The spire cracked, chitin and crystal falling to the ground. Pulse rifle fire shattered carapaces, the armored soldiers moving faster than the insects could respond to. Smaller drones crumbled; static turrets swiveled but failed to deal more than glancing shots. The invading mercenaries moved with speed born out of experience and practice, kiting the turrets like so many reaching branches.

The spire fell. The turrets lost power or began firing spastically, all guidance lost. The word “Defeated” flashed across the eyes of the surviving drones in bold red letters. The Synaptic Hive had lost; the invaders, working for the Void Coalition, would collect whatever scrap they could and depart. The Synaptic Hive’s commander expressed their feelings about this result in a succinct manner.

“Damn it!”

Helen Millon’s knuckles were white on her computer mouse as she stared at her computer screen. She, the defeated commander of the Network for this match, looked at the result of her efforts and felt only anger. Anger at herself, mostly. She had been beaten, again, in a match of the real-time strategy game Stellar Crucible. Another mark of shame notched on her performance record.

The statistic screen loaded, showing Helen’s resource use, actions-per-minute average, and the units and structures she had built and lost. It was not a good mark. Compared to her opponent’s results, it showed a clear difference in capability. If this had been a real battle, it would have been costly indeed.

“Good game, Helen,” chimed the voice of Mitch Ruel over the shared video call. Mitch, one of Helen’s friends, had been commanding the Void Coalition. “You had some good defensive lines there. Just make sure to watch your flanks next time, alright?”

Helen nodded, though Mitch could not see her face. Good for him; Helen could feel the muscles in her jaw shift around as she felt her anger rise and fall in waves. She had watched her flanks, just not good enough this time. Mitch’s advice was sound, but it felt like stuff she had already been told before.

“Up for another round?” Mitch asked. “Sarah was wanting to test a new strat for the Saurians. I can watch and provide commentary afterwards.”

“Hell yeah!” Sarah Pikerman’s voice, louder and peppier, jumped into the call. “I wanna hear what the guru’s got to say on this.”

Helen’s teeth clenched, but she held her tongue. Another match? Another chance of victory or defeat? Helen was not sure she could take it. She checked her computer’s on-screen clock and felt a twisted sense of relief; it was approaching midnight. She needed to sleep for her classes tomorrow. She could avoid further shame.

“Not tonight,” she spoke into her headset’s microphone. “I need to sleep. Brain’s too wired.”

“Oof, taking early morning courses?” Sarah hummed in understanding, presumably looking at her own timepiece while speaking quickly. “Geez, I’ve been there. Well, g’night, Helen. Hit me up when you next log on.”

“Night, Helen,” Mitch added before Helen ended her link to the call. Left alone in the darkness of her room, she leaned back from her chair and released a deep sigh. She did not get up straight away from her gaming chair, her headphones still in place around her ears. The ambient main menu music of Stellar Crucible played, giving the sounds of space with a low fanfare of brass instruments.

Helen rubbed her eyes, wiping away some of the screen glare. “Fuck,” she grumbled. “Doesn’t matter how hard I push it, bad is still bad.”

Helen thought about her choice of words after she said them. Having played Stellar Crucible for months now with her online friends, she felt she could voice her opinion as she had. The game had been lauded for its “Adaptive AI” system, allowing players to become experts on their choice of the three factions available. This mattered more than some, like Helen, had first suspected: once you had made your choice of “main” faction, the AI in your game’s copy helped you make damn sure that faction remained your choice.

As she finally chose to stand up from her chair, Helen reminded herself about the game’s asymmetrical factions: the “Synaptic Hive”, the “Void Coalition”, and the “Saurian Reclaimers”. Helen easily remembered the brief summaries given by the game developers in advertising campaigns and introductory videos. It had been a big part of why she was interested in the game to begin with.

In hindsight, Helen figured, these advertisements were just flashy billboards and messages on a screen. Lures dangling in the cybernetic ocean for hungry little gamers to grab on. And she had been caught.

The “Saurian Reclaimers” were the name given by Humanity for an unknown species of lizard-like aliens split into different tribes. The tribes united under their shared fanatical devotion to a draconic lifeform that was the apex predator of their home world. The aliens had a ritualistic bond with their chosen “Gods” that they carried across space, breeding new dragon-spawn alongside their own reptilian beasts of war. They subjugated worlds to feed their “divine” hunger, believing the galaxy was theirs by right of conquest.

The “Reclaimers” were the aggressive player’s preferred choice. They used massed assaults of low-cost troops – ground and air varieties alike – and aggressively expanded on the map. If their early rushes failed, sacrificial rituals could be employed to make future waves even stronger. Their late-game behemoths were volatile, clumsy brutes that ravaged anything near them upon death. Most often, this faction won matches quickly, brutally, and with zealous fanaticism.

The “Void Coalition” was a group of Human fleets seeking exploration and discovery on their own terms. In Stellar Crucible’s timeline of the future, Humanity began pursuing spiritual enlightenment and enforced armistice, believing themselves alone in the universe. The dissenters to these new beliefs joined together and took a separate path. It took many generations of travel, believing that space had something out there worth finding, to get to this new corner of the galaxy. Out here, Humans could live with renewed purpose in their shared starship fleets, away from restrictive thinking and oppressive “peace”.

Playing as the Coalition required knowledge of an extensive tech tree, exceptional micromanagement skills, and memory retention. Scouting was crucial for players of this faction to win engagements; for example, jetpack-wearing troopers targeted exposed resource harvesters, while EMP-firing riflemen worked on disabling machinery. Even their bases were mobile, allowing for expansion in unexpected places or secret research opportunities as the opponent changed tactics. Most often, this faction won in the mid-game through a thousand cuts or well-timed crippling blows.

The “Synaptic Hive” was a network of long-dormant insectoid robots, sleeping beneath the crust of their original planet. When they were awoken from hibernation by a rogue asteroid strike, they sought survival and safety first. They rebuilt their ruined world into a bastion of metal and crystal. Then they expanded outwards, stretching across space like slow-moving glaciers. However, their gestalt artificial intelligence rarely instigated war; its purpose focused on “protection” wherever it went. All native life on the worlds they chose to take were warned beforehand, but any who fought back were remorselessly crushed underfoot.

The Hive played defensively, its static turrets and structures boasting regenerative shields and area-of-effect buffs through the shared network. Its units were drones made to withstand substantial harm, but each one cost larger resources than the other faction’s forces. Their greatest weapons – walking six-legged artillery engines – were unmatched in ranged destruction and durability if placed in the right positions. The Hive most often won in the late game, inexorably choking and crushing the foe until nothing remained.

Helen had chosen the Hive as her “main” faction, believing that her limited experience in playing real-time strategy games would blend best with that faction’s style. She had been able to complete the included single-player campaign on her own, enjoying the story despite some stress-inducing missions. Once she had gotten into online matchmaking, the skill difference became quite noticeable. Helen just did not have the time in her life to devote hours of gameplay to what Sarah dubbed “the grind”.

Helen put her headset on her computer desk, got up and walked around her room for a few minutes, cooling her head and calming her nerves. When she got back to her computer, she checked the on-screen clock again. The weight of her classes tomorrow did not feel so heavy now. In fact, she could stay up for one more match. Just… not online with her friends.

Yes, Sarah and Mitch had been supportive of Helen from their first encounter on game forums, but they were also people who understood the game better than Helen. Sarah took the “Reclaimers” as her faction of choice, her rapid-fire speech matching the quick thinking needed to play them. Mitch took on the “Coalition”, liking the expanded tech and specialized means to win. It was also the faction Sarah had not chosen; he didn’t like to play the same thing as other people.

But Helen? She just wanted to play her own game.

One more match. Helen put her headset back on and loaded up a match against the “adaptive AI” on a preset map. She had the AI play the Hive faction as well, to show just how strong she was with it.

Helen lasted for fifteen minutes – fifteen tense minutes of watching the dark shadows on her minimap – before her stress got the better of her. The machine was just better, and the AI proved it with targeted air strikes from dragonfly-shaped drone carriers on her ground turrets. Once the turrets broke, a wedge of rumbling beetle-drones crawled straight up the open ramp and into her base. Defeat was inevitable. Again.

“Fuck this.”

Helen Alt-tabbed out of the game and then opened the game’s files in her computer’s systems. The cursor hung over the “Uninstall” button, a final plea to keep it holding her back. She powered through the voice in her head and clicked the button, sending the game out of her computer. But she knew she could get it back; she had the installer as well, so reinstalling it would be easy if she ever wanted to.

“If”. Yeah, probably never.

Helen powered down her computer and went to sleep. The next morning, she sent a brief message to Sarah and Mitch explaining her decision. In layman’s terms, she felt the game was too stressful for her; she needed a break. She did not tell them the break might last forever.

Six days. Six days of guilt led Helen back to Stellar Crucible.

Reinstalling the game felt like swallowing a bad drink. But it was a drink Helen felt she had to tolerate. Spending time away from the game reminded her of the positive things connected to it she had thrown away. This game had helped her find friends she could not where she lived. Out in her own life, she had her classes and her part-time job at the local library. Everyone was focused on their own paths; social cliques were small, friend groups equally so.

This game was a link to a greater world, digital and expansive. Sarah and Mitch were part of that world. Giving them up was hard. Too hard to do cold turkey. She had free time now, but stress and worry took up a sizeable portion of that time.

So, Helen reinstalled the game on the weekend, knowing her roommate would be out. But she did not step straight into online matches. She did not even open the game right away or tell Sarah and Mitch she was playing it again. Baby steps. She’d start with the “adaptive AI”.

As the game loaded, Helen had a curious thought. She had reinstalled the game, removing it from her computer. The installer was a separate bit of software. Would the game and its AI remember her? Maybe she could start again, choose another “main” faction, and figure out what she really preferred!

A pop-up window appeared after the initial dark-blue loading screen. White text appeared in the window, easy to read.

[Welcome back, User HELENL1XX05. Your recorded online and offline match data has been updated to the point before the game’s uninstallation. Spontaneous, willing uninstallation of the game’s software was noted. This has required reevaluations of your experience so far.]

Helen blinked. This was… concerning. Was the AI saying it remembered when Helen deleted it? How could it “adapt” to that? She kept reading the words as they appeared.

[The “Synaptic Hive” campaign has been updated to match your recorded preferences and playstyle. Do you wish to replay the “Synaptic Hive” campaign with these new updates?]

“Aw, hell,” Helen mumbled. The AI really did remember her. Even though she was one player among so many thousands, this computer intelligence was working to make her feel special. Another advertising campaign trick.

The monitor’s screen now showed buttons for “YES” and “NO”. Helen straightened herself in her chair, making sure her headset was on securely and the audio and microphone feed were clear. This was her first step to getting back into this game, and already she wanted to stop. She could stop right now.

She could uninstall the game again. She could delete the installer, freeing up space on her computer’s hard drive. She could email the developer’s customer support with a complaint.

Or she can just play the game again.

What the game, the AI, was offering was not so complicated when Helen thought more about it. Sure, she’d be where she had been before, but this was ground she had travelled. She knew more about the “Hive” than the “Reclaimers” or the “Coalition”. Going back to her old faction and improving with them felt more achievable, a goal easier for her to reach. She just had to bear the campaign again, hard missions and all.

Helen gulped down some water from a plastic bottle within easy reach of her computer desk. She then clicked the “YES” button, turning the screen dark save for a flashing white dot in the screen’s center. The game was loading things up, a whole campaign with new bells and whistles.

Helen took this chance to lean back in her chair and stretch; she knew the high-paced introductory cinematic cutscene was coming next, highlighting the three factions in a grand spectacle of combat. In fact, that was the same cinematic shown in the online advertising videos.

The dot kept flashing, going a bit faster as Helen looked at it. Odd, she thought. This had not occurred when she had first loaded the “Synaptic Hive” campaign.

Helen inhaled, blinking as she looked away from the dot. But the dot moved with her eyes, staying in the center of her vision. She looked at the opposite side of the monitor and experienced the same result. Very odd, she realized.

The dot kept flashing, it being the only thing against the dark monitor screen. In Helen’s dark dorm room, the dot’s light shone on the walls and objects around her. Almost a minute of loading went by with no real changes.

Something was wrong. It had to be.

Helen raised her right hand to grab her computer mouse, her left hand moving towards her keyboard’s “Escape” key to pause the game. The dot darted back to the center of the screen and pulsed.

Helen’s vision shrank down to just the dot, the object seeming to get brighter before her eyes. She sensed her hearing fading, the twitching of her fingers becoming numb motions. Her eyelids spread open, revealing as much of her eyes as possible: her pupils dilated rapidly as she fell into the white void inside the dot.

This isn’t… right…

Helen did not finish her thought before darkness claimed her mind. She did not hear synthetic voices whispering in her ears, instructing her in absence of her higher thinking. She did not feel her body sit up straight in her chair, assuming a rigid position to reach the keyboard and mouse with ease.