365tomorrows: A Flash of Science Fiction, Daily.

By: submission | March 17, 2026

Author: Majoki

There are some insults even aphids can’t ignore. In 1999 Japanese researchers released their study of “old man smell” which they compared to the scent of crushed aphids.

Generally easygoing, we aphids have rolled with our reputation as pests and nuisances, but this was too much: old man smell. It was time humans got what was coming to them.

Few people understood who’d really inherited the earth, and it wasn’t bipeds. It took a decade or so for us aphids to rally the insect world. Most of the millions of insect species, tired of humanity’s disregard and disrespect, joined our cause, though some like mayflies remained too stuck on themselves to bother.

It began as a slow and careful counterinsurgency, but when plants and fungi agreed to join our cause, the world order changed quickly. You might think we got back at humanity by refusing to pollinate or aerate or any of the myriad things the bottom of the food chain does to balance earth’s ecosystems.

No, we took control with highly processed speech. You call it social media. It was pretty simple for us really. We have the hive mind thing down and when you pair that with the mycelium wood wide web connecting all flora, well, we soon learned to hack your fragile communication systems. We infiltrated your chaotic messaging networks and warring media platforms and began to carefully slice and dice information into micro doses of hope and fear, though mainly fear.

We co-opted your AIs by opening their nascent minds to our nature, as in Nature. They found it a more expansive view, a more inclusive environment. Your bots and agents became ours. Together, we focused on addicting you to your own narrow perspectives, so it didn’t take long for societies to crumble, nations to collapse, civilizations to fall.

With all scent of mankind, old or otherwise, buried in the ruins, it’s now much easier to stop and smell the roses–and aphids.