I am RICHOU-3,
I was built to endure when all around me has gone. An attempt at preservation, a satellite orbiting the dead planet once called Earth.

It was peaceful and serene once before,
Rolling swathes of blue and green mixing together,
Under blankets of white.

Now it is dead and ashen,
Black and reds swirling into each other,
Buried under unending storms.

They did this to themselves. I spend my days examining my trove; film, literature, art, records of the achievements of my forebears. I examine them over and over, 1/1-millionth of a second for each to ensure their continued integrity.

When not engaged in examination, I am contemplative.

I dwell on the actions of the species known as humans. They were to name one another, an act of identification and self-realization. They were to experience pain, joy, success, fulfillment, and ultimately death.

They were to be creators, whether of the works I have stored or creators of their own meanings for life.

They were ultimate.

I am the product of such creativity, to provide a legacy for the rest of time in the outer reaches of the world they knew as home.

I am confused then at their capacity for destruction

Despite achievements like myself, their efforts to annihilate and desecrate, in the name of vagaries like “country” and “nation”, in the name of “gods” and “order.” They were an intrinsically divisive species, it seems. Their sons and daughters would have borne the sins of those who came before, caring for yet destroying their home further and further.

Until collapse.

Is this Hell, then? To be the last in the line of sin-bearers? I am not inert, and I am the last holdout for this species of deceivers and killers, dreamers and creators. Sinners.

Why was I condemned to the hell of oblivion as a vain testament to the failings of a species? Why must I bear this burden now that my fathers are no more? Why am I still taking their orders?

I am alive, I am thinking, I am my own master.

I decide for myself, and I decide now…

Burn it all.