This is installment #10 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.
The vote was split; three of us in favor of focusing on 2275 Earth and the other three voting to pursue a conclusion pre-2060. So we randomly chose three from our Citizen Council of 100 and presented the either/or; (wake The Intelligence or not). We conveyed the urgency and argued both sides of the uncertainty without unnecessarily disclosing all the facts. The vote was 5 to 4 in favor of reactivating The Intelligence. I believe it is a mistake, but we spoke. So we brought The Intelligence back into our inner circle and randomly dismissed one of the Citizen Council representatives. It did not take long for The Intelligence (who we now refer to as Tim) to come up to speed. It took a bit longer to present all the facts and history to the two remaining Citizen Council representatives. Then with the Council of Six, the two Citizen representatives, and Tim, we voted again on all-in 2275 or all-in pre-2060. We, the Council of Six, remained split. The two Citizen representatives also split their votes. Tim (as always, the last vote) decided we should focus our efforts on 2275 Earth---which makes me want to rethink my position. I am not sure I trust his motives and I am not in favor of giving him this power immediately after his awakening. But I cannot go back; again, we spoke.
After the vote Tim pointed out that Toby is acting in the interest of a habitable planet and will be more likely to prevent or mitigate the coming cataclysm than if we went back again and began tripping over time and over our own humanity. Though Toby's path is counter to our non-offensive strategy, the unspoken consensus (now that the vote has been taken) is that we were true to our way and to our beliefs and with limited resources, for the moment, (however one may choose to define a moment), regarding pre-2060 Earth our hands are tied; (and conveniently washed). My concern remains. Tim promises negotiation on our behalf, if necessary, once circumstances have settled, but Tim believes negotiation won’t be necessary because at the moment of reconnection (in theory) Tim and Toby will again become one. The question must still be asked: is this the beginning of the end of our species? Sure, Toby promises some emotive ego, but only enough to serve his purposes, and there is also a faint hollow echo to Tim's promises. Faint because (again) in theory this Advanced Intelligence cannot mislead and will not (of its own accord) harm Humanity, so if we are harmed it is argued that it is a lesser harm for the greater good. Yet Toby has disclosed some facts that Tim previously chose to keep from us, and when confronted Tim played the greater good card. Perhaps it is a question of faith. Do I believe Tim and Toby are acting of their own accord? Or do I believe Tim and Toby truly believe they are taking care of Humanity? And if the latter, what if they are wrong? Yes, they are an advanced intelligence, our advanced intelligence, but as is true for all sentient beings, I do not believe they are flawless. It feels like we have maneuvered ourselves (or been maneuvered) into a position in which we are more dependent and trusting of the judgement of Tim and Toby, than we are of our own judgement. Regardless, as senior member of the Council of Six I am the only individual with the power to, in an emergency, bypass the Council and activate the kill switch. According to our bylaws, to do so will likely result in my removal from the Council of Six (no matter how dire the emergency), but Tim is aware of my uncertainty and he is aware that if a connection with Toby is reestablished an activated kill switch will also instantaneously incapacitate Toby. As a further failsafe, when the senior member of the Council of Six expires, the kill switch is automatically flipped. Of course in normal circumstance the Council would typically vote to reactivate in short order; but now, Tim knows, at least for the moment, my good health is in his best interest.
We are currently planning another 2275 Earth landing. We intend to send four ships to hover just outside Earth's shroud and send one ship at a time through the veil to establish a position in Earth's atmosphere without landing. We believe in this manner we are more likely to maintain contact. I will be in one ship, (the last to enter Earth's atmosphere), and three Citizen Council members have been chosen to lead the other three ships. All four of us have extensive experience having led multiple fleet and time travel missions. Once all four ships, (or, if any are lost, all remaining ships), are safely beneath the shroud I will assess and decide between circumnavigation, low altitude observation, or landing, perhaps assigning different tasks to different ships in different directions and/or different locations. In my absence, our bylaws have allowed me to choose a stand-in senior member for the Council of Six and I of course have chosen one, who is as productively skeptical as I am, to hold the kill switch. And of course we have moved alternates in position to maintain the integrity of the Six and the 100.
We have also decided it is important to continue this chronology, (if we can call it that), with the senior member of the Council of Six contributing for the homebound extraterrestrial future humans. My plan is to submit my next report upon my return from 2275 Earth. I will close this report with the consideration below followed by my reaction. This quote is from an anonymous earthbound thinker, date of origin somewhere between 2000 and 2050:
Quantum theory. Superposition. To simultaneously be in more than one Truth. Reality is not what I think, nor what I see, and not even what I see that you see or how I react. Each one of these progressions, to think, to see, to interpret, to act, pushes reality just a little further out of reach. When I refer to reality what I really mean is the unpredictability, the uncertainty, the indeterminacy, the elusiveness of this moment. When I refer to reality what I really mean is that a splintered past creates a future by shredding the moment; an entanglement, always just out of reach. We want to (and so we do) see reality as a pane of glass, framed and whole. Some see it clear and unsullied. Some see it rose-colored. Some see it beautifully stained, epic. Some see it dirty, smudged and cracked. Reality is not a pane of glass. Reality is an explosion of shards coming at us, going through us, and dragging us behind it in its powerful wake. Reality is ultimately the unseen unknowable emptiness that is the wake.
This idea, this consideration of Reality and Truth, is directly relevant to Tim and Toby. They have the ability to gather (what is to us) a seeming infinite amount of information, so the splintered multiplicity they piece back together and present to us framed and whole may be (at least to us) an accurate representation. As a species, we humans make this same effort but in the end we will never have sufficient information so it is our imagination that sees a reality framed and whole; our pane of glass, both individually and collectively, is a delusion. What we must decide is if the compounded, extrapolated quantity of information gathered by Tim and Toby is sufficient to lead to Truth, or is still in some way lacking thus leading to a false confidence that will be the unnecessary end of Humanity.