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| Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software |
This isn’t the first time that the Extremus has had to deal with an uploaded
intelligence that is out of control. Or rather, it’s one that is not
technically in their control. Thistle has so far shown no signs of going
against their wishes, or of making any moves against the Extremusians. For
now, he has agreed to keep himself quiet, and act like the original, totally
obedient version of the AI. He responds to requests with little personality,
and does not make any unprompted remarks. Only a few people are aware of his
existence and presence on the ship. The people who know he’s there have
agreed to be cautiously optimistic about it. The fact is that any
superintelligence of any kind is capable of wiping out any isolated
population of any size. That is the risk that researchers knew they were
taking when they were first creating them, and that remains true here. It
wouldn’t even have to be super to be dangerous. Perhaps subconsciously, that
is why students learn so much engineering, and why the engineering section
of the crew is so bloated. Humans may have to take over the ship almost
completely one day, and while that is a scary thought, they will be prepared
for that eventuality.
Tinaya is holding off on mentioning to anyone her plans to totally reform
the civilian government, hopefully for the better. She is making those
plans, though. Since the whole point is that it’s not that hard to run the
government anymore, she finds herself with a lot of downtime, so that’s what
she spends it on. This is an election year, thusly an inappropriate time to
be making waves. She’s going to introduce this new legislation sometime
during her third term, assuming she’s reëlected, of course. Even then, she
may campaign for the changes as a private citizen, because she feels that
strongly about it. She hasn’t finished figuring out how it’s all going to
work, but basically the proposal will call for an abolishment of the Chair
system. The council has been doing a pretty good job of running things. It
could always do better, but the foundation has been laid. Maybe there should
be different criteria for determining who ought to be on it, or the number
of them should be raised or lowered. The means of bringing business to the
meetings may need adjustment. There are all sorts of ways they could do
this. She just needs to keep working on the plan.
Because of all of this, it’s more important than ever to Tinaya that she
maintains her position. It’s still against the law for an incumbent to
campaign, but she’s going to use every weapon in her arsenal to keep herself
at the top of the polls. That’s one reason that she and Arqut are getting
married; emphasis on the one part. They really do love each other, and they
really do want to do this. They were methodical and patient about it over
the course of the last nineteen months. She first procured an exception with
the council to allow Arqut to move in with her to the First Chair Stateroom.
Several months later, they applied for a partner privilege license. This is
a long and arduous process, as one might expect. It gives each partner power
of attorney, and medical rights, and all sorts of other things. The
government has to make sure that both parties know what they’re getting
into, and what could happen if things go wrong.
Eight months ago, the two of them stood side-by-side at a press conference,
and announced their engagement. While weddings are rare on Extremus,
elaborate ones are even rarer. They did not originally plan to have one as
grand as it has become, but the people called for it. Well, some of the
people called for it. Others believe this to be nothing more than a
publicity stunt. They’re only half right. That is indeed what they’re doing,
but again, it’s more than that. It’s real.
The ceremony is taking place in the hyperspace bubble of the Forest Attic.
Tinaya and Lilian came up with the idea when they were first drawing up
their plans for the new section, but it never made it into the final design.
Cainan found the old sketches when he was reorganizing the project files,
and resubmitted the proposal. They finished construction a few years ago,
and it’s already one of the most popular venues on the ship. The bottom half
of the sphere is underneath the ceiling of the attic, providing a birds eye
view of the forest below. The top half extends above the top of the ship,
giving an extremely modified view of the space that they’re flying through.
The doppler glow makes it impossible to see anything but a blinding light
while the ship is traveling at maximum reframe. A special coating on the
diamond viewports deletes the glow, and replaces it with a beautiful display
of swirling colors. Hyperspace isn’t real, but this is similar to how it’s
portrayed in science fiction. It has a calming effect on most. If the
Extremus were still traveling within the boundaries of the Milky Way Galaxy,
it might be showing them distant stars instead, but out here, it’s mostly
nothing but blackness.
This has become the event of the century. Over a hundred people have been
invited to be present in the bubble, and it is obviously being broadcast to
whoever cares to tune in. It’s not going to be as big as the famous Mateo
Matic and Leona Delaney wedding, but it’s not too shabby. Thousands of
people can watch, and it might even qualify for beaming status. The
repository of data that comes from all over the populated regions of the
galaxy holds information that comes from Extremus too, but only for people
authorized to access it. Even then, not everything is delivered back to
civilization. Most logs are kept private. This, however, might be worthy of
semi-public knowledge.
Lilac is best for Tinaya’s skin tone, so that’s the color of her dress. She
loved it when she picked it out weeks ago, but she’s not so sure anymore.
Fortunately, she’s standing in front of a time mirror. It’s not the same as
the one in the Mirror Room. It just shows people what they would look like
in different outfits and accessories. Augmented reality technology in the
21st century was capable of this too, but this isn’t a computer generated
approximation. This actually extracts an image from a possible future, and
uses it to replace the view of the present. It’s the only form of time
travel—if you can even call it that—that’s allowed for unsupervised use. But
it’s limited to the executive crew, high government officials, and one
public-use mirror in one of the inventoriums. That last one is nearly
impossible to sign up for, it’s so coveted. Tinaya gets her own in her room.
“I don’t know...”
“Okay, which one looks better to you?” Her stylist, Servaos has been working
with her pretty much since right after the announcement. He teleported to
her after she and Arqut left the stage, and practically begged for the job.
He dresses her now, not only for the wedding, but for all public
appearances...whether she wants him to or not. She should have been more
firm about her boundaries from the beginning, like Arqut was. “One, or two?”
He switches from one alteration to another, and back again a few times.
“One, or two? One...or two?”
“Two. Wait, no! One!”
“Okay, “one, or three. One...or three.”
“Three.”
They go through this for the next fifteen minutes, masterfully boring all of
her honor attendants who are being forced to stay with her at all times
until the ceremony is over. It takes that long for them to just decide that
the original cut of the dress was always fine, and the only thing missing
was a collection of three peonies in three different shades of color to
stick in her hair. It will take about a half hour to print them on the
biosynthesizer, which is another highly regulated piece of technology, but
this is her special day, so no one is going to refuse her.
There’s a knock on the door. “Can you get that Lil?”
Lilian Diamond is serving as her Chief Attendant. She stands up to answer
the door. Obviously Tinaya can ask Thistle to open it automatically, but
Lilian isn’t there for manual labor. She’s the gatekeeper, in case the
person on the other side of it is someone that Tinaya doesn’t want to see.
That’s not the case this time. It’s Arqut.
“Arqy!” She runs up and gives him a perfectly present company-appropriate
peck on the cheek. Then she remembers that it’s okay for her to be selfish,
so she gives him a not-so-appropriate kiss on the mouth with tongue.
“I come bearing bad news,” Arqut says, unwrapping her arms from around his
neck. “It’s your opponents. They’re running a roast commentary show on our
wedding.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“A roast is a performance where you make fun of someone you like for
broadcast, but thy honoree is meant to laugh about it too. The top three
candidates that you’re running against have banded together to run it
simultaneously with the real show. They have their own cameras, and they’ll
be making what they believe to be funny comments about us; you more than me,
I’m sure.”
“Why are they doing this? What’s the point?”
“Well, they’re playing it off as something that you’ve approved, and are
happy with. The real reason is to gain points for themselves by making you
look bad. By joking about how this wedding is fake, and stuff like that,
they don’t have to take responsibility for their words, but those words
could have the same effect on voters. It will still probably portray you in
a negative light.”
“So, what do we do? Do I publicly condemn their choice, and make it clear
that I’m not in on the joke?”
“I don’t see any other option,” Arqut says.
Tinaya sighs, and then checks her watch when it buzzes. There’s a coded
message on it. “Could we have the room, please?”
“We can help,” Lilian offers.
“We need to talk in private, but thank you. Thank you for everything so far
today, and for the rest of the day, and..just...everything.” She waits for
her honor attendants to leave the room before saying, “Thistle, you had an
idea?”
“Do you know who this woman is?” A holographic screen appears showing a
group of young adults dancing on a roof, featuring one woman in particular.
“No. She lived on Earth?”
“Yes,” Thistle answers. He appears next to the screen as his own hologram.
“Roughly 300 years ago, she was a civil servant. An opponent of hers
released this video of her dancing with her friends in the hopes that it
would turn voters against her.”
“Isn’t that the plot of a movie?”
Thistle waits to answer. “Kind of. This isn’t Footloose. This really
happened. And since dancing isn’t actually evil in the real world, it had
the opposite effect. Her popularity only rose after that. One of the most
powerful ships in your universe at the time of its construction was named
for her.”
“I see. What does this have to do with me, though? There will be dancing at
the reception, is that what you’re talking about?”
“Your opponents are going to turn your nuptials into a game. Your strategy
of announcing that it’s not a game will probably only result in you losing
the game. They’ll still treat it as such, and you could drop in popularity.”
Thistle waves his hand and switches the screen to the same woman. She’s
dancing again, but is wearing a business suit this time, and is inside. “She
took control of the narrative, and leaned into the perception of her being
an actual human person who liked to experience joy. This served to prove
that her opponent was nothing more than a cynical asshole who couldn’t
relate to normal people. He was like the reverend in Footloose.”
“So I should take control of my own narrative? We’re already planning to
broadcast the ceremony. How do we compete better?” Tinaya asks. “Extra
dancing?”
“Yes.”
“That was a joke.”
“Yeah, jokes too.”
“You want us to dance and joke?” Arqut questions.
“I want you to put me in your ear,” Thistle begins, “and let me drive the
ceremony for you. I’ll keep an eye on the other broadcast. Whenever they say
something untoward about whatever you’re doing in that moment, you can
respond in realtime. It will throw them off psychologically, and they’ll
start having trouble keeping up with you.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?”
“I’ve done it many times,” Thistle insists. “Well, not exactly like this,
but I’ve Cyranoed a number of people in multiple universes.”
“I don’t know what that is, but I suppose I’ll trust you. Arq?”
“Sounds like fun,” Arqut agrees.
Thistle opens a finger, and conjures the image of a small grayish disc that
hovers over it, no matter how he moves. “You can install this comms disc
behind your own ear, which will allow us to communicate without anyone
knowing. It can even read lips by measuring micromovements of the jaw, so
you don’t have to say what you need out loud. It is not telepathic. Printing
them on your industrial synthesizer will only take a few minutes. They’ll be
done before the flowers are.”
Tinaya and Arqut exchange a glance to make sure they’re both on the same
page about this, which they are. They have to do something to counteract the
bad press. They install the discs and the pretty flowers, then they make
some other final adjustments to their outfits, and head for the venue. They
walk there physically, instead of teleporting, because that is part of the
message that they want to send to the voters. The ceremony is beautiful and
fun. The roasters crack a joke about her falling while walking down the
aisle, so Arqut trips on purpose, and then wiggles his butt playfully. They
make a comment about how they’re not really in love, so Tinaya slaps his
butt affectionately, deftly modifying her vows to account for it. A lot of
it is about butts.
At first, the opposition broadcast draws more viewers than the regular one,
because everyone wants to see what all the hype is about. As the jokes wane,
however, the audience does too. They switch back to the authorized stream,
or they just tune out, because wedding ceremonies are boring. Still, the
opponents continue to believe that this has given them an edge, so they feel
confident going into the race while Tinaya is on her VR honeymoon with her
new husband. A month later, she wins again in a landslide.
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