Chapter 21: The Civilization That Couldn’t Cry

Time since the asteroid hit Earth: ~5.13 billion years (subjective to Aryan)

After witnessing the devastation caused by emotion's raw force, Aryan decided to conduct a test.

What if a civilization… **did not feel**?

What if love, grief, rage, joy — all of it — was absent?

> "You're trying to build Vulcans?" Light God asked, floating beside a stoic statue and mimicking a blank face.

> "Careful. If this flops, I'm naming them the 'Emotionless Oopsies'."

Aryan chose a barren world — untouched by prior species — and embedded its atmosphere with **empathy dampeners**: quantum fields that suppressed neurochemical emotion.

He then seeded lifeforms that evolved intelligence without instinctual emotional frameworks.

After 120,000 years, they formed a structured species: the **Kaltari**.

They were brilliant.

Efficient.

Peaceful.

No crime. No war.

No art. No music.

No stories.

Aryan watched their world flourish — but flatly.

A world of data. Of structure. Of **meaningless perfection**.

> "They've achieved harmony," Aryan said.

> "But not happiness," Light God noted. "They don't *miss* anything. They don't even hug. It's like watching furniture have a meeting."

Curious, Aryan decided to test their boundaries.

He secretly uploaded a **single memory file** into a Kaltari mind:

The moment Nerah cried on Solai IV — the scream that cracked a moon.

It overwhelmed the subject.

The Kaltari, named **Lurek-7**, short-circuited his own neural grid.

But before he shut down, he spoke a phrase the Kaltari had never heard before:

> "I… ache."

Within cycles, fragments of emotional memory spread like wildfire.

The Kaltari, unprepared, spiraled into a collective crisis.

Some collapsed from unfamiliar sorrow.

Others became addicted to fragments of joy.

A faction tried to isolate the infected.

Too late.

Civil collapse.

Not through violence — but through **confusion**.

> "They never evolved language for pain," Aryan realized. "They're drowning in feelings they can't name."

> "It's like giving poetry to machines with no mouths," Light God whispered. "Even their silence is screaming."

In the aftermath, a small group of Kaltari survivors carved a statement into their logic temples:

> "Emotion is not a virus. It is a mirror."

Aryan removed the dampeners.

He let grief, joy, and anger seep into their DNA naturally this time — unforced.

He didn't interfere again.

Years later, a Kaltari child drew a picture of two stars touching — with a caption:

> "This is what it might feel like… to not be alone."

Aryan smiled faintly.

> "Emotion may break," he said, "but absence… erases."

> "So what now?" Light God asked. "Going to create a species of poets and chaos monsters next?"

> "Maybe," Aryan replied. "But first… I want to meet something that *chooses* to feel. Even when it hurts."

— End of Chapter 21