The Soul Star ⭐️ Algoritmo
Two Priests
The algonuclear bomb Algotodo exploded a million years ago penetrated every square angstrom of the Kraslika. The bomb was undetectible, since it operated at an infraction depth that even the Fallarians couldn’t imagine. Because it penetrated absolutely everything in the Kraslika, its regeneration algorithm operated on every species — the good, the bad, and everything between. It was as impartial as Vicinese Law itself.
As a result, the beings that popped into Life 2.0 were exceptionally diverse. For instance, Algotodo saw beings that materialized and then just stood there, waiting for their previous masters to tell them what to do. And he saw beings who materialized and then looked around them for a bell to ring so that they might be waited on hand and foot (or horn and claw, as the case might be).
As they entered the atmosphere of Algoritmo, their habitual neural pathways were integrated with information about their new home. In the case of the two species mentioned above, it took five or ten minutes to digest the new information, especially the parts about freedom and equality. The slaves opened their eyes wider, wondering if it really could be true. The masters knit their scaled brows and looked more closely into the rules. At first they were sure they would find a paragraph that exempted them from the tyranny of equality. After wading through the fine print, however, they realized what they were up against.
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Two of these Masters were Demon Priests: Nazbereth and Götminzile. The two had died at exactly the same time. Seconds before their deaths, they had each other in a mutual death grip, both believing that the other had discovered the neural agent he had slipped into the other’s drink. Although each of them saw the light of life dying in the other’s eyes, neither was willing to ease up their own grip, lest the other would see the slackening as a sign of weakness and deliver the squeeze de grace.
They reappeared on the surface of Algoritmo with their hands still around each other’s throats. Only when they saw Blue Dreamers, Silkoids, and Dreamscrapers staring at them in astonishment did they relax their grip. Somewhat. It could all be a trick. They were sure they could feel the neural agent flowing through their brain.
But the regeneration had swept the neural agents from their system; what they were feeling was in fact the sweeping itself. Finally, realizing this, they relaxed their grasps and dropped their arms. Looking around them and taking it all in, they were dismayed to learn that the Vicinese had already done what the Fallarians hadn’t even dreamed of doing.
The two Priests had lived about a thousand years each, through alchemies so obscure that they began to think themselves immortal. It was therefore almost intolerable to find out that their delusions were severe.
To add insult to injury, the Vicinese were there to document their priestly delusions. The situation was intolerable: they were trapped and would remain trapped for eternity, forever defeated by the enemy they has sworn to fight till the end of time.
The algoregulators stopped the two Priests from communicating their post-existence to the Fallarian Priests who were still living. Not that the two Priests would have done so anyway, even though this knowledge could have turned the cosmic tide in favour of the Fallarian Empire. Yet to the Priests the personal grudge was always greater than the communal good. Why should the other Priests enjoy a knowledge that had been denied to them? Better to let the vain upstarts live in their egotistical delusions. Let them suffer the shock of the Vicinese afterlife, just as their betters were now suffering.
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Derelectans & Dreamscrapers
Equal to the challenge presented by the Demon Priests was that of the Derelectans from Fallar Prime and the Dreamscrapers from The Yellow Sky. Among the Seven Sages only Algoancora had dealt with these two races face to face.
The Sages on the Golden Hill were open souls, and accepted every life form. In principle. But now Algotodo saw — mixed like iron spikes among the rocky peaks and timid grasses, among the curious and the confused — beings so strange and terrifying that he wondered if his Rules of Conduct and his backup Emergency Algorithms would suffice.
It’s important to stress that the Sages were liberal souls who didn’t believe in coercion or unnecessary rules. As a result, they hadn’t included in their algorithms any changes in temperament or behaviour to the races that landed on Algoritmo. The only algoregulars hard-wired into the the newly-minted citizens of the planet were related to 1. the ability to breathe air (some species lived in liquid, vapour, or rock), 2. a detailed explanation of the nature and workings of Algoritmo, 3. a neural connection to the Algored, which was like the Internet, but a sextillion times bigger, and 4. the laws of the planet.
Appended to each law was an index of punishments. These ranged from fines to a partial slowing down of the physiology. Whoever was in the process of committing a serious crime would have their neural circuits frozen partially or almost completely. They could still reflect on what they were doing, but they couldn’t move so much as a millimetre. At this point they were given the option of whether to procede according to the laws or to go into petrification. If they chose the latter, their stoney bodies would be placed next to an explanatory placard in the Museum of Criminology.
The Demon Priests could accept this situation because they figured they’d sooner or later figure out a way to beat the system and get some kind of revenge. They’d find some person they could pay or blackmail and learn from this person the secrets of the algorithms. Somehow, anyhow, they’d get their claws on the keys to their prison, let themselves free, and burn the place to the ground.
The Derelectans on the other hand were impossible to please. They couldn’t accept the situation, regardless of whether or not they might find a way to free themselves from its intolerable tyranny.
Luckily, Algotodo was there to deal with the situation. Luckily, that is, for Algoancora and Algotenere, and all the others who were now happily drifting through the clouds of oblivion.
(To be continued)
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Next: 🧚🏽 On the Wing 1: Beneath the Old Apple Tree
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