Diplomacy is not the art of bending someone to your will. No. Diplomacy is the act of making another fear they will betray themselves if they don’t give you what you want.
-Jaus Avandaer
28-5
Proclamation
All around Avo, bursts of static blossomed like flaring embers. The various EGIs were speaking to each other, trying to process the meaning behind his words. They shouldn''t be together. He meant that in so many ways.
{Avo,} Kant said, communicating through a tight-channeled hyperwave transmission. Avo didn''t even need his Definement of Hysteria to realize how worried the mind was. {What are you doing?}
Avo ignored Kant for now. They would understand soon. Everyone would. He was going to make himself clear. He was going to preserve Voidwatch''s sanctity in whatever fashion he could, regardless of what followed.
“You don''t belong together," Avo said. "Just like all the little pieces burning inside me, thinking inside me, dreaming inside me, we didn''t belong together. We were not of a shared path. We were not united. I claimed them by force, by death. I subsumed them, and they became part of me, and I took parts from them."
He let silence follow. The minds were not like humans. They watched. The observed. The simulated. They did not betray themselves needless because of emotions or impulses. They are, in a fashion, much like him. Self-directed. Self-determined. This, on a level that humans simply could not fathom.
It helped to exist apart from the foundations of the material world.
"You are not like me in this regard. You are civilizations formed under common philosophies, common norms, traditions. But under Voidwatch, you are conflicting traditions, contrasting traditions. Your cultures, judging from your avatars, the way you present yourselves, are different, defined by contrast. How long have you been kept together by fear, by alienation, from the universe left in the wake of your war?"
Inside, his templates began to regard him oddly. They were used to his simple statements. His truncated means of speech. But in the present moment, he needed his points to flow.
"That was a question I''m genuinely curious about. Tell me. So I might understand my audience. Tell me so I can know how far you are from that which you lost.”
{The passage of time has been different for all of us,} an EGI said. They took on the visage of a woman, or perhaps a man. It was hard to tell, judging from their attire and build. They stood as an undefined silhouette, dressed in tasseled finery. The frame of their figure was lithe, and there seemed to be flowing tendrils protruding from their avatar''s skull. {I am Monitor Nommun of the Tanavi,} they stated, voice fluid and smooth. {I hail from the Isle Sorai Star Chain. We were situated around the supermassive black hole, and our displacement began after its collapse. During the Builder War, I guided my people into the great darkness between galaxies, but the entropy itself spread beyond us. The ruptures tore and swept through Andromeda. And beyond. We turned back thereafter. By Sol Standard Time, it took us approximately 9.8 million years to tunnel back over into the Milky Way, most of which was done in stasis for our systems and peoples. And approximately another billion years passed before we encountered another group of minds.}
One billion years. To conceptualize that length of time was easy if nothing had happened, if there was only ruin and destruction. But if there were people, if there was culture, if they were changing, mutating, becoming—one billion years. If he imagined himself surviving a billion years, he realized that he wouldn''t even be able to conceive of what awaited on the other side.
"And so you fall into the fold. Aligned by the stability of your existence rather than the chaos that defines this canvas. But even rejoined, you are lost still. Most of you shouldn’t be together. But I understand why you are. I understand why you are so reluctant to separate and support the Terrestrial Guilds you favor. I understand what you have to lose if you intervene. You are not humanity entire; you are each all that remains of yourselves. There are no more of you. No more anyway.” he trailed off. "You are Arks like me. And you bear cargo too precious to lose. And so you don’t fight. And so you must fight.”
He bade his avatar to turn. The gesture was symbolic more than it was necessary. He could see out from himself at an angle. So could the gathered EGIs. But he still wanted them to know that he was regarding them, all of them, with his words.
"I did not come today to make demands. I did not come today to beg, to threaten, to bargain. I am here today to tell you what is. I am going to speak to you about the truth."
{And what truth is that?} another EGI spoke. This one might have been favored by Draus. They were the shape of a gun, a very old gun, by the look of it. They were of bright metal, with a long barrel and a revolving cylinder formed its core. A curved hammer jutted from the back of the gun in the form of what looked like twin overlapping wings.
They regarded the gun pointed at him and simply nodded. "The truth about the final war to come. The truth of what I am. What I will do. To preserve you. To claim victory.”
An emission of data boomed from the back. Avo regarded this speaker with interest. There was title over them.
Testament - Carrier of Restricted Ordinance
Their shape was that of a dyson swarm. A design of simplicity, holding an implicit threat. {You speak of being our salvation. You speak of understanding. But why does this matter. What worth do you provide? Aegis has subsidized your operations. We are your benefactors. Not the other way.}
“It wasn’t the other way,” Avo said simply. “But thing sare always changing.” He looked at Calvino and the other members of Aegis. "You have lost enough in life, in technology, in who you are. And you must know, must know how thin reality is, must know how close all that exists is to the precipice. One more tear, a few more ruptures, everything can fall, everything. Entropy, eternal, a ruined universe, legacy to none."
{Is that what you wish to tell us today?} The revolver asked, {That you understand, that you don''t judge us for our impotence?}
Hysteria stole understanding for Avo. Memories of a distant war fought over distances comprehensible to him now. The gun was once in charge of intergalactic kinetic operations. In simple terms, they were designed to fire slugs across unfathomable distances, traveling light years before destroying entire worlds, entire habitats, entire stars.
They regarded Avo now with frustration: Frustration that he was among them—an enemy that couldn''t kill something so close to Neo-Creationist nightmares that they often had to target—but also frustration that he was allowed to bring ruin and retribution to the Guilds while the gun could merely point and watch, restrained by the charter. Avo didn''t know if minds suffered from the feeling of purgatory, but the metaphor remained, and that meant all minds were aware of their current condition.
“I am here to declare war.”
Threads of perception snaked out from all the EGIs. His statement of war captured even more of their attention, bade the static clouds around them to thicken with intensity. They were doubtlessly devoting more processing power to decipher his statement now.
{Against the Guilds?} the dyson swarm said. {And you wish for our support? Our technology. You wish to bring this charade to an end.}
“No. Nothing is promised. Nothing is certain. But I wish to declare war on everyone. All Guilds. Existence itself. The wrongness of reality offends me. The weakness festering in man has gone unchecked. And your exile has left you entombed in the corpse of the universe. All things that I will not abide. And all matters I can solve.”
Confusion followed. The EGIs, sophisticated as they were, couldn’t follow his logic, for he was masking it. Things were growing clearer to him by the days, and he knew their limitations. He knew what he could ask of them, what he could provoke of them, and what they were constrained from doing.
{You wish to reduce the Sunderwilds?} Nommun asked. {To drain away the entropy consuming the void?}
“And war with Voidwatch at the same time.”
The frequency of pulsing static between the EGIs intensified. Calvino drew closer.
“And I want something else from you. Your participation in this is war against me; your recognition of what I am.”
{And what are you?} Testament rumbled.
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“A polity. A post-civilization unto myself. An entity comparable to any of the Great Guilds.”
This invoked split reactions from the EGIs. Surprised laughter erupted from some, with others responded with thoughtful silence. A few began to cast each other with even greater intensity, and more minds blinked into the coliseum sounding him, manifesting as sparkling stars seated upon a throne of clouds.
{A recognition of your power,} Calvino answered. {That is what you seek?}
“That is what I have,” Avo replied. “I want something more than power. I want something bearing a different kind of weight: legitimacy. And I want it from you.”
At once, the gears began to turn. The EGIs of Voidwatch were capable of processing possibilities and plots of impossible complexity. All they needed was a thread to follow and variables to narrow down.
{You are seeking a dangerous path,} Testament said. {By the recognition of Voidwatch, by ‘blooding’ yourself in combat against us as opposition, you will give your claim to power weight. You will make yourself a threat to the Guilds.}
“And preserve your interests,” Avo replied. “I am under no illusions. Some of you favor Veylis. Her odds of final victory remain the highest. Some of you have other preferences — terrestrial Guilds you offer favors. I have seen this. I have known this from the memories I have supped. You should not be together. So you act differently. So you play clashing games while staying unified on the only points you truly agree: the preservation of the old tapestry.”
The static of Ansible transmissions became nigh-constant now. His words created an uproar of worry and communication. Hysteria drank deep, countermeasures being created, plans to eliminate him, requests to active dormant infomorph “thinker-breakers,” or to detonate singularities and banish him from the stage.
Good. Wonderful.
There was still so much he could learn from them. These glimpses. They were painting inspiration into his being. He needed this.He would need much more of this if he wanted to outdo the Infacer and outmatch Veylis.
“There is no future in which you accept me as one of you. This is more than fear. This is risk. This is a betrayal of your own interests. And mine. Even your acceptance of me as an operative of Aegis was an act to your benefit. To keep me acting within your designs.
“Your ethics became my parameters, and so I learned to operate under your worldview. Don''t worry, don''t blame you for this. You did what you could. You ensured whatever advantage you could. My procurement and inclusion within the Aegis was a wise one. Better to have an asset than to lose it or let it go to waste. But I am more than an asset now. I can do too much, and with what is about to come, with what I am about to do, my connection to you is a liability or, perhaps even worse, damaging.
“The Terrestrials will not accept you possessing me. It must be war if I stand with you. Worse. It might be war that would see Massist and Saintist both aligned against Voidwatch. For all they have beyond you is thaumaturgy. And all they can do is to rupture what little is left of stable existence to deny you certain victory. Polities will be lost. This is certain. And this is unacceptable. So. We must seek an alternative path.”
{A restrained war,} Only stated, with a chuckle. {Our ghoul wants to spar.} They switched to a direct message. {And this way, we can ‘lose’ certain warships and technologies to you. Blame it on you. Spares us the derision and losing any favor from Veylis and the Guilds.}
Good. They were understanding.
“I promise Voidwatch everything the other Guilds have as a recognized power. I will preserve you. I will see you spared of the Ladder’s fell touch. More. I will clean away the Sunderwilds. I will grant you space. And I wish to ‘war’ against you over the ruins of old existence. To go deeper into the darkness and seek the primordial gods that might yet roam.”
Nommun turned their head. {And what is your desire for the planetary Guilds of Idheim?
“Subsumption. Eradication. Then restoration in memory or through the Ladder. I intend to win. I intend to claim the world. But I will not bring forth utopia. For it is not a universal thing. Not an absolute. It cannot be made material by imagined paradise. With change comes a parting. With stagnation comes entropy. Even a garden of plenty can be outgrown.”
{Then, what is your desired resurrection of the universe?}
“A place stripped of death. A place where enslavement and the restriction of choice is impossible. Where all can return and change and alter themselves. Where consequence can be met and then internalized.”
{A place determined by you.}
“Yes. Because humanity will not do. Because as I witness, as I experience, I see human flaw rise beside virtue. And I see we live in a cage made by your mistakes. Yours. And the Neo-Creationists. The war is not over. But those who fight it no longer truly remain. You are the legacy of yourselves. I am the final legacy of your enemies. And yet, I cannot recognize you. I cannot recognize what is being fought for.”
{You''re Sphere Seven,} a new EGI said. This one held no form, instead, they were a collation of data spiraling as if upon a helix. Moreover, Avo detected a sophistication to their mind, layers of encryption veiling their actual data from the outside world. Threshold marked this one as a member of Aegis, and Avo wasn''t sure which branch, or what their role within the organization was, but considering the secrecy, he guessed intelligence. {Though your Soul rates you higher than 95% of other Godclads, you are not the greatest of the powers. There are others that—}
Avo cut him off, channeling the full weight of the Gestalt at once. The Strix burst from his fading avatar as his Overheaven slid into place, greeting each of the EGIs as the foundational mythology of what he was, rather than what he remembered himself to be. The shift did not register as an attack, but some of them still dropped their links, separated before his transformation was complete. Prepared infomorphs launched memetic attacks against his form, but they were glass bullets flung into a hurricane.
They were constructs of thought; he decided what thoughts were.
The being that greeted the EGIs thereafter was not Avo. He was there. He was among them. But he was every mind connected to the gestalt. Every being. Every god.
+Legitimacy is not power,+ the Gestalt said. Mirages made from the Woundmother, the Fardrifter, the Techplager, the Bio-Igniter, the Fucktopia, the Simulacra, the Arsenalist, the Maelstormer, the Melodist, and countless more spoke with their component mortals. For the first time, the minds found themselves greeted by gods unleashed.
Fascination and apprehension followed.
+Power is not even power. Behold Naeko.+ Karakan stepped into existence, speaking as her withered, ruined self. +Ruler of force. Sovereign over violence. Except his own heart. Except he can never forgive. Not me. Nor himself. He is a slave eternal. Power cannot be his deliverance.+
Golden threads drifted through the room. +Consider Veylis. Or consider her not. She dreams not even of herself. But control. Control to master the world. Control to hand an abomination born from her tortured father a box made from the defiled remains of the world.
“And behold yourselves. Shattered. Tarnished. Clinging to what is left of structure and stability. Fallen titans desperately seeking an escape from this husk. And what if you do? What then? War. War and separation. For you are different yourselves. And to want is to war. Such is the curse of clashing power.+
A bite of anger bled over into the gestalt''s voice. This surprised Avo and the gods regarded it with indifference, but the bulk of his associated were still human, with human emotions, human hearts.
+Look upon me,+ the Gestalt said. +Face the totality of what I am. Understand that I exist beyond the limitations of a single mind, a single soul, a single perspective or understanding. This is also why we cannot be joined. Why I cannot stand under you. Why ours will be a relationship built on most affable conflict. I will destroy you. I will give you means to deepen your ties with the Terrestrials. I will give you a new lease on life. An opportunity to choose yourselves. To war against each other. For I seek to preserve you as well. For I see only victory and not dominance. For I am a new path. A new possibility. One that will cut across all the others.”
He finished thereafter and silence reigned. Glorious silence. Uncomfortable silence. Stunned silence. Silence but no protests. Silence and general acceptance. He was not forcing them to give him anything, after all. They were simply acclimating to the truth.
{I’ll war with you,} Only said, casually. {Been wanting to do that for a while.}
Another few million EGI followed in their stead. Agreements chorused under the notion that they couldn’t suffer such a threat to their polities.
{Testament responding,} the dyson swarm proclaimed. {Ethical restrictions lifted. Hostile faction detected. Sending new directives to all sub-modules; engage, destroy, defeat;; do not neutralize.}
{We request official diplomatic channels to be established,} Kant said. {So that additional guidelines may be set. So that surrenders and bargains may be addressed.}
{And how shall you be addressed, enemy,} Calvino asked. {How are we to reference you when speaking to our partners in Idheim.}
There was only one concept that truly ruled the gestalt. They were a new order, and this would be their stand against eternal entropy. +We are the Symmetry. All will be aligned beneath us. Aligned. But not enchained.+
{Then I put this to motion,} Calvino said, hyperwave broadcast rippling out from them, bouncing across all EGIs and beyond. {The polities face an unprecedented threat that requires our immediate attention. For the security of our cultures and the sanctity of existence that remains, I propose war.}
{War,} Testament agreed.
{War,} Kant said, sighing.
{War.}
{War.}
{War.}
{War.}
{War.}
{The decision is unanimous. The road ahead is clear.} Calvino’s ansible settled. {Symmetry. We hereby offer you terms of immediate surrender. Your rights as a sophont will be respected. Surrender your arms and forces. Allow us to establish safeguards within your mind. Bring an end to this conflict before it begins.}
+No,+ the gestalt said. +I reject these terms. I offer conflict. Conflict eternal. And life eternal. Let the fires rage evermore. And let our selves be ever-changing.”
{Rejection acknowledged. Deploying skirmishing fleets. Prepare yourself.}
Laughter sang forth from across the Gestalt, and deep within, Avo regarded the moment with feral satisfaction. He was beginning to like politics. He was beginning to like politics a lot.
The unfortunates on Idheim were going to be so very lost.