Three months into our retreat, Thorfinn invites me to his private SimHive server. SimHive is one of the more popular games available on the noosphere. One starts as a character on an Imperial Feudal world, establishes a dynasty, and roleplays as individuals from your dynasty as the ages pass. The player gradually improves their power base until they can take over enough of the world to start building upwards.
It starts as a mix of Crusader Kings and Anno Domini, then develops into Cities Skylines and Civilization, before turning into Stellaris. The game reminds me a bit of Spore, only far more detailed.
Thorfinn’s server is his single player game. The two most popular servers, however, are the Stellar Fleet’s shared co-op PvE server and the PvP server. The PvP server is a complete mess, and the players have turned the entire world into a constantly warring Ecumenopolis with thousands of factions after only ten years of playtime and a thousand or so of simulation.
The PvE server recently got reset after they seceded from the Imperium and were purged. A good lesson, I feel, and the furious debates it sparked in the canteens across the fleet have been entertaining to listen in on. The primary Machine-Spirits on each vessel often send me the conversation highlights under their crew sedition protocols; I can never tell if the Machine-Spirits are being serious, or if they are unrepentant gossips.
Thorfinn greets me at the top of the main hivespire in his simulation. I can’t see far, as his world is choked with acidic smog. A red sun grasps at the hive with its feeble light, barely able to press through the gloom.
I whistle, “How long have you been running this one for?”
“When I’m not in the game, the Sim runs at a year per day now. When I first started it was a lot slower. I’m about twelve hundred years past the Emperor’s ascension to the Golden Throne, which is when most people start their games. I have been playing this scenario for five years.”
“How many hives do you have?”
“Just the one, but I have some decent orbital infrastructure. My game is really being held up by technological limitations. I haven’t had much luck when sending out explorator fleets and I haven’t found any exotic resources or data I can trade with Mars for more advanced knowledge. It’s especially annoying when I personally know how to make some of the things on the tech-tree, but the game locks me out of them.”
“That annoys me too,” I say, “but it magnifies the satisfaction one gets when they finally receive authorization. I have a joint server with Brigid, but we aren’t running it as fast as yours. We’ve only just reached Civilised world status. We have to be really careful with pollution on our world as it grows rare rejuvenat medicinal herbs.”
Thorfinn groans, “Oh, you lucky bastard. I rolled a low resource world, not that I knew until I was advanced enough to prospect the whole thing. I wrecked the planet getting enough metal for my hive and now I am reliant on trade and manufacturing.”
“Any rebel or xenos incursions?”
Rebels are the faction equivalent of Chaos in SimHive, but putting Chaos in a game would be dumb, so there are only rebels.
“No, they go for my shipping instead. I clear them out every hundred years or so, but they keep coming back. You?”
“Mostly local guilds trying to muscle in on our monopoly of the valuable herbs. They frequently burn down the production, which means we miss our quotas and get sanctioned, or the governor one of us role plays as is replaced. Then Brigid or I have to fight our dynasty to the top again before the NPC governor ruins the world and wars devolve us back to Feudal status.”
Thorfinn chuckles, “There are good governors out there, you know. Probably.”
“Yeah, we had one in our game. He was so hard to replace, we had to wait four hundred years for him to die before we could make another play for power. That’s where we’re at in our game right now. Our dynasty just got reappointed.”
“Nice.”
“It did feel good to be back, but it also felt like we’d lost somehow. It was both frustrating, fun, and satisfying. An odd combination of feelings, for sure.”
Thofinn nods. “I’ve been there too.”
“So why did you want to meet here?”
“A few reasons. I wanted to show off my game a bit, because I’m super proud of this Hive city I’ve planned, built, and managed.”
“It does look good, and I am totally jealous and impressed.”
“Excellent! That’s goal one achieved,” Thorfinn grins. “The other reason is that I wanted to have a private conversation and SimHive is a good location to demonstrate my thoughts.”
“Go on.”
“I’m going to retire from Fleet Command.”
I lean on the bannisters and gaze out at the sprawling city of metal. There is little discernible difference between the simulation and the real world. Thorfinn rests his back against the stone balcony and props his elbows on the railing. From the corner of my eye, I can see he is carefully watching my face.
“Thorfinn, what led to this? You’ve been doing a great job for years. While there are plenty of competent individuals who can replace you, the person I trust with the role is you.”
“It's the fatalities. Every battle we’ve had has been brutal. I just can’t keep sending men and women to die.”
“It’s different to being a Captain of a Feudal Military, isn’t it?” I say, with a sad smile upon my face.
“Yeah, the scale of death is on a whole other level, and these are the fatalities we get when we’re winning. What will it be like when we lose our first escort, light cruiser, or worse? Tens of thousands of people lost in a single flash. If I keep this up, Adrich, I won’t be me anymore. I want to do something new before I get to that point.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I’d like to go with Quaani and his Pathfinder fleet. I want to be a Remembrancer and create documentaries for our Fleet; to let everyone know the differences and similarities between our Fleet and the rest of the galaxy.”
“We’re a nomadic, voidborne fleet and you have wanderlust?”
Thorfinn chuckles, “I can see why you’d think that. I did bring you here to show something different after all.” Thorfinn turns around and leans on the balcony too, looking out over his simulated Hive city. “You’re not wrong either, I do want to see what’s out there, though I could do without all the lasertag.”
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I sigh, “But that’s not all.”
“No, I have some legitimate concerns about other worlds and I want to patch any breaches before they can threaten the Stellar Fleet’s shared cultural identity. Aside from you and Quanni, we’re all from one place and one time. It creates a firmly welded community.
“Through documentaries, I want to start the debates between what is good, what is bad, and what is merely different as soon as I can. Marwolv was isolated from the Imperium for millennia. When you turned up and flipped our world upside down, it was a massive shock, one that’s going to take at least another couple of generations to work through.
“Having that happen a second time, and so soon, will put cracks in our Fleet’s identity. There’s already going to be a big split between those who go, and those who do not.”
Thorfinn waves his hand towards the city and continues, “This is where my analogy comes in. Think how annoyed people will be when they have to leave behind the great works, like this game, that they’ve been sharing with their friends for decades, knowing that when they come back, their favourite pastime, if it does exist, will be unrecognisable and effectively dead to them. Now imagine that this is their home instead. Sure, there will be the occasional message and they are, for many, taking their house with them. The heart of our Fleet however, the Iron Crane, will remain creeping between the stars, out of touch with the rest of the galaxy.”
I put myself in Thorfinn’s scenario and conjure up mild anger, frustration, anxiety, and loss. My face twists as I let the unpleasant emotions run through me. Then I compare the wild debates after the SimHive PvE server was reset and imagine if what they were talking about was real. I run a hand down my face, pulling the tension from my expression. Gamers airing their grievances are bad enough. Not even the Omnissaih could save us if the scenario was IRL!
“We absolutely cannot allow that to happen.”
Thorfinn looks at my face and laughs. “I knew you’d understand. We’ll discuss it properly in the next meeting, but I wanted to run it by you first. I didn’t think blindsiding you with my decision just to make the same point about shock that I’m doing here would win me much support.”
“I would not have been happy. I’m still not that happy about it and I won’t be for a long time. I’ll miss you, Thorfinn. Who am I going to get to be best man at my wedding now?”
“Me too, my friend. I would like to be there too.”
“Ah, fuck it! It is what it is,” I sigh, “Two months isn’t much to find your replacement. Do you have some nominees for us to look over?”
“No more than you would already know. We’re running the same system as you set up for governance at Marwolv. Any of Fleet Command’s fourteen assistants are qualified for the job.” Thorfinn yawns, “On second thoughts, I don’t think the assistants for Owen and Róisín’s new departments are a good choice as they haven’t even made two years experience yet. Lonceta Ridel, the woman who started off as a trainee gunnery officer on Distant Sun, then went on commanding the lances on an Adder-Class before being promoted to Fleet Command, would be my choice.”
I nod, “I was surprised when she changed to internal security.”
“I believe Lonceta said she had to crack so many heads to keep the gunnery crews from getting overly excited when firing big guns, she might as well just do that instead.”
“I recall she said: ‘I’m no Metasurgeon, yet I do a remarkable amount of pre-op’.”
“That’s pretty dark!” Thorfinn smirks, then turns serious again. “Laisren Toolin would be another good choice. He put a lot of work into becoming your assistant after following you into the Ork Rok.”
“The Logis fellow who carries a pet Grapplehawk on his shoulder all the time? I admit he is meticulous and a professional paranoiac when it comes to digital security, but he isn’t the most imposing fellow.”
“That can be fixed.”
“Sure. Enough cybernetics and training will change anyone, but I don’t think he’d be happy in such a role. I could give him up and put him beneath Lonceta though. He’d be the perfect counter force to her more physical approach to discipline.”
“Let me privately inform the rest of Fleet Command first, please, then you can chat with them all before the next meeting to gather their opinions and we’ll put my replacement to a vote.”
“Alright.”
“Care for a tour of my Hive before we disconnect?”
“Sure, Thorfinn. It will give me something to compare to when you get back.”
“I’d like that.”
I spend a couple of hours Oohing and Aahing over Thorfinn’s Hive city and chatting about all the funny little moments that created his sprawling metropolis. Thorfinn has a slick, custom air car that we complete the tour on. Towards the end he takes us out beyond the walls.
His endless mines have been converted into many kilometres of trenches, bunkers, and other fortifications.
“Wow that’s bleak,” I say.
“It is necessary.” He flies us to the edge of the fortifications then swings the car around and gives us a full view of the city, “though I do think it looks rather magnificent when placed in context. A sense of satisfaction at a job well done, and the comforting armour of proper security, is a beauty of its own.”
“There is a uniform aesthetic,” I nod. “It’s much better than most Hive cities we have records of.” I receive a notification from E-SIM. “I have to go. I have my biannual meeting with the Tau. I’ll be meeting their new representative, Overseer Ya’Va Vsum, for the first time.”
“Don’t they have anymore Water Caste?”
“Only ‘La’ rank. Their bureaucrats. None are officially trained to be envoys, even though most of them, following their traditional doctrine, have earned that promotion. The Tau decided to vote in their best Earth Caste instead as he actually has the education and experience to understand the value of our primary trade goods with the Tau.”
“They can’t sustain their population. Another fifty years and they’ll almost all have died out.”
I nod, “It’s something I’ve discussed with Envoy Lynu, before her death. She was content to let her people fade, rather than sell off their heritage. I’d prefer not to let them fade away. Officially, the Mechanicus discourages research. Having the Tau do it for us skips a lot of loopholes.
“So long as we provide guidance, we can claim anything new isn’t xenotech either. Especially as there are enough common links between our technologies that they share a common route. The most damning evidence that they traded with the Kin is in the Tau’s scientific lexicon. They might use different words, but many terms share identical definitions with their High Gothic and Lingua Technis equivalents.”
Thorfinn grimaces, “The Tau rioted after Lynu’s death and a couple more perished when I sent in the Heralds. It ruined many years of cooperation. You don’t seem bothered by it though.”
“Lynu was really good at her job. It made getting anything extra out of the Tau almost impossible, without resorting to thievery and oppression, that is. She was also good at keeping the Tau calm and cooperative. I can appreciate her skill and I am hoping my discussions with her will have prepared me for trading in the Imperium. With her gone, however, it’s possible we can make more headway with integration.”
“Logical, but cold. She was a work colleague. Being a little less smug about it would do you good, I think.” Thorfinn shakes his head, “Forget it, we both know I don’t like it when you cut away your emotions like that. Why are you pushing for their tech so hard? They’re lacking in a lot of areas. Why take the risk when the Inquisition forbids the research and use of Tau technology, or trading Imperial technology with xenos?”
“Sorry Thorfinn. The longer I live, the harder it is not to see the world in numbers, or resist treating every problem like a nail. I will keep working on it, I promise.”
Thorfinn snorts, “Well, I suppose you can’t quit like I can.”
I sigh, and nod, “I may live in a world of charts and simulations, but that is no excuse to throw them away out of boredom or discomfort. Back to your question: you’re right about the Inquisition, even Rogue Traders can get into trouble for messing with the Tau, though they have a bit more leeway. We’re not trading tech for tech though, but resources for tech. I can also argue that the conversion of Tau to Imperial tech is not research, because of its possible shared roots. So long as we don’t run around with pulse rifles, or flaunt what we are doing, few are going to raise a fuss if we sell them enough high end tools and wargear.”
“I think you are being optimistic, but we have at least twenty more years before it becomes a problem.”
I smile, “Quite possibly. Thanks for showing me around.”
“Later, Aldrich.”
“Bye, bye.”
I disconnect.