“They are a rapacious species.” Abi Coru, the scout on planet Sigma Red began his report for his director.
“They function ostensibly via a disorganized code of faith, piecemeal philosophy and science. But the chief code that drives their behavior is feelings – a primitive philosophic technology. They move toward carnal pleasures and away from carnal pain. This is why they are easily manipulated and ruled by narcissists, master actors that advance their power and pleasure while reducing their fellow beings’ power en masse.” Abi was a cyborg – 75% biological, 25% machine, so his delivery was matter of fact, but it worked well in the culture of peace and harmony in the region of Napalone and nation of Sera, 1.7 light years from Earth in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy.
“Just as we thought” began Robus Rom, another cyborg, the 76% biological director of Sera’s Biological Intelligence Agency. Earth had been a recent discovery and at 10 years round trip, this was an enormous expenditure for which he had 2nd in Command responsibility. “Wars?”
“Yes.” About .08%, but high potential for mass catastrophic conflict and disproportionate expenditures on defense. The effective rule is by military and financial might. Abi stood like a homo sapien but with a thicker skin of purplish hue and larger head and smaller body, with one of his arms being used to flip through the holographic sheets in his report. “In terms of the body of the species, I would indicate, dissociation due to deception, mass information brain programming and stunted reasoning, mental strength, and creativity due to economic and psychological enslavement.”
“Sounds like stage three spiritual development – something like the Pre-Homeostatic Era of disjointed modules in their code.” Robus was a well-educated Sigma Redite. He could be counted on to be firm but fair and aligned with the research.
“Precisely.” This is why they are susceptible to mass economic exploitation.
“Have they been through their illusion of benevolent power concentration?”
Sigma Red had an enormous global ideological polarization about 750 years ago. The forces of liberal and conservative clashed in their greatest global war. The Sera government of the Collective Party became so powerful that all of the people were dependent on it. Some, Collectives, saw this as desirable but others, Independents, felt enslaved.
It was when the murder rate reached a fever pitch, with the Collectives blaming guns and the Independents blaming weak laws, that a corrupt administration reversed the law allowing firearms in homes and used its power to begin seizing guns en masse. The result was a house to house ground battle in which the military was spread too thin and the people began raiding government buildings as roving bands of militia. Pockets of resistance where then attacked with artillery, tanks and copters, leading some of the Collectives to turn on the military and government. Eventually cities were hit with nuclear missiles.
Defectors in the Collective Nations gave entry to the Independents, allowing them to take over military bases and missile sites.
9 cities were annihilated by nuclear bombs killing almost 100,000,000 Sigma Redites. It was the tenth bomb that hit the city of Unium, in Central Sobree, and 10,000,000 more dead, that led to the ceasefire and peace accords.
The devastation was so complete that the survivors built an entirely new society from scratch, vowing to have had their final lesson in how to end war, seared into their minds by the fire of the most horrific and deadly war they had ever known. Both sides had resorted to mass and utter extermination of the other. Their new system, One Balance, was designed to make war obsolete, by going to the spiritual and moral core of their existence.
Robus had studied the history in detail and became a Master level Balancer. A Balancer’s main powers are tenaciously accurate reasoning, and persuasion.
Abi began answering Robus’s question … “No that’s the stage they’re in – delusion … see, the pain of disproportionate economic power has created an urgent need to quell it by relinquishing individual power to an even more domineering government. They call it “democratic-socialism.” So half of the body is invested naively into surrendering power to the very entity that has taken much of their power already. On the other side, the “capitalists” are trying to do the opposite, but abdicating to corporations and a return to older philosophic technology … they call it “tradition.” The interesting thing is, the ruling class only divvies resources as palliatives. And the rulers would rather rule and grow power than teach and equip the majority of the body to produce and gain power for themselves. They have “teachers” that earn survival power and “athletes” that earn 1000X that in power, they call it “money.”
“Yes. The classic delusion of a quick fix. They have interconnectivity then?”
“Yes. Internet. Average screen time 3-4 hours per day. Mobile devices of 4 Gig and 1.0 GHz processing speed” Abi listed rhythmically.
“Wow, that’s far past their human operating system capacity.” Robus showed signs of concern.
“Exactly. There is a general malaise of disenchantment, dissociation and depression. Anti-depressant drugs, narcotics, hallucinogens, depressants and pornography are the first line of defense due to the deficit in philosophic technology.”
“Who is working on the philosophic technology? Are they even aware?”
“Well, they are pre-philo tech … falling away from religion, many embracing atheism … they’re looking back at old systems they call “isms” … it’s typical pendulum response to corruption in government, business and religious organizations. We haven’t found anyone working on it at, but we were only there for a year.”
“Ok. Were you able to inject the idea?”
“Well, remember they have rudimentary AI, but no androids or cyborgs yet. So we couldn’t use phantom injection of code. We tried a small sample of human cloaking and “conversation” to implant the idea into biological neurons in their brain. The cultural download was tough. We didn’t appear too authentically like homo sapiens even with the cloaking, so they just thought we were odd. Also many of the crew got sick and had some adverse reactions to the food that we had to eat.”
“But you did plant monitors?”
“Yes. We have twelve people on monitor that we had conversations with.”
“What was your cover?”
“We presented as two middle-age adult males and two (same) females. Doctors, lawyers, a real estate investor, and a janitor.”
“Who of the twelve are most promising from the monitoring so far?”
“There’s one … his name is Rai Linchman. His Active Uncertainty ratio is 85%, remarkable.”
“How old is he?”
“Earth years 35, when we met, but 40 by now. We couldn’t find others with more than 48% AU. So everyone else is below that.”
“Any preservation measures in place on Linchman?”
Abi knew that his question meant that Linchman was potentially a huge discovery. “We tried, but the probability of detection reached too high a level and we had to erase memory and leave.”
“You need to go back and find another 75% or higher AU. Use the updated human cloaking for the cyborgs and level two memory interrupter. We’ve got to get Linchman on preservation and find support.”
“That’s what I was going to propose.” Abi felt things going in the homeostatic direction.
“I don’t know if they’re going to fund this … tellurians at first were the darlings of the Orion Spur, but the odds began tipping when their USA Nation became an oligarchy.”
“Yes, but, if I can say so respectfully sir, I think they’re worth saving. I think Linchman could be a Balancer.” Abi timed the claim carefully. Calling someone a Balancer was taking a substantial risk. If it turned out false, reputation damage would result, especially in a professional setting.
“Careful you don’t get too emotional. There has never been a homo sapien Balancer … but there could be.”
“We identified several humans – a Jesus Christ, The Buddha and Muhammed, among others that had Balancer tendencies, but they deified or beatified themselves and the effect was for people to divide into tribes rather than unite in their ideas.”
“Of course because the technology didn’t exist. How long since they came?”
“About 2500-1200 years ago.”
“Ok. I’m going to need everything you’ve got on Linchman and his associations. I think we’ve got a 50/50 shot they fund it.”
“Tell them his psychological pain tolerance is 97%.” Abi delivered the ace up his sleeve.
“That can’t be correct.”
“Abi held up the scan results. This is the first human to have registered over 89%. The average suicide threshold is 78.”
“Yes. How is he even alive?”
The Citizen Body 