Instead of heading into the bustling central courtyard, Ervin found the group was directed into a quiet side wing. He could perceive the faint tingle of spices in the air. Someone had been cooking. Following Halim under a decorated arch, he found himself in a modest dining hall overlooking much of the sprawling hillside and the distant city. An ensemble of eight tall chairs surrounded a rectangular carved wooden dining table that had an inlaid stone surface of speckled granite. The vaulted ceiling was covered in blue mosaic and radiated noticeable warmth. Cleverly disguised infrared emitters, Ervin thought.
A silhouette appeared in the doorway opposite. As the person strode into the lamplight with a brisk, upright pace, Max jolted and wanted to throw himself to the ground, but a sudden flicker of black eyes froze him into place. Ervin was caught in a similar state of torpor, as the man that now stood in front of him was clearly anything but. While clad in a simple burgundy robe and plain headband of gold and pearl, his forbearance and perfect movements radiated an aura of seemingly divine majesty, making the embroidered silk finery of the others appear tawdry by comparison.
"Welcome to Ophiuchi, sers," the figure that required no introduction said with a deft, immaculate voice that compelled attention yet conveyed a deep innate warmth. "Please, allow me to introduce my wife, Anuradha Jehangir-Shawiri," he gestured. Only now did Ervin and Max see the woman at his side. They had been so focussed on what could only be a Provider, that she had gone entirely unnoticed.
Snapping out of the spell that had fallen over them, Max and Ervin exchanged nods with the green-robed aristocrat. An inviting smile blossomed on the otherwise stern and regal features of her face as she inclined her head towards the table. "Please be seated, sers," she said in a warm voice, soothing yet every bit as coercive as her husband’s.
Max nearly tripped over his own feet as he hurried to obey, despite the clear deviation from the standard Imperial forms that dictated that no-one was to even cast a glance at a Provider unless they were seated on a throne of state or carried in a litter. To his dismay, there appeared to be no seating order, and Max soon found himself at one head of the table, taking the chair offered by Luara. Ervin, Charobim and Halim took seats on his right, while Luara sat on his left.
Anuradha and Farshid moved around, carrying mezze dishes from a buffet at the side and placing them onto the main table. As Anuradha seated herself next to Luara, Farshid began filling cups with a murky amber liquid. Ervin caught the pleasant aroma of citrus, saffron, tamarind, and a blend of other exotic spices, reminding him of his early youth, times during which he still enjoyed relative prosperity under the panoply of his family’s enterprise.
He looked across the table. "Did you cook all of this, ser Anuradha?" he quietly asked. She smiled back and shook her head, then looked in the direction of Farshid. Ervin gaped.
"I would be poorly suited for my role if I were unable to provide my guests with the most basic of necessities," Farshid said, stressing every syllable in a manner that made all present accept the statement as a fact that was beyond questioning. He seated himself in the seat next to Anuradha, leaving the chair opposite Max empty.
Ervin noticed that his hands were artificial, yet they moved with a flowing grace far exceeding anything he had seen. Everything the man that was not a man did was deliberate, Ervin knew. It shrouded Farshid with a layer of abstraction that made him stand a leap beyond the people in his presence.
"And yet, I am not the one we must thank," Farshid continued. Ervin and the people in attendance bowed their heads, with Max following suit only a fraction later. Farshid began offering praise to God and His prophets.
Max felt conflicted. Farshid spoke his words in ways that made them impossible to contest. Yet would they thank God for food that was clearly produced by the Provider? Why did the Provider thank God for light and warmth, when he commanded the power to birth and extinguish the stars themselves? Max wondered what the Provider meant when he spoke of God’s eternal law. Was a Provider’s very word not already law? As Farshid finished his prayer, Max looked up and caught a glimpse of him. In an instant, his doubts were washed away.
Ervin waited until others at the table began serving themselves and then spooned a few unknown tubers stuffed with what appeared to be tabbouleh onto his plate. He noticed Max remained silent and did not object to the lavish food he would normally decline, struggling instead to remain dignified while carefully eating a piece of pita bread covered in baba ganoush.
To his surprise, he saw figs wrapped in what appeared to be cured bacon amongst the delicacies on offer. None of the others had any inhibition towards consuming these, nor the other dishes that clearly contained meat. If they have the means to create this body, then they can probably create pork without pigs, he theorized. Yet, artificial meat was already a thing in his time on Earth, and his family had still shunned it, as it did not grow out of the ground.
For years, I consumed all kinds of artificial garbage while orbiting Proxima, he thought. Why, of all times, be principled now, and think ill of my esteemed hosts?
"It comes from a plant," Anuradha whispered from across the table.
Ervin chuckled in surprise. Not at all economical, but the workaround neatly overcame all prohibitions of the scriptures.
How had she known what I was thinking, Ervin wondered, as he sampled the previously forbidden dishes. Do they have technology to remotely read thoughts?
Farshid leaned forward, inclined his head, and looked at him briefly, his expression subtle yet vastly nuanced.
The face and posture spoke a thousand words. Ervin understood.
I am pellucid to them. They know my thoughts because they can glean them from my eyes, my face, my body language, all the subtleties that I am not even consciously aware of. And through the same system of subtleties and expressions, they can imprint my unconscious. Not only are they beyond human, but they have also mastered everything there is about human nature and the underlying systems that make us human.
He began to realize the tremendous opportunity he had to learn more about the Providers and the Empire at large, as the one other Provider he knew from Messier 39 had been distinctly alien. He found it hard to formulate a proper question to Farshid. The things that came to mind first were actually simple matters that, when asked, might earn him a reprimand and the directive to look up the obvious answers elsewhere.
Most mind-boggling facts he already knew, courtesy of the delegation of dignitaries that had led the efforts to integrate their colony into the Empire. An empire of a trillion worlds, he thought. Extending all the way to the far side of the Virgo cluster, containing thousands of galaxies. Hundreds of millions of years old.
Something irked him.
"Ser Farshid, first of all, my thanks for receiving us as your guests. The food you have made for us is truly delicious."
Farshid inclined his head, as if saying it wasn’t any effort.
"Would you be so kind as to indulge some of my questions," Ervin tried, cautiously.
"If I was not inclined to do so, I would not have invited you," Farshid said, matter-of-factly. Ervin laughed nervously, reminded that the Provider was always one step ahead of him.
"I am wondering about the following," Ervin asked Farshid. "The Providers have expanded constantly for hundreds of millions of years. Yet, in my absence, humanity has not." He stopped and counted briefly. "We had about a dozen colonies established or under construction during my time. But why is it that sixty thousand years later, when the Providers came, humanity had not even managed to settle thirty systems?"
Farshid froze completely for a fraction of a second, an odd, startling glitch that made it seem as if some part of his advanced brain had malfunctioned and had to be rebooted. Ervin found it highly unsettling, as it further reinforced that the creature was inhuman, despite its human appearance.
"Interesting," Farshid said, with a soft, amused tone in his voice. "That is the most interesting question I have heard in a very, very long time." He smiled, and for the first time, Ervin felt he saw Farshid display genuine human emotion.
"There are several reasons why humanity was not prolific, in the end. My personal understanding is the following: The Centaurans declared independence from the Universal Economic Council in the 25th millennium. Sol initially had the intent to launch a punitive expedition and reintegrate Proxima.
However, it was quickly realized that this operation would be impossible: Travel through interstellar space is expensive and arduous, as you well know, while the defenders have virtually limitless energy, resources, and reaction mass at their disposal. The invasion fleet would be unable to decelerate using the laser at Proxima, and in fact, the defenders could easily have weaponized this installation.
While never officially confirmed, it is highly probable that Sol has considered destroying Proxima instead, which would have been possible and, in fact, trivial. Small, high-velocity warheads or a series of relativistic kinetic projectiles would have been undetectable and are quite capable of destroying colonies. However, doing so would guarantee a spiral of mutual destruction. It would set a precedent, and every world would have considered every other world a fundamental threat to their existence. The colonies would have destroyed Earth and possibly each other using the same means.
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The independence of Proxima set a precedent in itself. It made humanity realize two things: First, that one system could never control another system. Secondly, precisely because of the cost, duration, and difficulty of interstellar travel, the colony ships that were constructed would never pay anything back to the system that had built them. There had never been cargo ships that returned resources to the original worlds, and it would always be more economical to produce locally within each system.
As Sol collapsed in on itself and Proxima rose to prominence as the most advanced human world, every human knew: It was every world for itself. Thus, the period of human colonial expansion thus ended around the 31st millennium. Humanity subsequently disintegrated into factions roughly based upon cultural and ethnic lines. In the 32nd millenium, the Ophiuchan worlds declared independence from the UEC, united under the Faith, but otherwise isolated from one another."
Ervin had listened through the entire explanation with fascination. "Our commander Woodward reported incredible resentment towards colonists from the people of Earth, precisely because of the issues you listed. They even demanded reparations."
Farshid nodded. "Such sentiments, while sounding inane at first, are grounded in reason. The interstellar ships took vast quantities of rare resources out of the Sol system. This was not just limited to material wealth; the colony ships also took many of the best and the brightest. This created a vicious cycle: the more deplorable the conditions on Earth became, the higher the emigration rates of the people that had the means to leave rose."
Ervin nodded he understood. "Then what makes the Provider Empire so stable?"
Farshid smiled, but this time it was but a wry formality. "The same way any system endures in nature. It co-opts everything that contributes to it, and it neutralizes everything that does not. The Empire has access to all information within it as per the terms of the Data Sharing Policy, which makes it trivial to empower the greatest contributors and constrain any detrimental factors. Ultimately, absolute control over energy and access to all information form the stable foundation upon which the Empire is built."
"And what about threats from outside the Empire? Has it never encountered any other successful intergalactic civilizations?"
"Extremely rare, but yes, it has. The Yortritan and the Imnu."
Ervin was almost afraid to ask. "And what happened?"
"They joined the Empire," Farshid answered, much to Ervin’s relief. "The Imnu were an interesting case. They are native to the Hydra supercluster, and an oddity. Indeed, they were one of the very few civilizations broadcasting their presence. The Providers responded by sending them the plans to construct a transference relay and link it to the Empire proper. They were successfully integrated into the Empire eighty million years ago, expanding the Empire into the Hydra supercluster some three hundred million years ahead of the expansion fleets."
Ervin was confused. "But… I thought the Providers already have faster than light technology. The Movers travel instantaneously…"
Halim laughed, and even Max’ face twisted into a badly concealed grin. "Apologies ser Ervin, but if the Empire was not bound by an expansion front that propagates at a fraction of the speed of light, it would span the entire universe by now," Halim said.
Ervin turned red and felt humiliated. With his secondary degree being in mathematics, he should not have made an assumption as flawed as he just had.
"The Movers have severe limitations. For one, they require pre-existing infrastructure at their destination, as does transference," Farshid clarified.
Remembering the earlier conversation, Ervin realized something. "Earlier you said that humanity realized that one system can never control another system, because of the overwhelming advantage the defenders have. If this is true, then how can the Providers ensure the compliance of all systems? One could simply destroy the local infrastructure and go rogue, and the Providers would be forced to slowboat to the system and be unable to retake it."
Farshid smiled once more. "Very good. Very good indeed. The answer is that it is possible to use the transference system to convey energy."
Ervin understood the implications immediately. "With the Empire the size it is, the Providers can bring amounts of energy that far exceed the output of the local star itself..."
"Precisely," Farshid confirmed.
"Going back one moment. I just realized the Virgo cluster and the Hydra supercluster are tens of millions of lightyears apart… With the initial communications conducted at light speed, I don’t assume there was much back and forth. Did the Providers really just give their advanced technology to the Imcehin, without having the means to ascertain who was on the other end?"
Farshid leaned back. "You continue to ask the most interesting kinds of questions, ser Ervin. Indeed, they did, after the first signal."
"I admit my next question is rather dull and predictable, but why did they think they could afford the risks?"
"Any species that broadcasts their position is friendly," Farshid said.
"Is it? How so?" Ervin wondered.
"As humanity must have realized during its Centauran crisis, destroying worlds is trivially easy. The principle that destructive capabilities far exceed defensive capabilities remains true as technology advances, at least up to the point the Providers have reached. Within humanity, the positions of all settled worlds were known, as were all the unsettled nearby worlds with conditions agreeable to human life. Any inter-system act of hostility would have guaranteed the swift destruction of the entire human race. However, if a would-be attacker is unknown, it can strike without revealing itself, and destroy worlds without fear of retaliation."
Ervin realized. "The Imcehin risked their very existence on the bet that the unknown was friendly. That is a very bold gamble to make."
"It paid off," Anuradha said.
"So it did, for both of us," Farshid acknowledged.
"Could I ask what your view is on Provider technology? How has it affected the Faith?"
Farshid’s face turned into a barely perceivable frown. Too ambiguous a question, Ervin knew. He felt it also didn’t help that there was no way to distinguish between the alien Providers and the former human sitting at the table.
"The Provider technology is not at odds with the Faith. After all, the universe did not fundamentally change, did it?"
"Our lives changed. We are now immortal, and the Providers take care of our needs. One might argue we no longer need God," he spoke as he gestured at Max, referring to his fabricated nature, "or even, that the Providers are playing God."
Farshid answered quickly. "I embrace God with my whole being and will forever be His obedient servant. Never doubt this. What you see here today is a culmination of the work of God," he spoke, gesturing over the terraced gardens and towards the distant city. "When God created the universe, there was only one possible outcome: Some of His creations would eventually come to understand Him and obey His will. The Empire as a whole exists in concordance with God’s eternal laws, thus triumphing and dominating all of creation. Anything less would inexorably have resulted in death."
"What of the principle of equality that we hold so dear in the Faith? You a Provider, me a commoner. There are nobles, knights, and even disposables in the Empire…"
"We are sitting here at this table as equals, are we not?", the Farshid reprimanded him.
"It is not the norm from what I have seen. Ser Max used to be treated worse than a slave…"
Max looked like he was going to object, yet he kept quiet, not daring to interrupt a conversation that involved a Provider.
"If you seek to wield equal power, then you must possess an equal character," Farshid said, his voice calm as he explained. "If a lowly sinful human like myself had this opportunity to ascend, so does everyone else. Even ser Max."
"Ser Max was destined to be disposed within days of his creation," Ervin protested. "What opportunity did he ever have?"
"It was trivial for him to obtain citizenship, was it not? He could have applied at any time."
Ervin was confused. He thought Elisa had leveraged her power to arrange citizenship status. He turned to Max. "Is this true?"
"It is. A disposable can apply for citizenship," Max said. "But this is not what we are created for. Our disposal is glory to the Providers."
Ervin sighed. "Ser Farshid, is there any hope of ser Max ever becoming a full citizen and living happily at our colony?"
Farshid answered in his usual calm and controlled voice. "The cultural gap is too large, ser Ervin. You are projecting your own norms on ser Max, when these do not apply. Likewise, there are several ways to resolve this situation, but none of these will be agreeable to you."
"I do feel ser Max has made a lot of progress adapting to our culture, these past months."
"Evidently, you are mistaken," Farshid said, as he turned to Max. "Ser Max, am I correct in surmising that you and ser Ervin are close friends?"
Max nodded enthusiastically, taken by surprise that Farshid had chosen to address him.
"Tell me then," he asked. "Would you torture Ser Ervin to the best of your abilities, if I were to ask you to?"
Max did not flinch. "Unquestionably, your Providence."
Ervin cringed and shifted in discomfort. Charobim voiced a barely audible prayer against evil, but Farshid pressed on relentlessly.
"How would it make you feel to hear his cries of agony and his pleas to stop?"
"It would please me to know your wishes were being carried out, your Providence."
"What of your own empathy and moral concerns? Do you not have these things? Would you not consider my command to be... unethical?"
"It is not my place to question your will, your Providence, only to obey."
"And what if there were two Providers, and one would issue a conflicting order and instruct you not to harm ser Ervin? How would you decide whom to obey?"
Max did not require time to think. "A Provider is to be obeyed. A later command overrides the former. I will not distinguish between the two Providers nor the contents of their commands."
"If I were to ask you to use your own judgement to decide whether to obey or defy my next command, and then issue the same order of torture of ser Ervin, how would you feel?"
For the first time, Max found the question difficult to answer. He paused for several seconds.
"I believe I would feel conflicted or even feel despair. I would not be able to decide on a proper course of action. Of course, I would prefer not to harm ser Ervin. But it would feel like I would act on the whim of personal preference, rather than sound judgement. I would not be sure whether it is the right thing to do."
His point made, Farshid nodded to Max in thanks, and resumed his dining. Max bowed his head in elation, grateful for the opportunity to be of service to a Provider.
"May the blessings of God be upon Compliance," Anuradha said.
"Many blessings indeed," Farshid answered.