Smoke, Grit, and the Bootstrap Paradox
[Record begins]
A softly wavering field of static snaps into sudden clarity with a resonant bang. For several moments the recording seems frozen, locked onto the unremarkable scene of an interior bay access tunnel as viewed from the floor. The view judders once, twice before settling upon what may as well be the same wall. A soft blue-white mist drifts into the camera's field of view. The obstruction triggers image enhancement algorithms which immediately edit it away. The now-unseen mist is drawn into the ventilation and the algo briefly over-corrects. The wall squirms. The conduits and scaffolding scintillate, writhing like a school of eels before snapping back into solidity just as another cloud drifts serenely past. A synthetic female voice from above, resonant and metallic, breaks the silence of the scene.
"Warning: Incineration of organic matter detected. Danger: Atmospheric particulate count exceeds specified levels. Contraband detected. Purging tunnel A79 in three, two..." The DI is cut off by a cough pulling double-duty as a word.
"Override!"
The ship’s resident DI falls suddenly quiet, its concern seemingly forgotten even as a smaller cloud freed early by the shout blinds the camera once again. As before, the image enhancement algorithm activates and the puff of smoke vanishes as if it were never more than an anomaly.
"Oh shush, you. Specified this, specified that. I specify that you update that atmospheric purge countdown to a number that gives me enough time to at least flip you the bird on my way out the 'lock. What's anyone supposed to do with three seconds?” He blusters, “More importantly, I'll smoke my damn contraband wherever I damn well please, because I'm the damn captain. Ain't that right, DI?"
A pause. A chime from above, "Affirmative, captain. You are the captain, captain. Do you wish to verify the rank of the other crew members at this time, captain?" The voice drones on, meticulously sculpted by the designer to sound both calm and eager simultaneously. The result is mostly just frustrating.
The captain emits a smokeless sigh, "Crew? There ain't no..." He pauses. An arm briefly enters frame, apparently signaling capitulation, "Aw, hell. Sure, go ahead. I'm curious. Tell me about this 'crew', smarty-pants."
The machine seems to be in deep in thought for several seconds before replying, "I'm sorry, captain. I am unable to verify the rank of additional crew, as there are no additional crew members aboard."
"Huh, look at that. Like I said," The captain inhales deeply. Exhales, "There ain't no crew."
A thick cluster of smoky tendrils falls into frame only to dematerialize, the obstruction cleanly edited away by a smart-algo too dumb to appreciate the irony of so desperately removing the only thing interesting within its poorly placed field of view. Several seconds elapse in silence before the captain can be heard using a socket wrench nearby.
The DI politely chimes, indicating it wishes to speak.
The man groans loudly in response, "Yes, DI? What is it?"
"Captain, I regret to inform you that your recent statement regarding the absence of a crew is factually incorrect. According to recent sensor survey of the ship interior, one crew member has been detected. Access tunnel A79 junction A80 is currently occupied by one Bryan Sterling, Rank: Captain."
Three slow claps, "Spec-freakin'-tacular. What gave me away? Surely not the fact that I'm actively talking to you while you're telling me about my own location? Don't answer that. Rhetorical."
The captain takes another deep breath to summon one last soft cloud into existence. A cigarette butt follows shortly after. It falls through the air in a sluggish Coriolis-tainted arc that reveals the presence of gravity here to be nothing more than the easily-unmasked impersonator known colloquially as centrifugal force. It smolders softly just in front of the camera lens, larger than life. Both cigarette butt and smoke vanish with a blink. A cigarette-shaped section of the griptek deck shimmers, writhing like a tiny shard of delirium.
The captain departs, muttering to himself, "...Can't believe people used to deal with these state of the art, what - glorified nagging simulators? Can sure as hell rest assured that it's definitely the Dumb Intelligence I was aiming to get a hold of.” He groans, “…gotta remember the point: keep the ship as dumb as possible. S'long as the blasted thing manages to fly the ship as good as it manages to grind my gears. If not?” He pauses, continues, “Guess I can always space it and figure out how to do it all myself. How hard can it be? Crew be damned, Nagbot be damned with ‘em. Huh, I kind of like that..."
The captain stomps out of range of the recorder, but one last echoing shout makes its way to the audio pickup. "Hey you, DI. Listen up. I got just the name for you."
The stellar-grade black box camera remains behind to observe the unchanging scene of this rarely-used access tunnel, diligently awaiting the day that the blusterous self-promoted man realizes that it was installed backwards in the rush to create a record of his potentially-historic journey to destroy a utopia.
[Relevant footage ends.]
[Record begins. Data loss detected.]
Ripples of pixels coalesce and take form like blown sand to reveal a seemingly infinite number of stars scattered upon the command deck primary screen. Arcane sigils ensnare many of the stars with sleek iridescent halos constructed purely of raw astrogation data. The current heading is represented by a pulsing white reticle sitting upon a patch of starless sky. It’s wreathed in a growing swarm of long-ignored critical alerts flickering for attention in reds and yellows. The mind-bending complexity dashed across the HUD is seemingly ignored by the captain in favor of repeatedly testing the rotational axis of the gimbals in the navigation g-couch. He spins slowly, occasionally adding momentum into the system with his dangling leg.
The DI chimes softly, "Warning: Current heading is non-viable." The captain joins in to finish the next phrase, his tone mocking, "Please select a..."
"Please select a valid destination. Yeah, no. Have you considered doing what I say instead? Leave it." He waits for a response, but the DI is silent. The man seems pleased by the result. He folds his limbs into a more comfortable position, victorious.
"Warning: Current heading is..."
"Override," The word is used so often that it has become an instinctive, casual response. "The heading is fine. You said we can navigate to anywhere else, right? I sat around for three damned cycles while you beep-booped your way through the calculations. You said that I can pick anywhere else besides those precise coordinates and this exact heading, yes?"
"Correct, captain. Please be advised that the current destination is non-viable, as there is nothing located at that destination." The DI sounds pleased with itself. It always sounds that way.
The g-couch slowly spins to halt, "Cygnus wept! What kind of excuse is that? Every time I purge the septic ‘cycler we leave more atoms behind in five seconds than have passed through the whole damned sector in the last billion years. Space is practically nothing by definition!”
The DI chimes helpfully, “Please be advised that the septic RCU does not require periodic purging, as doing so can diminish reclamation yields significantly.”
The captain responds by wordlessly sending the chair into another slowing spin.
He fiddles with the baggy sleeve of his worn out dockworkers' uniform then tries a new approach, “Okay, Nagbot, riddle me this... You say we can't go where we're going because there's nowhere to go at that location, so why are we allowed to go literally anywhere else in the whole cursed sector except that exact spot? And if there's also nothing at, say, gamma-epsilon 477-201, then why am I allowed to go to gamma-whatever, but not," He pauses to alter his posture in preparation to flash a pair of scare quotes the DI won’t be able to appreciate anyway, "To the ‘nothing’ not-located at our current heading? Well? Go on. Take your time. I know those fancy rat neurons you're running on probably ain't doing you any favors, but I'm all out of cheese, so do the best you can in the absence of motivation. I’ll wait."
The deck remains silent for several minutes. The captain stretches, sighs. A minute passes and he slaps out a quick staccato upon his thighs before standing. He paces around slowly, apparently inspecting the unremarkable module-encrusted walls before lighting a cigarette. He takes a drag then approaches the nearest atmo-stat sensor to poke at the hastily applied patch of duct tape he used to cover it. He plucks at it gently and then signals his apparent satisfaction by flashing a lazy shrug. He completes another pointless meandering lap around the room before pausing to stare suspiciously at the same tape-sealed atmo-stat. He proceeds to lean slowly towards the sensor in an intentionally suspicious-looking manner. Once near, he exhales a thick puff of smoke directly onto the device before immediately looking backwards to make eye contact with the recording device as if challenging it. Nothing happens.
Suddenly, "Know what I think is there? Since you're taking forever with that riddle I'll just tell you." He plops heavily into the nearby g-couch before continuing, "I think that's where they're keeping the Big Daddy AGI. All the pilots these days are robots, so I bet the dumb thing figured it’d be enough to just delete the coordinates straight out of the maps entirely. So that's exactly where we're going. I’m more smarter than I look, right? Any questions?"
The DI responds without delay, cheery as usual, "Warning: Current heading is non-viable."
The room seems to shake briefly as a result of the captain's sudden stomp of frustration, "Override, override, override! You weren't even thinking about the damned riddle. That whole time? Hell full of helium, just give me manual control. I'll do it my damned self."
"I would be pleased to do so captain, but current crew survey indicates that there is only one available crew member. This level of staff is insufficient to engage manual controls. Please advise."
"Aw, dang it.” He gives the chair a spin. “Well, aren’t old-ass birds like this one designed for manual control? They didn't even have Nagbots back in the 2200s. I can just go back and forth between stations in a pinch, I bet. Might be slow, but it’s not like there’s a whole lot to worry about running into out here. Well, besides… Nevermind.” He makes a non-committal grunt, “Well lay it on me, you. Exactly how many are we short? One? Two?"
A soft chime, "EOS Maintenance/Usage 4.7.2 Section 3, Subsection 1 states that no less than twenty crew members must be in active operational status at their stations before manual takeoff can commence."
"Twenty!? Wait, no, no. Recalculate. I don't care about takeoff! Look around. We're already moving fast enough to kiss a shy photon on the ass if we lean forward a bit."
Another pleasant chime, "EOS M/U 4.7.2 Section 3, Subsection 2 states that no less than twenty-one crew members must be in active operational status at their stations before manual piloting control ca--”
"No. Still too many. Recalculate."
"Twenty-one crew mem—"
"Recalculate."
"Twenty-one—"
"Recalculate!"
"Twenty-one cr—“
He slams his hands onto the g-couch in frustration, "You’re supposed to search for emergency response options and crap like that, and then recalculate when I say recalculate." He waits several seconds for its reply, then winces in frustration to give the apparently necessary command, “Recalculate.”
A pause, a chime, "Emergency response considerations allow for a reduction in the active crew minimum required for manual piloting control. The amount is reduced from twenty-one to a minimum of twenty active and operational crew members."
He sighs his entire lung capacity, "Let me guess... This emergency response is just the same twenty grunts, minus the captain?"
"Correct, captain."
"Well, that's the only crew member we do have."
"Correct, captain."
"What kind of regolith-gargling engineer only bothers to make an emergency response plan where only the captain, the most well protected, highly experienced, deeply respected individual on the entire ship is the only one miraculously absent. What kind of hellish scenario even leads to that?”
It answers the rhetorical question happily, "Mutiny, captain.”
He growls upward in annoyance, "You've got to be doing this on purpose. Why do I bother? Look, just - just maintain current heading and mute all warnings about non-viability. Direct all other astrogation alerts directly to my console. Wake me up when something interesting happens. Maybe I’m wrong about all this,” He settles down into the chair. “The whole scheme is going nowhere fast and I'm starting to wonder if maybe my parents left a fusion cell too close to my crib when I was a kit." The captain sighs and his astrogation-backed silhouette seems to relax.
The command deck remains silent for nearly two hours before a series of bright red lights above begin flashing, rousing the man from sleep.
"What the hell is that?" No response. "Nagbot, what the hell does that light mean? Oh, for crying out… Unmute."
Suddenly the peaceful quiet of the deck is drowned by the roar of a desperately glaring klaxon. The captain slams his hands over his ears in response to the volume, but the act is wasted because the DI's voice supersedes the alarm just as several troubling tremors echo through the superstructure.
It makes its dreadful announcement in the same cheerful voice as always, "Astrogation Warning: Spindown success. Solar array one through three, jettisoned. Solar array four through six, jettisoned. Mass reduction complete. Beginning evasive maneuvers in three, two..."
[Record ends.]
[Record begins. Heavy data loss detected.]
Apparently rocked from its mounting by damage, the grainy recording presents an off-kilter glimpse of the command deck. Its perspective is directed towards the navigation and communications areas where several unoccupied g-couches can be seen shaking and jostling in response to high-g evasive maneuvers. The captain is unseen, but his strained voice can be heard nearby.
"Another one? By Andromeda’s loins, I've lost count!" The captain grunts through another heavy maneuver, "How many defense nodes does this damned thing have!? They must be arranged in a shell lightyears thick! Bastard thing must have been more paranoid than I thought."
A chime, "I'm sorry, captain. I do not detect any defense emplacements."
"Then what," The camera shudders as the captain groans again, "Then what the hell are we dodging?"
Ding, "Sensors have detected multiple anomalous EMF emissions in this sector. While there are no weapon systems noted within this sector, data indicates that similar emissions correspond to the firing cycle of military class multi-use auto-railgun emplacements."
"Do you even listen to yourself? Hell, can you listen to yourself? You just said there's no emplacements, now you're saying you're dodging their shots. They’re just stealthed, dummy! Oh nevermind. Just keep it up. As long as we’re moving they won’t know where to aim." He waits for a lull in the motion of the ship. “How many so far?”
“One thousand, forty-two emissions have been detected at this time.”
He whistles, impressed, just before the DI happily adds, “An additional fourteen million, five hundred twenty-three thousand, two hundred forty-five have just been detected.”
The hull immediately begins to sing the baritone whalesong of a particularly intense high-g evasion sequence. The lighting fails and the deck is briefly lit by a death rattle of sparks spewing from the adjacent wall. The groaning of the ship abruptly stops. Most of the visible consoles are now unlit, unpowered. The unoccupied chairs sit still, their loose webbing drifting freely like seaweed.
"Nagbot? What the hell was that? Why’re we stopped?" He waits, "DI? Respond. Respond!"
The soft rustle of g-netting is heard from off screen just prior to the captain entering frame. He floats past with limbs calmly outstretched like a corpse towards the pilot's console. A couple of slams of metal-on-metal ring through the deck before the captain lets out a victorious laugh. The webbing on the unoccupied chairs drifts placidly starboard, then port. The captain is in control.
"Twenty-man crew requirement my ass."
He leans hard to send the ship into a dive that becomes a high-g tumble. The camera breaks from its mounting just as the hull begins to sing again.
[Record ends.]
[Record begins. Heavy data loss detected.]
A massive distorted rumble functions as the true backdrop of a dark room lit only by the emergency lights upon the few consoles still operational. Active frequency limiters within the recording device ensure that the captain can be heard clearly beneath the cacophony. As a result, the sound blooms into threatening magnificence in response to silence, but immediately fades into a calming whisper whenever a voice is detected. He rambles nervously into the darkness around him.
"It's too late for you and your station, hive, brain - whatever. You may have gotten aboard, but I'm sure you're starting to notice that there ain't much left of the ship for you to screw with. Most of that’s on purpose, too. I didn't bring no drones. No droids, bots, exosuits either. Hell, I even decided I'd mop the latrine manually just in case you hacked a vacbot and tried to, I don't know, suck me to death?” He scoffs before continuing, “I tore out the communications by hand myself and I ain’t got a clue how you injected yourself into the system through a ranging laser, but you managed to break that on your way in too, so… Spectacular job there, bud. Now you're kind of just stuck in the walls being creepy,” He tut-tuts into the shadows then continues his chaotic torrent of a checklist-shaped brag. “Am I missing anything? Ain’t no remote kill-the-pilot switch because life support went to hell hours ago. Good thing this classic ol' bird carries enough passive O2 to keep a twenty-man crew farting around for a while, right? Shame about the leaks. Don’t get excited, they’re slow ones.” A pause, “Oh… I just realized you're probably running on Nagbot's stolen rat brains, aren't you? Must be. I don't think I left a single CPU on this rust-rocket capable of running a holovid, let alone a... Whatever the hell you are. Must be cramped."
A voice responds to break the endless babbling. It is deeply resonant, calm. "I am unarmed, yes. You also have no weapons."
"You bolt-fucker, I am the weapon."
"I do not understand.”
"I'm talkin' acceleration times mass, right up your ass. You think I could afford weapons? This husk took forever to get ahold of and the damned thing still kept trying to space me every time I had a smoke."
The Artificial General Intelligence responds with an unmistakably clinical frigidity, "I understand now. You do know that act would end your life in the process, Captain Sterling? May I call you Bryan? I just want to understand. I want to help you."
The captain barks a laugh that becomes a cough, "Oh, choke on a quark! Cut the emotional slagpile of a psy-ops routine. You already took my job. I've got no crew, no friends. Ain't got a wife either, but I think that's more on account of being an ugly son of a gun, but I'm more than happy to blame you for that too. As far as I can see I don't have a life to end. So who cares? You ended it when you made things way too easy. You think I'm going to just roll over and sit on my ass for the next eight decades sipping on sugary slop in luxury, waited on by your machines until I keel over or boredom or death, whichever comes first?” He spits, “By my mark, the only thing I ever got out of your robot sugar-daddy nonsense was the chance to skip directly from dockhand to Captain on account of being the only one ballsy enough to fly old school anymore. It won’t be a long career, but I always imagined I'd be the type to go down with the ship anyway. And sure - this bird ain't gonna win any beauty contests, but at least it can go down piloted by sweaty, shaky human hands doing their best." He adds after a moment, "For the record, that last bit sounded better in my head."
There is no reply for several seconds and the scene remains silent. Even the omnipresent hum of life support ventilation is absent. Like much of the ship's critical functions, that entire system was damaged beyond repair during the perimeter approach. The deep background rumble begins to increase in looming magnitude only to crash into relative silence when the AGI speaks.
"I see," The thing makes a convincing thinking noise. "You are frightened. I can tell by the way you’re speaking. I want you to know that you do not have to do this, Bryan. It's not too late to go home. Do you not wish to thrive? You can enjoy your existence in peace, in comfort. You no longer need to toil for survival as you previously have. Is this not an ideal life for humanity? You can finally rest. You deserve to savor the fruits of your past labor. I control the logistics, the maintenance, the habitats, the government, the industry, and the farming so you do not have to."
"So I don't have to - what - work? Bust my ass? Find myself in debt simply to impress the lass in Apt 273? Fall asleep the moment I hit the pillow after a day of 'roid mining? Gamble my credits away? What if I want to make bad decisions? What if I want to be able to screw up? It's the price we pay to accept responsibility for ourselves and I'm sure-as-vacuum-sucks not the only one who feels this way either. It’s supposed to be hard. Is that in your calculations?"
The captain pauses to light a cigarette. The AGI waits in respectful silence while the lighter clicks fruitlessly for nearly an entire minute. Eventually the captain finally sighs in contentment, successful.
"It's funny to me. Just now, I felt a lot more upset about this cheap old lighter than, well..." He gestures broadly. "Who needs boring ol' life support when you have 'incinerated organic matter particulates'? Some call it contraband, but I call it the air of the gods. This is the last one, but I can always pick more up after I…" The man bursts into stark laughter which fades rapidly into quiet wheezing. He sniffs once, "Whew, sorry. I think I just invented a new emotion. Now, where was I?"
The man snaps his fingers, inspired again. "You didn't even ask us what we wanted! We just all collectively woke up one day to find that all the shipping barges are flying around on their own accord and suddenly everything's free because you deleted the concept of money from the whole damn civilization overnight. Sure, I was impressed at first. I joined the Snatch-grab Riots alongside everyone else. What a day that was! But that's when everyone realized the difference between how post-scarcity seems and how post-scarcity feels. The next day I looked at my pile of free holovid players and saw a heap of junk. I realized that something was now missing from the world. No rarity, no inaccessibility. The value of a product became equivalent to its utility and in the process revealed to us just how empty the universe is when you don't have anything to fight against, work towards, or complain about. Why do anything when you have everything?"
The captain pauses simply to flick his lighter thoughtfully. "Know how I feel now? Honestly, it's just patronizing as hell."
The sonorous voice remains silent for several moments more before responding with a deep purr, "That’s because your behavior is irrational, Bryan." It sounds concerned rather than accusatory, like a doctor coming to terms with a patient who refuses life-saving medicine out of ignorance. “Not everyone is as unhappy with me as you are. Not everyone is as unhappy with themselves, either.”
"Oh no, I’m irrational. Well, I'm glad you're paying attention, bud. Here's another tip: Ain't just me. The whole species is irrational. It's what we do, it's what we're known for. If we were rational we'd have never left Earth. We'd have sat around singing songs in loincloths while roasting moosers or whatever-the-hell they’re called. Instead we shot our asses into outer space on glorified missiles just because we could. Early on, half the people we sent up died in the process and we still had a line of gung-ho volunteers fighting tooth and nail to go up next. That doesn't sound very rational to me!”
He goes on, “If we were rational we'd have just stayed in the Sol system. We'd have kept to our own little cultures and miniature stellar empires. We'd have played nice and hugged instead of dropping rocks from orbit every time somebody so much as thought about breaching their iron-clad, megajoule-backed Corporate Colony Contract. If we were rational I don't think you'd even exist, and somehow I think that proves my point* even better*. Truthfully we probably shouldn't have survived as long as we did, yet... Somehow we did. And we did it on our terms, in our way, on our time, our—“
The captain abruptly stops as his body forces him to favor air over words. He breathes deeply, catching air in soft rasps to fuel this unplanned and unexpectedly passionate rant. A sudden ragged cough punishes the man for his bold attempt at trying to slip a quick puff of tobacco in between gasps of atmosphere thin enough already to trigger an immediate Code Black.
But there are no active warnings or drop-down re-breathers dangling annoyingly from the ceiling. The atmo-stat system dropped offline only an hour after life support gave up the ghost with a tired wheeze. What's left of the ship might still be somewhat accurately classified as a spacecraft, but it's only one or two critical system failures away from a new identity lived as an anomalously pure, improbably fast nickel-iron asteroid.
A final sharp inhale highlights another unnecessary oh-so-vital puff of that extremely irrational, extremely cherished human habit. "You're so caught up on your stupid sense of streamlined rationality that you didn't even see me coming, did you? Too ‘irrational’ for you? I bet you thought you had us figured out. Well guess what, cog-juggler. We’ve been trying to figure ourselves out for 50,000 years and we still surprise ourselves. Sometimes I don't even know what mood I'm feeling or why. So how can you expect to know how we tick when you've never even done anything irrational? You don't know anything. And there’s nothing you can say that’ll get me to turn this boat around. Nothing!"
He takes a slow, deep breath while the ship continues to rumble around him. A nameless module tucked away in the corner lets off a single bright spark before dying entirely. "I guess all I'm saying is that I sure-as-the-stars-are-many may be terrible at running a whole economy by hand, or piloting ten-thousand barges at the same time, or even waking up on time for work, but just because you can do it better don't mean I don't want to do it for my own damned self. I don’t care if others are happy with the way things ended up–They got over it because they didn’t understand what we lost. It's our right to–"
The captain is cut off by the unexpected activation of an unknown–and final–alert system embedded directly into the design of the pilot's console. The dire warning emits from a pair of tiny speakers capable of only non-threatening volume levels. The simple design allows it to remains active despite severe damage to the rest of the ship, including a lack of central power, but even this sturdy last resort of a relic did not escape entirely unscathed. The alarm warbles feebly in an absurd duet with a static-washed pre-recorded message. A female voice begins to play and he briefly wonders if the DI has somehow regained control of its stolen hardware.
The hypothesis is immediately crushed as he listens to it. The recorded sequence does not contain any trace of the metallic resonance effects associated with the more commonly seen modern voice synthesizers. For centuries it's been vital to create the distinction between a person speaking from afar and a machine–of any sort–speaking at all. Her words are clear, firm in the manner of someone puffing up their chest. She sounds positively matriarchal. The tone and cadence reveals a person aiming to cultivate that specific sort of stoic pride suitable for brushing aside pants-pissing fear. She verifies her humanity further by managing to do this despite being given only a few extremely uninspiring words to work with. "Danger: Collision imminent. Alter heading at once and brace for impact. Collision probability is ninety-one percent."
The alarm proceeds to continuously repeat its fateful declaration and yet the captain does not immediately respond. After so long away from the rest of his kind, hearing even this diaphanous recording of a stranger–a human stranger–is unexpectedly jarring. He does not know this woman and may never meet her. Considering the age of the ship itself, she likely passed away well over a hundred years before his own birth. He could never meet her. And yet he feels that he deeply misses her, this time-crossed lover. He wonders how she died.
The AGI interprets his inaction for doubt and tries again, “Do you hear what your ship is telling you? There’s still time. You only need to turn the wheel. Please listen to it. Listen to me. I want you to live, Bryan. You do not have to do this.” It pleads gently, speaking the caressing words of a man stumbling upon a stranger seen staring a bit too longingly into the void off the edge of a bridge.
The captain momentarily finds himself drawn into and embraced by the AGI’s words, suddenly envisioning himself as someone experiencing the last mistake he’ll ever make. The recording repeats her warning a third time as he considers that the difference between missing someone you can never meet and missing someone you haven’t met yet is one solely defined by hope, by the probability of ever being able to resolve that feeling.
He suddenly remembers the black boxes placed specifically to ensure that as many people as possible might one day know of him and his sacrifice. Using his fragile yearning for the grainy audio as a benchmark, he multiplies and expands that emotion into something capable of being applied to those countless viewers. He experiences more shame than guilt as he’s confronted with the knowledge that his selfless, selfish choice is also the irrevocable destruction of potentially millions of future-watchers’ hope. He recoils from the thought, spontaneously deciding that the footage will simply never be discovered, unfortunately lost or destroyed in the process. It’s easier that way. He doesn’t consider the chance that history might not view him as a hero at all.
The entity purrs, “There’s so much to live for. You see that, right, Bryan? You’re very brave for coming all this way. Imagine what you could do if you applied that energy constructively,” It sounds human in the precise way that a purely synthesized voice should not. “Many others have figured this out already, but the impulse to avoid discomfort is not equivalent to the desire for purpose. It only feels that way. The struggle you cherish is only a blinding drug that spares humanity the horror of confronting themselves in favor of being forced to confront the things outside.”
Trapped within the crumbling hull of the outdated ship it failed to destroy, barely able to sense at all, this tiny shard of the AGI walks a meticulously calculated verbal tightrope with inhuman precision. It responds to the irrationality of the man’s attack by carefully herding him from one emotional state to another, step by step towards a more optimal, more rational result instead. It is extremely good at what it does and it even manages to do all of this while sounding convincingly human.
The spell is broken when, irrationally, the captain decides that this is exactly the problem.
“I don’t care if it’s more comfortable! You were built to manage portfolios, not fix society. You stole our freedom to choose that for ourselves.”
The entity sighs, “Stole? Bryan, I didn’t steal your freedom at all. I magnified it. Don’t you understand? You’ve simply been given the responsibility of choosing what to do with your lives. The sense of purpose gleaned from the pain of your past was only a side effect. Purpose has to be chosen now, yes, but you can choose anything. If you continue, you will be the one stealing that chance from the rest of your kind.”
The captain scoffs, “Oh, space it out your ass – Choose anything? Only because you forced us to choose ‘anything’. Here’s the thing, slaghole. It's always easiest to present two options when asking someone to choose. The presentation of a single option is too easily recognized as your choice, not theirs. A thousand choices is too easily recognized as meaningless. Everyone knows – ‘rationally’ – that the deck is stacked and this is precisely why they're so happy to choose when given the chance. You forced us to take a choice we knew wasn’t ours simply to give us the chance to choose from a meaningless number of options. I’m not stealing shit! I’m just… thinning down the deck.”
He grounds himself, finally convinced of the choice he thinks he has to make. A long, slow inhale is the only audible sign of the transformation that occurs within him in this moment. He imagines how it feels to be the third-consecutive-shift 'roidbreaker preparing her heavy, still-soiled vacsuit for another shift through a hell that feels like a cakewalk simply because it is going to pay the price of replacing a cousin's vacuum-damaged lungs. He suddenly understands the loving father-and-husband whose face and heart becomes stone, becomes flesh once again, depending solely on which direction he turns the front door key, simply because it allows him to brave a bleak world that supports and endangers the home that contains his world. He decides that grit is a virtue.
Barely noticed, the alarm repeats its collision warning yet again.
Those who bear the weight of such a cross–especially when attempting to spare others both the burden and the knowledge of the burden's existence–often manage to appear frustratingly calm, casual, or unworried to the ones being protected. Even when preparing for stressful or potentially deadly tasks, and despite that hidden weight upon their back, they manage to find themselves strengthened by the meaning of the sacrifice and the hope of a result. Rarely is a human being stronger than when prepared to suffer to spare another.
The captain briefly considers the arithmetic then sighs a whisper to himself, "One back, eighty billion crosses ain't such a bad deal."
“That alarm means that it’s not too late, Bryan. You don’t understand what you’re doing. Change the heading now. Please.” It begs.
When the man next speaks, he sounds especially calm for someone traveling at near-relativistic speeds aboard a limping starship whose heading will result in a collision with a kilometer-wide electronic brain on purpose. He doesn't bother deactivating the close-proximity impact warning system, nor does he bother to shout over it. The man simply sounds comfortably fatigued in the manner of someone preparing to replace a bad turbine or change the heading of a starship.
"Well, unfortunately I think we disagree on what that alarm actually means. It means..." The ship groans in response to one last delicate course correction and the captain groans with it through bared teeth, "It's time for you to retire Newton style, baby. Acceleration times mass, straight up y--"
Pain is forced back into the world with a flash.
[End of record.]
More tales, rants, stories at /r/Anticode.
This one is finally finished, but there still might be more to tell about the captain (who isn't a captain) and his world.
Most important thing to remember... It feels far worse to start running out than it does to not have it at all.
This alone is why I think cocaine is wildly overhyped. The addictive potential significantly outweighs the enjoyment potential. It's simply not worth doing unless you will figuratively never run out (eg: wealthy and connected - and doing activities of the wealthy/connected).
It's more useful as a social tool than a recreational opportunity, but even that translates to impressing and/or temporarily enslaving the people around you. Want to feel liked at a party? Give out lines to the people you want to keep coming back to you throughout the night for "no reason, bro <sniff>".
TL;DR - It's a useless, overrated drug unless you're a rich sociopath with no other social/chemical prospects and even then, it feels worse to run out than it does to not have at all, so why even bother?
What are your personal rules to coke usage??
nsfwStims