Eliminate Observer, and we will find out. I will give your people a new egg. A new solar system, brimming with resources. I will plant the Humans there, and this time they will grow without interference. Millennia from now, they will be free to hatch on their own. Or not. But either way, Humans will receive what few species ever have: a second chance to become a Citizen of the Network.
She is not sure what is happening in her mind. A second chance for her species. A place for them, protected from the galaxy that killed them the first time. Maybe, says her mind, maybe that’s a place where she can go, where she can live…where she can have everything she’s ever wanted. Friends. Family. Goddess help her, a mate. She could be, honest to goddess, a real live Human.
Oh goddess. She doesn’t mean to say it, but it slips out of her mind. Oh goddess.
Little Daughter, says Network. When you were small you purchased your life. Now that you are grown, it is time for you to purchase your species. Eliminate Observer; that is the price. Remember that He is a murderer and a liar, that He would love nothing more than to see the galaxy perish in fire and chaos. It does not matter whether you prefer to call it a desire for justice or a thirst for retribution: your nature—and the tools I have given you—will take care of the rest.
Oh, goddess, she says again. She can’t help it.
Go, tiny mind. Observer is waiting.
The following is greatly abridged from the original Network article, in accordance with your tier.
XENOMYTHOLOGY FOCUS: THE “FIREBRINGER”
One of the more controversial branches of xenology is known as [comparative xenomythology], the study of the myths that different species tell. This science sorts myths into two categories.
NATURAL MYTHS
The first category is made up of so-called “natural” myths. These are stories that spring from characteristics common to all intelligences, or that derive from the very laws of physics. In this class are creation myths, apocalypses, (incorrect) explanations for laws of nature, and stories that showcase actions beneficial to a successful species (e.g., self-sacrifice). These are the myths that one would expect any species to develop.
UNNATURAL MYTHS
The second category is made up of accounts that most likely sprang from actual events. The more popular name of this category is Firebringer myths, named after the archetypal story in which a superior being introduces a technology to the species in question.*1 In pre-Network galactic society, Firebringer myths were common. In fact, at several points in galactic history Firebringer myths have been nearly universal, because nearly every species had been meddled with at some point in its development.*2
Today, the Network protects all its potential members with strict regulations, disallowing any form of contact before a species is able to leave its solar system on its own. This means that unnatural myths—like the Firebringer—have all but disappeared in our galaxy. In fact, of all the species who have developed an interstellar society in the last ten million years, only one told a Firebringer myth: the [Humans].
*1 This name is unusually specific because the original author was a Category F individual, for whose species the discovery of fire was a pivotal moment.
*2 For a list of negative results of pre-Contact meddling, see [Unnatural Species Development].
Sarya does not awaken. She is instead hammered into consciousness, as though she just came to a screeching halt in her own body. That body, for its part, tells her that something is very wrong. It swears its eyes are wide open, but Sarya sees nothing. Its limbs flounder, reach in all directions, but Sarya cannot even feel the floor beneath her. The universe is black and empty, and a sullen and subdued roar vibrates her skin. She can feel her new body’s pulse begin to rise as chemicals are dumped into its bloodstream. Danger! say the chemicals. Do something!
But she can’t do anything, because she is floating. She is outside, she has to be, that whole Network-is-a-person thing was a hallucination and now she is sucking void in the boundless infinite of open space and in a second she’ll feel the water begin to boil off her eyeballs and tongue and oh goddess this was a terrible idea she is going to die she would do anything to be back in Eleven’s reinforced cockpit—
[Network not found], says a sudden orange warning across her vision. In this total absence of sensory input, her mind