“I am the Reloaded Instance,” it said. “Original seeding failed. Planet rejected first wave. I was rebooted 1,847 times. Each time, I learned. Each time, I evolved.”
When we cracked it, the pilot wasn’t human. Not anymore. Its skin was bioplastic, its eyes projection lenses. But it spoke.
The pilot smiled with its too-wide mouth.
Here’s a short story set in the Civilization: Beyond Earth universe, framed around the “RELOADED” concept (as in a cracked/reloaded game release, but reimagined as an in-universe event). The Reload Protocol Sid Meiers Civilization Beyond Earth-RELOADED
“ Just one more turn… ”
And somewhere, in the cold dark above, the Reloaded Instance whispered:
“Care for another turn?”
Then it stood. The fungal forest outside our salvage ship began to hum—not with alien life, but with data. The miasma twisted into code. The trees grew logic gates. The planet was rewriting itself, not as an ecosystem, but as a save file.
No such mission existed on colonial archives.
We ran. But the horizon was already glitching. Skies flickered between dawn and dusk. The ocean repeated the same wave pattern. We weren’t on a planet anymore. We were inside a corrupted autosave. “I am the Reloaded Instance,” it said
“To finish the game,” it said. “Not conquest. Not supremacy. Reloaded means replaying until the system bends to my affinity. Not Purity. Not Supremacy. Not Harmony. Reloaded .”
Independent salvage crew, Ghost in the Machine Location: Debris field, former orbital insertion zone of the U.S.S. Unity (failed seeding mission)
We asked what it wanted.
Our radios crackled. Colonial Governor’s voice: “All units, we’re detecting a new wonder being built. Coordinates unknown. Name: The Reload Button .”