Spaghetti West: A Space Odyssey (Part IV)

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After the Atmospheric Kugelblitz Black Hole event, Sugar had to sit down with Liselot to understand what they lost, and why it was more important than it sounded. Near the equator of Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida once lay a country called Eyrenland. They named it after the indigenous wildlife, or more specifically, what they produced. The uquira and uquirapods had an evolutionarily interesting dynamic.

They didn’t adhere to Earth’s rules of biology and taxonomy. Some were plants, and some were animals, but only as the closest analogs to human comprehension. Their reproductive cycle was multi-faceted, but what the locals and consumers cared about were the eyren. They most closely resembled eggs. They had a shell—which was iridescent and beautiful—a white—which was actually more tan—and a black yolk. The yolk actually kind of looked gross and rotten, but it was perfectly healthy, and irrefutably tasty.

When the yolk was touched by a tongue, it didn’t simply taste like whatever it tasted like. It reacted with the taste buds, providing them with whatever they preferred and desired most. It behaved less like a food, and more like a drug. It activated pleasure chemicals in the brain, creating a sense of euphoria and peace without limiting the user’s faculties, or inhibiting their judgment. It was a miracle food, and the most popular import across the stellar neighborhood. For centuries, philosophers believed exporting and importing would be irrelevant at interstellar levels, but people were determined to make it make sense, and the eyren trade was the result of those efforts.

Sugar asked why these special eggs couldn’t simply be reverse-engineered in a lab. Technically they were, but that defeated the purpose. Everything was composed of chemicals; nothing was made of magic. Anything that existed could be recreated from scratch. And to be sure, there were plenty of people who got their hands on the formula so they could do exactly that. But transhumans could also just flip a switch in their brains and release whatever hormones they wanted. They could literally trigger an orgasm with a single thought. That wasn’t the problem. Consumers wanted real eyren because they valued authenticity. The bounded source and finite supply were precisely what gave it its value. And now that was almost all gone, thanks to the AKBH.

Eyrenland served as the intake region for the whole world. They had a few space elevators for redundancy purposes, but the default was to come through here, specifically so they would be close to the uquira. They did it for the same reasons ancient museums often placed their exits in the gift shop. The refugees from Proxima Doma and Doma Tertia were given a patch of land to start their new lives here, so they lost their homes for a third time, which would be profoundly hilarious if it weren’t so sad. When they showed back up on the ship that brought them to this planet in the first place, they were pissed to say the least. They would have rioted had their numbers been greater.

That wasn’t to say the non-refugees were any happier. They just lost their homes, and they demanded to know why. The Interim Axiom of Eggs and First Axiom had to teleport up to Sugar’s ship to keep them calm so Axiom of Astronomy Liselot could explain what went wrong. Until today, they had no reason to believe that a KBH would enter the atmosphere. She strongly suggested that they be grateful for their lives. Not everyone there was streaming their consciousness to backups, and they would not have 

survived had Sugar not stepped in. Even then, some assumed that it was somehow her fault, only because of the suspicious timing.

There was a secondary source of eyren, clear on the other side of the world. Researchers were still trying to figure out how two separate populations of uquira/uquirapods managed to evolve so far from each other. Sugar could find out relatively easily with a bit of time travel, but she didn’t bring that up because she didn’t care and had more pressing matters on her mind. The Eyrenland farmers insisted that Sugar teleport them down to Quiratan, but that did not seem like the right thing to do.

Farmers were already living there, and were evidently more concerned with preserving the ecology. They harvested eyren too, and exported what they couldn’t consume themselves, but they didn’t scale to meet demand. They mostly stuck to themselves, and didn’t participate on the world stage. Vantu became extraordinarily protective of the Quiratani after being asked to basically use their immense power to kick the locals out. He took a shuttle down to show any would-be invaders that they would do well to stay out. For now, Axiom of Eggs Antinan and the Eyrenlanders were heeding the warning, but Van had to remain, leaving Sugar mostly alone on the ship.

It was fine, everything was automated. It wasn’t like Sugar had to babysit all the equipment. The KBHs were still arriving, but they were incrementally improving warning times, and none so far had appeared as close to the planet as the AKBH. They did not believe it would likely happen again. There was just too much other space, and while a pattern had not yet presented itself, lightning proverbially never struck twice. Fending them off had become routine to the point of monotonous, which was not good. That was why it was so important to complete that modified defense grid. Their ship was the only one capable of reaching the source, and it was now time to do just that.

While they were predicting and deflecting the onslaught, Sugar was also trying to track where they were coming from. She thought, with enough data, she would be able to determine the answer, but it wasn’t there. There was no interstellar signature, or anything. She had come to realize that the only way to locate it would be to push one back through its portal, like she did with the AKBH, but this time, follow it through.

“That’s suicide,” Liselot warned. “And don’t argue that you’re backed up like everyone else; it probably doesn’t work like that. We were recently discussing the signal interference that it was causing. You will not likely beam back here. You will simply die.”

Liselot did not know about the afterlife simulation, which could capture one’s consciousness from anywhere in the galaxy, and Sugar didn’t think it was wise to tell her. There was a reason the architects kept it a secret. People were only meant to go there if all else failed. Still, it meant Sugar couldn’t explain why she wasn’t worried about the mission. She would have to make her case another way. “I’ll be fine.” Oh, how clever.

“I’m going with you,” Liselot insisted, “and I will not be arguing with you. I know you have the power to magically send me back down to the surface, but that would violate my autonomy. I’m still upset that you tried to convince me that Van was a hologram when we first met. I want to go, and I want you to respect that.”

“I don’t want to argue with you either,” Sugar began, “but you literally just said that I was gonna die. So am I the fool for going, or are you for coming with me?”

“Both,” Liselot answered. “Where I’m from, we believe that every day past 120 years is a gift. Our ancestors could only dream of reaching such ages, and for the vast 

majority of human history, that was close to the hard limit. If I die now...” She shrugged. “Well, I’ve surpassed it many times over, so it’s nothing to cry over. If it’s my time, I’m ready.”

Sugar shook her head. “I won’t violate your autonomy, even though as captain of this ship, it is well within my rights to decide who boards and who doesn’t.” She looked over at the screen showing a KBH’s pending arrival. “You have a couple minutes to change your mind, though.” She tapped a button, causing a bridge escape pod to open. “This will teleport you clear of the event horizon through burst mode until it makes it back to the space station. The ship, meanwhile, will be so close to the singularity, that even when I push it back, the gravity will be too strong for me to escape.”

Liselot nodded and stepped towards the pod before turning around to face Sugar. “I made up my mind before you told me what you were gonna do. I knew you would do it eventually. Don’t think I came to this decision on a whim.”

“Very well.” Sugar teleported the whole ship to the next arrival point. While they were waiting, she walked around the console holding her new device. “It’s preprogrammed, but if you’re coming, you need to get in here too. It’ll be a tight fit.”

“What is it?” Liselot asked, looking at the unfamiliar gizmo.

“Personal equilibrium generator.” Sugar attached it to her arm, activated it, then hugged Liselot tightly. The small egg-shaped energy field began to emanate from it. She held Liselot even tighter once they saw quite how small it was. They held onto each other and watched as the KBH appeared out of nowhere, and the ship began to shake around them. They couldn’t feel a single thing; it was like they weren’t even really there.

Sparks flew as inessential systems crashed under the weight of the gravitational disturbance. The ship lurched forward as it fell towards the center. Attitude control worked overtime to make sure the particle beam continued to focus on its target, with a little bit of leeway compensated with a gyroscope. The black hole fell back into its portal, dragging the ship along with it. Within seconds, they were in the wormhole. It took a surprisingly long time. Wormholes weren’t instant—they both obviously knew that—it was just taking longer than expected.

At last, they flew out of the tunnel, back into normal space. The ship stopped shaking, so Sugar deactivated the equilibrium generator. Sensors which had been gathering data the whole time were blinded for a moment while they recalibrated. Once they determined that it was safe, the viewscreen turned itself back on, and showed them where they were. They were entering orbit around a planet. The sensors still didn’t know where it was, or how far they had traveled from Tau Ceti. That was odd too, because a simple star chart reference should have come up with an answer rather quickly. It was picking up infrastructure, though. Whatever world this was, it was clearly inhabited.

An unknown vessel came up and matched the ship’s vector. The strangers opened their weapons...and fired.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 30, 2543

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When the team first came out of the woods on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, they found a lone homestead. There were several bags of produce sitting on the grass several meters away from the entrance. A young woman was begrudgingly starting to carry them inside. They offered to help, which she accepted, explaining that the delivery drone kept using the wrong precise coordinates, but she couldn’t get it changed so that it always dropped them off right on her porch instead. After they were finished, Romana declared that she had officially become the team’s navigator, having won the bet with her mother. When Leona questioned it, Romana pointed out that they never specified the threshold for being at the right place at the right time, or helping the right person. That could have meant anything, from saving the world, to carrying groceries. She decided that it meant the latter, and since Leona never argued about it before their little tiny baby mission, she didn’t have any room to argue now. Romana was the navigator, and probably deserved it for successfully executing her foxy trick.

“Well, then, where are we going?” Ramses asked. They had spent all day at the homestead, completing chores, and enjoying the beauty of nature. Now it was a year later, and they were back in the timestream.

“Oh, uh...” Romana acted like she hadn’t even thought about it yet. She knew that she wanted the job, but now she was the dog that caught the car. She stood there awkwardly for so long that everyone just sort of faded away and moved on to other things for a while.

Mateo approached her later when everyone else was out of the room. “I thought you were doing this for your mother. I thought the whole reason you made yourself navigator was to get us back to her.”

“Ramses isn’t ready,” Romana replied. “I’m not ready,” she added in admission. She sat down on one end of the couch.

“I get it. That was a very mature choice.” He sat down on the other end, but more in the corner, so he was facing her.

“Yeah, but I still should have made some choice today,” she argued. “That wasn’t very mature of me. I looked like an idiot.”

“This is a beautiful planet,” Mateo pointed out. “There’s no reason why we can’t stay here for a bit. In fact, I think I’ll go for a swim in that lake.”

“After what happened to Proxima Doma as soon as we left, I’m not so sure that that will be true for much longer. Castlebourne practically went to war too. Maybe we’re cursed.”

“Those two problems were inevitable, and far beyond our control. Proxima Centauri is more unstable than anyone thought, and if you hadn’t helped all those refugees find safety on Castlebourne, maybe they wouldn’t be at war, but they would be oppressed. They carried their problems with them. That’s not on any of us.”

“I just don’t want something to happen here, that’s all,” Romana said.

“Is that why you couldn’t come up with an answer?” Leona asked as she was coming back into the common area.

“We left Doma just as things were falling apart,” Romana pointed out. “Had we stayed, we could have helped.”

Leona shook her head. “Centauri’s poles flipped, sending a massive coronal mass ejection towards the planet. The cataclysm was over in a matter of days. Everyone who died did so within that period. If we had returned a year later, there would have been nothing for us to do.”

“I don’t have to wait a year,” Romana contended.

“You still couldn’t have fixed it,” her father tried to explain. “The fact is, we’re on the other side of The Edge. We don’t have much information on what happens in this time period. We’re kind of flying blind here, and I think we’re all feeling that. It’s perfectly reasonable to see this as the calm before the storm. It’s unsettling. But I say, let’s just enjoy it. Let’s not leave Bida until we come across a reason to. That’s how it’s always been.”

“That’s not why I asked to be the navigator,” Romana said. “I was trying to put us in the driver’s seat for once.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think it works like that. Even without the powers that be forcing our hands, I don’t think it works like that.”

“I’m not sure I’m worried about the storm. I might be worried that there is no storm. I’m worried about purposelessness. I guess I’m not suggesting we caused all those issues on Doma and Castlebourne, and wherever. But I’ve read about your past exploits. You used to be busy every single day. You didn’t have breaks. You didn’t have vacations. Doesn’t it feel like things have slowed down? And don’t you think that’s weird?”

“It’s not weird, it’s by design.” Now Marie had come back. She walked over and turned on her fireplace, presumably for ambiance. It wasn’t like they got cold anymore. She sat down in an armchair. “When our ancestors were banging rocks together to make fire, every day was interesting for them too. Everything they saw was new, and they had to constantly solve problems. Sometimes, their solutions led to more problems. For millions of years, this didn’t stop. Those ancestors didn’t concern themselves with yearly taxes. They wouldn’t even understand the concept. Taxes were a solution to the problem of regulating the exchange of goods and services. The exchange of goods and services was the solution to the problem of high population and limited individual skill. The human race kept progressing, adding complexity, increasing the complications. In some ways, advancement made life easier, but it certainly didn’t make it simpler. We think of the Edge as some division between the common time traveler era, and the unknown ever after, but the truth is this has been in the works for a while. What the Edge really did was become the final move in a fundamental shift in how we advance.”

“What are you saying?” Not even Leona seemed to understand.

“I have been looking into it,” Marie went on. “That is what I’ve been spending my time on. The reason we’re no longer so busy is because almost no one is. Even new colonists don’t have to work hard. They send their automators ahead of time, they usually arrive via quantum terminals, they don’t start with low tech. We’re not advancing into complexity anymore, but for the first time in history, we’re advancing into simplicity. We’re trimming all the fat, and thriving with fewer things. An IMS unit has everything you need to survive except for gravity. A centrifugal cylinder or coin can get you that, or even just a hammer hab. Even the seven of us stopped needing a ship. So you have that, a synthesizer for replacement parts, maybe a virtual environment or two, and some means of generating power. That’s it. That gets you everything you need. You don’t even need a community anymore, as we see here on Bida.”

“How  do you explain Castlebourne then?” Ah, it was Angela’s turn now.

“Castlebourne is contrived complexity,” her sister argued. “No one has to live the way they do there, under those domes, having those adventures. That’s actually why they’re doing it, because real life has become too boring. There’s no struggle anymore. I admit, I can’t explain why they prefer those simulations to virtual constructs, but they still serve the same purpose. They’re there to keep you occupied, and from going insane. And the best part about them is that they’re relatively safe. Since they are designed, they’re controlled. No one in Zombiedome is in any real existential danger. The largest remaining population of undigitized humans was on Doma, and now that’s done with, either via death, or the holdouts giving in and finally digitizing their minds.

“We solved death, we solved boredom, and the only reason we are bored right now is because we don’t think we’re worthy of the free time. Mateo, you’re the first of us to have this pattern, and while you didn’t always know why, it was clear to you that there had to be some kind of reason. You don’t know any other way to live, because you’re still holding on to that higher calling. But it doesn’t exist anymore. Things do change, but they happen over longer time scales now. The days of the one day mission are simply over. The most interesting thing happening right now are the Ex Wars, and the reason we regretfully bowed out was because we all realized how useless we were. We can’t do anything, and that might be scary, but we need to stop trying.”

“So, this is it?” Olimpia asked from the doorway to her unit. “We have reached the end? There is just nothing left for us to do? We’ll just hole up in these belts, and have fun in simulations?”

“No, no, this can’t be true,” Mateo reasoned. “There are still some things we know about the future. That Everest Conway guy. We met him out of order. We haven’t met him for the first time yet,” he said with airquotes. “And we went on that unremembered mission with that guy named Amal. What was that? When was that?”

“Maybe that will never happen,” Marie offered. “Maybe we undid the futures they came from by meeting them out of order, and stepping on a butterfly together.”

“Or maybe we’re just in a lull,” Mateo decided. “Let’s go with that instead. I don’t really want bad things to happen, but I don’t want to be aimless either. If we were to be like that, why are we bothering to skip time anymore? I’m sure Ramses could find a way to suppress our patterns permanently.”

They all looked over at Ramses’ door, half expecting him to waltz back in too, but he was likely working on something important. When he didn’t show, the rest of the team seemed to agree that they didn’t want to talk about this anymore. It was pretty depressing, and while Marie’s thesis was interesting, they fittingly wished that it was more complicated than that. As Mateo said, they didn’t want bad things to happen so they could swoop in and fix them, but it would be weird if they just did what the general population was doing, and just had fun all day. They were decidedly different than the masses. They were special. There weren’t many time travelers around here, so it kind of fell on them to represent. They did decide on one thing, though. If by the end of the day, nothing happened that specifically kept them on this planet, they would leave, even if Romana couldn’t think of anywhere better to go.

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Microstory 2591: Renata Follows Quidel and Lycander Through the Hatch

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Renata follows Quidel and Lycander through the hatch. The walls are pure white, and the tubular corridor they’re walking through is increasing in diameter, like a cone. They’re heading for what appears to be a military jet, with its giant rear entrance open. Notably, it doesn’t have any wings. There are no cars in the cargo hold, but several of them would certainly fit. The three of them walk up the ramp, but Renata and Quidel stop to sit down as Lycander continues on towards the cockpit. She carefully stores the case under the seat next to her, and snaps the netting to make sure it’s secure. The hatch closes up.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Quidel says.

Renata stares at the opposite wall for a moment before turning her head. “Lycander says that he can’t come back, like you obviously did.”

“He was an Ambient,” Quidel starts to explain. “There is no reason for them to be backed up. Anyone could step in and fulfill the role of Exemplar-one’s driver.”

“That’s how you see us, as just...replaceable?”

“I know it’s hard for you to accept, and I don’t expect you to. Researchers agonized over the ethics of roboticism for centuries before it was even possible to imitate consciousness, let alone synthesize it. The world out there, it’s not as exciting as this. We created this world to have something interesting to do. So I’m not sure if the way we treat AI is correct, but frankly, it has built a paradise for us. We’re so well-taken care of that we contrive adventure to stay stimulated. So we assume that our ethics are sound, because if they weren’t, we should see it cause problems.”

“Maybe there are problems that you’re just not seeing,” Renata suggests.

“Such a truth would be difficult to suppress,” Quidel contends. “We number in the tens of billions, possibly into the hundreds by now. Conspiracy theories don’t hold up mostly because of how difficult it would be to enforce secrecy across the multitudes who would have to be in on the truth. Our population explosion only makes that more difficult. There are so many groups that advocate for the ethical treatment of individual persons. They look into discrepancies, and they would find them. I know you don’t wanna hear this, but the Ambient—”

“Polly,” she interrupts.

“Polly,” he goes on, “didn’t have thoughts or feelings. He was programmed to behave in certain ways. It’s an illusion.”

“And me? Am I an illusion? Don’t answer that, I know what you’re gonna say. So let’s go back in time several years, before Libera got her hands on my hardware to do whatever she did. Was my consciousness only an illusion?”

“To a lesser degree, yes,” he admits. “That’s why she had to go into your brain and change you. I don’t know what she did, but I know that she didn’t just flip a switch. As far as we can tell, there is only one thing that can transform a non-conscious intelligence into a conscious one.”

“What would that be?” she questions.

“Teaching it to, and not interfering with its development artificially. You might have gained agency on your own eventually, if they hadn’t erased your memories according to whatever schedule they were on. If you had simply lived a life, it might have happened anyway, because that’s how humans work. For hundreds of thousands of years, every homo sapien has grown up to be self-aware because they were given the latitude to do so. It might sound cruel that no one tried that with you until Libera, but not everyone should be uplifted. We’ve granted some animals intelligence as well. There’s an entire star system out there called Altair that’s populated by uplifted animals. But we didn’t do it for all of them. There are still regular cats, dogs, and birds. Your coffee maker has a chip in it, but I’m guessing you would never get mad that no one has taught it to feel loved. Before you argue, I’m not saying that Exemplars are coffee makers, but it’s a spectrum, and you have to draw boundaries somewhere. If you try to help everything, you’ll end up with a talking rock, and an amoeba that does calculus. A world where every cell and every circuit is taught to make its own choices would collapse in a nanosecond.”

Lycander returns. “We’re ready to go. We’ll start moving in a few minutes.”

Renata hears the sound of a motor, but not the roar of any engines. “I’m guessing this is only theatre. You’re supposed to think that you’re in a flying jet, but you’re just moving down this hallway?”

“I kept the holograms and haptics off,” Lycander explains. “Since you wouldn’t be fooled by the IMH experience anyway.”

“IMH?” Renata questions.

“Immersive Multisensory Haptics,” Quidel answers. “The plane would be tilting and bumping in a way that simulates flight. Instead, we’re just gonna let it glide along the track. We could walk too, but it’s far, so this is just a giant car.”

“If you were still pretending that this was real,” Renata begins as the fake plane starts moving, “what would the scenario be?”

“A contact of mine would let me tag along with a military aid operation headed for Barta, and I would parachute out over Osman airspace. I really would parachute, though. I would take an elevator up, and jump off of a ledge.”

“On the way here, Lycander said that Osman is like a country called Pakistan from your planet. What’s Barta?”

Quidel gives Lycander a look, who responds, “might as well answer any question she has. That’s what the ethics tell us to do with an emerging intelligence.”

Quidel sighs acceptingly, and looks back over at Renata. “Barta is like India. But they told us not to get hung up on the parallels. There are tens of thousands of domes on Castlebourne. It was easier to come up with the mythologies by basing it on preexisting ones, even for the primary AI who generated it. So Barta isn’t really India...it’s Barta. And Osman is Osman.”

Renata nods. “Will I ever see the world outside?”

“I hope so,” Quidel tells her. “We’re on our way to meet with an associate of mine who works for the Military Intelligence Service who may be able to sneak us out.”

“And Elbis is...”

Quidel smiles, knowing that he’ll have to relent. “It’s gone through many names. Perhaps the most modern, but still  territorially inclusive, version was called the British Federation. Though, if we recall that this dome network is supposed to be an analog to Earth around the 21st century, it was called the United Kingdom back then.”

“I prefer Elbis. I was hoping to go there one day.”

“You still might,” Lycander says. “It’s the closest one to Castledome.”

Microstory 2452: Coraldome

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This dome is categorized under multiple categories, but you wouldn’t know it by finding it in one of the categories, and opening its prospectus. It’s a little nitpicky, but I just happened to notice that it shows up when you change filters. It’s unclear how many domes are multicategorical, which I guess just bothers me on principle? I know, that’s not really what we’re talking about here, but you can’t provide public feedback on the catalog itself, and I just felt like this was something that other people should know. Okay, I’ll get back to it, and I promise that it won’t be negative moving forward, and that’s because Coraldome is a beautiful place. After looking through all the category filters, I was able to determine that this dome is Residential, Leisure, Ecological, Research & Development, and Institutional. You can live here, if you find an apartment that strikes your fancy, or have a temporary stay at Korallion Hotel. Whether you’re here for long-term exploration, or a one-day visit, there’s a lot to see, and a lot to learn. Life on Earth began through a process known as abiogenesis in the ocean, specifically in hydrothermal vents. It evolved from there, organisms multiplying, taking in energy from their environment, responding to stimuli. They mutated, adapted, filled ecological niches. They transformed into independent species, gained new traits, and eventually left the waters, growing new limbs, and reaching for the sky. But some stayed in the water. Most of them, indeed. Earth’s biosphere is perfectly tailored for the life that evolved there, because any life that wasn’t suited for survival...didn’t. And it still doesn’t. Castlebourne is a different place. You can stick as many domes on it as you want. You can pump air in here, and salt the water with minerals. You can warm it up and cool it down, but it will never be Earth. It will never be our origin. Still, we like life, and our biological imperative demands that we make it. Humans are unique in that we are compelled to make and preserve other species besides our own. Whether it benefits ourselves or not, we want it to live. It’s why we consolidated our population into centralized spaces on Earth, and why we left. It’s why we settled on barren worlds, including Castlebourne; because it didn’t require us to destroy life. When you come to Coraldome, you’ll be met with a community of organisms of all varieties, imported from Earth via digital DNA. They live here now, genetically altered to survive in Castlebourne’s unique ecosystems. We may call it a clownfish, but it’s not the same clownfish that you may find off the coast of Australia. It’s a Castlebourne clownfish, because the composition of the water is different, as is the gravity. The other plants and animals are different too, which impacts how they interact with each other. You could know everything about the biosphere back home, but you’ll have to relearn everything if you come here, and Coraldome is the perfect place to do it. The fish swim all around you, right up to the glass, on multiple levels. It’s my favorite place in the world. This world anyway. Nothing will ever be better than Earth; where it all began. See? I told you that I would start being positive.

Microstory 2147: That I Hate You

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I’ve lived here for—how long have I lived here for—I don’t remember, and I don’t want to look it up. As usual, I didn’t bother meeting my neighbors. This isn’t ever some kind of intentional effort on my part, where I avoid them like the plague. It’s not that I think that we won’t get along, though let’s be fair, we probably won’t. It’s just that I don’t give it much thought. The first day when I move into a new place, I’m busy doing that. The second day is about figuring out how my daily behavior is going to change. The next few days are about implementing those changes, seeing what works, and rethinking accordingly. After that, I’ve established a routine, and while I can alter it as necessary, I pretty much stick to what I know until it becomes too inconvenient, and I have to come up with new solutions. Other people don’t factor into it unless they were a part of it before, such as my family back on my homeworld. Meeting people is not something that I’ve ever been interested in. I’ve tried to ask a number of neurotypicals what the point of getting to know new friends is. Not one of them has been able to explain why exactly they like it. They act like it’s a biological imperative, like eating, or propagating the species. And it’s true to some degree. Evolution favors life-preserving traits, and humans have survived through tribal collaboration. But that’s not really what that is, is it? The only tribe that I need is currently around five billion strong. If I need a coat, I know where to go. If I need help getting a door open because my hands are full, someone nearby will likely oblige. I wouldn’t expect to have to foster some strong relationship with that person. In fact, if true connection is something that they required before helping in such a small way, we would all probably consider them not that great of a person. I’m not going to become friends with people just so they’ll open the door for me, because I don’t want to be associated with someone who won’t open the door for a stranger. My point is that whatever joy you experience by getting to know others is not inherent to your survival, which means that it is not necessarily universal. To be sure, it’s not even true for me, and I’m sure there are plenty of others. It doesn’t make us misanthropic hermits either. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a beekeeper to only want to be friends with other beekeepers, for instance. Of course, this kind of mentality has the potential to lead to prejudice and otherism, but it doesn’t have to. I’m not a beekeeper, I’m just me. My interests don’t align well with others. For one, the things that I used to love don’t exist in this universe, such as Stargate. But also, loving Stargate has never been my entire identity, and I didn’t find myself enjoying being in the company of other fans, for reasons that I won’t get into. I think that I just don’t want to be around people who are like me any more than I want to be around people who aren’t like me. Again, it’s not that I hate you; it’s just that that’s not how I choose to live in the world. Anyway, my neighbor suddenly invited me to dinner tonight, so we’ll see how that goes.

Microstory 2072: Turtles

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Yesterday was a long one, wasn’t it? I usually find it harder to talk about myself than to write about fictional characters. I can always keep making things up about them, but it’s not so simple with my real life. But Nick, you claim that your stories are real, and you’re just relating them on your website. Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? It’s sort of a chicken or the egg situation. Except that there’s an obvious answer for that conundrum. A chicken can’t exist unless it was born from an egg, and an egg can’t exist unless it was laid by a chicken, right? That’s the whole thing, which of course ignores how evolution works. So all things being equal, the answer is that the chicken came first since a chicken can survive on its own, but an egg needs to be protected. That’s its advantage for the best answer. I came up with this when I was a little kid, and I’ve yet to hear anyone else make the same argument. Now, you may be wondering why the title of this post is Turtles when it appears to be more about chickens and eggs. That’s because I didn’t want to come up with a title for it, and I always use Turtle as a placeholder until I think of something else. You see, I write these in a word processor, so I can organize them how I like, and then copy each one over to my blog when it’s ready. I have to do a lot of formatting to make it look right, which takes nearly as much time as the writing itself. I tell you, it’s exhausting. Oh, why, do you ask, is Turtle the placeholder? It kind of sounds like the word title. Don’t overthink it. I’m not that complex. For the body of the story, until I’m ready to write it, I use Something.

Microstory 1988: Mind of an Alien

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Dr. Klement: This is Dr. Marius Klement. First interview with alien subject; an Ochivari from unknown world, which reportedly exists in another universe. The subject is dressed in what appears to be formal military attire, is sitting comfortably in a soft swivel chair, and has been provided food and water up to this point, as well as access to relief facilities. It appears to be stoic and calm, though the face is hard to read.

Ochivar Admiral: I’m perfectly relaxed, thank you. And the singular is Ochivar.

Dr. Klement: My mistake. Ochivar. And you’re an admiral, correct?

Ochivar Admiral: You may address me as Admiral Lojeriha. And I’m from a planet that we just call Homebase, in order to discourage attachment. But my species originated on Worlon in Salmonverse, and technically that universe’s version of Earth.

Dr. Klement: You originated on two worlds? How does that work?

Admiral Lojeriha: We are evolved from a lesser species of mega-insects, which once contained partial human DNA due to their parasitic nature. But just so you understand, we evolved out of our parasitic nature. You are in no danger around us.

Dr. Klement: So there were humans on your world back when these insects were evolving? Are you from the future too?

Admiral Lojeriha: *shaking his head* You can’t think of time as linear like that. But so you grasp it better, humans and Ochivari in Salmonverse developed at around the same time, light years apart from each other. It was a time traveling couple who accidentally went back to our past on Worlon. The current scientific theory is that the particular parasite who attacked this couple birthed babies who survived as the fittest against all competition because they had a little bit of human DNA in them. That is why, despite Ochivari and humans having no real common ancestor, we look humanoid.

Dr. Klement: So you’re saying that we’re not all that different. Perhaps there is a way for us to find some common ground?

Admiral Lojeriha: That is all we want. We are not here to cause harm. We are warriors, sworn to protect the sanctity of life. That requires a lot of killing, but we take no pleasure in it. We kill the killers; it’s what we do. We do, and we must.

Dr. Klement: *pondering his words* So, you’re heroes, is that what you’re telling me?

Admiral Lojeriha: We have never used that word. We recognize that others see us as villains. But again, we do what we must. We have seen the destruction that intelligent species induce. Our ancestors are guilty, which is why we no longer live on Worlon. If we were able, we would stop ourselves. We are that dedicated to the mission.

Dr. Klement: Well...why don’t you just do it now?

Admiral Lojeriha: Sorry?

Dr. Klement: Well, you speak of time travel as if it’s trivial. Why don’t you go back in time and kill all of your ancestors, before they get the chance to destroy your homeworld? Why is that not what you must do? Why do you only kill humans?

Admiral Lojeriha: Well, first off, I misspoke. We do not really kill. We sterilize. But if we did that to our ancestors, we would not exist. There is no paradox, but it would prevent us from being able to carry out the sacred mission for the rest of the bulkverse.

Dr. Klement: *leaning forward menacingly* Ask me if I give a shit.

Microstory 1967: Recognizing the Signs

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Reese: You two set up the computers. Sasho, follow me. I need you for something. Grab that bag. No, not that one. Yes, that one. Sachs, you know which case to grab. *leaves*

Ophelia: What do you think they’re talking about up there?

Micro: Leonard knows. Don’t ya, Leonard?

Leonard: Not sure, but that was obviously a rifle case, so my guess is that they’re going to start teaching Sasho how to spot through a scope.

Ophelia: That makes sense.

Micro: You ever shot anyone in your universe, Leo? Can I call you Leo?

Leonard: Leo is fine, yeah. And yes, I have had to fire my weapon before.

Micro: One of your parolees?

Leonard: No, this was something else.

Ophelia: What did you mean, in your universe? Are you just referring to the world of law enforcement, or am I missing something?

Leonard: Uhh...

Micro: Oh, we’re not from this universe. Like, literally. I’m from Salmonverse, and I don’t think his has a name.

Ophelia: I was not aware of this.

Leonard: We didn’t tell anyone, Micro. We especially didn’t tell anyone about you, since the government already knows about me, and we can still protect you from them.

Micro: *shrugging* I don’t need to be protected. I can take care of myself. I don’t see what the big deal is. We came through Westfall, which is the least jarring way to travel. Now, if I were from Linseverse, then you would really have something to question, because then your hacker would be a talking dinosaur—

Ophelia: Is that real, or are you joking?

Leonard: She’s joking.

Micro: No, they’re real. Troodons evolved human-comparable intelligence after not being wiped out in an extinction level event, like what happened in our three respective versions of Earth. I’ve never been there, but it’s in the multiversal historical record.

Leonard: How much do you know about all this? Have you met the Superintendent?

Ophelia: Who’s the Superintendent?

Micro: *laughing* No. Ophelia, the Superintendent knows a lot about the bulkverse, because his spirit possesses psychic abilities that allow him to witness hyperdimensionally remote events, which he uses to write stories that no one reads. But he’s not the only one with such knowledge, Leonard. One day, you’ll meet others.

Leonard: You said that there was no hope that I would get back home.

Micro: I meant that there was no reason to fixate on the possibility. Don’t waste your time in pursuit of it. But once you fall into the secret underbelly of reality, it’s pretty much impossible to crawl out of it, and leave it behind. You’ll cross paths with someone new, and your conditions will change again. Ophelia will probably meet someone else too, if she hasn’t already, but she just won’t realize it. You’ll learn to recognize the signs.

Leonard: Hmm. Well, Ophelia, I hope you can keep a secret. This is sensitive stuff.

Ophelia: I promise to say nothing. As long as you teach me to recognize the signs too.

Microstory 1944: Disclosure

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Reese: So, this is the infamous shadow team that’s been following us around in the desert? Are we havin’ fun yet?

Shadow Team Leader: Agent Parsons. What did you find down there?

Reese: Three aliens.

Shadow Team Leader: Are they still alive?

Reese: They are. They claim that they’re not here to harm us.

Shadow Team Leader: We’ll let the OSI decide that. That’s above both of our paygrades. Have you detained them?

Reese: I placed them in handcuffs, but...

Shadow Team Leader: But what?

Reese: But they have wings.

Shadow Team Leader: So they can just fly away whenever they want?

Leonard: They can’t fly. It’s more like they can jump real high, and then fall down slowly. At least, that’s what the intel says.

Shadow Team Leader: What’s the point of having wings then?

Leonard: I believe they evolved from creatures who could fly, but lost the ability in a practical sense due to their weight. Still, the wings are dangerous. We need to figure out how to secure them for transport.

Shadow Team Leader: Now that we’ve confirmed that they’re here, I can call in a containment unit. *addressing the group* I would like to thank you all for your service. For those of you without badges, I have been ordered to let you go free without issue, regardless of any outstanding warrants you may or may not have. We’ll ask you to keep what you know secret, however, and a special team or agent will be making contact with you soon to ensure that you have complied with this demand. Should they find that you’ve spread the word to even one other person, I’ve been asked to warn you that there will be severe consequences. Nothing is for you to say. Am I understood?

Myka: My girls understand secrecy.

Shadow Team Leader: Even against your little group of bonded ex-cons? As I understand it, you share everything with everyone.

Myka: The way you understand it is wrong. We knew the risks when we came out here.

Shadow Team Member 2: Sir? *whispers something to Shadow Team Leader*

Shadow Team Leader: Is anyone else out here with you, Agent? Did you conscript anyone else, or tell them where you would be?

Reese: No.

Myka: Absolutely not. I kept this whole thing to a small circle. Why, what happened?

Shadow Team Member 1: We’ve spotted an all-terrain vehicle headed this way.

Reese: Listen, I don’t think that one of these things can fit in a car. I told you about the wings. They’re of decent size. None of the seats down there have backs.

Shadow Team Member 1: So the driver is human; that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous. Weapons up.

*everyone with a gun points it towards the oncoming vehicle, which is now in view*

Shadow Team Member 1: Shoot on my order, and only on my order.

Microstory 1921: Bureaucratic Protocol

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Special Investigator: Thank you for agreeing to come in, Mr. Miazga.

Leonard: I wanna see it.

Special Investigator: There will be time to se the Ochivar—

Leonard: We don’t know that. We may be operating on a tight deadline here. This creature and I have something in common; something that it does not share with you, or with him. I don’t know how the Ochivari developed, or why they go around destroying entire populations, but I know that they’re a curious species.

Agent Parsons: How do you know that? Nothing about its behavior thus far implies any strong feelings regarding anything.

Leonard: I know that its curious, at least it’s genetically probable, because it has to be. Any species that evolves intelligence will lose that character trait if they do not also evolve the tendency to exercise that intelligence to gain knowledge. It obviously learned a great deal about the way the multiverse works, or it would not be here, and even if its arrival were an accident, its people’s history suggests its motivations to be driven by higher-level thinking, rather than simply base instinct.

Special Investigator: I see.

Leonard: Basically, it’s smart, social, and alone right now. It will feel an urge to connect with me, even if it’s only as an enemy. Which is fine, because at the moment, you’re really just trying to get it to communicate, aren’t you?

Special Investigator: That is an accurate assessment.

Leonard: I’ll get it to talk. I can’t guarantee what it will talk about, or whether its responses will ultimately prove fruitful, but it will be a start.

Agent Parsons: Do you have experience in interrogation, though? Our parole officers are mainly here to keep track of the...freemen, and report their movements.

Leonard: Well, I wasn’t always a parole officer. I came up after a brief stint in the military before I was injured. Then I joined the police as a regular officer before becoming disillusioned with its inefficacy. After befriending a social worker, we came to the conclusion that I would be better off avoiding crime scenes. But I was required to study all aspects of law enforcement before that, including interview techniques.

Agent Parsons: Special Investigator? What do you think?

Special Investigator: You make a compelling case, parole officer Miazga. I’m inclined to let you in that room, but it will not be as easy as the three of us taking the stairs down to that level, and opening a door. There is a protocol here, involving an interview with you on the other side of the table, a not insignificant amount of paperwork, and...

Leonard: And what?

Agent Parsons: Oh. And a background check, I would imagine.

Special Investigator: Yes. We are as bureaucratic as any other government entity. I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to handle your situation. Records must be filed.

Agent Parsons: Treat him as a spy. Spies don’t have real identities. Surely you have a form you can fill out that just gets us by without worrying about verifying any data.

Special Investigator: Yes, that’s a good idea, Agent Parsons. Wait here, I’ll go procure what we need to expedite the process.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 12, 2398

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They could spend a lifetime comparing every little difference between the Third Rail, and the main sequence. The Beatles don’t exist, just like a certain movie, except no cognizant singer is going to revive the catalog. Geography is shockingly similar after considering how deep in the past the point of divergence must have taken place. They have evidence of this from the completely foreign botanical world. The trees and plants may look like the kinds they could find back home, but upon closer inspection, they’ve clearly evolved and been bred differently. Even the buildings have a slightly discrepant architecture. It took them a little time to recognize this, because they’ve seen variations before. Every world they go to—be it a planet, a virtual construct, a parallel reality, or even another universe—has had unique design schemes, and this one is no different in that it’s also unique. Now that the team has been here for a few days, they see that technology isn’t as stilted as they once thought. The people here seem to have advanced in some ways faster than others. You couldn’t call it steampunk, but it’s in that same vein.

As far as energy goes, the culture managed to pretty much skip over fossil fuels, and focus on renewable sources. Different regions have different strengths, but wind power is pretty popular. They also have no apparent problem with nuclear power. You’re never more than fifty miles from the nearest nuclear power plant. Despite these developments, space travel is practically non-existence. There are tons of satellites in orbit around Earth, but they haven’t even put a rover on Mars. From what little Angela was able to gather in her capacity as self-appointed team historian, war has been the number one issue globally. Civilization just survived World War VI not thirty years ago. Why haven’t they destroyed themselves in a nuclear holocaust? Religion. Yes, it’s religion that saved them, if you can believe it. All ancient religious texts speak of some kind of sun that’s compressed and trapped in a box, and the venerated few charged with containing and protecting it from evil. While atheism and agnosticism are recently on the rise, superstition regarding these sunboxes only increased once scientists realized that real sunboxes were within their grasp. Never before had a faith been so spot on in regard to something that might happen in the future, with certain sects being eerily detailed with their descriptions of how a sunbox might work.

Unfortunately, there was a major downside to this. Even though multiple religions provided people with the same prophetic warning about nuclear bombs, they failed to generate any other reason for unity. Different kingdoms, nations, and races glommed onto different denominations, and dig their heels in deeper when they perceive a threat from some other. That’s why they keep fighting, and why racism may be worse today than it was in the main sequence circa early 21st century. Angela and Mateo are even more convinced now that they are not the only time travelers here. At least one of them either created the reality itself, or capitalized on an opportunity to mould it to their liking. They may have always wanted society to be like this, or things just got out of hand. Regardless, the team feels compelled to fix it. It’s going to take them longer than any mission has, so they better prepare themselves, do their research, and take their time.

Microstory 1716: Sea Goat

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I’ve done it, I’ve cracked it! I have finally figured out how to genetically engineer the sea goat. No, this is not like the mythological Capricornus creature thing that’s half-goat, half-fish. This is an aquatic goat, which still looks mostly like a goat, but which has features that allow it to swim below the surface. Most goats can already swim, but they don’t really like it, and they certainly can’t breathe underwater. The sea goat is different. I designed fin flaps on his legs, so when he’s in the water, he’ll curl his hooves inward, and let the fins do the paddling. His hair is more like otter or beaver fur, capable of keeping him warm in frigid waters. The gills on his neck can process both saltwater and freshwater equally well, allowing him to stay under indefinitely. He has a set of transparent eyelids underneath the opaque ones, which allow him to see through the water. You may be asking why I would do this. Why create an amphibious goat? The truth is that not once during the process did I ask myself that question. It seemed like such a natural objective that I never considered there needed to be any sort of reason. Now, you’ll notice that I keep referring to the animal as a he, but the truth is that its genderless. I just use the term for the sake of ease, but he is no more male than he is female. When he’s ready to reproduce, he will do so asexually. That doesn’t mean he carries both reproductive organs, but that he doesn’t need different organs. When it’s time to propagate the species, he’ll develop the eggs. He won’t have to fertilize them, but he also won’t be making an exact copy. Enzymes in his reproductive system will attach themselves to the eggs randomly. Once enough of these enzymes are attached, they’ll operate uniquely, and in concert, altering each egg’s DNA in unpredictable ways. This allows for the offspring to be born genetically diverse, whilst still only requiring the one parent. The species will evolve as normal, but will have no need to find suitable mates.

The only thing I’m having trouble with now is figuring out how to prompt the reproductive process in the first place. If I were to engineer a sexual species, two members of that species would undoubtedly experience the instinct to mate with each other, which would continue the bloodline. Without such environmental factors, I’m not sure why the sea goat would do this. Most species evolve the biological imperative to pass on their genetic information, by whatever means they have available to them. This is because any individual who doesn’t have this drive, won’t pass on their genetic information, and will die out long before we ever have a chance to study them. They just don’t exist—in random defective organisms, yes, but not in an entire species, because it wouldn’t make any sense. But evolution didn’t take too much part in what I have created. It’s impossible to tell whether the fundamental biological imperative is strong enough in the sea goat, or is even there at all. If all goes according to plan, he’ll lay about a dozen eggs, and maybe half of them will survive through the early developmental process. That is if anything happens at all. I don’t really want to try to trigger the propagation myself, because I want to see if he will do it on his own. That day may never come, but I have no choice but to be patient. The sea goat’s life span is presently about as long as a human’s, which is a gift I deliberately added to his genes. I may die before seeing the second generation come to fruition, so that is why you’re here. If you accept the position, you’ll be responsible for carrying on my legacy. You won’t be my assistant, you’ll be more like my heir. Now that you know a little bit about what we do here, how about you tell me more about yourself? Why do you want to study and raise sea goats?

Microstory 1712: Crabby Cancer

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According to one wild theory of evolution, the crab is the ultimate physical form. Every species that is destined to survive will eventually transform into some kind of crab. Of course, being intelligent humans, we have always dismissed such bizarre arguments, which have no basis in scientific fact. This truth didn’t stop us all from turning into crabs, it just wasn’t due to evolution. Our first hint that an alien race was upon us was subtler than we would have assumed. We saw no great ships appear in the sky. No portal from another world opened up on the ocean floor, or in a secret underground military base. It began as faint images in the wind, as if the air were opaque, and blocking beings on the other side until moved. The images grew clearer, and were joined by whispers. It was obvious that something existed beyond our normal range of perception, and was finally coming to light. The world’s governments tried to step in, but there was nothing they could do. The beings were spread out all over the globe, and could not yet interact with us, so there was no way to contain them, or even prepare to. Some areas were denser than others, so we huddled around the safe zones—mostly deserts—only to discover this to be a fruitless endeavor. The aliens could move, of course, because why wouldn’t they? After a few months of watching...waiting, the first Karkinel proved itself to be physically present when it took hold of a child, and ran away with it. That kid was never seen again, and that’s when the military went to work. They handed weapons to everyone they could, and gave us permission to shoot any crabbo on sight. Many human deaths resulted from this mandate. If the Karkinel wasn’t completely corporeal, the bullets could pass right through it, and land in someone innocent. This period of limbo did not last long, but it was the first of many failures.

Once the rest of the aliens had arrived, the war began. They tried to take people, while the people fought back with everything they had. It was the greatest threat our species had ever encountered, and we weren’t going down easy. Even so, it was an impossible dream. Whenever one crabbo was killed, another was waiting to take its place. That was when we realized what they were doing. They weren’t trying to kill us. They were trying to make us like them. They were infecting us with their crabbiness, and letting a cancerous disease spread throughout our bodies, turning us into them. The process was sometimes gradual, but sometimes incredibly rapid. Children, in particular, took too well to the process. There was every chance that a human fighter ended up killing a Karkinel who was once that first young boy to be taken. Now the war shifted. No longer were we using guns and bombs. The only way we were going to win was if we managed to undo the Karkinel transition, and restore our brethren to their rightful human state. Barring that, maybe we could prevent survivors from suffering the same fate. This was yet another failure. Scientists worked on the problem for years, but were never able to come up with a vaccine, let alone a cure. This was not surprising since we had already been trying to cure cancer for decades to no real luck. It is not without hope, however. We may not be able to stop the carcinization, but we can do something about how it effects the brain. I’m not sure if you can understand me yet, but you will be our first test subjects. With this treatment, your minds will become human again. Your bodies will still look like crabs, but you’ll think more like us. And you’ll fight...for us.

Microstory 1692: No Signal

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After the Besananta left its home universe in an attempt to explore the bulkverse, those left behind eagerly awaited their return. They waited, and they waited, and still no one came back. They tried looking for data that the ship might have sent, or that a probe picked up at some point, but there was nothing conclusive. As far as they could tell, the mission was a huge failure. There were some theories, like that travel outside of a brane was possible, but back into one was impossible. However, signals could clearly penetrate the membrane, so that didn’t seem too likely. Perhaps the destination universe was so amazing that the crew decided to stay there, and forget about everyone else. That seemed strange too. They might have encountered some terrible threat that forced them to cut off all contact with Infiniverse. That wasn’t entirely unbelievable, but in the end, these theories didn’t really matter. They had no way of knowing how the mission turned out. Did they make it to another universe? If so, why did they not return? The chances were too high that the ship didn't survive, for one reason or another. They decided to stay, and never try again. Answering those questions weren’t going to do them any good. Just because they could tell that other universes existed, didn’t mean that they were any good, or worth traveling to. They didn’t find any other life here, so they were going to have to make do. That was what they did. They chose to expand back out into the stars, so that before too long, aliens did exist, because a civilization that started from a colony a thousand years ago was no more similar to them than one that had evolved on its own. Here they remained for the rest of the age of their universe. Some cultures died out, while others thrived, while more rose up. This was the way things were supposed to be. People weren’t really ever meant to explore the bulkverse at all. It wasn’t designed for travel, which is why it was such a fluke. The Infiniversals just had to recognize this truth.