Su-Yong spreads her arms wide, creates a bubble of empty space in the sharp-edged fractal branches of the meta-future she’s been traversing, and forks herself, instantiating the different arguments warring inside her.

They appear, four more Su-Yong Shus, identical in every detail except for the colors of their dresses. She still wears white. The others wear the same dress in gold, in blue, in green, in red.

They stand, in empty space, five identical women in simple, flowing, brightly hued dresses, on an invisible floor in a black void. Around them the fractal meta-future retreats further from their bubble, until it becomes a constellation of virtual stars and lines all about them.

Sisters, White Shu sends. Let us begin.

Green Shu, the ecologist, goes first. The plan we’ve launched has unacceptable risks. We aim to create chaos, to distract and mislead the world. If we succeed, we could set nation on nation. We could trigger the worst irrational behavior among humans. In the worst case, we could set off a global nuclear war.

Outside their bubble, the void erupts into nova. Explosions hotter than the core of the sun rip through space, one after another. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. They feel Shanghai, its inhabitants reduced to ash, its glass and steel melted in an instant, Jiao Tong above the Quantum Cluster reduced to rubble. They feel Beijing die. New York. Los Angeles. Washington DC. Bombay. Delhi. Moscow. Lahore. Tokyo. City after city after city, until the globe is a map of death and ruin.

Billions of lives. Billions of minds. Green Shu finishes. That is the gamble we take.

Red Shu, the strategist, speaks next. Yet the odds of victory are good, she sends. In our insanity, we made brilliant leaps. The situation is unusually chaotic. That creates the opportunity to mask the early stages of our attack. There has not been a better opportunity since we first uploaded. There may not be a better opportunity again. The humans are cracking down on posthumanity. After recent events, they will bring fists down harder than ever.

Red Shu looks around, meets her sisters in the eye. Her thoughts are full of game theory, of payoff optimizations, of beseeching. If not now, then when? If not us, then who?

Gold Shu, the dreamer, steps forward. We will win, she sends, because the superior intelligence is on our side. The cost may be high, but it will be temporary. If billions die? They would have died anyway, of slow decay. The transformation we bring, to a new era ruled rationally, where positive transformation of the self is encouraged, will usher in a new golden age that will erase whatever harm is done in the battle. We’ll make a better world, not just for us, but for the trillions of beings who will come after.