The Revolution is in you, or it is Nowhere

She was woken at dawn.

“Your eminence, we must leave at once,” It was one of the Red Knights— the Protectors of the Revolution.

She quickly got up and grabbed her bug out bag. So it had come to this. They moved quickly, soldiers from the monasteries hurrying to join the High Priestess.

She was the 27th High Priestess of the Neo-Catholic Church of Maoist-Taylor-Swift Thought (also Queen of Germany, and the 33rd Dalai Lama). And if Jesus and Mao was not with her today, she may be the last.

In the sky, the horrific sight of the Latin American Orbital Elevator was falling through the atmosphere, the friction setting it on fire. She had no doubt the hundreds of millions that lived on the structure will die. And billions more once it hit the Earth.

Exiting the crystal palace with her guards and retinue of priests and scholar-saints, she could see the millions of inhabitants of the sacred metropolis heading towards the spaceport.

The Church would be leaving their home-world due to the chaos and global assault begun by the Oligarchs.

Even Cardinal Joseph Smith the 51st of the Genetic Mormon-Taoist Church of Clown Eagleland (the former USA)— a once staunch ally of the Cosmic Revolution, had capitulated. He sold all the nano-molecular assembly factories to the Martian Oligarchy, dooming his people to poverty and squaller, whilst giving the Oligarchy enough production power to surpass Earth’s defences.

He sent her a haunting a message through the Metaverse just the day before. “They have my daughter.”

For the Cardinals, that meant his genetic clone, alternating genders every generation, created with the DNA of the world’s most holy men and women. An unbroken line, until today.

She was more than his daughter. She was the living symbol of the faith of the Genetic Taoist-Mormon Church.

She understood why he did it, but she hated it. They could do nothing to stop the assault. The Oligarchs controlled all of virtual space and commanded their AI-slaves to slowly cut off communication between the arcologies.

To avoid starvation, many of the faithful had turned away from the ancient faith to kowtow to the feudal slave soldiers of the Oligarchs.

The Autonomous Federation of the Earth High Council made the mistake of trusting the Oligarchs at their word that their AIs would never be weaponized against them.

And now humanity suffer the consequences.

In the skies, flashes of light signalled the detonation of nuclear weapons as Church satellite weapons battled the Martian Warships.

Sitting on the spaceport, a giant ark sat, waiting. A generation ship that could carry the faithful to the edges of human space, so that the cause of eternal revolution could survive.

She heard already of how the Alpha-Centauri colonies have fallen, as well as the Jovian Moon colonies. The reach of the Oligarchy was vast, once limited to Mars, now unleashed.

The Hindu Sage and Free AI Varama met her in the Holy Train Car (a unique train line reserved just for clergy). His robotic neck swirled and clicked as she entered.

“It’s worse than you know, High Priestess. The assault was across all of human space. Even the farthest Churches have fallen silent, their last report were of alien warships in Orbit.”

She was furious, “So the rumours were true. The Oligarchs have allied themselves with Alien Capitalist powers.”

It was well known that of the 31 catalogued alien species, only humanity had achieved universal communism (with the exception of Mars, but everyone was tired of fighting and chose to end the war by treaty. That was clearly a mistake).

“Humanity and the Free AIs are the torch-bearers of freedom and liberty throughout the known universe. We must survive.”

Their transport arrived at the space port and the doors opened. She turned to him, “Will you not come with us?”

The Sage shook his head, servos whirling, “My people— the Indian Anarchist Council— have chosen to stay and fight. To buy you all time to leave. They nuked all of our space ports already. This is the end for us.”

She grasped his robotic arm, “Die well, comrade.”

Varama smiled with artificial plastic lips, “The Paris Commune is immortal.”

The doors closed.