November 2, 2022
Day 13
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"Wow, only 8 of you left. That's a surprise and a half. No matter, it's nice to see you guys again! "
For the second time in the day, Daniel was left speechless. This time by the sheer aloofness with which Martin brushed off the deaths of all his colleagues. No matter?
Rahul once more took over the conversation.
“Hi Martin, it’s good to have you. Is it correct to assume, based on your surprise, that“
“and a half”, Martin corrected Rahul with a hearty laugh, one that felt way out of place in the current situation.
"Excuse me? ", Rahul asked, confused.
"Surprise and a half", Martin replied, emphasising every word.
Rahul couldn't say he knew Martin well, but he still felt he was behaving uncharacteristically. When Martin had appeared last time, his actions were no-nonsense and to the point, every word calculated. Now, it almost felt like he was trying to engage in banter? Still, he decided to just indulge him.
“Is it correct to assume, based on your surprise and a half, that you aren’t privy to the events that happened after you left? “
“How astute of you. Indeed, I have no idea what happened. Stewards are kept isolated from the rest of the world for the duration of integration of a planet. We can talk to each other, but can only directly observe outside events when summoned. As you can imagine, I have had a very boring couple weeks. Particularly since we stewards don't tend to share much with each other, information being worth its weight in gold and all. But never mind that, to come back to such glad tidings makes it all worth it! “
Martin replied, smiling broadly. Then after a pause, he corrected himself.
“Wait, that there was not a very good metaphor at all. Seeing as how information weighs nothing, calling it worth it's weight in gold is like saying information is free. Which is the opposite of what I meant to say. Kindly excuse my mistake. We stewards get a primer on the traditions, history, geopolitics, religions and popular culture of the planets we get deployed to, but nothing substitutes actually living on the planet, and the system stopped planting us on planets eons ago. As you can imagine, it interferes with the natural course of events on the planets, and has been the cause of many blunders. “
"Blunders like the Egyptian Pyramids", he added after a pause, and followed it up with an animated wink.
Then, completely unbothered by the unamused looks around him, he went on.
“But I digress. So yes, after my theatrical exit two weeks back, I have been completely in the dark about the status of your bastion. All I knew is that at least one of you is alive and aligned to the bastion, else I would have been put into deep sleep until the next integration. “
Rahul's patience was wearing thin as Martin went on one tangential discussion after another, completely failing to read the room. But he simply nodded, trying to avoid another detour and praying Martin would take his monologue to it's natural end soon.
“So, you can imagine my amazement when I appeared back here, seeing the crowd thinned to eight distinguished warriors, and the settlement flush with SPs. Honestly, based on the primer I got on how your civilisation had crippled itself with idealistic concepts of rights, empathy and compassion, I assumed that yours was a planet that had, in the path of advancement, rejected the basic tenet of the multiverse. One that manifests on every planet and applies to every lifeform. “
Then after pausing and opening his arms wide for dramatic effect, Martin continued.
“Survival of the fittest - popularly known as The First Law”
Daniel had long recovered from his shock by now, and had honestly had enough of Martin’s antics. He interrupted Martin before he could go on any further. His voice was filled with rage and disgust.
“What the hell are you going on about? I don’t begrudge you your jolly mood, nor do I care what your problem with empathy is, but could you at least respect the dead. This is not time for theatrics or jokes. We have all lost friends today.“
Then, shaking his head in disapproval, Daniel muttered to himself.
"Thinning of the crowd..."
A confused expression had covered Martin’s face as he paraphrased Daniel’s words, trying to piece things together.
“Lost your friends today. Tragedy. “
Then, as the realization struck him, he reluctantly asked.
“So, you mean to say everyone died during an attack? “
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Daniel replied, still angry.
“Of course! What did you think happened? “
Embarrassment replaced the confusion on Martin’s face as he replied.
“Well, I thought you guys had killed everyone else. I only spoke they way I did to convey my willingness to sweep that whole uncomfortable killing business under the rug, and continue my duties as the steward. "
"Why would you even think that! We don't need anything swept under the rug! " Daniel asked dumbfoundedly.
Martin replied pleadingly.
"I thought you had realized that this island only offered enough opportunities to adequately level ten of you at the most, so the strongest among you banded together and killed the rest. Honestly, that is what usually happens during integrations on planets with more instinctual and less civilised races. But by the time I finished my primer about Earth, I realised that only the most ruthless among the humans would be amicable to the idea of outright killing each other for the sake of resources. You would rather scheme, politic, create social inequality and class barriers. But not kill. “
He continued after a pause.
"When I got notified that the election to my assigned bastion had been unanimous, I decided not to suggest that ruthless path of leveling to you guys. Resigned to the fact that you would all want to survive together, I instead came up with the second best solution. The only strategy in which all of you could reach E grade before the tutorial was over. “
“Spawning a dungeon”, Rahul said.
“Yes. The dungeon will have a separate instance for each party that goes in, and will provide the same leveling opportunities to everyone, irrespective of whether the settlement had 5 people or 500. However, dungeons are an exception and most of the resources in the multiverse are exhaustible ones. And wasting such resources on the weak is considered an egregious idea almost universally. “
Daniel spoke again.
“So, according to you, growth in the multiverse is a zero sum game and our success will always be at another's expense. I don't agree with you, but I can at least see where you're coming from. But by your own admission, you knew we were a cohesive settlement. I don't understand why did you jump to the assumption that we killed each other off when there were more reasonable explanations. “
Martin’s replied emphatically.
“No. There are no reasonable explanations. As I had already mentioned to you, the tutorials are supposed to be a cake walk. The castle defenses are overpowered, and you would have to be incredibly incompetent to even lose one member during system sanctioned events. Even the idea that almost the entirety of your settlement died in a tutorial attack, it's honestly preposterous. "
"It'd have been a different matter entirely if you had taken my advice to heart and not spent even a single SP on settlement defenses. That had been my first thought when I appeared here and noticed that the settlement population had been reduced to eight. I immediately checked the defenses in place on the bastion, but noticed a basic castle shield and 200 sentinels. That should have been more than enough. In fact, even half of the 200 sentinels that guard your castle at this moment can easily thwart any attack the tutorial can throw at you. That left only one explanation of the casualties, infighting and elimination of the weak... “
They all knew what Martin said about the sentinels was true. They knew that the sentinels, under the direction of Daniel, had remotely annihilated all the albatrosses without taking a single casualty.
Daniel explained.
“We didn’t know about the sentinels. We didn't know about any of the castle defenses. Mark, the previous representative of our bastion, had kept us in the dark about it all. Actually, you'll understand things better if I go over the sequence of events in order. "
Over the next ten minutes, they brought Martin upto speed on what all had happened in the past weeks.
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"That must have been a terrible experience, and I am truly sorry for how I behaved. I also can't offer any real answers for why Mark did what he did, anything I say will be conjecture. But please accept my sincerest apologies and regret for what happened. "
"I know this does not excuse my behaviour, but going through thousands of integrations, watching our wards die again and again, it develops a cold detachment in all the wardens. We act in calculating ways, and when I saw that there were only 8 of you left... "
Martin took a heavy breath before he continued.
"I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was honestly overcome with joy, as I assumed you had done it on purpose. That's why I acted the way I did. I saw a path to my own freedom. “
Rahul fired a series of questions in response, completely ignoring the apology in favor of the much more pressing revelations.
“Thousands of integrations? Just how old are you? And how often do your wards die? Is the survival rate during the integration of planets that low? “
Martin replied to them one by one.
“Yes, thousands. This is my assignment number 5381 if you must know. If by age, you want to know how many years has it been since I was born, that number is in millions. If you want to know how many years I have actually lived, how many years my body has aged, that would be about fifteen thousand years. As I mentioned, the moment all my wards die, I am put into deep sleep until the next integration. My body doesn’t age while I’m in deep sleep. “
“As for the survival rate, it’s abysmal. I haven’t had a single ward live through the integration in all my assignments. In fact, if I had, I would likely not be here with you. On an average, by the time a planet is integrated, only a few hundred of the planet’s original inhabitants are still alive. And the stewards of those few hundred are often ransomed from their cycle of deep sleep and integration.“
“Just a few hundred survivors. What about everyone else?“ Rahul said in horror.
The same horror was reflected on all their faces, and Martin rushed to clarify.
“Oh I'm sorry, it's not as bad as you imagine. I guess I should have told you this part first. You see, the integration of a planet is a long process that has various stages, and lasts a 1000 years in total. While there is a lot of violence, death and carnage in the first decade, a good fraction of the sentient population of the integrated planet survives and adjusts to the new normal, living their normal F grade lifespan in peace. "
"But on every planet, a small fraction of a percent of the population evolves to E grade and lives for centuries more. For earth, that means millions of E-grade humans. The elite of the elite among those make it to D grade and outlive the thousand year period of integration. Those are the few hundred survivors of the integration I was referring to earlier. "
That explanation flooded everyone's faces with relief. Dying after completing their normal lifespan might mean failure of Martin’s assignment, but as far as they were concerned, it was a life well lived. It was certainly better than their earlier interpretation - that the integration would kill their entire population leaving only 100 alive.
Daniel's reply mirrored all their thoughts.
“That's a relief. Given the already dreadful death rate on this island, I think most of us would take living a normal life with our loved ones. "
Martin nodded.
“Wanting to life a normal life with your family, that’s not an uncommon sentiment during a planet's integration. After the death and disarray that the integration always brings with it, many just ignore the leveling and live out their lives at peak F grade. But many, more than you would imagine, pursue cultivation and try to advance to the peak. "
Daniel thought for sometime, and then he addressed something else that had caught his attention.
"There's something you said that's been bothering me. You mentioned a path to your freedom earlier, and a ransom. What's that all about?”
Martin looked up as he replied.
"The path to my freedom. Well, the circumstance in which one gets employed as an integration steward are.. complicated. The circumstance in which that employment can end, they are even more convoluted. Neither detail is relevant to your situation. I’m sorry for my misbehaviour earlier, but we can’t spare any further time going over how stewardship works. We are on a clock, and it's about time we get to the actual matters at hand. “
Daniel reluctantly let the matter go, and then asked.
“Alright, where do we start? “
“The panda first! “, said a really excited voice.