That would be helpful.

So he sends Elaneth-imire everything he needs to know to get the job done, and Elaneth-imire goes off and does it, and it takes about an hour and ten minutes to get all the infrastructure in place and up and running, and then Raika-seren tells him which alien planet should have its communications sabotaged next, and he does that.

Having an entire extra self to delegate to - with different powers, at that! - makes everything so much easier. It's an interesting change of pace, but he doesn't think he'll miss it much when this is all over with. Two sun-bright Taliars would be enormous overkill for the vast majority of problems, and he would be happy not to see another problem of this size for at least a century.

Centuries go by faster than you'd think. I want longer than that off.

I'm not even twenty yet, a century still sounds like a while to me. But if you want a thousand stress-free years then you should have them. Feel free to make me deal with all of your problems, I knew I thrived on stress but I had no idea just how true that was until today.

I'm more just hoping we won't have any. Should I have mixed feelings about you not being twenty yet?

I would also prefer we not have any but if problems insist on bothering us anyway, might as well make the best of it. What mixed feelings were you thinking of having?

Elves that age are nowhere near maturity.

Twenty is the official age of majority in Nuime, but I have considered myself an adult and been treated as one by my society since the day I manifested my soul. I don't think you need to worry.

Worry was not going to be among my mixed feelings; you can obviously take care of yourself.

I honestly find it a little hard to imagine what form those mixed feelings might take, possibly because my parents have a two-thousand-year age difference and I've never observed it to bother them...

If someone my age were marrying an Elf just turned fifty I would - make sure I'd talked to them both, at minimum -

I guess I can see the logic in that. I don't know. I don't feel like I need to be talked to. He laughs a little, shifts the focus of his eavesdropping to keep up with developing trends, asks— What would you even say, if you were talking to - us -

That's quite a question.

I imagine it wouldn't be what Elaneth-imire said to me right after he forked me, but besides that I really have no idea.

As he recalls, what Elaneth-imire said to him was 'I'm about to convince you to do something nobody in their right mind would willingly do.'

I think I'd worry about the wisdom of our choices, yes. But - hmm, secondary to worrying that there were too many instrumental goals being conflated with more fundamental ones? We can discuss this after saving the genocide aliens from themselves.

Yeah. Love you.

He's definitely still on top of the situation. Now it's just a matter of picking the exact right moment to kidnap the planet, and planning out the theatrics...

It would be interesting to include the healing aura. But it would interfere with them ritually sacrificing the purity-keepers - but if he just had Elaneth-imire burn all the purity-keepers on the spot, that would undermine the cult's self-determination - perhaps if Elaneth-imire burned all the purity-keepers individually as each ritual sacrifice was about to begin... yes, that feels right. And, hmm... light and darkness. Have the planet arrive in total darkness - use conjured obstacles to block light from reaching the destination, maybe - and then take away the obstacles and flood the place with healing aura and announce the end of the world. Yeah. They can do this.

The prophecies they're trying to match are kind of astonishingly pragmatic. The cult's criteria for the prophesied end of the world are very very close to just being exactly the criteria for a situation in which their revolution would be likely to succeed if they tried it. There is a prophesied figure called the Destroyer, but they seem like more of a metaphor than a person and could easily be interpreted that way. Fortunately, they could just as easily be interpreted as referring to Raika-seren, at least once he claims credit for the world ending.

He passes the plan to Elaneth-imire, confers with him about it for a few minutes while watching for the right moment, and then gives him the go-ahead.

The sixth planet in the Ityen system vanishes, and reappears in perfect darkness orbiting a similar star in a different universe.

Raika-seren focuses most of his eavesdropping on them, keeping track of their panic. And oh boy are they panicking. Except for the cultists, who are getting increasingly excited and then finally springing into action once they reach consensus that it's really definitely the end of the world this time.

The revolution is beautifully organized. Raika-seren is impressed. They hit hard and win fast, while everyone else is still panicking over the sudden darkness and total cutoff of communications with the outside world. A few of the cultists wonder whether the world might be ending a little too thoroughly for their efforts to matter, but they don't let those doubts slow them down: they have a job to do and they're going to do it.

Two hours in, he has Elaneth-imire burn the planetary blackout curtains, and he floods the planet with his healing aura and broadcasts to everyone on it: The world has ended. A new world begins.

Some of the cultists are kind of alarmed to discover that the Destroyer is a real person who can talk and everything. But they adapt.

As soon as enough reports have confirmed that everyone really did hear that and the whole world really is covered in highly restorative golden light, they call for volunteers to try talking back directly. Of the volunteers, they select the one with the highest rank. It takes them about five minutes from the moment the healing aura appears to the moment their chosen representative says,

Um, hello. Are you the Destroyer?

Hmm. What's the best approach to take with this particular alien...

That would be a fair description, yes. Who are you?

Assistant Coordinator Sikyal Tegati! How can I help you?

...he likes this one.

I am enriched by your acquaintance, Assistant Coordinator Sikyal Tegati. I would like to assist you in establishing order.

Assistant Coordinator Sikyal Tegati has an almost Taliar-ish combination of sociability, optimism, and willingness to dig into hard problems. They're delighted to be the liaison between the cult and the unexpectedly helpful Destroyer.

The ritual sacrifices of the purity-keepers go forward on an accelerated schedule, with Elaneth-imire dramatically incinerating them on cue. The cult handles almost everything by itself, but here and there the Taliars lend a hand. It's astonishingly tidy for a revolution. Whoever founded this cult understood their own society on a very deep level.

Meanwhile, at around the fourth hour, someone finally dares to send a ship to the Ityen system actually looking for the vanished planet.

The cult isn't quite ready to take on the rest of the galaxy yet. Raika-seren vanishes the exploratory vessel.

The military concludes that it's definitely all part of the same problem. They tighten their information security so as not to cause a mass panic. Sure, everyone knows something happened to Ityen-6, but everyone does not yet know that what happened to Ityen-6 might have been planet-eating filth creatures, and they'd like to keep it that way. Raika-seren is happy to let them do his work for him. He goes back to coordinating with Sikyal.

How long before the coup's ready to handle another planet?