucumbers and shellfish had covered the surface, the solar flare wiped them all out. The 13th Generation Idol was disappointed. Afterwards, she made measurements through a biological telescope she grew on the ocean’s surface and confirmed that once again the Monopole Super Flare had occurred simultaneously throughout the universe — but there were exceptions. For some reason young stars, ones less than three trillion years old, had no flares. No matter how much she pondered it, she couldn’t crack this mystery. Either way, it was clear her plan to grow the anemones into intelligent fans had failed.
It seemed like it was time for her to head to outer space. The Idol made up her mind. It was quite common for huge breakthroughs to happen only once an idol left their homeland. But there was a lot of work to be done before she could go abroad. In the past she would have needed a visa and a passport, but now she could avoid all that troublesome paperwork as long as she simply had a massive energy source. The problem was that the energy this required was too massive. The chemical energy in the anemone corpses would never reach the necessary volume. She had to do something truly spectacular.
She began by assembling a great number of satellites out of biomaterials and placing them outside the range of geostationary orbit. Orbits outside of that range had a rotational speed slower than the rotation of the Earth. This created a discrepancy between the satellites’ orbital speed and the rotation of the earth’s magnetic field, which allowed the use of electromagnetic induction to generate electricity. Theoretically, the energy obtained this way would be in proportion to a decline in the Earth’s rotational speed. The amount of electricity generated by each satellite was quite small, but all the satellites together produced a huge amount.
She spent ten thousand years generating electricity. During that time, the energy she gathered was used to grow the bio-satellites. From the satellites she grew myxomycetes, which functioned as a vacuum-compatible thread that tied the satellites together. The array of bio-satellites gave the Earth a ring like Saturn’s, and by binding them together the ring grew in size and solidarity. Once the ring was solidified, she began lowering myxomycete threads into the atmosphere. When the myxomycete threads reached the ground, they took a firm grip on the surface. Since the ring was orbiting slower than the Earth’s rotation, these threads were stretched, and she used that stretching to generate more electricity.
So what to do with all this energy she was generating? Create antimatter. The interior of the ring became a particle accelerator, and day after day, it manufactured antimatter. Whether one was building physical strength or making antimatter, all it took was a little bit of effort each and every day. Behind every idol’s success was this sort of hard work behind the scenes. She stored the antimatter carefully, ensuring it didn’t get caught in the magnetic field and come into contact with matter. This antimatter would be of vital importance on her journey through space.
But an expedition to outer space required not just antimatter, but alterations to her body. While prepping for her trip she passed through three generations, but by the 17th Generation Idol she was finally ready. The 17th Generation Idol drilled a hole in an asteroid and cultivated her brain and muscles and circulatory system inside of it, preparing a mini-ecosystem of myxomycetes and fleas. These repaired any damage to the organs inside the 17th Generation Idol and removed any cancerous cells.
She was ready. All she had left to do was wait for the necessary volume of antimatter. The antimatter she made was stored inside the 17th Generation Idol’s belly, and the mutual annihilation that occurred when it struck matter would be her propulsion fuel. However, some alarming news reached her. The light of the fixed stars around the solar system was declining. Perhaps some would say that if mysterious solar flares could occur then mysterious star dimming could occur, too, but this dimming was spreading like a plague through the nearby stars. The speed at which it spread was surprisingly fast, a decent fraction of the speed of light. Stars affected by the dimming eventually disappeared entirely, as if they’d gone out. By her calculations, in a few thousand years this phenomenon would reach her solar system.
She had yet to reach her intended volume of antimatter, but the 17th Generation Idol moved up her schedule for launching into outer space. She didn’t know the cause of this mysterious plague, but she definitely didn’t want to get anywhere near it. If she ran low on antimatter she could stop off at another solar system’s star and borrow the rotational energy from it.
Bye-bye, Earth. Bye-bye, solar system. I don’t know if I’ll come back. My idol activities here were so much fun!
Two thousand years after the 17th Generational Idol left the solar system, the plague arrived. The plague was actually a swarm of tiny machines, less than a millimeter each. The swarm covered Mercury and Venus and Earth and Mars and the asteroid belt and Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and Neptune and Pluto and the rest of the Kuiper belt, and began disassembling them. They began making a Dyson sphere using all the matter in the solar system.
These machines had been developed by an intelligent life form on one planet to prevent extinction at the hands of the Monopole Super Flares. The initial machines weren’t as accomplished as the current incarnation, but they were given orders to prevent super flares by any means necessary. The machines followed those instructions and created descendants that stood a better chance of preventing the flares. By repeating Lamarck inheritance over generation after generation they reached a point where they could prevent super flares by disassembling planets and building Dyson spheres around stars. However, disassembling their planet drove the species that created the machines to extinction. The machines were capable of multiplying and altering themselves and were no longer possible to control. Once the machines completed the Dyson sphere in their home system, they headed out towards other stars.
These machines had no consciousness to call their own. All they had was a powerful drive to effectively perform their prime directive. That directive told them to prevent the solar flares but did not contain any language limiting them to just their home system. Therefore, they flew from star to star, expanding their Dyson sphere construction. These lightweight machines possessed no propulsion systems; instead the Dyson spheres fired laser beams that propelled them through the back-reaction. They had no need to slow themselves; when they struck the target planet they would use the local resources to manufacture more of themselves and begin converting matter into a Dyson sphere.
The Earth had survived the Super Flare and the rise of the Novum Organum, but this assault was too much for it. All creatures went extinct, even the bacteria buried deep beneath the surface. There were actually some microscopic creatures on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, that used the heat from the tidal force as an energy source, but these, too, perished.
Heedless to all of this, the Idol continued her idol activities in space, just as she pleased. Whenever she ran low on antimatter, she set down on a nearby planet, took a thousand-year rest, and then set off for her next destination. Planets with life were not all that unusual, and each time she found one she borrowed those creatures’ matter, upgrading herself.
There were many creatures in the universe unimaginable from the standpoint of evolution on Earth. For example, there was a forest of towering crystal trees that used the trace minerals in the ground to grow themselves. The planet the trees lived on had an elliptical orbit, so once a year, like clockwork, a great storm arrived, ripping fragments from the trees, which formed the cores of new children.
On a planet with low gravity, there were things like giant living flyswatters that ate the smaller creatures that filled the air. These creatures were made from all sorts of parts and could fuse or dissect these parts as needed to customize themselves.
On a planet where winds always blew, she found a creature that used wind energy to achieve homeostasis. Every now and then, she found a creature that was intelligent. The Idol traded with them, or waged war against them. But while intelligent, none were conscious — they could not become fans. She could not hold concerts or handshake events.
And so time passed. So much time it seemed pointless to even think about it. The experience she obtained finally made the Idol realize just what she should do about the fan problem. She realized just what consciousness actually was.