God was pissed. Mere 2000 cycles had passed since the last major cheat, and things were going down the drain again. Jesus had been a good fix to the issues caused by Moses, but who could have predicted that Luther, Calvin and a bunch of other pricks would twist His teachings in such a way that in a few more generations, overpopulation will screw up the entire simulation?

“No way in Hell I am gonna let that happen,“ God thought and started to draft an application to the Scientific Council.

God’s native tongue was Hebrew, and He had never grown fluent in English, the current universal language of science. Yet He managed to formulate his proposition in the language of Benny Hill and Kermit the Frog:

Request for permission to interfere with the simulation. 

Background: It appears that the latest significant intervention (Simulation Earth, Subproject Jesus Christ) was somewhat too effective: it did indeed give rise to the industrial revolution as planned, but the speed of the development has been so high that it has led to explosive growth of the human population that is now threatening the entire simulation, mainly through too rapid release of carbon dioxide to the Atmosphere (see Appendix 1).

Proposition: I hereby request permission to introduce a prophet into the simulation, with the purpose of slowing down the cultural evolution to give the environment more time to adjust to the development, but keeping in mind that the planet only has 250 years to produce extraterrestrial life until the asteroid Hondo will wipe out all life that was left behind.

ractical implementation: To maximize the audience, my research team has concluded that the prophet should be either a celebrity cooking show host or a young female youtuber. To speed up the process and eliminate the need to develop any specific skills, the team recommends that the latter be chosen. The team also wants to emphasize that the prophet should be as hot as possible to maximize the male audience. The project plan is detailed in Appendix 2.

Sincerely,

God

Project Manager, Simulation Earth

“Ladies and Gentlemen; Gods and Goddesses. I wish you all welcome to this extracurricular meeting of the Scientific Council,” Chairperson Julia Angus declared, and the small talk subsided. “Since there seems to be no sign of God yet, I suggest You help Yourselves to some refreshments.”

The Council was a peculiar mix of brilliant young scientists, predominantly engineers, on one side of the table, and God’s age-mates, mostly Gods, on the other. The Council had existed long before the first simulations had been initiated, and since Gods are a resilient bunch, the old guard continued to hold the majority. And since most of them had ended in a dead-end project similar to God’s Earth, they tended to sympathize with the old man, as did the Chairperson for reasons of her own.

I, the system admin of Simulation Earth, am also the Secretary of the Council and have thus a broader perspective into the field of Genesis studies than most of my age-mates. And Boy, it is a screwed-up field. What I am about to share is by no means an exceptional story. But it became a rather personal one to me.

After a long wait, God finally arrived in the conference room. Being late did not seem to bother Him at all, and the other Council members knew all too well what God would reply to criticism of His irritating habit:

“Dear friends, don’t forget that for Me one day is the same as a thousand years, and a thousand years is the same as one day.”

If only I could change one line in the Bible, that would be it.

“Ok, let’s begin,” said the young Angus. “You all have received God’s proposal of sending a Prophet into Simulation Earth. Does anybody have comments regarding the proposal?”

“I think the proposal makes no sense,” said Herbert von Hereford, a young engineer better versed in statistical mechanics than politics. “This simulation has already been tampered with so many times that the statistical bias will render all possible data it generates worthless. We are long overdue of shutting down the simulation, writing a final report and releasing the resources to something useful. 65 million years overdue to be exact.”

“Why you little…“ Everyone in the room felt God’s fury. He used all His self-control to keep from launching a series of Hebrew profanities towards the ears that were still wet from behind. His old friend Ariel stepped in to save His face:

“Do you require additional resources for this subproject?”

“No,” replied God. “I can handle the Prophet with My existing project team.”

“I think that settles it then,” said a God named Ehud from the Hebrew side of the table. “But for fairness’ sake, I suggest We subject the proposal to a vote.”

“So be it,” said Chairperson Angus. “Those in favor of God’s proposal, raise Your hands.”

The entire Hebrew-God-side of the table raised Their hands. 

“It appears that God’s proposal has a simple majority. The proposal has been approved,” the Chairperson concluded, happy that she was spared from taking a position on the matter.

And so God got the authorization to send a hot female youtuber on Earth to once again save the mankind from itself.