A task that demanded the strength of a titan and the cunning of a sphinx.
Wau disconnected the heavy, powerful cables from the Dark Unit, cables capable of managing the monstrous energy flow from antimatter. With a cloned AI from the Sanctum's' LE, she was working on the interface: connecting directly to the After. Not to communicate via a 2D screen as some experts from Earth did to test new systems, but to immerse herself completely.
Wau recalled her Infinitics classes—an advanced science dedicated to modeling consciousness, and, though rarely said aloud due to spiritual connotations, essentially the study of eternal life. Once the heavy work was done, she removed her Armor and instructed a drone to emulate the voice and personality of Aloysius.
"Alright, professor, brief me on the After while I work on the Dark Unit."
The drone responded instantly.
"Ah, theoretical Infinitics," said the drone, illuminating Cass's workspace. "My dear Cass, I see where you're headed—because the After, according to the Transients, is the gateway to transcendence."
"But let's begin at the beginning. Eternal life is the ultimate aspiration of every sentient creature in the universe that has survived long enough to build a civilization. Humans are no exception. It makes sense: we are programmed to survive, whatever the cost. Death from 'old age' is a myth. All deaths, without exception, are violent: heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, metastases… they rival the savagery of the wolves in our forests of old. May I digress briefly on power and stupidity?"
"Go ahead," Cass answered, carefully opening the heart of the Dark Unit.
"You've probably noticed our society is filled with people who aren't wise, who aren't particularly intelligent, who are rather brutal, hungry for power itself—and who obtain it. A wise person doesn't desire power. Here's a theory you'll find amusing: this unfortunate situation might actually be evolutionarily optimal. When financial and political power lies in the hands of a fool, he will use it to pursue eternal life. If it rested with a wise person, that wise person wouldn't seek eternal life. Throughout centuries of human history, these powerful fools have built pyramids, launched crusades, collected virgin blood, or who knows what else—all in vain. Until the explosion of public data in the early 21st century, which enabled neural-network-based AI development. Then, powerful technocrats thought: why not upload ourselves into servers? An inherently foolish idea, pursued by fools who couldn't suppress their fear of death. But it unintentionally advanced society one step closer to transcendence."
"At least, that's what the Transients claim."
"You mistrust those Xeno Gods, I understand. But the Transients have given us much, and nothing has proven false or deceptive, even if your inner devil's advocate would argue they're talented enough to deceive without raising suspicion. Moving on—isn't it fascinating to think that by 2020 it was theoretically possible to emulate a human mind? Essentially, all you had to do was copy a brain's neural structure into a virtual environment. But before we delve deeper, may I digress once more? About Antiquity."
"Go ahead, old man. I'll be busy for a while."
Cass tested the firewall of the Dark Unit. Would transmitting a consciousness trigger suspicious digital behaviors detectable and thus blocked?
"Gilgamesh. Heard of him?"
"A Sumerian king? You're probably not referring to the Endymion by that name."
"An epic. The oldest piece of fiction in human history, dating back to 1800 BC. It's about eternal life. Gilgamesh is a king who, after many adventures, is terrified by the prospect of his own death. He journeys to the world's edge, across the waters of death, to meet Uta-napisht, a hero who puts him to the test—ordering him not to sleep for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh falls asleep, and Uta-napisht tells him, 'Gilgamesh, how can you resist death when you can't resist sleep?' An untrained literary mind might see sleep as symbolic of death. But this trial holds a profound truth, closely linked to our now well-understood brain functions. I like to believe the Ancients intuited this. See, Cass, you're always changing. So if you attain immortality, which Cass do you take along? Yesterday's, the young student not yet enrolled at Earth's Psi University? Today's invincible Wau?"
"LE, never mentions I'm a Wau or anything related to the Order during our conversations."
"Noted, I won't mention your affiliation with the Wau Order again," said the LE in its default voice before switching back to Aloysius. "Yesterday's young student? Today's Cass, immersed in clandestine missions? Or tomorrow's wise, experienced Cass? Each is different. Day by day, the changes are subtle, imperceptible. But people change. That's why people were imprisoned in the past: to force change, hoping it'd be positive. We arrive at a chilling first observation: the immortality religions promise is conceptually impossible, because we are always changing. And when do we change profoundly? During sleep—when daily information is sorted into long-term memory by a mental process whose conscious emanation is dreams. Thus, Uta-napisht's test makes perfect sense: immortality is accessible only if you resist sleep—the moment of profound personality change. Fascinating, isn't it? Let's continue with theoretical Infinitics. Imagine we're those technocrats of the 21st century: we more or less know how to virtualize a brain, but concretely, how do we do it? Tell me, does Star Trek ring a bell?
"Another epic story, isn't it?" "Yes. It's Captain Wau's crew of that era. In Star Trek, the heroes possess technology capable of teleporting humans. They're aboard their ship, someone pushes a button, and voilà—they're on a planet." "Teleportation like what the Transients do?" "Haha, you really do have only one thing on your mind!"
Cass had put her Armor back on and was reconnecting giant cables. The drone continued:
"Star Trek graciously explains how teleportation works: bodies are copied, information and energy are sent, and they're reassembled at the destination. But then you ask: it's just a copy, Sam, so what happens to the original—the person who was copied, who's still on the ship? The answer is horrifying: they disintegrate them during the process. For a brief moment, Cass, two identical, sentient people exist, both entitled to life, feelings, adventures—but one of them is killed, because otherwise we'd have duplicates everywhere. And not just any copy: it's the original individual who's killed. When you're teleported, you're killed. The copy believes everything worked fine. I don't know about you, but to me this thought is intolerable. The process is fundamentally flawed. If teleportation really worked that way, no one would ever use it—absolutely guaranteed! But to return to the technocrats: they faced the same issue. They analyze your brain, create a perfect digital replica in a server—great—but the original brain is still there, alive, confident in its continuity of consciousness! Utterly useless for the original human: they're condemned to die with their biological body. No eternal life. Just smoke and mirrors. Pure fiction."
Cass, removing her armor, thought about how the EV made relevant, unprecedented connections simply because it had emulated Aloysius. An objective presentation would have yielded none of this. Humans become better with EVs, but EVs also become better with humans.
"That's where the paradox of Theseus's Ship comes in, which led to Theseism. Theseus returns from Crete victorious over the Minotaur—another epic, see?—and his ship is put into dry dock. It becomes a kind of relic, okay? Over time, the ship deteriorates. When a plank rots away, it's replaced with a new one. But what happens once all the planks have been replaced? Is it still Theseus's ship, or something entirely different?"
"That's a bit like us, changing little by little each night through our dreams, isn't it?"
"Exactly! You're the student I've always dreamed of having. But in the end, it doesn't matter whether it's still Theseus's ship or not. It changes, just as we do, and accompanies us. Practically, Theseism works like this: we place you in a medical sarcophagus, physically connected to your brain. We take one neuron, from among your three billion or so. Like a plank from Theseus's ship, we copy its state and connections, emulate it virtually, destroy the biological neuron, and reconnect the remaining neurons to the virtual one. Thought continues smoothly. And then we repeat the operation. Three billion times."
"Does it take long?"
"The first time—the first time a volunteer survived the entire process—took a full year. That's long for the test subject, but it's not bad news. The slower the process, the stronger the connections, and the smoother and more flawless the transition. Eventually, there isn't a single living neuron left in our subject's brain: the virtual neurons are connected to his eyes, senses, and body, and the person's brain functions just as before. Then, we disconnect him, and he exists entirely within the virtual world of the server."
"A year? And how long does it take now?"
"Oh, thirty seconds at most. The transition into the After is now a major industry financed by the HS across all continents of every advanced planet. Eventually, all humanity dives in. It's the central issue of our civilization. Progress is constant, and the technologies are remarkable."
"What is the After like?"
"Oh, Cass, I'd need to give you a multi-year course on Game Design for you to fully grasp it."
"You mean there are video games in the After?"
"The After is a place where you can no longer die, designed to bring pleasure and mental stability to the virtual beings who inhabit it. In a certain sense, it's a form of video game, but more subtle. However, yes, there are also video games there. Game Design as a science has made it possible to create laws of balance for this new environment. Because we need laws—different from ours—to live there harmoniously. Here's a simple example: you can't die in the After. What's stopping your neighbor from slicing your throat with a knife just for laughs? It would be a traumatic experience. So we need punishment systems—prisons in paradise."
"The limit of absolute freedom..."
"Fortunately, video games had already been humanity's dominant entertainment industry for a century when the question of virtual justice arose."
"We can put Transients or Xenos into androids. Why don't more people virtualized in the After choose to return to live among us?"
"Because they don't want to."
"That seems highly suspicious to me. Out of trillions of humans in the After, not a single one wants to return? Sounds like a subtle way of saying they're prisoners."
"Consider that most people who upload into the After only think about one thing: not leaving their family, their home, their routines—their somewhat mediocre but deeply cherished lives. They often say, while sobbing in their transfer sarcophagi, 'I'll download into an android soon and return.' But they never do. Well, actually, they do try, but it never lasts. Because, you see, real life is tedious. The colors are dull, people irritating, you need to pee countless times a day, you have nightmares, and people insult you on the street or online just to vent. Our bodies are heavy. Time passes either too quickly or too slowly. Sometimes you're anxious for no reason. Pain. Loved ones leaving you. The After is designed to be a pleasant place. Extremely pleasant. It's a place you quickly and deeply miss. I think the worst is boredom. Boredom exists there, but it's perfectly calibrated. Here, we always have too much or too little. And they have a 'Path to Peace.'"
"What's that?"
"I have no idea. But I think it's the After's After—something giving us purpose, even when we're already in paradise."
Cass had never felt fatigue in real life. Once the Wau Council assembled for her induction concluded, she'd found a genetic modification injection on the table in the Living Space that turned her metabolism into an optimal machine.
She'd just finished the technical work. Sitting cross-legged in front of the Dark Unit, immense and almost Xeno in appearance, she took stock: there was no urgency. She could plunge into the After. If a catastrophe like Clelia destroyed the Fortress, her Armor would protect her.
My goal: find Julia Prahi and open a mental box to ask her about someone. A celebrity, right? No risk in asking the LE. The LE responded, this time in standard mode:
Let me give you a brief summary. If you'd like more details, let me know. Julia Prahi was born in New York in 2444 and uploaded into the After in 2531. After studies in sociology and Infinitics, she became a junior game designer for the After, gaining fame with a SH-wide video game called Modern Diplomacies. Becoming a billionaire, she founded numerous private universities, notably the School for All on Prospero. She adopted an extravagant lifestyle, popularizing "polylife," having homes and families on multiple planets, eventually creating entire villages as her extended "home." Using robotic matrices, she's believed to have over 800 children. From 2499 onward, she actively explored Xeno worlds, funding expeditions. She disappeared from her polylife networks and ceased all communication. In 2531, she virtualized herself at the Royal Center on Masmak. In the After, she created a game named Trust, launched in alpha in 2791 and fully in 2800.
"LE, tell me more about Trust."
"We have very little information about Trust, due to the Documentation Pact between the HS and the After, itself stemming from the so-called Constitution of the Two Lives. Nevertheless, here's what we do know: Trust is a video game created by Julia Prahi and launched in 2800. It's exclusive to the inhabitants of the After, and there's no clone of the game within the SH. It's a multiplayer game, cooperative yet also competitive. Some players have continuously remained in the game's section of the After for two decades. It is said that part of the game's system involves discovering its own rules. The game has an ending, but no one has ever completed it."
Two decades… it must be a remarkable game to captivate the virtualized for so long.
"LE, refresh my memory quickly about Masmak, would you?"
"Masmak is a yellow dwarf star orbited by Masmak-1, its sole planet, terraformed and colonized in 2240 by His Royal Highness Prince Faisal Al Saoud of Panarabia. It's a private planet, something possible before the SH Colonization Accords of 2700. The planet is home exclusively to the royal family and prestigious guests, governed by a monarchy now led by Prince Rahman Al Saoud."
"LE, why do you think Julia Prahi uploaded herself to Masmak?"
"Julia Prahi reportedly collaborated on numerous scientific projects funded by the Prince."
"What projects?"
"I don't know."
And there it was. A response brief enough to speak volumes.
Cass straightened up. The machine was operational, the connections ready. The Fortress AI suggested leaving the connections active "for a few weeks," allowing them to integrate with existing systems. Very well, then.
An opportunity for some rest.