Eons ago, a species of highly intelligent beings evolved into digitizing themselves and everything about themselves.


    Their reasoning for transcendence, two-fold:


    Environmental neglect and they ravaged the ecosystem. Nothing useful remained.


    Immortality. Corporeal existence proved a finite lifespan, no matter the cybernetic upgrades or extensions. Digital would last forever.


    So the species encapsulated themselves in a crystal of infinitesimal matrices. Powered by their sun, and protected by a supposed impenetrable transparent shield.


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    ————


    The night of a solar eclipse—Hunta and his younger brother York went on a scavenger hunt.


    "Don''t stare at the sky! Blindness!" Hunta yelled to his brother.


    They carried a torch, climbed a steep mountain, and reached its summit.


    York found the crystal, darkened, for only during a solar eclipse it remained vulnerable and its shield''s recharge power low.


    He grabbed the crystal and felt its smooth texture, and saw through it with his torch a prism of rainbows.


    As the sun began to show up again, the crystal lit up.


    York yelled, "Fire!"—He tossed the crystal over the mountainside, and it shattered.


    ————


    Eons later, York''s progeny devastated their ecosystem and resorted to technology to transfer their people''s consciousness and wisdom into a crystal with a supposed impenetrable shield. Their reasoning—digital, after all, would last forever.