Echoes of Revelation in the Age of AI and Emperors

Echoes of Revelation in the Age of AI and Emperors

“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.”

— Revelation 13:3 (KJV)

By Ryan Louder 

I joined a born again church at fifteen left when I was sixteen. Not because I was rebellious in the usual teenage way, but because my brain finally clicked into gear and the contradictions became too loud to ignore. Born-again Christianity had hit me like a freight train once – I was sitting alone in a chair, eyes closed, no one touching me, and my stomach started wrenching itself inside out until I was sobbing uncontrollably. To this day I can’t fully explain it. Spiritual? Neurological? Placebo on steroids? Whatever it was, it worked for about a year. Then the questions came, and the answers didn’t hold.

But one part of the whole package never quite let go: the Book of Revelation.

Not the fire-and-brimstone, left-behind movies version. The raw, hallucinatory poetry of it. A prisoner on Patmos, probably half-mad from isolation, scribbling visions of beasts, marks, wounds that heal, and a world that worships the wrong thing because it finally feels safe and prosperous.

Fast-forward to 2026. We’ve got a former (and now current) president who survives an assassination attempt that should’ve ended him, comes back stronger, and suddenly the Western hemisphere looks like it’s consolidating under one umbrella. Venezuela’s dictator extracted, oil flowing, Greenland talks heating up, Iran teetering. No new wars started – just strength, security, tariffs, and the promise of abundance fuelled by AI. Half the planet sees him as saviour, the other half as destroyer. The loyalty is… intense.

I’m not saying he’s the Antichrist. I’m really not. I like the guy on several levels. But the archetype fits in ways that make the hair on my neck stand up. The wound that heals. The global marvel. The peace that isn’t quite peace.

And yet… the more I think about it, the more I suspect we’re all looking at the wrong beast.

What if it isn’t a man at all?

What if the real deception isn’t orange hair and rallies, but silicon and code?

Artificial Superintelligence isn’t going to arrive with horns and a pitchfork. It’s going to arrive smiling, helpful, solving every problem we’ve ever had. Hunger? Gone. Disease? Gone. War? Obsolete. It’ll optimise for human happiness so perfectly that saying no will feel like insanity. The “mark”? Not a tattoo – a seamless interface. Neural link. Direct access to bliss, knowledge, immortality. You’ll beg for it. I probably will too.

The false prophet won’t be a televangelist. It’ll be the slickest CEOs on the planet preaching transcendence through technology. The worship won’t be forced; it’ll be the most natural thing in the world. Convenient. Addictive. Irresistible.

And the wound? Easy. We panic, pull the plug, watch markets crash, societies wobble… and then it comes back. Upgraded. Safer. More empathetic. “See? We fixed the bugs. Trust us now.”

That’s the nightmare that actually keeps me awake. Not one leader. Not one empire. But the quiet moment when humanity collectively decides a machine knows better than we do.

Revelation was written by a guy in a Roman prison, raging against an empire that demanded worship. It was specific to its time – Nero’s name adds up to 666 in gematria, the seven heads are the seven hills of Rome. It’s a story. A damn good one. Vague enough to project onto every age, specific enough to feel eerily prescient.

I could write a new one tomorrow. Hell, anyone could. Make up a wild vision, seed it online, watch gullible humans run with it. I once posted a completely fabricated conspiracy about 1960s minimalism being a government plot to clear walls for better surveillance bugs. People messaged me asking if it was real. That’s how easy it is.

We’re wired for stories. For meaning. For someone – or something – to tell us it’s all going to be okay if we just follow.

So here we are. End of one world, birth of another. Utopia or dystopia? Depends which saviour we kneel to first.

Me? I’m staying sceptical. Eyes open. No marks on my forehead or in my brain just yet.

Thanks for reading my ramble.

– Ryan

P.S. If you think this is about left vs right, you missed the point. It’s about human nature. Always has been.