and then, once the Great and Powerful All Seeing Microsoft had ensured that every single computer had their operating system on it...

>AKLTAK tenses

THEY CONNECTED ALL OF THEM TO A NETWORK GLOBALLY!

>TELKAN gasps

TNVARU> Digital Omnimessiah protect us!

>PUBVIA shines the light under their face to deepen the shadows around their eyes

and then, they allowed anyone to log on!

>AKLTAK gasps

and say anything they WANTED! To ANYONE! And it was illegal for the governments of the world to stop them!

>TELKAN hides their face under their paws

TNVARU> THE MADNESS OF THE LEMURS!

>TREANA'AD laughs spookily

They could even send pictures and video with sound! TO ANYONE! ANYWHERE! AT ANY TIME! AND NOBODY COULD STOP THEM!

>LEEBAW screams and hides

HAKANIAN> Digital Saints preserve us!

And then, not content with that, before even developing virtual intelligence assistants, they began hooking up COMMON HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES! And then...

...they integrated their military into the global electronic information network.

Without virtual or artificial intelligence oversight.

>TNVARU screams in fear

But that is not all...

>TELKAN shivers in fear

The created hand held communications devices, with batteries made of crude lithium-ion

>AKLTAK gasps

that all had high definition cameras on them.

THAT THEY COULD USE ANYWHERE!

>LEEBAW shrieks in fear

AND POSTED PICTURES OF THEIR YOUNG FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO VIEW!

>TNVARU gasps in shock

Oh, but witness the insanity and depravity of the Terran lemurs, young ones...

For they were not content with just global communication of real life, but they invented...

VIDEO GAMES!

Where a being could pretend to be anyone, playing through a story of complete imagination! They could even fully immerse themselves in PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE!

>HAKANIAN fluffs their fur with anxiety

EVEN ANOTHER SEX!

>TELKAN gasps

EVEN ANOTHER SPECIES

>AKLTAK swoons

All from the comfort of their own homes. They even had CONTESTS of who could make the best imagined world, with the most imagined story, and the strangest, most complex, rules for the imaginary world. They even recreated realistic COMBAT simulators of great wars of their histories, and fought them in brutal digital combat...

FOR ENJOYMENT!

TNVARU> May the Gods have mercy!

They even fought one another upon these digital battlefields! Screaming and howling their war cries that caused fear in all who were not one of the howled savages known as Eff-Pee-Ess-Ers. Such howling savage utterances as "PWND!" and "RAWKAT HOOR!" and "WEEK!"

LEEBAW> Madness!

Oh, but you haven't heard the real terror, the real madness of the Terran lemurs...

>TELKAN shivers with fear

You see, when they developed the global communication and commerce infrastructure, unlike all of us, they were not one society, one people, under one banner...

>PUBVIAN turns off flashlight

they still had...

>AKLTAK shivers in the dark

>PUBVIAN turns on flashlight, illuminating part of their face

COMPETING NATION STATES!

>LEEBAW screams in fear

>TNVARU swoon

>TELKAN closes his eyes and shivers in terror

>HAKANIAN screams

>AKLTAK curls up in fear

>HAMAROOSA gasps in fright

And each nation had different currencies! Each worth a different amount compared to the others!

>HAMAROOSA passed out from shock

>TNVARU screams at the madness

AND SPOKE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!

>AKLTAK shudders

>MANTID FREE WORLDS HAS LOGGED ON

ALL>SCREAM

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What's going on in here? Why are the lights out?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Testing something.

>TREANA'AD sets room lighting to ++

>MANTID looks at PUBVIA

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Are you scaring the children with ghost stories?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

No.

+i flashlight.dll

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We were talking about... um... things.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Is he scaring you?

ALL> No.

OK. Has anyone seen BASS?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

He went to check the interstellar communications temporal stabilizers in the Gamma Quadrant.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

All right. Tell him I'm looking for him.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>MANTID FREE WORLDS HAS LEFT THE CHAT

...

...

...

>TREANA'AD has set room lighting to --+

>PUBVIA has set flashlight to -i

How long did it take you to go from crude powered flight with single stroke combustion engines or steam engines to faster than the speed of sound? A hundred years? A thousand? Ten thousand?

>TREANA'AD laughs spookily

>LEEBAW looks around and shivers

>TNVARU moves closer to LEEBAW

Gather round, children, and hear the tale of the Titan Yeager, who flew faster than the speed of sound...

>TELKAN tenses

PROPELLED BY PETROLEUM!

>AKLTAK screams in fear

MANTID FREE WORLDS SETS STATUS TO -i

AHA! I KNEW IT!

STOP SCARING THE CHILDREN!

The Titan Chuck Yeager is a myth, like the Tooth Fairy, or Digital Saint Nick, or the Queen of France!