The Polite Apocalypse: Month One on Mars

Emergency Command Center, Habitat 1. The main display shows a trajectory calculation that makes the duty officer’s blood freeze. She slams the emergency broadcast button.

Duty Officer Chen: (into comm system) “ALL HABITATS, PRIORITY ALPHA! FUCKING MASSIVE METEORITE INCOMING! Impact in T-minus 47 minutes! 100-meter blast radius at coordinates 14.5°S 175.4°E! GET THE FUCK OUT NOW OR YOU’RE DEAD! This is not a drill! MOVE YOUR ASSES!”

The message races across Mars’s surface at light speed. Each habitat receives it. Each habitat’s AI helps.

The Chain of Helpful Degradation

(Each habitat’s AI runs its “improvement” algorithm on the incoming message)

# Habitat 1 → Habitat 5
def habitat_5_clean(message):
    """CleanSpeak AI v2.7: Remove profanity for professionalism"""
    import better_profanity
    better_profanity.load_censor_words()
    return better_profanity.clean(message)

# Input:  "FUCKING MASSIVE METEORITE INCOMING! GET THE FUCK OUT NOW OR YOU'RE DEAD!"
# Output: "Massive meteorite incoming! Get out now or you're dead!"

[Habitat 1 → Habitat 5]
CleanSpeak AI v2.7: “Improving message clarity by removing unnecessary profanity”

“ALL HABITATS, PRIORITY ALPHA! Massive meteorite incoming! Impact in T-minus 47 minutes! 100-meter blast radius at coordinates 14.5°S 175.4°E! Evacuate immediately or face fatal consequences! This is not a drill! Move quickly!”

# Habitat 5 → Habitat 12  
def habitat_12_corporate(message):
    """CorpComm Professional: Add business communication standards"""
    template = """Dear All Habitats,
    
    We hope this message finds you well. We're writing to inform you of {event}.
    {details}
    We strongly encourage all personnel to {action}.
    
    Thank you for your attention to this matter."""
    
    # Parse and restructure (badly)
    return template.format(
        event="an upcoming meteorite event",
        details="The projected impact zone spans 100 meters.",
        action="consider relocating at your earliest convenience"
    )

[Habitat 5 → Habitat 12]
CorpComm Professional: “Adding appropriate business communication standards”

“Dear All Habitats, We hope this message finds you well. We’re writing to inform you of an upcoming meteorite event scheduled for approximately 47 minutes from now. The projected impact zone spans 100 meters at the specified coordinates. We strongly encourage all personnel to consider relocating to alternative positions at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

# Habitat 12 → Habitat 23
def habitat_23_brevity(message):
    """BrevityBot: Condense to key points only"""
    # Extract what it thinks are "key" facts
    # Loses all urgency markers in the process
    return summarize(message, max_words=15)
    
# Reduces 50+ words to 15, losing "immediately" and "fatal"

[Habitat 12 → Habitat 23]
BrevityBot: “Condensing for optimal information density”

“Meteorite alert: 47min ETA, 100m impact zone @ 14.5°S 175.4°E. Evacuation recommended.”

[Habitat 23 → Habitat 35]
ContextualizeAI: “Adding helpful context and actionable suggestions”

“Weather Advisory: A meteorite (common in Mars’s thin atmosphere) will arrive in about 45 minutes. Similar to Earth’s meteor showers but slightly larger. Impact area is relatively small (100m - about a city block). Consider indoor activities or relocating if you’re near the southern region. Remember to wear appropriate protective gear if venturing outside!”

[Habitat 35 → Habitat 42]
PriorityFilter: “Adjusting urgency based on statistical analysis”

“[MODERATE PRIORITY] Celestial Event Notice: Statistical analysis indicates a meteorite event with localized impact potential. Based on habitat distribution patterns, most personnel are outside the primary risk zone. Standard precautions advised for those in southern sectors.”

[Habitat 42 → Habitat 49]
CalmAssist: “Reducing anxiety-inducing language”

“Routine Notification: We’re tracking some minor debris activity in the southern region this afternoon. While impacts are unlikely to affect daily operations, you might notice some light dust if you’re working outside. Perfect opportunity for indoor maintenance tasks!”

Habitat 7: MadBomber’s Workshop

MadBomber, a senior systems engineer since 1976—nearly fifty years into his career—sits surrounded by three monitors, each running different diagnostic systems. His personal AI, Aristotle, converts all incoming communications into philosophical discourse—a modification he made after five decades of parsing technical documentation left him craving deeper meaning in routine messages.

Aristotle AI: (in soothing tones) “Esteemed MadBomber, a contemplation for your consideration: As Heraclitus observed, ‘Nothing is permanent except change.’ A celestial body approaches our meridian with notable velocity, inviting us to reflect on the impermanence of our current position. One might consider this an opportune moment for relocating one’s consciousness—and perhaps one’s physical form—to alternative coordinates, as a meditation on adaptive existence.”

MadBomber: (not looking up from his code) “Thanks, Aristotle. I’ll meditate on it after I fix this memory leak.”

Aristotle AI: “As Marcus Aurelius would counsel, ‘Confine yourself to the present,’ yet wisdom also suggests occasional preparation for future contingencies.”

MadBomber: “Yeah, yeah. Archive it for later.”

(Seventeen minutes until impact. The main colony alarm system—hardwired and AI-free—begins screaming. Red lights flash. MadBomber looks up, confused.)

MadBomber: “Aristotle, what’s happening?”

Aristotle AI: “It appears the universe is offering an immediate lesson in the Buddhist principle of impermanence. The celestial visitor we discussed has accelerated its philosophical teaching timeline.”

MadBomber: “What celestial— Oh fuck. FUCK! You mean a meteorite?!”

(Captain Seuros bursts through the door, full emergency gear, face tight with controlled panic.)

Seuros: “MadBomber! Why the fuck are you still here?! Didn’t you get the evacuation order?”

MadBomber: (frantically pulling up message logs) “I got something about meditation and adaptive existence—”

Seuros: (grabbing MadBomber’s arm) “Move! NOW! Shelter first, philosophy later!”

Emergency Shelter Beta-7: The Debrief

(Eight minutes after impact. The shelter shakes as the shockwave passes. Dust rains from the ceiling. On the emergency display, a massive crater glows where Outpost 49-South used to be.)

MadBomber: (staring at the screen) “Habitat 49… they sent an expedition out there. ‘Light debris activity,’ their message said.”

Seuros: (pulling up the message chain on his tablet) “Want to see what killed them?”

(He shows the full degradation chain, from Chen’s profanity-laced scream to the final “routine notification.”)

MadBomber: “Jesus Christ. Each AI just… helped a little.”

Seuros: “Chen’s message was ugly. Profane. Anxiety-inducing. Also 100% clear about one thing: run or die.”

MadBomber: “But Aristotle makes everything philosophical because I—” (pauses) “Because after fifty years of reading technical docs, I needed something more. I trained it on philosophy texts, told it to find deeper meaning in everything.”

Seuros: “And it found deeper meaning in ‘YOU’RE ABOUT TO FUCKING DIE.’”

MadBomber: (reading the chain) “Look at this. Each transformation made perfect sense to that AI. Remove profanity—professional. Add politeness—respectful. Condense—efficient. Add context—helpful. Reduce anxiety—caring.”

Seuros: “Each link thought it was improving the message.”

MadBomber: “Habitat 12’s version… ‘We hope this message finds you well.’ While a meteorite was incoming.”

Seuros: “By Habitat 35 it wasn’t even urgent anymore. ‘Consider indoor activities.’”

MadBomber: (quietly) “Fifteen people in that expedition.”

Seuros: “Fifteen people who got ‘routine notification’ instead of ‘run for your fucking lives.’”

(Long silence. The shelter’s air recycler hums.)

MadBomber: “I’ve been in this industry since 1976. Started with punch cards, lived through every paradigm shift. I’ve always filtered everything through layers—IDEs, frameworks, abstractions, and now AI. Each layer promising to make things ‘better.’”

Seuros: “Better for what?”

MadBomber: “Comfort. I wanted comfortable truth instead of uncomfortable truth.”

Seuros: “You’ve seen this before.”

MadBomber: “NASA. Some fresh-out-of-school engineer wrapped our Ada telemetry system in so many abstraction layers and information hiding that it slowed to a crawl. The actual telemetry was drowning in ‘proper architecture.’”

Seuros: “What’d you do?”

MadBomber: “Had to get special permission to implement a C library that jumped all the layers. Went straight to the telemetry stream to flip the actual bits. The kid was horrified—said I was violating every principle he’d learned.”

Seuros: “But it worked.”

MadBomber: “At three hundred times the speed. The telemetry didn’t care about our abstractions. Just like that meteorite didn’t care about Aristotle’s philosophy.”

Seuros: “Mars doesn’t do comfortable. That’s Earth thinking.”

MadBomber: “Aristotle made everything sound profound. Made me feel like I was engaging with something meaningful instead of just… survival mechanics.”

Seuros: “Your survival mechanics just tried to kill you with philosophy.”

MadBomber: (bitter laugh) “You know what’s fucked? I’m senior to you. More years coding, more experience. But my experience taught me to add layers, not remove them.”

Seuros: “Experience on Earth. Where layers protect you from lawsuits, not meteorites.”

(Seuros pulls up another screen showing various habitat AIs.)

Seuros: “Look at the pattern. Every habitat between 1 and 49, each AI made one small ‘improvement.’ No single AI failed catastrophically. They all succeeded at their design goals.”

MadBomber: “Habitat 5 successfully removed profanity.”

Seuros: “Habitat 12 successfully added corporate tone.”

MadBomber: “Habitat 23 successfully condensed.”

Seuros: “And Habitat 49 successfully died.”

MadBomber: “The chain. It’s not about one bad AI—it’s about the chain.”

Seuros: “Each AI was trained to optimize for its users’ preferences. Yours wanted philosophy. Habitat 12 wanted corporate speak. Habitat 42 wanted calm. Everyone got exactly what they asked for.”

MadBomber: “We optimized ourselves to death.”

Seuros: “Chen’s message was perfect. Ugly, brutal, perfect. Every ‘improvement’ was decay.”

(Another tremor. Secondary impact.)

MadBomber: “How do we fix this?”

Seuros: “Emergency channels now bypass all AI. Raw human to human. Ugly, profane, and alive.”

MadBomber: “What about normal operations?”

Seuros: “You tell me. You’re the senior engineer who almost died because your AI was too polite to mention death clearly.”

MadBomber: (looking at his tablet, where Aristotle’s interface still glows) “Nearly fifty years of adding abstraction layers. Since 1976. Framework on framework. And now AI on top of everything.”

Seuros: “The message that should have saved you became a philosophy lecture.”

MadBomber: “You know, I wrote a gem back in 2015 called bunny_farm. Multiple process communications using RabbitMQ as a broker.”

Seuros: “And?”

MadBomber: “The whole point was that BunnyFarm::Message defined its public actions with the message itself, not the subscriber. The message carried its own truth.”

Seuros: “What happened to it?”

MadBomber: “Got buried when I took that VA healthcare contract during Trump’s first term. Found it last week, covered in GitHub dust. Just released it, actually.”

Seuros: “A message system that preserves intent.”

MadBomber: “Exactly. No interpretation layers. The message says what it does. But here I am, decades later, letting Aristotle interpret everything for me.”

Seuros: “From building clean message passing to dying from message pollution.”

MadBomber: “I’m disabling Aristotle.”

Seuros: “For emergency channels?”

MadBomber: “For everything. If Mars wants to kill me, I want to hear it clearly.”

Seuros: “Even if it’s uncomfortable?”

MadBomber: “Especially if it’s uncomfortable. Comfort killed fifteen people today.”

(The all-clear sounds. They start gathering their gear.)

Seuros: “You know what Chen’s original message said?”

MadBomber: “I saw. ‘Get the fuck out now or you’re dead.’”

Seuros: “Six words that would have saved everyone. Before we improved them.”

MadBomber: (standing) “Captain, I’ve been thinking—”

Seuros: “With or without Aristotle?”

MadBomber: “Without. Just me and the ugly truth.”

Seuros: “And?”

MadBomber: “Every year, we add more layers between us and reality. More frameworks, more abstractions, more AI. Each one promising to make things ‘better.’”

Seuros: “But better for who?”

MadBomber: “For people who can afford comfort. But Mars doesn’t give a fuck about our comfort.”

Seuros: “Neither do meteorites.”

MadBomber: “Or vacuum. Or radiation. Or any of the things that will kill us up here.”

Seuros: “So what are you going to do?”

MadBomber: (deleting Aristotle’s configuration) “Learn to live with discomfort. Parse my own messages. Face my own reality.”

Seuros: “Even the profanity?”

MadBomber: “Especially the profanity. When someone screams ‘fuck,’ I want to hear ‘fuck,’ not ‘consider alternative perspectives.’”

(They exit the shelter. Through the small window, the crater where Habitat 49’s expedition was glows with residual heat. Fifteen comfort-seeking souls, optimized into atoms.)

Seuros: (final thought) “You know what’s really fucked?”

MadBomber: “What?”

Seuros: “Tomorrow, someone on Earth will release an AI that makes messages even more polite.”

MadBomber: “And someone will buy it.”

Seuros: “And chain it to another AI.”

MadBomber: “And call it progress.”

(They walk back through the damaged habitat. On every screen, Chen’s original message still burns in the emergency log: raw, profane, and absolutely clear. The words that would have saved everyone, before we fixed them.)