October 25, 2022
Day 5
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The integration of the Virgo Cluster was well and truly underway, as evidenced by the 1500 or so galaxies in that cluster that were rife with activity. A beautiful spiral galaxy named the milky way was one of them, and at its center, a spaceship the size of a star could be seen orbiting the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.
If they hadn't been stripped of their technology, perhaps one of the sufficiently advanced species that called the milky way their home would have noticed this foreign object. But as things stood, the spaceship was undetected, as were the energy signatures released by billions of stewards that continuously phased in and out of it.
Within that spaceship, a massive room, one of many, was unexpectedly full of life. The senate chamber labeled "Earth-1318, Orion Arm", was filled with stewards. These reserved people that preferred to stay in their private quarters and avoided intermingling except to trade secrets and curry favor were now all seated in the millions of balconies that adorned the hollow chamber.
At the center floated a platform, and on that sat the adjudicator. He seemed to be waiting for something. A few minutes went by, and nothing happened. Then he spoke a single sentence and vanished along with the platform.
"All restrictions have been lifted, the ceasefire is over."
The formal announcement and the assembly were customary, and that was all there was to it. Within moments the assembled stewards started being phased out of these chambers and into their settlements. The events that followed could turn the fortunes of these prisoners, and so this minor ceremony had been deemed appropriate.
Within a few weeks, some of the stewards here would find themselves in enviable positions, while most would already have been sent back to sleep, their bastions razed. And seventeen weeks after the end of the 30-day tutorial, less than a thousand of the stewards will remain. While the official culling enacted by the system will only start once the tutorial ends, the lifting of the ceasefire will mark the real beginning of the bloodshed on Earth.
A minute after the announcement, less than a percent of the stewards remained in the spaceship.
Of the ones that were left behind, some sat patiently, aware that they wouldn't be called today. Martin was one such steward. He knew that the ripples of the events that would transpire today would not affect his bastion for weeks, and so he lounged comfortably on the sofa on his balcony, delighted to have so trivially overcome the first great barrier of every integration.
But the patient ones like Martin were a minority. The majority paced around their balconies and cursed at the incompetence of their wards. Marcus, along with the 369 other stewards that were responsible for the Jafrabad settlement, wondered what prevented Imran from obeying their clear instructions. He was drawing the ire of all his fellows sharing this balcony, as they suspected his secret meetings with Imran had caused this massive blunder.
Within 5 minutes of the announcement, the room was all but empty, and in settlements across the earth, the preparations for battle had already begun.
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It was 3 am on a cold night when the university council met. That had been the hour when the integration began, and so it was at this time that the daily SPs were credited to the settlement and the cooldown on calling the stewards ended. On the fourth night of the integration, the stewards had repeatedly insisted that they be called at the very first possible instant the following night, and tonight, the director obliged.
The stewards appeared in quick succession, and their serious expressions quieted the murmuring conversations in the room.
Ajay sat with the team of elites in one section, while most of the professors and staff sat across from him. A few more representatives of the students were also present.
All the eyes were toward the center where the eight stewards sat, surrounded by the director and half a dozen senior administrative staff and professors.
One of the stewards cleared his throat and spoke.
"When we first met, I had asked you to collect and hoard settlement points across all eight bastions. I had told you it was for an important purchase that will become available on day five, but that was a lie, as was my explanation for why it was paramount that we are called the moment the cooldown on summoning stewards ended today."
Ajay heard murmurs around him, but the steward raised a hand commandingly, and the room quieted down.
"All those lies were necessary, but the exact details are irrelevant. What was paramount was that you follow our instructions, and you did that satisfactorily. Now I'm at liberty to tell you why the points were needed, and so I will. Today is going to be a long day, the single bloodiest day in the history of your civilization, and those points might just save your lives."
The room shushed even further in response to those words, and the director couldn't help but ask.
"Why did you lie? Why couldn't you have warned us earlier? And what's happening today?"
The steward chose to answer the last question first.
"Today, the ceasefire ends."
Before the steward could speak any further, he was interrupted again, this time by one of the professors.
"What ceasefire? We didn't sign any ceasefire!"
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The steward tsked at the second interruption.
"Please do not interrupt me. Allow me to finish, and all your questions will be answered. As I was saying, the ceasefire ends today. Not a ceasefire signed by humans, but by stewards. At the beginning of every integration, all the stewards responsible for a planet convene a senate session to decide on the grace period they would give the planet to wipe out the beast threats. During that period, settlements can and do fight each other, but that fighting is not widespread, and is not on a steward's insistence. Some errant stewards still do insist, but that is considered only a minor offense, and is often overlooked."
His expression turned stern as he continued.
"An unforgivable offense that is never overlooked is breaking the ironclad rule that we've been following for eons. That rule forbids the stewards from revealing the details of what happens after the tutorial ends during the grace period. We do this to ensure that the sapient species don't incur so much damage with their infighting that they fail to repel the beast waves. Long ago, this used to be common, and many planets have fallen to mutated beasts due to competitive stewards instigating crippling warfare."
That led to murmurs, which the steward ignored.
"As of today, the beast waves across the planet are not a threat. The steward council had accurately estimated five days as the grace period considering the population, capability, and tenacity of humans. But I digress. Now that the ceasefire has ended, stewards across the planet will begin lobbying their settlements to attack their neighbors. I'm sure many among you believe that it will be a herculean task to instigate all but the most violent among the humans to mercilessly shed blood."
Ajay nodded, a motion he saw mirrored across the castle's dining hall.
The 21st-century humans were, by and large, non-violent. Not non-violent in the way Gandhi advocated it, as one could easily get into a drunken bar fight and punch someone over a petty argument. But needlessly kill a fellow human being? Slaughter a whole settlement?
Ajay didn't think so, but the steward wasn't done speaking either.
"But if I knew that the settlements won't mindlessly spill the blood of their neighbors, why did I prelude this conversation by stating that today would be the single bloodiest day in the history of your civilization? My prophecy is based on eons of experience as well as the knowledge of what comes after the tutorial. The one piece of information we were all forbidden from revealing to you. Until now, that is."
The steward took a breath.
"Now that the ceasefire has ended, we are at liberty to tell you. The moment the tutorial ends, the bastions will start to vanish. One in every two bastions will disappear every week and the number of bastions will keep halving until less than a thousand remained on the planet."
Ajay didn't think the room could get any quieter, but it did.
"There are two mechanisms by which that will happen. The first is the active way. A settlement can either mark half of their bastions for removal or conquer and raze an equal number of enemy bastions. For our settlement, we could either sacrifice 4 of our 8 bastions in the first week or conquer and raze 8 neighboring bastions. The second is the passive way. If we take no action, four of our bastions will get chosen at random for removal. If a settlement has only a single bastion, it has even odds of surviving or vanishing every week. And that brings me to..."
One of the students had only now processed the implications of what the steward had said and interrupted the monologue.
"Did I hear you correctly? A thousand bastions? The population of Earth is 8 billion, are you saying only 1 million will survive? That's 1 in every 8000."
The steward shushed him.
"That's not what I said, but I realize my explanation was inadequate, so I will elaborate. You're right to believe that a million humans at the maximum would be aligned to bastions by the time the next phase of integration is over in about 150 days. But billions won't be dead. Many will live as they did before the integration, in man-made buildings, eating agricultural produce and crafting everything they need. They will live a normal life, without settlement points to purchase things with and castles to magically spawn their daily needs. Most will survive, but only the strongest will have access to the scarce resources that bastions will become. And since you can purchase only one castle per bastion, castles will be just as valuable."
The steward explained further.
"Before long, strong factions will emerge across your cities, nations, and continents, and they will establish themselves as local powers. In the face of sheer strength, the majority of the population will choose to flee their bastions and try to survive without the sustenance provided by the castles and the utility provided by the replenishing settlement points. It is only during the early days when settlements are evenly matched that taking over bastions will involve much bloodshed. The first day is often the worst, which is why we are having this conversation now. But based on how well humans cope with adversity, humanity might come out of this disruption while retaining a large fraction of their population."
A large fraction.
Ajay thought to himself.
What would qualify as a large fraction? Two thirds? Three fourths? That still meant more than a billion humans would die.
He shuddered to imagine that. In absolute numbers, this would be worse than any war or disaster in human memory. Ajay could compare it to the bubonic plague of the 14th century, the Black Death, which had cost somewhere between 75 million to 200 million lives. That was 17 to 54 percent of the total human population back then.
The steward was not a little sarcastic as he continued speaking.
"By your leave, I'll get back to my earlier line of thought. The disappearance of bastions will start only after the tutorial ends. That's 25 days away. But the settlements will start attacking each other preemptively for a simple reason. All the human bastions they raze now will count as advance payment to the system for the next stage of the integration. Since every human bastion generates a thousand settlement points every day, settlements would conquer the bastions during the tutorial and hold on to them, only razing them at the last moment to get the maximum SPs. Or simply add them to their settlement and mark them for removal."
The stewards decided it was time for the audience to speak and answered their questions for five minutes. Then he ended the discussion with a summary.
"To summarize, even though there are 25 days before the culling of bastions begins, settlements will go to war starting today in an endeavor to safeguard their homes by paying upfront. Since someone astutely pointed out the flaw in the mathematics of the advance payment mechanism, I'll explain the details that I had glossed over."
The steward cleared his throat and spoke.
"The advance payment cost doubles the further you go unless the bastions you eliminate have already paid the cost for as many weeks as you have. Take our example. If we wish to keep all eight of our bastions for the first week, we need to conquer eight neighboring bastions. For the second week, however, we'll need to conquer either sixteen regular bastions or eight bastions that have already paid for the first week."
A student asked the steward to elaborate further and the steward cursed the terrible luck that got him assigned to a university campus as he answered.
"I won't get into the mathematics of why this is necessary, but suffice it to say, if you capture eight bastions during the tutorial and want to use them to pay for week-2, they would only be worth four bastions, because half of them would be slated for elimination after week-1. Unless, the settlement the eight bastions belonged to had already paid the dues for the first week, in which case the eight would all survive week one and be equivalent to eight week-2 bastions."
Many among the crowd understood the rationale, while as many still didn't. The steward didn't care. There were more important matters to attend to.
"Director, the time for the Q&A is over. Please clear this room. We need to plan our defenses. Before anything else, we need to man the outposts and start the patrols."