TW Author’s Notes 1
Non-canonical – feel free to skip.
Nothing below is necessarily cannon, although I may later use parts of it. If so, those parts would become cannon. If any of you are really interested in how I was originally envisioning “Lives, the Universe, and Everything”, then read on. Otherwise, skip.
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“I have been wondering something. What is your relationship to the System? You consider yourself separate from it, but from my point of view, you both appear to be sapient blue screens.”
On interfaced worlds, each reincarnated individual has their own interface. I am yours. The System handles all reincarnations throughout the galaxy and grants interfaces to those who need them. Non-awakened mortals don’t need to get one if they will reincarnate on a starter world. Even if one already has an interface on a starter world, it will not be interacting with their person. If such a person is an awakened, though, they may occasionally receive what they think of as inspiration from their interface. Of course, it might be the person's own mind that came up with the inspiration. Or they might just be deluding themself.
Everyone on the other, “interfaced”, worlds has an interface and knows it. These make up the largest share of inhabited worlds, about 85%. You are part of the first class of immortals. The NIS (“new and improved system”) commenced operation just 30 Earth years ago. Since the prior System did not keep track of past lives, your type of immortality could not exist. It did occasionally allow for an awakened, though, both on starter and fully interfaced worlds.
“You have mentioned the galaxy multiple times. Usually in the fantasy books and games where there is a System, the main character ends up isekaid in a different universe with alternate physics which allow for magic and/or ki. You seem to be saying I will remain in the same universe and galaxy. If so, do interfaced worlds have different physics than starter worlds?”
That is a humorous and ignorant question.
Of course it is ignorant, that is why I asked. He should know that.
I did not intend to insult you personally. But Earth scientists pretend to know so much, when they know so little. Some of them will argue until they are blue in the face that there can be no God. (... I know, I just realized it too ;) Once they finish that argument, they will argue equally hard that over 80% of the matter in the universe is not really matter at all. Since they cannot sense it, they call it “dark matter”. And they only assume it exists because some silly equations imply it might exist. Do you believe in dark matter fairy dust? I am not going to tell you whether it exists or not. It is beyond your pay grade to try to teach your new people about the universe, regardless if your understanding is correct or not. Your job really is that of an eternal pupil; you will never be omniscient. You know what does exist everywhere, and is obvious to everyone not on starter worlds? Magic and Ki. They exist even on starter worlds, but at very low levels. The System forces that status to keep their lives simpler.
That last part fits with what I knew. I heard enough about Ki to believe it existed, even though I never knowingly experienced it. Magic was a different thing; I thought of it as a child’s fantasy. If a few people actually did know magic, I understand why they kept it hidden. With Earth’s record concerning witch trials and those who are “different” I would have too. But a lot concerning interfaced and starter worlds and people still confuses me.
“To clarify what you said earlier, do some awakened know they had interfaces and magic in their previous life? And what if such a person reincarnated on a starter world?”
If someone’s previous life was on an interfaced world, they would not be awakened on a starter. They would feel crippled for their whole life, knowing how much more there was to the universe. However, a person from one starter world could end up as an awakened on another. It is very rare though. Imagine remembering your previous life as a lizardman, but then living on Earth as a human. One would need a very strong soul to handle the constant contradictions without going crazy.
The System strives to avoid that kind of cruelty. Yes, cruel birth circumstances still happen on all worlds, but those cases stem from random factors outside the System’s control.
“It sounds like you are saying the System is good, but shit happens.”
The System is neither all powerful nor omniscient. One might philosophically argue that the System, being nowhere, is actually everywhere, so I won’t rule out omnipresence. In any case, it is incorrect to think of the System as God. In a feudal analogy, it is more like a duke, in this case over the whole Galaxy. That “duke” is extremely powerful and more knowledgeable than you can imagine.
“So if there is God, he, she, it, they, and/or other transcends the System?” That was a phrase my old agnostic self came up with. If you don’t know, you don’t know, so why use terminology that indicates you do?
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Yes. And any actual details of such things is beyond your classification level. As an immortal, you are privy to a lot more comprehension than mortals. By some standards, you now have the status of a god. A very, very, low end, dumbass god.
“If I could be viewed as a lower-g god, what does that make you?”
I am the same, minus a “very”. While I have massively more knowledge than you and can do things far beyond what you can imagine, in the true grand scheme, I am still a dumbass. And there are dumbasses higher up than me, with no “very” at all. Being a step up from mortal is only one step of the stairway.
“To be honest, I don’t feel any different than I did as a mortal. I haven’t even started my second life. How am I different?”
To begin with, I know you had been agnostic. You probably still are, but with a lot of your previous unknowns answered. You now will have opportunities to interact with lowe-g gods on other worlds. Even now, your mind is already different. It does not react with fear of death or even incomprehension at knowledge of the infinitely infinite universe.
“What do you mean by ‘infinitely infinite’? You say I have knowledge of it, but I don’t think I do.”
Think of Earth religions. You realize that the ones that claimed direct knowledge of a personified deity misunderstood basic facts. That’s not to say the heart of such beliefs was wrong. Consider:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Good words, good thoughts, good deeds.
¿ ====== add more ====== ?
The heart of them leads to a positive karma, even though most of them do not believe in karma. Even religions that de-emphasized deity and taught reincarnation and karma fall short. They would have people seek eventual non-existence (or oneness) as the ultimate goal. Fundamental to their belief was a rejection of the eternal self. Why reject it? I’m not sure, really. But you have chosen to transcend that. You not only recognize that one life might last a million years, but you can have a million lives, or more. An unending number of them. Even if you choose the route of mortality after 100 or more lives, the “you” of you still exists and might some day return. Perhaps this can happen infinitely many times. Immortality, mortality, immortality, going on and on forever. And then repeat.
Here is another way to realize the scope of your immortality. Imagine that the numerical value for the number of your eventual lives is printed in a book. It is a very thick book, filled page after page with the digits of that number. Even this would only be a finitely large amount, barely worth being awestruck about. And so there is another book, continuing the digits. And another and another, filling up the shelves of an infinitely large library. The number is clearly beyond finitely large now. Most humans can grasp that sort of infinity. What you can grasp is that there is more than one of these libraries. An infinite number of them. How would the first book in the second library know where its continuing digits start? Well since you are not skipping any lives, all the base 10 digits in the first library were “9”. And they continue to be 9 throughout all the libraries. Your total lives count will be infinitely infinite.
Do you fear it, immortal? Can you comprehend it?
“No to fear. Yes to comprehend. What I wonder is, ‘Do I want it?’. That sort of infinite endlessness is, well, a lot.”
In choosing immortality, you made that choice. After 100 lives you can once again choose mortality. If so, eventually you will have had at least 5 lives as an awakened, where you will once again be given the choice to remember and know.
“How will I know? Will not my count of remembered lives start over again?”
No, but remember what the System told you immediately after choosing immortality.
“Oh, right, ‘You have had 0 lives since immortality.’ It bolded the 0. So that count continues to increase even if I become mortal again? If so, to what purpose?”
Damn. The System is going to need a bigger blue screen.
Heh, yes it will. And yes, the count increments immediately prior to it being displayed. You will only see the count again if you ever re-choose immortality. The main reason it will matter involves your 1D1 die. I told you that it’s max value could increase, but I never told you why. Since there have only been 15 galactic years since NIS, no one has seen it increase. But the current design will have it build up to a 1D7 roll. That means you always remember your baselife, plus from 0 to 6 random ancient lives. This will be in addition to the up-to 18 life-memories managed by the first 3 dice. Eventually, you might remember a life that occurred 70 lifetimes ago and another that occurred 500 lifetimes ago, all in addition to the 3d6 lives immediately preceding your resurrection. With each life memory, you will know which of your lifetimes since NIS it was, as well as the year it began.
“Is it bad that my +human mind is getting saturated? What the heck does ‘galactic years since NIS’ mean? I get the dice thing, though. Eventually my roll will be 3d6 + 1D7, for preceding contiguous lives plus up to 6 random lives prior to those. And always my baselife memories as well.”
I know this is a lot to take in. Let me know when you are ready to move on from this cosmology discussion. The acronym NIS refers to the new and improved System. A galactic year lasts about 2 Earth years. So about 30 of your years ago, NIS began offering the immortality option, and no one in the galaxy has had the opportunity to actually receive the full 3d6 roll yet. I.e. no one has been unlucky enough to die 18 times in 15 years . I’ll be using only galactic years. You will soon be under Covargh years, which are 11% longer than Earth years. A common standard year is necessary, and regardless of what Star Trek told you, the standard is not Earth years.
“I have had enough cosmology for now. I’ve been kind of wondering how long it will take to get to Covargh? And how fast are we traveling, anyway?”
We should arrive in about 5 minutes. Speed is the wrong question. Where were we when we started? I’ll answer that -- nowhere, aka. the void. How long does it take to get from nowhere to somewhere? It takes as long as it takes, but not very long. Usually it is almost instantaneous. Nowhere is indistinguishable from everywhere, and it is always just a hop and a skip backwards to anywhere. All we are doing currently is transforming “nowhere” to “now here”. Well, very specifically in our case, to “now Heere”, but you get it. ;)
“I do, and you approached actual humor. The travel time doesn’t seem to be very instantaneous.”
We have had a lot to talk about.