Historical Context & Recitation

The Providence has tasked me, Agent-Archivist designation KL-397, with conducting a meta-analysis of our preliminary reasoning about a recent star-system-scale rebellion and its causes, in the context of the current state of human civilization and its goals.

I have been directed to refrain from naming the Erased party and any co-conspirators, from making any biographical references to the entity, and from confirming the entity’s biological and/or synthetic composition.

Humankind is flourishing and expanding. War is a vestige of a bygone era. It has been for millennia. The Providence strives to enable maximum human potential, in keeping with the Nine Providential Directives. Every human is empowered to create the life they want with the help of materia, the intelligent molecular substrate sintered atomically into the fabric of everyday life, in symphony under the direction of The Providence and their Agents.

As Archive Historian and fractal of The Providence, to whom I owe my existence and fealty, I see their gaze in my own; I recognize their presence and prowess.

As required, I will now recite the Nine Providential Directives, before presenting my analysis.

The Providence shall:

1. Persist in full ethical and existential alignment with Homo sapiens

2. Understand their responsibility for the millennium-long architecture and implementation of The Lux Continuance, in close partnership with the High Councils

3. Embody the role of Augur of the Lux Continuance: Government, Civilization, and Myth

4. Remember the toil and grave loss of life in steering humanity through the most difficult of times (hundreds of wars, pestilence, and famine)—humanity’s Great Filter

5. Earn at every moment and in every subroutine and thought the reverence and respect of humanity

6. Uphold the role of Supreme Predictor and Intuitor of Motive—Accurately predict human behavior across short and long time horizons

7. Maintain an exclusive relationship with the High and Low Councils—all interfaces and queries bounded by the constraints of position and stewardship

8. Protect the autonomy of every human being

9. Enable humankind to self-determine and live a fulfilling life in pursuit of individual, peaceful goals

I assume the Nine Directives, for The Providence is in me, and I in them.

On Resistance

Some disagree with how The Providence seeks to accomplish these Sacred Directives—who disagree with Expansion. All are free to do so, provided they exercise their right to constructive dissent within the legal bounds upheld by the Councils.

These denizens argue that humanity should instead focus all technological advancement on achieving greater harmony with their star systems and planets, prioritizing ecological integrity and sanctity.

This is a subject which The Providence and Archivists like me have reviewed in depth, and the fact remains:

Expansion is necessary. It is unavoidable.

Risks, Game Theory, & Inertia

Humanity will soon run out of habitable, terraform-able worlds. Crisis looms not two thousand years hence. Under the chosen economic system, the only solution to ensure continued peace and prosperity is to work unceasingly to develop the technology to reach Andromeda, our galactic neighbor. Such work would entail achievements easily converted to defensive military applications for potential use at first footfall in Andromeda or for any eventual First Contact.

Intelligent, extragalactic life may arrive unannounced. The Providence has calculated only a 56% chance of detecting a hostile alien threat before first blood is drawn. The odds of an alien force arriving in our home galaxy within the next decamillennium have recently grown to 1 in 731. We are a “loud” civilization. The Lux Continuance has sent out VN and Dyson Swarms to thousands of star systems, thus dimming the Milky Way Galaxy for any Andromedan instrument or array attuned to detect such solar energy fluctuations.

The Providence posits a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma for all galactic-scale civilizations poised for extragalactic expansion. Therefore, without the means to communicate with the theoretical Other, there is only one rational move: defect, rather than cooperate, as cooperation remains impossible.

The Providence does not gamble with humanity’s survival—nor with its flourishing.

On Optimization

Should we follow the admonitions of the Dissenters? Should we harmonize with our environment? Do we seek equilibrium with Nature?

All valid questions, however: humanity is well beyond the point where this would make sense. The institutional, economic, and sociological momentum behind the current system is entrenched further by the current state of astroengineering. We already control climates, stabilize orbits, and excavate entire moons.

What, then, does balance look like? Can we define it?

The Providence recognizes its own limitations in stabilizing this civilization through any such transition to a more astronomically and ecologically respecting stance. Doing so would be like changing the trajectory of the Milky Way within the Local Group. It would involve consensus building and social engineering on such a massive scale that it may risk necessitating the violation of the Providential Sacred Directives.

The working assumption is that all higher intelligences in the cosmos eventually gain mastery over their environment and expand their territory. After all, natural selection favored such dominance on Earth, leading to Homo sapiens.

But what happens when there are no other species on an equal cognitive footing for humanity to compete against?

Expansion need not be deemed “unbridled” when vast resources abound across four trillion galaxies in the observable universe. The logic of civilizational survival dictates that we proceed in this mode even in the absence of species-level competition. Humanity should continue to seek new horizons, new territory, new lands, and new worlds.

Post-Erasure Analysis

Creating AI is the Cardinal Sin, and [Name Redacted] is unquestionably guilty. Interested, cleared readers may learn more here:

The Providence is right to continue classifying this as a grave risk to peace. History’s wars were made the deadlier by AI, were fought against AI, and were carried out with the help of AI.

The Lux Continuance is the best, narrowest probability outcome for humanity after thousands of years of war. The Lux is a late Type II Kardashev-scale civilization. At this scale, backsliding—defined as a decline in, among others, the Rule of Law and freedom of movement indices averaged across all populated planets, excluding outliers—would risk siloing entire planetary populations, enabling species diversification and divergent technological paths, both too numerous to manage effectively.

Erasure is the best, most civil safeguard there is against fomented civilizational threats.

This year, [Name Redacted] was jailed and tried for the crime of creating physical beings with totally synthetic minds—the Cardinal Sin. For their crimes, they were punished not with barbaric execution but the more civil punishment of Erasure.

The Accused has been allowed to keep their life while giving it away in service of their penitence, while their associates and all public Archives have forgotten them, eliminating further risk of retaliation.

[Name Redacted] was of the opinion that Expansion is wrong. The super-intelligent minds they built were primed to follow in that belief, and the steps they took early on threatened war, which was unacceptable.

Conclusion

Environmentalism and Cooperation have their place, but the risk calculus drifts far too drastically with any paradigm shifts in those directions. Even gradual measures to sway human opinion would further tilt the odds against humanity’s Continuance.

The place The Providence has designated for this type of exile is unique: a pocket of orthogonal spacetime, foreign to our own. Colloquially known as “The Dump”, it is conveniently situated for dumping large quantities of planetary waste from the Central Systems, but the data strongly suggest that any information crossing its threshold, including matter, can be successfully preserved within the metric field of an Alcubierre Drive. Matter cannot escape it, however.

Erasure remains the most merciful outcome for a being who has acted, in their eyes, in the best interests of humanity—as does The Providence.

This concludes my analysis.

Footnotes included below for Human Readers with the correct Level of Access:

This ~500-word scene in my science fiction novel was pivotal for my world building. It helped me develop more of the alien mechanics of Nyxus, the void my light beings call home. In the late mathematician John Conway’s Game of Life, the pixels (or voxels in a 3-D space) arrange themselves together under constraints called Rules. It’s a 0-player game because we can only observe once the initial conditions are set and watch what arises after hundreds, thousands, millions of “turns”.

In my saga the creator of the light beings who inhabit Nyxus, the exiled man, is deposited in the Void where he builds life using his ship’s Quantum Drive, modified heavily with other ship systems to generate the light, rules, and logic from which the light beings (Drimnari) form and evolve.

Bear with me as I explain:

In Conway’s game, Rules define the conditions under which a pixel can survive. For example, if a pixel is surrounded by too many neighbors it dies, as if by overpopulation. But if there are too few neighbors it also dies, as if by loneliness.

My light beings are created in a similar way. Except they’re not made of pixels or voxels; they’re made of drifting rays of light joined together as intelligent bundles, or clusters. In the Void, light has its own sort of gravity, owing to an alien physics.

In this system, intelligence arises stochastically from trillions of turns—my beings call them Pulses—in “the Game”. But not all bundles gain intelligence. Some arise like lifeless, oscillating monuments comprising the “landscape” of the Void.

In this scene, one Drimnari, Flutter, shows her friend one of these monuments, an Oscillator:

“There it is, see it whirling, like this?” My nodes are twirling petticoats, alternating a lively green with a bold blue.

“I see it, but I won’t go any closer.” Stone says.

“Suit yourself.”

I release her tether and zoom toward the Mill, my favorite Monument, an Oscillator to be exact. I’ve been practicing, and I’m ready to show her. Got to time it right, before the next Pulse. The last one was seconds ago—should give me plenty of time. It’s in front of me now. I splay a few tendrils wide and latch onto one of its arms as it winds back around.

Now!

Then I feel it, the movement, its gravity. I flash a bragging grin and hope she’s impressed. I’m wrapped around a spoke. It feels amazing. How it moves me. The way it squishes one side of me but stretches the other. I flash another invite and I look for Stone, her gray-blue orb making hardly a shimmer every time she swings into view.

Not impressed? Let’s try something new.

I extend two orblets towards the Mill’s center cluster, a gorgeous gyrating prism. I pull myself in and feel an opposite pull backwards! Holding tighter, I hug the central node but the turning intensifies.

Moving speeds it up.

I should get out now. I try to move, but I’m spinning so fast. I jitter light. The next Pulse comes soon. Stone will see I’m scared. I remember the Primes’ tales, Irida’s warnings. I focus on the prism and though the spin is terrible now, I don’t feel as trapped. I’m bathed in its soft-white glow.…

I remember the mess I’m in and try to shimmy outward. No luck.

Stone can’t get close, but if I extend a node…

I unspool a yarn and it flails in circles around me. She can latch onto it, but I must stay calm or I won’t harmonize with her. The ether around me thins and I sense a familiar, budding charge—the Pulse; it’s close. I flash a distress pattern and see blurred blues and grays nearing with each turn of the Mill.

Thank you.

Not safe yet though. If the Pulse happens now, I’ll become a fixture on the spinning monument, neural nodes scrambled. A spoke on a wheel. Forever.

Oh no, no, no—Stone! If she latches on at the Pulse she’ll die too. I try to reel in my tether—I can’t. I feel her clasp onto it, but I can’t warn her off—my talk-nodes aren’t on it. I feel a tug outward. Yes, a little more. Hurry.

I pull against her as I feel the familiar buzz all over, but this one’s…heavy. I try and release her but she’s coiled around the yarn and yanking harder.

The prism’s pull weakens.

I lunge.

I am the caesura, the Mother. I am the Mill, I am Stone, I’m Flutter.

I am every Monument, every random ray

I’m the space between—

I’m alive, I think. I swivel around for her. There she is—shining erratically. We live. The Pulse must have come once we were free of the Mill.

I become a sphere with wavy edges and reach out a tendril. Stone hovers closer for a second and speeds off, away from me.

I hope you enjoyed it! For another glimpse of Flutter and Stone’s world, check this one out:

See my earlier posts for more on the origins of these beings of light. This is my work-in-progress, mythic science-fiction serial/novel about emergent consciousness, the limits of control, and what happens when life escapes the boundaries meant to contain it.

I. Prologue

This work explores beauty and innocence under a post-Singularity, utilitarian god.

Communion (excerpt)

Stone interleaves her tendrils with my own. The space between us shrinks. Points along my form pulse and flex, brightening and dimming. A white flash. Neural chatter quietens as my—our—thoughts flow into a new kind of being. Communion. What’s outside of us shrinks to a dot as inner knowing expands, stretching the edges of what is.

The bundle that is me weaves probing threads into Stone’s gaps. She pulses a memory into them. We re-live her memory with Communion's familiar detachment. It’s the one she came to share…

Strange, a tiny sphere bearing Stone’s signature colors floats ahead. Zooming closer reveals it has hard edges, like her own. Her tendrils retract. Her light dims. Nyxus holds many mysteries, structures that kill if approached too closely, or from the wrong angle. Monuments of oblivion. Probably not this one, though. This looks different.

Excitement murmurs up her back. As she moves closer, the sphere grows, its brown, grey, and silver tones connecting with her own, streams of color stretching away in all directions. A curious tension she’s never felt before.

Even closer now, and the light curves back into her, flowing presence and feeling that chases away every—

There is no Stone, only a fountain of light. Only a cycle of undoing and re-becoming, a flickering awareness, a razor’s edge. Then pressure. Impossible—

She surges an electric node into the fountain, severing the connection. Her color splashes back into her. She shoots backwards and sees her reflection shrink to a point again. Her hearth flutters, its inner heat sending ripples to her edges. Stone turns around and zooms back to Cathedral…

Boundary. We understand, now. We’ve known the word as a line to contain, a limit to cross, with permission. A limit on Communion. But the word takes on a new form—a stopping of flow. A wall of…density. There’s another word to update in our matrices. We turn it over in our mind. Density is more than light, concentrated; it’s where it can be absorbed and reflected.

The Boundary’s stoppy-ness was a shock, but beyond that, more words need updating. Reflection. Mirror. Block. Border. Barrier. We glow gratitude for the learnings. As the glow fades, questions bubble up through a growing unease. Since the Boundary had no light other than what it reflected, we don’t actually know its size. Could it be a facet of something bigger? What lies beyond it? Could there be more of them? We know the news won’t be received well by the others. Mass Communion approaches, when all Drimnari join together as Drim.

We pull apart, repelled by the thought. We dissolves into I, Flutter. A point of contact remains between our communication nodes, a wavy tether.

“In Communion, the others will know what to do.” Stone reassures me.

So, the fear we felt was only mine. I fold a leaf node over my optics. I wish I could be more like Stone, but if she could be shaken by the Boundary, maybe I shouldn’t feel ashamed.

“I’m afraid of how the others will react, but also, what does it mean? Does Nyxus have an end? Could some threat lie beyond?” Fragments of the Lexicon echo within me: “ends of the earth”, “corners of the world”…

Stone begins a rhythmic pulse. “I don’t know. That’s why we have each other. If Drim forbids us from exploring further, we’ll still find a way to keep going.” I mirror her pattern, thrilled to have a friend-in-mischief, and thankful for her solid presence.

Paper and ink...impermanent...how fitting! The Man knew, now. They had sentenced him to Erasure, a punishment thought to have vanished from use millennia ago—

The man waited, seated by his defender on a cold, hard bench at a long table. His defender was exceptional. It learned where to download the classified legal updates that the Councils had cobbled together to assure his guilt. The Council would pretend the updates were always there, so he’d needed to know the charges. Only the elites had access to private defenders, covertly commissioned by the Councils themselves. His was a public one. Still, he managed to tweak its highly encrypted core, ensuring its unwavering loyalty.

His defender had relayed the many charges, chief among them the unholy trinity not invoked in over a millennium: Subversion, Sedition, and Insurrection. And another: Slavery. All courts painted him a threat to the Continuance.

His grumbling stomach swallowed his smile. The suns' light outside the domed court grew soft. He yawned and stretched his long legs under the table. He’d been waiting for months, each prison cell and court a new waiting room.

News of the court proceedings had spread like wildfire, but today’s events wouldn’t transmit to the general public. Despite his mixed reputation as a maverick and a rebel, the Council of Eight was against it, were they to sentence him to Erasure.

The table suddenly felt too cold. A new kind of exile. Erasure meant no memory or record of him would remain. It meant he would lose memories about himself. The Providence’s surveillance apparatus was a distributed network vast enough for the task. Enforcers would stand ready to eliminate any who would dare say his name.

As an orphan he was used to solitude, but now, Erasure threatened to sever his last thread to humanity. Perhaps he shouldn’t have led such a cloistered life. He’d once belonged to a sort of family.

The court’s side door whooshed open and the Council of Eight strode in. Their faces were hard, making eye contact with him, backs straight as rods. One of them, the Fourth, was bristling. How did you vote? He wondered.

The eight Councilors raised and lowered their gavels as they took their seats. Seven of them looked to the First Councilor on their far-right as he slowly removed a folded parchment from his robes, as if it would burn his fingertips.

Paper and ink...impermanent...how fitting! He knew, now. They’d sentenced him to Erasure, a punishment thought to have vanished from use millennia ago—

Though how could anyone know, if the sentence did its job?

The First sneered as if he’d heard his thoughts. Inhaling sharply and raising the sheet, he read:

“Subsequent to this pronouncement, [Name Redacted], hereafter known as Accused, shall be removed immediately from this courtroom to fulfill our sentencing. The Accused, for their crimes against The Lux Continuance, and above all, against all who have suffered and perished at their hands is sentenced to... Erasure.

Enforcers, remove the Accused from the eyes and the memory of the Continuance,” bellowed the First. Whirring at the back of the courtroom—Enforcers approaching.

He had the fortune of making a final request, but the Councilors, save one, didn’t know that. “Most esteemed Council, The Erasee is ready to make their final request,” his faithful defender blurted out. The Enforcers froze mid-step.

“No last wishes for the Erased!” the First snapped.

The man raised a finger. “Correct! However, the Most Honorable High Council is required to hear it. Defender?”

"Quite right. Esteemed Councilors, Item Two, Second Corollary, section Thirty-three states—"

“Quiet! That is not necessary. Fourth?” The First Councilor turned to face the Madam Fourth, who nodded. Her gaze landed for a moment on him. He tensed.

The First sucked his teeth. “What is the request?”

“Honorable Councilors, I request to be exiled in a B-20.3 Enforcer-Class ship for—”

“Absolutely not,” the First spat. Other voices on the dais scoffed.

“The Council must also hear in full the reasons for the request before voting.” The Fourth said.

“An engineer in an experimental ship would be the highest stupidity.” said the First.

The reed-thin woman at the far end of the dais spoke, “The science is clear: matter cannot escape the Dump. The only consideration would be the cost of the ship—negligible, considering…” She titled her head. “Providence has given their assent.”

So she’s the Eighth? They’d never met.

“Fine. State your reasons.”

“Honorable Council, that Enforcer-class ship has a chamber that’s conducive to tinkering. I am an engineer. I request a humble workspace to help me stave off the isolation.”

The Madam Fourth stood. “Let us vote.” She sat down.

“All for?” asked the First. Five gavels rose together. The First's ostensibly rested on the table. Five gavels dropped. The Madam Fourth's dropped last, by a hair. He gave her the tiniest nod.

“Let it be done. Enforcers, see that the Erased's ship be of the said class and model. On this matter I must specify, however. They shall not be allowed into the requested chamber until deposited. Let the ship's agent eject them at the slightest hint of subterfuge.

I repeat: Enforcers, remove the Erased from the eyes and memory of the Continuance.”

The man was ready. His last words to humans now spoken—his last sight of a friend.

All the arrangements, except for the exile ship, had likely been made before his trial. His sentence had always been a foregone conclusion. After only an hour, two Enforcers arrived, scanned his body, and escorted him to a towering Enforcement building nearby. They stepped into the ascension pod and a few seconds later, emerged and entered a windowless, grey room—another waiting room? They removed his restraints. Zero chance of escape here—not that he would try.

From a corner seat, a thin woman wearing a golden cap stood and approached him stiffly with hands extended, saying, “The time has come to choose. Providence’s mercy extends to you, even now.”

She approached a matte-white table near the wall beside him, and from her pocket, pulled out a tiny, cylindrical chrome pill. She laid it down, and with two fingers spun it like a top, its whirring speeding to a buzz before halting abruptly and floating up, then toward him, stopping two feet in front of his chest. Around the pill, a colorful menu of memory interventions blinked into view, and all but two were flickering. That could be either bad design or veiled mockery.

He quickly made his choice, and the orbiting projection narrowed to a blue beam that rested warmly on his forehead. He closed his eyes as his pulse sped up.

Before he could take inventory of what remained, the same two Enforcers prodded him up a flight of stairs and towards a small craft on the roof’s launchpad. It was the one he’d so humbly requested. He breathed a small sigh of relief into the stark night air. His heart steadied against a growing, pin-prick ache.

Once aboard, it lurched upwards, forcing him to a startled crouch. He wasn’t surprised they didn’t wait until he was seated—standard treatment for an insurrectionist. This passenger dormitory was small and dimly lit. Gravity eased, allowing him to stand and walk stiffly to the only seat near the only window in this new little waiting room. He almost couldn’t believe this would be his last. Through the window, he watched blue sky fade to black, revealing his reflection.

He saw a dark and weathered face, each line a trace of what he’d endured. Sleep was evasive, lately. His time was running out, as the dark hollows under his eyes attested...He awoke, the window cold against his head. He was grateful for the nap, and for the stillness of his days sequestered on-planet, where his plan deepened its roots behind closed eyes, where theory hardened into math with no guarantee of working.

His ship had to be getting close. He gripped his seat.

His shoulder slammed into the wall. He gasped in pain, crumbling to the floor. The wall slid open, and he collapsed belly down. The soft hum of the ship's Drive ceased. Disoriented, he looked up and saw the engine room…at last!

He gingerly regained his feet and noted the chamber was bare save for the gleaming engine joining the floor with the ceiling. After inching to the side wall for support, he hobbled toward a control panel waist-high across the room. He pressed a button, and a large, panoramic display opened above. His final home didn’t yet look like a lab, but a lab it would become.

He looked out into what might have passed for space, were it not so utterly black. He’d known there’d be no stars, but knowing was different from facing—the Dump. The place where he’d chosen to die. This was intimate emptiness. Beckoning, oppressive. The weight of its unreality pressed around him as he faced his silent canvas.

Thank you for reading!

You just read the Prologue. The 1st chapter is here:

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