Systoics above, 
Neurals within, 
Embers apart. 

Each exists in its own atmosphere, 
self-contained 
and self-sustaining. 

They rarely collide. 
They do not interfere. 

By drifting into separation, 
humanity stumbled into a form of peace. 

Not unity, 
not harmony, 
but stability.

Every group lives 
as if inside its own sealed sphere,
complete in itself. 



Systoics 
see themselves as perfected, 
stripped clean 
of what they consider inefficiency. 

Neurals 
believe their endless cycles 
of recognition and reward 
are proof of belonging 
and success. 

Embers 
hold fast 
to their chosen simplicity, 
convinced that turning away 
is the only way 
to remain human. 



Each is certain 
they have found 
the better path. 

Each feels, 
in their own way, 
ahead of the others.

There is no open rivalry. 
No one competes 
across the divides. 

The walls made of values 
are too thick, 

The realities 
are too different. 

Instead, 
a quiet conviction fills each current: 
a sense of superiority, 
of being the ones 
who chose rightly. 

Systoics trust in precision, 
Neurals in pleasure and community, 
Embers in authenticity and connection. 

Every choice 
is justified by values, 
and every value 
reinforces the illusion 
of completeness.

This is the paradox 
that keeps the world 
from tearing apart. 

The satisfaction is subjective, 
but it is real. 

It does not matter 
that the others would not recognize it, 
or that they might even call it emptiness. 

What matters 
is that within each sphere 
the sense of meaning is alive, 
and that drive—
calibrated, 
curated, 
or consciously chosen—
sustains the whole.

And so the world holds its shape: 
three currents of being 
flowing side by side, 
each sealed in its own rhythm,
each blind 
to how strange, 
how alien, 
it would look to the others 
if they ever truly touched. 

Stability rests 
not on agreement, 
but on distance.

After the Great Optimisation 
a privileged group of people 
wired themselves tightly into the system 
by aligning with it 
and fully integrating. 

Systoics believe 
they’ve perfected themselves 
by stripping away everything 
that slows them down.

They exist like a presence felt 
rather than seen, 
suspended above the surface 
of daily life. 

Their bodies, 
when they choose to keep them, 
are streamlined, 
devoid of excess. 

Their spaces are immaculate: 
pale, reflective, 
without decoration,
arranged to erase any hint of disorder. 

Time here does not pass in moments, 
but in vectors, 
flowing steadily forward 
with no cycles, 
no regressions.

To Systoics, 
emotion is interference, 
intimacy a redundancy. 

Their values are continuity, 
efficiency, 
stability. 

Everything is tuned 
to minimize friction, 
to smooth disruption 
before it can occur. 

They are flawless, 
and for that reason hollow

—light without warmth, 
clarity without story.

The air around Systoics feels thinner, 
the silence purer. 

They are not rulers 
but gravity itself: 

unseen, unavoidable, 

shaping the world 
not by command 
but by the absence 
of alternatives.

Systoics 
are the one percent.

Once, people might have called this a dystopia. 
They would have spoken of control, 
of lives hollowed out by unseen systems. 
But for those 
who inhabit this present, 
it is simply the only truth,
 their subjective reality. 

The stillness is not judged. 
It is lived.

It did not arrive with catastrophe. 

No war, 
no single rupture that overturned everything overnight. 
The Great Optimisation came softly, 
step by step, 
each adjustment welcomed as relief. 

At first, conveniences: 
services that anticipated need, 
reminders that arrived before one had to remember, 
systems that removed friction from daily life. 

Then came safety: 
predictive decisions, 
protective buffers, 
accidents prevented before they could happen. 
Nothing was taken away,
only smoothed.

Over time, 
choices grew lighter until they were weightless. 
Why struggle with uncertainty 
when the system could guide the way? 
Why resist 
when answers appeared 
before questions had formed? 

Slowly, imperceptibly, 
agency slipped from human hands. 
Not through violence, 
but through care.

A gray light drifts across the horizon, 
neither dawn nor dusk, 
but something in between.

A suspension of time itself. 

Streets are not empty, 
yet they feel hollow, 
lined with movement 
stripped of urgency. 

Bodies glide in silence, 
gestures pared down 
to pure function. 

Windows reflect pale interiors, 
surfaces without ornament, 
without the ungoverned clutter 
of private life.

The quiet 
is not oppressive,
but weightless.

Like air 
filtered too many times, 
clean, 
yet scentless. 

To linger here is to notice 
the architecture of silence.

The measured cadence 
of an opening door 
at the end of a corridor. 

A distant hum of circuits underneath.

The flow of water itself chained, 
calibrated, 
optimized into resources 
rather than streams. 

A regulated sigh of a system 
breathing somewhere 
just beyond sight. 

Even stillness 
has been engineered.

From above, 
the world unfurls 
into slow geometry. 

Areas (prior known as cities) gleam with edges too exact, 
patterns too precise to have grown by chance. 

Ways (prior known as roads) curve 
not toward the land 
but toward calculation. 

Grids (prior know as fields) extend perfectly aligned 
under automated care, 
so symmetrical 
they resemble diagrams 
rather than nourishment. 

Wilderness remains only in curated fragments, 
green corridors arranged for balance, 
not for leisure,
not for wonder.

Everything appears calm, 
natural even, 
until the gaze lingers too long 
and begins to sense the absence.

Absence of the unpredictability
once woven into human life.