Advances in technology and changes to genetic sequences had eradicated disease and suffering, giving species comfortable, long lives. But what followed was a terrifying population explosion, excessive harvesting of every kind of resource, and the occupation of planets.
Longevity was the pursuit of all living beings, the fundamental prerequisite for pursuing everything good in life. Reproduction was a species' instinct.
Yet now the leadership wanted to forbid longevity and reproduction, return everyone to short lifespans, and make them respect the supposed natural cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death.
That meant defying ancestral teachings and overturning the dinner table of every carbon-based lifeform.
Such leaders would become public enemies, and those beneath them would not mind installing a new batch of leaders who "knew better."
This was the mistake committed at the very beginning of civilization's evolution.
The member of the Chaos Born, in his black particulate state, resembled a cloud of concentrated black smoke as he lounged in his seat.
He looked at the expressionless carbon-based lifeforms in the hall and could not even be bothered to mock their cold indifference.
Unlike the carbon-based lifeforms, his kind, the photon-state lifeforms, the mechanical constructs resembling powered-armor people, and the electromagnetic-field lifeforms all had pitifully small populations. They had no need to worry about whether there was enough matter to go around.
So they could not reproduce. So they had lost their emotions. What was wrong with absolute rationality and freedom from all desire?
Only the carbon-based lifeforms kept demanding guarantees, demanding the continued existence of individuals, and demanding that more habitable planets be terraformed.
They had multiplied into a plague, like locusts of the universe.
The member of the Chaos Born turned his gaze back to the combat roster. Under the eyes of the Civilization Coalition's command councilors, the first