[ WP ] The hero beats the villain by stooping even lower .

When New Sol A and B were drove into the other, an awesome nova burst forth. It's explosion was directed: the supposed Dyson mesh of the supposed system data stream approached near-relativistic speeds. The stellar explosion was focused, frame-dragging helping to further focus the total energy released into a single beam. 
 
 The ray shone with such fury it was visible across the entire system, only brighter when it ripped through the nebulae that permeated throughout. The mere reflection of scatterburst wave-particles across the expanse of space compromised the hulls of the majority of the unshielded ships racing across the system. New Earth was saved only because the stellar weapon had waited for this day, for the orbits of New Mercury and Venus to line up, shielding the planet from total destruction. 
 
 The war fleet of the Hegemony of Man was singular: a Dyson sphere with a width of Neptune's orbit in diameter, built around an orphan black hole found in the deep recess between galactic spiral arms. Ancients would have styled it a `` Death Star'', the Hegemony called it a Hole. The Hole, creeping forward at a distance of fifteen light-years, was shielded from detection and predation, and most importantly observation, in the depths of the nebulae in this system. Thirty years ago it let loose a solitary burst of energy. 
 
 Imagine Zarex gaping from orbit, in the cockpit of his dreadnaught as it docks with the *Emperor's Hand*, when the superluminous wave of plasma and energy flashed forward. The crest of the wave spilling around the sputtering shielding that sprang forth only miliseconds after he is safe within the hull. She's gargantuan, not the *Emperor's Hand** but New Earth, at twenty-six times the size of Old Earth. But she is burning, burning a deep, slow burn at the kiss of the novae directed in her direction. The discharge of energy, immeasurable by account of its visibility alone, and without a doubt has left her biosphere and noosphere utterly ravaged, quite possibly for the foreseeable future. And immortals such as himself had before them a long future. 
 
 The fire danced and stomped a path defined only by the sharp ridges of ancient tectonic activity. The green-blue hue which had dominated the orb was now dominated with a cold, hard, crackling black. Even the Emperor, with his hands and eyes stretching the galaxy itself, was taken aback by the sudden discharge. So imagine his surprise when he turned to greet his expectant general, Zarex the Conqueror, but was greeted by the visage of an Ancient, long ago passed. 
 
 He was no longer General Zarex, Savior of the Black, the Unbending Spear, the Conqueror of Two Arms, but Rex -- from which he bore his name -- the Ancient who fought back the civilization which seeded this system eons ago for humanity's safety. Rex the Ancient, the last Master of the Void glared with a stoic gaze that only eons in hiding could bring about. The informational screens surrounding the pair in this throne room filled the silence, screams and last transmisions from the sacrificed planets Rex used to deny the Emperor his ascendance. The personalities, digitial and organic, presented in council around the two let loose an audible gasp, not just as the planets finally heaved their last breaths, but as the Ancient Rex fully materialized. 
 
 `` Did your people truly fall so low as to dismiss my existence to mythology? A thousand systems fell to me the last time you crawled from your pit, Bastards of humanity.'' 
 
 The Emperor grimaced, `` We consigned you to ashes, much as we consigned this planet with the Hole, much as you your own people with your stellar weapon. You fool... what have you done to *your people*?'' 
 
 A stellar map materialized before him, showing the chaos now reverberating through the system. What the stellar explosion had not vaporized, it left as a husk. What it did not burn, it would now violently push away as gravity waves rang out through the system, smoothing out spacetime. The planets would freeze over, the Mind space rings would crumble or rip apart, the solar sails would be punctured, the entire system would fall to shit 
 
 `` Your weapon has destroyed the summation of nine hundred thousand cycles: sixteen trillion organics, ninety tr-'' 
 
 `` I know full well how many die by my hand today. But I know full well how many would have died by yours had this worked. Your predecessor conjoined an entire system as one Mind, subjugated it, and brought about-'' 
 
 `` What you idealist anarchists romantically call `` The Dark Ages''. What we see as eight million cycles of order and civility that this galaxy so desperately needed, ruptured by y-'' 
 
 `` I DID NOT COME FOR AN IDEOLOGICAL DEBATE, BASTARD!'' Rex stormed forward, his hand closing around the Emperor's neck, `` Certainly not from the defective vat-born clone of an enemy I bested eons ago,'' His grip tightened, `` Certainly not from a Bastard who forced me to destroy an entire system. And most certainly not from a Bastard so inept that he could not detect his own technology, a singularity seed nonetheless, sitting square in the center of a binary orbit. No, I came for a simple answer: why have the Bastards returned?'' 
 
 Rex lifted the Emperor into the air, partly to force him to strain for both air and volume but mostly to watch him squirm. The Emperor wheezed, `` Kill me... and you will never know. Noumenal encryption... means my... brain-data... corrupts.'' 
 
 `` You think I have merely been asleep in your stooge?'' His grip tightened still, he pulled the Emperor in close. `` Your information is not safe from me... but I suspect you are merely a public face and the real Bastard is a sleeper. Let us see how this plays out.'' 
 
 The Emperor's eyes widened for an instant before slowly slinking back after a loud crack filled the room and Rex flung his body aside. He raised his hand, a swarm of picodust spilling out to connect the projectors throughout the room. The connections were reversed or modified so that organics were trapped while transmitting consciousnesses were materialized and trapped into corporeal form. His picodust formed data-viruses which lived and died in Planck time, entire civilizations rising and falling in miliseconds, and super-conscious Minds springing forth in the space of one second, all to provide him with the technology to infiltrate and corrupt the connections so that all templates of the individuals present were corrupted. All clones killed, all partial or full legal selves compromised, and the individuals in the room before him left as the only surviving copies of the mental and physical complexes that formed their posthuman personalities. 
 
 `` I am so glad you could join me today.'' Rex bowed before his captive audience. 
 
 `` As you may know, I am Rex... what some of you call now the Ancient god of war. I have killed all of your backups and the organic body you now are in is the only one you have.'' He smirked as the room buzzed with worried murmurs and looks of fear and confusion were exchanged. 
 
 His smirk melted and he glared at the group before turning to look out at the window. He would have all of eternity to dwell on the humans dead by his hand. But for now... 
 
 `` I have one request. I want the Bastard hiding among you. I will have them. I will have them or else every single person in this room, including them, will die a worse death than every single intelligence that perished in the stellar explosion I wrought and its aftermath. Understand?'' 

