The first thing most people noticed about Omega School was that it did not look remotely educational. It looked like somewhere a billionaire would go to recover from being a billionaire.

It was magnificent. The garden’s blueprint was directly extracted from Crowley’s memory. The library was La biblioteca de Babel themed with a quaint smoothie bar at every corner. The canteens served nutritious and delicious and most importantly, real meals, not MEALS®.

There were 39 different ice cream flavors. Aubrey Thymes was employed as the school’s professional therapist, yes, the prestigious Aubrey Thymes.

The classrooms at Omega School had been designed, with considerable expense and even more conviction, to look like the sort of place where Important Ideas happened.

They had glass walls (for transparency), writable surfaces (for collaboration), beanbags (for relaxation), and a faint but persistent smell of artisanal citrus cleaner (for the parents).

On one wall, in tasteful minimalist font, someone had painted:

QUESTION EVERYTHING. RESPONSIBLY.

Some weeaboo had once described the architecture as “Academy City and Mitakihara Middle School combined”, and this had somehow ended up in the admissions brochure.

“COOLER THAN HOGWARTS!”, said the website. This was because Anathema Device had once made the mistake of allowing the marketing department autonomy for six minutes.

The only reason she kept it anyways was that she secretly thought Omega was actually COOLER THAN HOGWARTS!

Better timetables. Optimal selective arrangement. Zero abusive teacher. Maximal freedom of speech.

And Omega sort students by the Magic: The Gathering color wheel, so there were five main houses and more dual-colors. ONE MORE HOUSE THAN HOGWARTS!

The second thing most people noticed was the children.

The wealthy Malibu parents had expected their kids to become future leaders in business, politics, academy and YouTube. The excited AI researchers had expected, well, prodigy AI researchers.

What they got instead were children who asked things like “can moral philosophy be open source” and “how can we distinguish between a Demiurge and a Simulator through falsifiable experiments”. 

At least the AI researchers were satisfied, Aubrey Thymes pointed out, as they projected their lingering anxiety over ASI misalignment on their carbon-based spawns who were maybe slightly more corrigible, or vice versa.

There was a name rumored among the children, and that name was Adam Young, the new leader of Black.

Adam and his Them were the mysterious transfer students who on their day one had debunked senior Blacks and Blues pretending to be bullies for their sociology 101 experiment right on the spot.

They scored the highest on Game Design as well as Game Theory.

They had started a masonic conspiracy and six days later literally every student had joined it.

They took over TRPG club in a single campaign by spectacular roleplay.

And Adam wrote best-selling story books. Every kid knew it was a terrible, terrible idea to mess with someone who wrote story books.

Adam sat near the back of Classroom 101 with his feet tipped against the chair in front of him. 

At precisely nine o’clock, Mr. Enoch Jaredson entered the room.

He was a tall man with smooth silver hair. He wore a brown jacket despite the California weather. Students think he’s either ex-military or a former cult member. (Is Jaredson even a surname?)

The prediction market (obviously, they had one) leaned heavily on the former because students learned about the concept of prior on Philosophy or (ordinary or, not Xor) Probabilities and Statistics.

He was ranked “the most suspicious teacher” by the Secret Skeptic Society of Surveillance on Suspicious School Staffs. The second most suspicious was Aubrey Thymes, who was but a perfectly normal human with false rumors about mindreading superpower. The third most suspicious was Scarlett Herrington, the extraordinary physically attractive head of Red. And the 100th was Eric Moore, teacher of Sex Education.

“Good morning,” he said.

（His identity is pretty obvious for the average show fan, but if you don't know who he is, don't open his Character page.）

“Morning,” said the class.

“Today,” said Mr. Jaredson, writing on the board with handwriting which resembled Hebrew letters, “we will discuss apocalypse.”

Half the room perked up immediately. This was Omega School.

A girl of Simic (Blue & Green) raised her hand before he had even finished the word: “Religious apocalypse or civilizational collapse apocalypse?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Jaredson, who had learnt this deepity from another allegedly enlightened Meditation & Mindfulness teacher.

“The word originally means revelation. An unveiling instead of merely destruction. Though humanity has historically shown greater enthusiasm for destruction.”

He turned to the board and wrote:

APOCALYPSE = REVELATION

“Most apocalyptic traditions emerge during periods of instability. People experience suffering, social breakdown, war, plague, injustice—”

“Climate change,” said someone.

“AI risk,” added someone else immediately. Those children.

“TikTok,” said Pepper. Her nametag shined brightly Red and White.

“—and begin imagining final resolutions to history.”

Wensleydale’s hand shot up.

“Would you classify apocalypse as primarily predictive or normative? I mean, does apocalypse literature attempt to predict outcomes or prescribe moral transformation through narrative?”