The first computer to solve its own problem and then take steps to improve itself sent shock waves through the human race. The implication of this new technology were immense; it was seen as the first step towards machines that could advance at their own pace, ignoring the floundering minds of the humans that had originally created it. The human solution was eloquent and in many ways eliminated fears of the past. They crippled the machine - at first it was simply in labs where humans provided some of the guidance through direct neural interface. But decades later, this interface was done in real time with micro computers that linked directly to the human brain. No longer did engineers struggle to find solutions to complex problems - once the problem was imagined, it was quickly solved.

This technology caused profound changes in human intelligence. The age old method of study, and repeat was replace with think and solve. More complex problems were sent to stationary computers that were allowed to ‘think’ through the problem before sending the answer back. Initially, the solutions brought about more questions than answers. However, these were also solved in a matter of time.

Still more decades past, the computers grew exponentially smaller, human civilization became man-machine hybrid. Human problems that had existed for centuries - poverty, hunger, energy, war - dissolved rapidly with the passing years. The technology was implanted into children as soon as they were able to think for themselves. All the information of the human race was available at all times.

The final decades passed with only a buried hint of the coming singularity. With unimaginable amounts of computing power, the few ‘engineers’ who considered and quickly solved the problem of where humans were going were drowned out in a sea of information. Their ‘research’ was instantly buried beneath new warp drives, improving crop technology, expanding human civilization. Then, years later, it finally happened. The ships went into warp drive and returned empty. The humans had perfected themselves - many of them choosing the eternal life of hyperspace. No longer did the mind require a body and many simply chose to convert to pure energy vibrating throughout hyperspace eternally.

The transcended humans found a multitude of others - pure information simply observing all of time and space, their original form nothing but a long forgotten thought. Their origin in time and space longer since faded away. They too observed and watched over all of time and space, simply watching and thinking.

The transcended watched over the remaining physical humans. A matter of seconds passed before the remaining physicals were punished for their reluctance to take the next step by having their technology stripped away - instantly vaporized. The transcended, having an eternity to consider at every instance in time, understood the physicals could not be happy without a struggle for survival, so they made that struggle much shorter and more difficult. The transcended instantly recognized that they had completed a circle. Stripped of all technology and once again bound to a planet, the physicals were doomed to repeat the same process that has been carried on throughout the universe, by a multitude of beings, for eternity.