Wildfire

S5E5 • Cli-fi • Future history • Transhumanism

Feb 06, 2025

Hello, fellow voyagers🖖. In today’s edition I bring you ‘Wildfire’, a cli-fi letter from the future. In the year 2468ÆV, as the last forest is burning, a man becomes the first human to upload his consciousness to the digital realm.

Server: The Deep Dive
Date: 3613-09-23
Timestamp: 15:13:01
Memory log of: The Ghost
Entry no.: 1.0.0

≈D1—August 11, 2468ÆV1

broadcasting...
Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival: ⬡the last forest is burning⬡

The day I entered the sensory deprivation tank, wildfires broke out. It was the first piece of news I intercepted myself. I bypassed the walls and connected with the broadcasting system of the squatters living outside the dome. The doomers never sleep, and now, neither do I.

I checked the city’s database to ensure we distributed enough water, food rations, masks, and medicine to the squatters waiting at the city gates, hoping for a chance to gain citizenship. Applications poured in daily, far exceeding the dome’s capacity to accommodate them. We only accepted candidates with rare skills that could further our cause. To survive was to contribute. People were not entitled to resources by virtue of their birth. It was every human’s duty to acquire skills that will help create a better future. What use was human existence if its only purpose was to inhale clean air, exhale carbon emissions, ingest organic resources, and excrete pollutants? These were not humans; they were parasites on a finite ecosystem. No skills meant no citizenship. It was a transparent, fair deal.

Throngs of squatters lived outside the dome. We tried to send them away. ‘We have nowhere to go,’ they said. We tried to help as many as possible within the limits of the dome’s mini-ecosystem. We built capsule units and glasshouses for the day workers living just outside the gates. We provided medicine, water and food on a regular basis. We’re not inhuman. We’re doing our best, but we can’t help them all. We could offer more if the squatters contributed as well. Collaboration is key in our mission to save the planet. Unfortunately, considerable effort and resources are dedicated to protecting the last forest from intruders. The most disillusioned squatters hope to break into the forest and disappear up north, believing that some form of resistance is gathering in the taiga.

‘Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival’ is the broadcasting channel fueling this false hope. It encourages those longing to return to the nurturing bossom of mother taiga. But mother taiga shall not welcome them. We shall not welcome them.

The data suggests that the fires should be out by the end of the day. We have everything under control.

***

≈D2—August 12, 2468ÆV

broadcasting...
Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival: ⬡the fires are growing larger--more destructive--mother taiga--we pray for you⬡

My brain has been fully awake and active for the past 24 hours, while my body recovered in a slumber with the help of medicine and metabolic algorithms. I’ve spent most of my time monitoring the data from the wildfire sites.

We need better models to analyze the nature of these fires. One fortunate side effect of global warming is that Siberia is melting, and we have enough water. Unfortunately, it’s not readily available around the wildfire areas, but we usually manage to contain the fires before we run out. This recent fire doesn’t fit our models—we’re blind.

Looking back to the twenty-first century, when it became clear that fires would be an issue in the future, we are shocked at the lengths our ancestors went to blame the disasters on anything but climate change. It was easier to attribute the problem to humans, the system, inequality, inefficiency, and insanity rather than accept that the planet had turned on us. By the time humanity woke up, it was too late. We had lost so much that the only solution left was to protect the remaining ecosystems from us humans. Still, even the most restrictive laws against access to the last forest couldn’t protect it from the climate damage already inflicted.

We need better technology to combat the weather. This is the only way to win the race against total destruction. We can’t keep playing the lottery with the last forest on Earth. We must improve our models. At a certain level, our technology must grasp what is at stake. It must understand the urgency of our plight and the desperation with which we cling to every single tree in this forest. Our technology needs a human at its core. That’s why I’m here.

***

≈D3—August 13, 2468ÆV

broadcasting...
Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival: ⬡the skies are darkening⬡

For a moment today, I thought the clouds gathering above the dome would bring rain. Instead, they were clouds of smoke.

It’s been over 48 hours without sleep—I’m on my way to becoming a disembodied mind fine-tuned by algorithms.

***

≈D4—August 14, 2468ÆV

broadcasting...
Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival: ⬡fire is beautiful--fire burns all our sins--it cleanses all our mistakes--under the black ashes the earth renews--and we are delivered from our suffering--fire is holy--heaven-sent--it is a glorious hell--let it all burn--let it all burn--let it all burn⬡

Do kindness, love, and compassion have any meaning if they don’t save the world? Every living being on this planet makes a meaningful contribution to the ecosystem, they offer an essential service: worms aerate the soil, bees pollinate flowers, decomposing organic matter fertilizes the soil. Our existence ought to be selfless. In truth, humans who can’t contribute may only find meaning in their lives through their deaths.

My family has worked for over four generations to safeguard this planet. We’re not without blame. We built this dome with blood money. But we have more than atoned for our sins by saving the last forest and safeguarding our future. Our dome is a laboratory environment, a mini-ecosystem of efficiency run by people with skills that matter. Once we develop the necessary technology, we plan to implement it across the planet. Technology is progress because it replaces polluting biology with solutions that can save our future. Why is the mob turning against us now?

Let it all burn!

We didn’t plan to burn with them. In case our mission failed, my family had an escape route. We would take human existence into spaceships and send it to conquer the stars. An interstellar Noah’s Arc with thousands of seeds, cells, and embryos, a wealth of genetic material that we could spread on other fertile planets. We would never give up the fight for life!

Let it all burn!

These thoughts clouded my mind as the pale smoke filled the sky.

***

≈D5—August 15, 2468ÆV

broadcasting...
Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival: ⬡they will not let us in--they watch us choke at the gates--falling like flies--our wings burned to ashes--we are running out of masks--out of food--out of water--how long can we go on⬡

Perhaps I had it all wrong. Perhaps I’m a monster. I’m willing to be persuaded, to learn about my faults, and improve. However, the numbers simply don’t add up. Our dome is too small to hold us all. We do not have the capacity to accommodate more people. Doing so would jeopardise everything we have worked so hard to achieve. We sacrificed our lives and our wealth for this project, all for the betterment of humanity. What have they sacrificed?

We can’t let them in.

***

≈D6—August 16, 2468ÆV

broadcasting...
Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival: ⬡BREAK THE GLASS--BREAK THE GLASS--BREAK THE GLASS⬡

It was a dark day. Clouds of smoke darkened the sky, and for the first time, we could see tongues of fire lashing out on the hazy horizon. We had no choice but to open fire on the desperate mobs trying to break into the dome. That night, I felt exhausted. I locked into the calming sounds of nature from my little patch of jungle garden, a place I had enjoyed every night for as long as I could remember. Tonight, the familiar soundscape mixed with the blasting of gunshots and the crackle of laser guns. I could hear the screams through the soundproof dome, and they tortured my overly active mind. Every time I dozed off, overcome with tiredness, I saw images of emaciated bodies succumbing to the deathly smoke and being pierced by our bullets and lasers. I knew I should not think of that. I had been trained since childhood to shield myself from the suffering of others and focus all my thoughts and efforts on our cause. Action over feeling. This is going to save us. This is the way.

I am prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to save us all.

We should all be prepared to offer the ultimate sacrifice.

***

≈D7—August 17, 2468ÆV

broadcasting...
Ω/craft⬡fഗurvival: ⬡in every carbon system--death is the engine of life⬡

‘Be wary of religion. Most are mindless cults.’

This was one of my father’s teachings that I had followed religiously all my life. Yet, after last night’s massacre—born out of a dire necessity to preserve the dome and all the non-human life it protected—the squatters spent a quiet morning burying their dead. It was that silence that stopped the shootings.

The lab conducted another round of tests. It seems that a semblance of who I am can be safely digitised. I would have to give up my body to become, in a way, immortal. Deprived of all my senses in the isolation tank, I couldn’t help but reflect of that silent mourning. All my senses were drawn to it—it was a longing of the flesh, of the beating heart I was leaving behind—amplified by my newly gained algorithmic senses. My awareness expanded, infiltrating the clandestine broadcasting systems.

The delicate sound of metal drums pierced the silence in the squatter camps. Footage of a tribe of Filipinos dancing to the rhythm of the drums flooded my vision, their hands flapping in the air like birds. One by one, the squatters joined in the slow, hypnotic communal dance, flapping their hands like giant wingless birds. A wave of heartbeats pulled me into their bodies, the metabolic data of hundreds of people streaming through my raw digital senses simultaneously. They were me, and I was them—a communal experience. I had never felt fully human until that moment. I had never yearned more for the freedom to soar into a better world.

In every carbon system, death is the engine of life.

The Siberian Dome is the last standing dome city on the European continent. Our family won the Data War, but at what cost? We have all lost so much.

Perhaps there is another way.

Thank you for listening to this memory log, which consists of a curated series of incomplete journal entries that Shia Santos found in the Ghost’s database. These entries are the only records confirming his human origins. Shia Santos was the first consciousness uploaded to The Museum of Life precisely 1,000 years ago, at the age of 78. When she started this museum, she wished to preserve the human minds that cross in and out of existence. We hope you enjoy her curated collection of lives.

The end

What did you think?

Were you surprised to find out the Ghost was originally a human?
How do we deal with ethics and inequality in a collapsing world?
Would you also try to enter the last forest and go up north? I probably would.

Share your thoughts!👇

Story Voyager

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