This is a collaborative piece written by kbc and MkkStacks (thanks for joining the experiment!). We wrote it as part of Adrienne's writing hackathon. It is fiction based on real fact. Moloch is an old god, in the Bible demanding child sacrifice in return for help. Following Moloch is getting what you want, but being stuck in a negative-sum-game. Of course this means you are not really getting what you want, because you didn't specify every little thing.

I suggested this theme as a creative exploration. Never written lore, and a hackathon provided the space and constrained to do it. Another reason, I'm only becoming conscious about it now, is that sometimes you need a distorted mirror to kick yourself into action 😉

If you add a chapter, tag me. I'll mint it.

Moloch rising 

"After FarCon the hype was too glorious. Those tiny little squeaking humans were over their head playing meaningless table top games. Forming friendships." She paused, twisted her face, eyes rolling wild and put her fingers deep into her mouth. Above, on and below earth everyone knows what this means: It's an imitation of having to vomit. It's a symbol. But between the spaces, Moloch spewed out her intestine. A combination of green glowing bytes, hard rock blacker than black shiny pebbles, swimming in a thick sweet smelling Molasse.

"Ah, got that out of my system. I don't like what they are doing. I don't want it to exist. I don't want this rainbow, lollipop, everything-is-great vibe in front of my eyes. " Moloch slumped in her seat. With her plump finger she squashed a tiny gold shimmering ladybird that slowly made its way up her arm rest and flicked it off her seat.

"Ugh, tiny creatures. Despise them." She looked at her minions waiting for one to step forward and create some gold old havoc among those happy humans.

"I'll go. I'll go as a lying spirit, stroking their egos. Nothing gets humans more up and into each other's arms, pulling at each other’s hair than their egos. It's a force once kindled in their hearts that nothing, not even love, can stop. It's all destroying and utterly blinding." a tiny voice peeped up.

Moloch nodded, a satisfying grin forming on her face. Mentis set off flying through the spaces and breaking herself up into thousands of little shards of ice cold glass. Each shard breaks between the space barrier and heading for a Farcaster. Nested on their mobile devices the shards waited patiently for users to slide the toggle when Sign in with Warpcast appeared. With the finger on the right spot, the shards entered the human bloodstream and zoomed towards their heart. There they started to weave black, gray, deep blue, bright green, and orange strings which formed a net around the heart. Once completed, the shards returned back to home, between the spaces. Moloch and her minions eagerly waited.

You are all fake!

When creating discord you don’t directly go into an ecosystem and explode a bomb. You work behind doors, planting rooting, vile seeds. It’s a slow process, but all those Mentis shards were not afraid of hard work. Their first strategy was to tap into the unhealthy combination of sausage-fest and female bodies. Sex sales. Has always and will always. Blood leaves the brain with tremendous force to bring the phallic up. Cognitive functions shut down, wallet is connected and it flows. Money to the scammer, and worthless white slimy sperm. Years of repeated patterns has created enough resentment. 

Onchain summer with hot girls enjoying themselves at pools pushed enough buttons. With a coconut cocktail in one hand, Mentis laid back in her pool chair. Sunglasses up to better see her screen, she scrolls through Supercast. None of that pesky channel moderation happening on here, Mentis can regale in the full galore crypto social media provided. 

“Real hot girls that understand crypto don’t exist. Doxx yourself!” read the cast that kicked off a storm. A glitch in the system cut off access to the writer for 6 minutes, enough for their words to take on a different meaning. An oversimplified reality expressed using only words is the perfect kindle for discord.

“Wtf? You think I’m not real. Why do I have to doxxx myself for your own pleasure? I’m as real as you.”

Others joined in the chorus: “This is sexist”, “Discrimination”. 

“Time for popcorn,” Mentis said to Moloch. One of the minions scurred off and came back with a huge portion of crispy white popcorn oozing in butter and cheese. Mentis and Moloch hearts stopped for a second, anxious about the state of their arteries. 

An army was forming on both sides. “Your content is AI generated Insta-stuff. If you’d post like a real person, we would take you seriously.“ was countered with “They own the channel, let them post what they want”.

Moloch smiled, “Listen to the silent part, Mentis! This is first class.” Mentis, drunk on pride and fingers slippery from popcorn, glanced questioning at Moloch. “This isn’t just sexist, but racist! It’s wonderful. We might finally get the Third World War to start. Who knew crypto with all its decentralized, regen utopist hippies would be the solution to our waiting.” Mentis kept staring at Moloch. 

“Ok, let me break it down for you,” Moloch added, realizing that Mentis didn’t follow, “Scammers make people feel stupid. Scammers are bad. AI scares people as it’s now even harder to know whose real and genuine and whose out to scam you. People are scared. Fear is written all over their messages. That’s what you see URL. Then, IRL you got Russia, the big bad guy. Anti-russian sentiment is at all high. Russians getting beaten up in Europe. People are again forced to take sides.” Mentis kept staring at Moloch with her mouth half open and a single popcorn fell out. “This one post is a compression of the hate and fear that exists in the world. Fear of getting scammed by a bot created by the bad Russian...” Moloch trailed off, suddenly distracted by what’s happening on Farcaster.

“Hmm,” she made a disgusted sound like pulling flem from the bottom of your lungs, “they stopped. Why did they disengage?” Moloch got angry and Mentis shuffled in her seat “On Twitter they’d kept going. They’d be on their throats in Spaces. What is this? Did they all grow up, listen to the wholesome stories shared in that parenting channel and decide to disengage?”

Purple Handcuffs

Moloch couldn't believe her luck reading nikolai's message. The 1000 degen allocation for power badge holders was expiring and already, the messages of discontent were running rampant on FC. 

Only days earlier, power badge holders had rejoiced at the bump from their miserable 10 degen allocations. And now, after tasting the higher allocations, it was being snatched away. Her crusted lips curled in delight.

Non power badge holders lamented at not having the power badge and feeling shunned like outsiders. They compared themselves to others and tagged other users' posts and profiles to show why their fellow Farcaster's didn't deserve their power badge. They accused power badge holders of circle jerks and using their allocations to pad their friends' pockets. So much discord, so much envy.

"It's unfair! It's rigged! Death to power badge holders!" read one post after another.

Moloch and Mentis growled happily, their snarls bearing jagged teeth. This was better than they could have hoped for. After the initial disappointment of the first fight, they were eager to see the mood on Farcaster turn dark.

"What does the power badge do, anyway," Mentis asked, her eyes darting from one angry message to the next.

"That's the beauty of it," Moloch streaked, "Farcasters have exaggerated its value and turned the power badge into purple handcuffs."

"Purple handcuffs," Mentis squealed.

"Yes. So many Farcasters getting burned out from being on the app. I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. So afraid of losing the power badge. So afraid of losing their allocation. So afraid of not getting tips. So much fear."

"So much fear." Mentis shuddered with excitement.

"They even have to remind themselves to go outside and breathe fresh air. Touch grass, they call it." Moloch lifted her head to the darkened sky and laughed from the pit of her stomach. Mentis joined. They laughed until it hurt so good.

"But what happens if you lose the power badge?" Mentis asked abruptly. Her brain catching up to the conversation.

"You are at risk of being confused for a bot."

"I like bots," Mentis slobbered.

"They do have a certain charm, don't they?" Moloch asked rubbing the spiked nubs on Mentis' head.

What will happen next? Anyone can imagine and write the next chapter. But it's up to all of us to not let Moloch win ❤️