
by Marcus Black
"I warned the Romans about their aqueducts. They called me a madman. They flooded. I warned the Mesopotamians about their grain. They called me a fool. They starved." John has been alive for five millennia. He isn't a hero, a villain, or a god. He’s just the only one in the room who knows how the math works. After five thousand years of being thrown out of the best rooms in history, John finally finds a generation that will listen: The 1940s. From fixing the Manhattan Project to building a sarcastic AI that runs the modern internet, John is the hidden hand behind the 20th century. He doesn't want your worship. He doesn't want your money (he already has most of it). He just wants a decent pastrami sandwich and for you to stop being so incredibly stupid. A story of high-competence, historical irony, and a very sarcastic digital babysitter.
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #12
2d
#8
7/3/2026
Peak #31
2d
#7
7/3/2026
Peak #9
38d
#6
6/21/2026
Peak #5
12d
#5
6/16/2026
Peak #22
17d
Rank updated 13 Aug 2026, 14:28 UTC
Entry forecast updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#4749 of 7,531 · 4699 below #50
By genre
beats 82% of similar stories
beats 39% of similar stories
beats 96% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
At this conversion, the Sci-fi Rising Stars bar (≈1 new followers/day) costs about 212 views/day — the story currently gets ~121.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 10–19 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.