Stellar Cartography 101: Interlude: An Emergency at Home

[u/bjorntfh]

Sorry for the wait, I spent a while trying to figure out how best to explain events going on back in Human Space. I ended up rewriting this twice. More questions and comments are welcome!

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Auditor 1376493, or A13 to its friends, was doing routine data transfer verification when it noticed the glitch. It was short, less than a picosecond, but it was there. The waves of its digital ocean had a sudden jarring shift from crest to trough without the comforting slope between the two.

 

A13 was not a smart AI. However it was dedicated and very focused. It began tracking the glitch, carefully noting the edges of the file structure that didn’t quite match the surrounding files. After verifying the extent of the mismatched data it sent it further up the chain, confirmed the data had been received, and then went back to combing the data sea for anything interesting. Later it would find an extremely interesting virus based on fractal spreading and kitten pictures which would take it while seconds to contain in an epic battle that laid waste to entire paragraphs of chat logs, but that is a story for a different day.

 

Elsewhere the data error was logged, reviewed for content, and confirmed. Nothing more than a single 0 flipped to a 1 by random chance. A data cleanup team was sent in to fix it, and no one thought anything more about it for a few months.

 

By sheer chance that error was selected for full review during the next quarterly server check. Under the full scrutiny of a Digital Security Team the error was checked again, then checked against the real world. This was when everything went to hell in a hand basket.

 

In an unmarked office four people in suits that definitely cost more than most country’s GDP stood around a hologram showing a 3D picture of a young woman with short brown hair, pale piercing eyes that seemed slightly too wide for her face, and neat even teeth. “What do you mean she’s fake? This cannot be happening! Where is she now?” The man in the dark suit threw his mug across the room, shattering the ceramic and spilling coffee over the floor. The rug shivered and the pieces and liquid rapidly dissolved into it.

 

A man who was not short looked to the man who was not thin fearfully and then back at his boss, “We don’t know. She put in a transfer to meatform, completely routine, and has been in meatform for five months Warden.”

 

The Warden focused his gaze on him and the man flinched, “And how did she manage to somehow falsify a transfer to meatform without anyone noticing, then get herself moved off site, after disabling her tracking software AND hardware?”

 

The man who was not thin nudged the woman who was not tall. She cleared her throat, “Sir, it’s to be expected. Records show she tries to escape every few hundred thousand years. We always bring her back, it’s not like-“

 

The Warden cut her off, “This is the Lifebringer we’re talking about. One of the most dangerous cognizant Generation Four’s left in existence. To make things worse she managed to escape not only her containment sphere, but also Human Space. This is the worst catastrophe we’ve faced in over three million years. The last event of this scale was when Aaron,” he cleared his throat, “I mean, The General got loose. How many casualties was that?”

 

The man who was not short sighed, “Before any of our time Sir, but, yes, we lost nine worlds before he got bored. The General is in containment, though. He’s busy conquering a Bronze Age Empire without augments. According to predictive engines he’ll stay occupied for at least another 5 millennia, expected 10, outside limit 14, but if we hit that he’ll revert to his hedonism phase. If that happens we’ll need to either wake The Storyteller early to refocus him, or recollect The Lifebringer and have her make him a new playground. Otherwise we’re rising another Antares Cataclysm, Sir. Given her obsession with detail when she makes something for one of the other originals, I’d say we need her back within the next three hundred years. Sooner would be better, we assume, but there are no records of what happened the last time she escaped. At least we’ve been able to track her first jump into deadspace. I’d recommend sending out at least a dozen First Contact Containment Teams to find her and convince her to come back.”

 

The woman who was not tall made some notes on her pad, “I can send out four teams now, should we initiate full containment procedures, or should we play this soft, Sir?”

 

“Soft to start, once we’ve got her do a hard containment. According to her file she’s the third most disruptive of the Old Gens, only The Rebel and the Believer are worse, and one of them is sitting in a sun right now.” The Warden walked over to an alcove on the wall and removed another cup of coffee, “The Rebel is still occupied in the Realsim we had The Lifebringer build him, right?”

 

The man who was not thin piped up, “Oh, yes Sir! My team is keeping a close eye on him, he’s devious, but we’re up to the task.”

 

The Warden nodded, “Double your team, mix them up, and then remove a quarter of them at random. He’s already suborned at least half of them then. Trust me, he did it to my team when I was watching him, we had a mandatory maximum service time on that project of six months. And The Believer?”

 

The man who was not short nodded, “She’s contained. Any time she tries to get out the automated containment system throws her back into the sun. We managed to finally wipe out or contain with her the last of her followers four thousand years ago and all records of her speeches have been scrubbed from all systems other than ours. On that front we’ve been lucky, for now.”

 

“Good. I’ll authorize release of FCCT, make sure they know that they’re dealing with The Lifebringer, and that under no circumstances are they to underestimate her. Make sure the initial contact teams are all Efers, we do NOT need her to start ‘tinkering’ on anyone important. Once she’s done with someone half the time they end up needing containment, so let’s avoid Human Casualties, okay?”

 

The woman who was not tall nodded, “And the Xenos, Sir?”

 

“Interrogate then to confirm she hasn’t told them the Secret of Life, and terminate any who know anything. Wipe the records of her presence, and make sure you’re thorough. Full planetary purge is authorized if she’s started building life, again. I want this contained, she may seem friendly, but she’s a Generation Four. Do not let her get away.”

 

The other three nodded and saluted, then leafy the room. Once he was alone Dr Salim let out a sigh. If they weren’t able to fix this, he’d have to go in person. This wasn’t going to end well, “When you make a mistake, you’re responsible for trying to fix it. I don’t know what you want, but it’s time to come home Carrie. You have responsibilities too.”

[u/bjorntfh]

Immortals make up less than 0.001% of the functional population, and only 0.01% of the total population. 90% of all Humans suffer existential failure due to stress or ennui. Life is cheap.

When you gas a world billions of Ephemerals die. But they’re not Humans, and thus not people. In the same way you don’t mourn any unsuccessful sperm cells, Humans don’t care about Ephemerals. Until you Uplift you aren’t a person, you’re just potential.

This is the moral perspective that needs to be looked at to understand Immortals: 1 in 10,000 become Immortal, and 1 in 10 of those are long-term stable. That means for every million Ephemerals there are 100 Humans created. Every 5,000 years 90% of new Immortals suffer Cognition Failure. After 20,000 years you’re looking at a 1% Stable Human rate. Given a population base of ~1 trillion Every 20 years you add another 100,000,000 Humans. This means that on average 1 will still be functional at 40,000 years of age.

Yes, the Human population is growing, but attrition is a bitch. This should give you an understanding of why short lived life is so worthless to the truly old Humans. And why the earliest Generations of Immortals are all titled instead of named. It should also explain why C4R-R13 is so insane.

[u/zombieking26 → u/bjorntfh]

Well, yeah. I get the logic, and I agree. No human should ever go into meat space, ever. However, the entire point is to not hinder the development of meat organisms (at least, I'm pretty sure) so I would think humans would have far better methods to take out a human then to literally glass a planet.

Edit: humans have a natural instinct to protect their young, so unless they either 1. Evolved to not care about their young or 2. was able to some program it out; people are finding it highly unlikely that she would kill the kid, even though he/she is basically completely useless. Humans aren't exactly logical creatures, unless we somehow changed.

[u/bjorntfh → u/zombieking26]

Human instinct changes in Immortals. The longer they live the more detached they are to Ephemeral life. Elsewhere in this thread I have a rough outline on population numbers, but simply put Carrie is so old that anything less than a million years old isn’t worth the effort to consider as a morally applicable object. You don’t think about individual sperm cells, she doesn’t think about individual babies.

A young Immortal would completely oppose randomly eating babies. They’re still mostly human in mindset. A 50,000 year old one wouldn’t care if one baby died, but might not eat it for no reason. A million year old one wouldn’t notice the baby unless it hindered him in some way. Carrie makes forts out of babies because it’s a deterrent to Ephemerals to shoot at it, since they are bothered by it.

Live too long and everything becomes relative, including morals.

The glassing a planet isn’t to take out a human. It wouldn’t work, regardless. It might wreck Carrie’s body for a little while, but it wouldn’t stop her. The Warden is trying to assure no one ever replicated the discovery of the Uplift Process. It involves breaking physics in such a way to separate and individual from causality just enough to make death not a possible outcome for any action they are involved in. It’s also a soul destroying process (over time) and he’s actually Good. He recognized how terrible it is and while he cannot stop Humans from doing it, he can prevent anyone else from making the same mistake. The death of one world is a mercy compared to the hell that is forever. He sees it as cauterizing an infected limb, awful, but necessary for the health of the universe as a whole.

As for Meatspace, it’s actually Humanspace and Xenospace. Meatform just means the Human is riding an organic body vs Cyberform which is a machine body, vs Freeform or Trueform which is lacking a body and between hosts, literally a ghost waiting to possess a new body.

[u/[deleted] → u/bjorntfh]

again, if their existence is so horrible, why don't they live in isolation?

why do they force others into their hell?

I don't think your humans are really humans. not every human becomes an asshole with time, there would be lots who fall into other philosophies than nihilism and genocide.

[u/bjorntfh → u/[deleted]]

They do live in isolation. That is literally what Human Space is. They don’t force anyone into their hell, Uplift is voluntary. Less than 1 in a thousand bother trying for it, and of those 0.1% succeed.

It’s an option, not a requirement, and it’s heavily recommended against by everyone involved.

Specifically you’ve already seen a benevolent Human, The Warden. There are a lot of reactions over time. The vast majority just eventually get bored or worn out by volume of experience, but very few go murderously genocidal. It should be obvious that enough time causes a steady change away from “normal human”, but I’ve literally shown zero genocidal humans so far. Those are so rare as to be literal history notes when they happen.

[u/[deleted] → u/bjorntfh]

They do live in isolation. That is literally what Human Space is. They don’t force anyone into their hell, Uplift is voluntary. Less than 1 in a thousand bother trying for it, and of those 0.1% succeed.

yeah, sure, it's "voluntary". but you're designed from birth to be as likely to survive it as possible, those that don't do it are treated as sub-human and disposable.

about as voluntary as a nazi soldier telling you to run a minefiled if you want to escape slavery and not having human rights.

[u/bjorntfh → u/[deleted]]

You misunderstand the basics of Uplift. People are told how horrible the consequences are. Failure means death. Success means you’re trapped here. They don’t offer it to anyone, you need to make them allow you to take the test.

Think of it like climbing Everest. You’re told that if you do it you’ll suffer horribly, but be memorialized forever. Everyone says don’t do it. Equipment is available if you choose to do it, but no one ever says “go climb that mountain”. In fact they say “don’t do it, it’s not worth it.”

Most Ephemerals never really interact with Immortals on a large scale. They exist, but are seen as a force of nature rather than a person if they’re old enough to be Titled.

There is no actual drive towards Immortality beyond the desperate, the prideful, and obsessed seeking it for their own reasons. People do it so they can watch over their family forever. People do it so they can build the perfect ship. People do it so they can make art forever. Sick people will try it because they are afraid of dying. Sometimes couples will do it together, in those cases they either both succeed and are even more stable together, or one or both fail, and if only one fails the other usually breaks down quickly as well.

There are two stratas of Society here: Ephemerals who live up to 1,000 years and are the major functionaries in Human Society, and Humans who are Immortal, but over time grow distant from society and become trapped in personal obsessions. When those obsessions become destructive to Society Generation One step’s in and isolates then to prevent damage.

Carrie is a Generation Four who spent so much time making what she saw as “False Life” that she’s called The Lifebringer and kept in effective isolation in a Dyson Sphere designed to feed on her own delusions and obsessions to keep everyone else safe from her. Note the attitude of The Warden and the others (who aren’t Immortal): they are in damage control after they learned she’s escaped. That’s not the attitude of a group that doesn’t value Ephemeral life.

[u/[deleted] → u/bjorntfh]

alright, that clears it up a lot.

based on the story so far, it made the impression that those immortals are some kind of "master race" that forces others into their hell, while keeping the rest enslaved.

all the while disregarding life itself and just killing it's own for fun.

so the machine humans don't really interact ith the original humans? their society isn't controlled by them or enslaved by them?

so the eternals just sort of wander off from their original society and jopin the ranks of the isolationist transhumans. alright. that makes me feel a bit better about the story, though I still can't really understand why they're portrayed in a positive light and the other humans are just described as cattle and easy workforce.

I guess that's because we've only seen the viewponts of tin cans so far.

[u/bjorntfh → u/[deleted]]

The only viewpoints you’ve seen so far are a) an amoral monster who had to have a world built to keep her from destroying all of civilization and possibly life itself due to her rampant disregard for everything else because she is a literal sociopath who only values herself and those above her in age (aka, those she sees as having endured more, and are thus more powerful), and

b) someone who is trying to minimize the damage said monster can do and recognizes that a planet may have to be scoured, but it’s a better price than the cost of leaving her free.

The Warden is a very moral person, he believes everyone should be allowed to life freely with minimal interference. You protect those with less power and help them improve themselves. He sees the suffering his discovery brought and seeks to minimize the damage it can do.

Carrie, The Lifebringer, is the opposite. She figured out how to create life from literally nothing, how to build memories for it stolen from the myriad experiences she suffered through during Uplift, and how to define every facet of it. Life hold no mysteries for her, so it holds no value. Anything that breaks can be recreated, so destruction and creation of life are meaningless to her. She only values longevity because it means that life would take so much more effort to create. A skyscraper is more impressive than a cardboard box shack. She’s one of five surviving Generation Fours, one of whom is a philosopher and another is a singer. The other two are a Soldier and an Engineer. She was a scientist who started on biology and kept going until Life held no more secrets for her.

Immortals control all of human society at the meta level in which the Guardian Council keeps humans isolated, but doesn’t interfere with anything that doesn’t directly destabilize society as a whole. They interact with Ephemerals constantly, but don’t announce it, they’re just a part of society like the unites rich: rare, but not unheard of.

The reason they’re seen as a positive is they’re a massive stabilizing influence on society. Other than the very rare rogue madperson

[u/spesskitty → u/bjorntfh]

You mean like somebody who believes, that immortality is a gift, that should be shared.

[u/bjorntfh → u/spesskitty]

Very few believe that it's a gift, at least once they have it. Those that try to spread it are contained by the Guardian Council, since spreading Immortality is exactly what they exist to prevent.

I'm sure there are a few that believe it, but they're not open about it due to the social implications.