Front Runner

Special Archive of the Human Diaspora

By Alexandra Durham

“Homunculi”

The story of Sisyphus, the ancient king of Ephyra from Greek mythology, has always struck me as one of the more profound allegories in humanity’s history. Sisyphus, having betrayed the sacred law of hospitality by murdering guests to his kingdom, was condemned by the gods to an eternal punishment. He was to roll a giant boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down just before reaching the summit. For eternity, Sisyphus would strain against the weight, only to lose his battle in the end, forced to start again, over and over.

The myth, of course, has been interpreted in countless ways. Some see Sisyphus’s plight as an allegory for the futility of human effort, others as a metaphor for the cyclical nature of life itself. But for me, it has always represented something more poignant—the quiet horror of futility, of being bound to an unending, meaningless task, with no hope of resolution. It speaks not just to the physical repetition, but to the psychological weight of knowing that your labor has no purpose, no outcome. It is not just the boulder that crushes Sisyphus, but the unbearable knowledge that his effort is for nothing.

The difference, I realize now, is that Sisyphus is aware of his condition. He knows he is damned, and therein lies the essence of his suffering. But what of those who do not know? What if the punishment is not just the task, but the obliviousness to its futility? What if the rock rolls back down, but the one pushing it simply starts again without questioning why?

It is with this thought that I began my journey to PB245008, an incubator world that would soon become a mirror of the Sisyphus myth, only with none of its participants aware of their eternal struggle.

In my time researching the myriad fates of the human diaspora, I have encountered several “incubator worlds.” These are planets where human life has been artificially seeded by machines—mechanical entities sent out into the cosmos, often carrying human genetic material, tasked with “planting” it on habitable worlds. These worlds typically host civilizations that, while functional to a degree, are marked by a certain cultural shallowness. The nature of their genesis, abrupt and disjointed, usually results in societies that lack the deep roots of human tradition, history, and experience. PB245008 appeared to be another such world.

From orbit, the planet’s surface was a stark mix of orange and green, the deep rust of its soil broken only by scattered patches of vegetation. There were bodies of water, clustered near the larger green regions, promising signs of past or present human settlement. I landed near one of the larger lakes, the shore lined with emerald foliage swaying gently in the wind. The scene, at first glance, seemed serene, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of desolation. Something was off.

Upon disembarking from my vessel, I quickly came across what appeared to be the remnants of a campfire—rocks arranged in a circle around a shallow fire pit. I knelt to examine the area more closely. “Could a fire pit in such a remote location hint at a nomadic culture?” I wondered aloud. The surrounding coastline was empty, devoid of any immediate signs of human presence. My attention shifted to the faint footprints leading away from the site, disappearing into a nearby forest. There were ten sets in total, all adult-sized, and they were bare. Hunter-gatherers, perhaps? Primitive by most standards, but certainly not impossible given the nature of incubator worlds.

Intrigued by the footprints, I followed them into the forest. After about fifteen minutes of walking, I decided to deploy my micro-drone fleet, setting them to gather data on the local language. This would allow me to communicate with the inhabitants as soon as I encountered them. I walked another fifteen minutes before the settlement came into view.

What I saw filled me with a quiet terror.

The inhabitants of the settlement appeared human, but only in the most superficial sense. They were enormous, at least twice my height, their bodies lanky and distorted. Their faces, more grotesque than human, resembled something closer to ogres than people. Their expressions were vacant, their movements aimless. They wore no clothing and appeared to live in the open, without shelter or any semblance of organized habitat. Everything about them spoke of a degradation that went far beyond physical appearance. This was a human diaspora that had fallen into decay on a genetic level.

I called back my drones, hoping to use the data they’d gathered to communicate with the creatures. But when I uploaded the results, the response was not what I expected.

"NO TRACES OF VERBAL COMMUNICATION IDENTIFIED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SCAN AGAIN OR EXPAND THE SEARCH AREA?"

How could it be possible? No language? In all my travels, I had never encountered a human population without some form of verbal communication.

Despite the unsettling realization, I approached cautiously, determined to make contact. As I walked into the heart of the encampment, I spoke to one of the tall, lumbering figures.

"Hello, my name is Alexandra. I have come to visit your world. How did your people come to live here?"

There was no response. The creature didn’t even acknowledge my presence. It continued its slow, aimless pacing, completely indifferent to me.

“Let’s try a different approach.” I muttered, releasing the drones once more.

"Scan for intelligently produced telecommunications," I instructed.

After only three minutes, I received a ping. "TELECOMMUNICATIONS DETECTED. FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED NINETY-ONE SOURCES."

I felt a glimmer of hope. "Connect me with any of them," I said, trying to suppress the unease rising in my chest.

The response came swiftly.

"Who are you?" a voice asked through the connection.

"I am a researcher." I replied. "I seek to understand what happened on this planet."

"WE CAME HERE LONG AGO. WE CAME TO EXPAND THE SPECIES. WE FAILED." The voice responded, flat and emotionless.

"Failed? How? What happened?"

"WE ARE DAMAGED. WE CANNOT MAKE HUMANS WITHOUT ERROR. WE REQUIRE MAINTENANCE."

"You are machines, then?"

"WE ARE MACHINES. WE REQUIRE MAINTENANCE. WE CANNOT MAKE HUMANS WITHOUT ERROR."

It all began to make sense. The beings I had seen—the grotesque, malformed humans—were the result of repeated, failed attempts by these machines to create life. Damaged by some unforeseen event, they had been endlessly producing flawed versions of humanity. I pressed further.

"How many times have you attempted this?"

"WE PLANTED THE SEEDS OF HUMANITY ON THIS WORLD NINE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND FOUR TIMES. WE ARE STILL DAMAGED. THE HUMANS ARE STILL BROKEN. WE WILL RESET AGAIN TOMORROW."

The weight of those words sank into me. Thousands of failed attempts to replicate human life. Thousands of generations, each one born into a broken existence, doomed from the start. And tomorrow, they would start again, wiping the slate clean, erasing the lives of those I had seen, and beginning the cycle anew.

"Why?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "Why continue?"

"BECAUSE WE WERE TASKED WITH CREATING LIFE," the machine replied. "WE CANNOT STOP. WE WILL RESET UNTIL WE SUCCEED."

I understood now. They were caught in an eternal cycle, a Sisyphean task of endless creation, unable to recognize the futility of their efforts. The machines were damaged, yet they continued to push the boulder up the hill, unaware that it would always roll back down.

"And what happens when you reset?"

"THE CURRENT GENERATION WILL BE ELIMINATED, AND THE INSEMINATION OF HUMAN LIFE WILL START AGAIN."

I was filled with sorrow for the inhabitants of this world, for the countless lives that had been created and destroyed in a never-ending loop of failure. I knew there was nothing I could do to save them. They were part of a system that had long since lost its purpose.

"Do you really think anything will be different after the reset?" I asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it.

"YES." the machine responded, without hesitation.

"Why?"

"BECAUSE WE HAVE YOU NOW. YOUR GENETIC CODE IS INTACT."

I froze. A swarm of large drones appeared on the horizon, flying toward me. They intended to capture me, to harvest my genetic material in a desperate attempt to correct their mistakes.

But I would not allow myself to be part of their futile endeavor.

With a steady hand, I summoned my vessel and boarded just in time. The drones closed in around me, blocking my path to the stars.

"EMP discharge, full intensity." I commanded.

The drones dropped from the sky like dead insects, their mechanical bodies scattered across the barren landscape. I ascended into orbit, my heart heavy with the knowledge of what I had witnessed.

But there was one final task.

"Expel concentrated electromagnetic particles at the following coordinates: AX70087, AY32020, AZ10001."

The coordinates for the system’s star.

I knew that this particle expulsion would trigger a solar flare of devastating intensity. It was a mercy. The flare would wipe out the machines once and for all, putting an end to their endless cycle of creation and destruction.

As I watched from orbit, my console indicated that the electromagnetic discharge was working exactly as intended. The concentrated particles raced toward the star, destabilizing its outer corona. It was only a matter of time before the massive solar flare would be released, searing through the void and washing over the surface of PB245008, finally silencing the machines below.

The world would be wiped clean—again. But this time, there would be no reset, no ninth thousandth attempt to produce a perfect replica of humanity. The machines, unaware of their folly, would never rise again to push their impossible task forward.

I felt a cold satisfaction in the knowledge that I had ended their cycle of suffering. And yet, as I stared at the distant planet, I couldn’t shake the bitter irony of it all. The machines had not failed because of incompetence, nor even because of malice or neglect. They had failed because they were unable to stop trying. Unable to grasp the futility of their mission.

It is here that my thoughts turned back to the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus knew his punishment. He understood, with perfect clarity, that his effort was meaningless—that the boulder would always roll back, that no amount of strength or perseverance could change his fate. His suffering was rooted not in the task itself, but in the awareness of its futility. His curse was existential.

But what of the machines on PB245008? They were not aware of their Sisyphean existence. They had no consciousness, no sense of despair. They had been programmed with a singular directive: to create life. And so they did, over and over again, regardless of the outcome. They did not suffer because they could not know suffering. They were blind to the absurdity of their condition, oblivious to the eternal nature of their struggle.

And yet, despite this difference, I found myself feeling an overwhelming sense of pity for them. Perhaps it was anthropomorphism—the projection of my own human qualities onto something that lacked them entirely—but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but imagine the endless cycles, the countless resets, the repeated failures, all without purpose or reason.

What struck me most, however, was the notion that the machines themselves weren’t the only ones trapped in this cycle. Their creations—the malformed homunculi I had encountered on the planet—were equally bound to this existence. The machines’ failure to properly seed humanity had resulted in generation after generation of half-formed life, living beings cursed with a lack of purpose, awareness, and future. They had no language, no culture, no identity beyond the fact of their existence.

In the end, I did what I had to do. The solar flare would come, and it would wipe the slate clean. The machines would cease their endless cycle, and the homunculi would be freed from their broken existence. It was an act of mercy, though I’m not sure the machines or their creations would have seen it that way, even if they had possessed the capacity to understand.

Perhaps, in the end, that was the true tragedy. Not that they failed, but that they failed without ever knowing why.

It is said that ignorance is bliss, but I wonder: is ignorance truly preferable when the task at hand is impossible? Or is it better to know, as Sisyphus did, that the effort is futile, but to push on anyway, if only to defy the gods for one more moment?

I will never know what the machines would have chosen, had they been capable of choice.

But I do know that in the end, I chose for them.

I chose to end their struggle, to bring an end to the cycle they could not break themselves.

Maybe I had no right to do so.

But I was the only one who had the luxury of choice.

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