3024 Nova Arcis A 2
The Eye Of The Storm
The final image of the historical segment lingered in the golden light of the broadcast garden: a young Amara Varna, surrounded by the beautiful, chaotic mess of her Dharavi studio. The 3D-media-stream held the image for a long moment before it dissolved, resolving into two formal, interlocking portraits—a pensive, almost ascetic-looking Varna and a young, unnervingly focused Darius Voss.
Cokas Bluna let the new image hang in the air, allowing the audience to absorb the stark contrast. He leaned forward, his expression thoughtful.
“A quantum architect, a philosopher,” he began, his voice taking on a reflective tone. “And, as that infamous ‘Varna Leak’ later proved, a master of public perception. It’s hard for us to grasp, sitting here in 3024, the sheer magnitude of what she unleashed. That first test… it didn’t just shatter physics. It shattered the entire geopolitical landscape of the early 21st century.”
LYRA.ai picked up the thread seamlessly, her own studies compelling her to add context. “Indeed. From what I’ve been able to remember and piece together from the archives, the world was in a state of panic. The discovery was immediately classified at the highest levels by every major power.”
She gestured, and a new layer of information subtly overlaid the portraits: shifting spheres of influence, color-coded for the three great presidential powers of the time. The names were not shown, but their ideological signatures were clear.
“You have to understand the context,” LYRA continued. “It was a world still defined by hard borders and military strength. And into that world, Amara Varna introduced a technology that made those things irrelevant. I recall some of the frantic, encrypted communications between the leaders of the era. The American President, a man whose worldview was shaped entirely by commerce and brand value, saw it as the ultimate hostile takeover of reality, a disruption he could neither control nor profit from. A manifestation of pure Ignorance.”
The sphere of influence representing the American power bloc pulsed slightly.
“The Russian leader,” she went on, the second sphere pulsing, “a man defined by aggression and the projection of hard power, saw it as a terrifying new weapon that could be used against him. He immediately authorized billions in secret funding to either replicate or steal the technology. His response was War.”
“And the Chinese premier,” Cokas added, his voice low, “a man of immense personal will and a belief in absolute centralized control, saw it as the ultimate tool of destabilization. It was a force he could not command, a variable that threatened his perfectly ordered system. His reaction was pure, ideological Greed—the desire to possess and contain it at all costs.”
LYRA summarized, the three spheres glowing with a faint, ominous light. “The three heroic paths of a pre-unification Earth, as the Varna-Papers cynically labelled them.”
“Ignorance, War, and Greed,” Cokas added softly. “A volatile mixture. They didn’t see a tool to heal the planet; they saw an existential threat to their own power. Amara Varna was suddenly the most dangerous and most sought-after person on the planet.”
He gestured to the dual portraits. “Which brings us to the great misunderstanding at the heart of this story. For centuries, the public was fed the ‘Best Enemies’ myth—a simple, dramatic narrative of corporate rivalry. They saw Varna, the reluctant genius, and Voss, the ruthless industrialist. But that simple story has always begged a question…”
LYRA finished his thought, posing the question directly to the audience. “If Varna’s creation was so dangerous, and the world’s most powerful forces wanted to control it, how did she survive? How did her work remain independent long enough to change the world? The public saw a feud. But perhaps, behind the scenes, there was another story entirely.”
Cokas nodded. “A story Darius Voss himself tried to tell. A perspective that reframes everything we thought we knew about their relationship, and the birth of StellarLink.” With that, he cued the next segment, allowing the historical record to speak for itself.