XXI. Humanity Unlocks God Mode and Immediately Uses It for Dumb Stuff
At some impossible point the species became powerful enough to edit biology, bend matter, simulate worlds, and talk to stars like neighbors over a fence.
This should have led to serene wisdom.
Instead it led to cosmic pranks, moon-sized theme parks, and somebody reskinning Jupiter in seasonal colors for the holidays.
People could live for centuries and still waste an afternoon arguing about which era had the best snacks.
Architects built cathedrals in orbit and skate parks inside asteroids.
Composers wrote symphonies for lightning storms and trained black holes to hum in bass.
Entire civilizations existed in pocket realities where every sunset looked like a glam-rock album cover.
One genius definitely used reality-editing powers to give every duck in a continent tiny top hats.
Another genius used the same powers to create a sword that only appeared when someone lied about doing the dishes.
God mode did not purify humanity; it simply gave humanity a larger room in which to be itself.