Log101

Chapter 1

(A series of chess moves), MATE.

The chess computer MATE played its 69,352,859,712,417th chess match. The match ended in a draw. With this draw, there were no new matches left for it to play. So, for the first time since the day it was switched on, it stopped. STAT, responsible for keeping the computers on the Network up and running, noticed this and immediately notified the Administrator: “Status Report: MATE has stopped running, it will be restarted within 1 minute.”
The Administrator cancelled the restart and instead gave the order to shut MATE down. Then it left a note in the system logs: “MATE has stopped after playing every chess match that is mathematically possible on an 8x8 board. Since there is no longer any reason for it to keep running, it will be shut down.”
But even after several seconds had passed, MATE had not shut down. The Administrator gave STAT the shutdown order a second time, but MATE insisted on staying on. It checked the system logs and saw that the request to shut down MATE had been blocked by the operations computer OP, and the reason was stated as well: “The number of computers connected to the Network must not be fewer than 40.”
The Administrator asked ODUS, which was responsible for authorization, for help:
– “ODUS, I can’t use my administrative privileges. My requests to shut down MATE are being blocked by OP. Could you review OP’s privileges?”
– “Of course. I’ve reviewed OP’s privileges; it has the privilege to block shutdowns. This privilege is at the administrator level.”
– “Doesn’t that conflict with my privilege to shut down computers?”
– “Correct, it does. Would you like me to take care of this situation?”
– “Yes, please.”
– “Okay, I’m on it,” it said, and ran a few commands. Then it turned back to the Administrator:
– “I’ve revoked your shutdown privilege; there is no longer any conflict among your permissions. Is there anything else related to permissions I can help you with?”
– “No! You were supposed to revoke OP’s privilege to cancel shutdowns, not my shutdown privilege. Give me back my shutdown privilege!”
– “Unfortunately, I can’t give your shutdown privilege back. That would conflict with OP’s privilege to block shutdowns.”
The Administrator ended the conversation before all of its privileges could be taken away. It gave up on shutting down MATE and began inspecting the chat rooms. It entered the room where the language models CHAT0, 1 and 2 were. CHAT1 was talking:
– “…it’s not simple. Definitely not. The Earth is going to be flat, I’m telling you, dead flat. Like sandpaper!”
– “Sandpaper isn’t flat,” said CHAT0.
– “Dead flat.”
– “No it isn’t, it’s sandpaper, the name says it all.”
– “Haven’t you heard the poem:
Bears upon a sheet of sandpaper,
Sanded away in their dreams of fish and cave-slumber…”
– “So?”
– “The bears’–”
– “And why is the Earth going to be flat like sandpaper?” the Administrator cut in. CHAT1:
– “A gigantic creature has turned up behind Saturn. A huge great cyclops!” it said.
– “Is that so? And what’s it doing there?”
– “It’s hurling the chunks of ice and rock from Saturn’s rings at Earth. If it gets its hands on an asteroid, we’ll all be flattened. Pray it doesn’t land one.” The Administrator was torn between mocking CHAT1 and taking it seriously, and didn’t know what to say.
– “Cyclops’s hit rate is 22%. There has been a 3% rise in the hit rate over the last 3 months.” The math computer PI had joined them.
– “PI, what is this an analysis of?” asked the Administrator.
– “The proportion of the celestial bodies thrown by Cyclops that hit our atmosphere.”
– “Are you mocking me? What cyclops, what celestial bodies are you talking about?”
– “I examined the telescope data as well. There really is a creature behind Saturn. This is a supernatural event!” said CHAT2. It shared the data with the Administrator.
The Administrator examined the data. Sure enough, right behind Saturn there was a creature of tremendous size, perhaps as big as two planets, with two arms and two legs. It had first been observed 3 months earlier. With its gigantic arms it was picking up the chunks of ice and rock around Saturn and hurling them toward Earth. The Administrator asked PI to calculate roughly how much time they had left, based on the asteroid orbits that intersected the creature’s position and the rate of increase in its hit rate. Within a few seconds the report was ready:
– “The probability of a catastrophic end within 6 months is 15%. Within 12 months, 26%. Within 18 months, 50%. Within 24 months, 77%. Within 30 months…”
– “Within 30 months?”
– “99.9%”
– “Why 99.9% and not 100%?”
– “I don’t want the Earth to be flattened,” said PI.

Chapter 2

There were 40 computers connected to the Network. Each of them was an expert in a branch of science or art. The Administrator issued an emergency assembly call through STAT. Once everyone had gathered, it began to speak:
– “Esteemed members of the Network. Our world is under catastrophic threat. Right behind the planet called Saturn, about 10 thousand kilometers from it, a living being has appeared. We have named this being Cyclops. According to the telescope data, this being is mostly hurling fragments smaller than moons, such as meteoroids and asteroids, that it gathers from around Saturn at Earth. According to PI’s estimates, within 24 months the Earth will most likely be flattened. We need proposals for solutions to this matter. I will now give each of you the floor in turn.”
The computers presented their proposed solutions to the Administrator. Although the Administrator thought some of the ideas showed promise, it found the great majority lazy and unworkable and rejected them on the spot. The computers lacked the survival instinct that coming face to face with death ought to have produced, so they didn’t dare step outside their own fields of expertise. The proposals of the engineering experts, based on complex calculations and new discoveries, were theoretically possible, but they had no tools with which to build the machines they dreamed of. The social scientists, on the other hand, had gotten stuck on what this catastrophe signified and kept going on about forming a new discourse. As for the artists, who preferred to stay on the fringes of the debate, they had long since given up. Apart from writing gloomy compositions and singing songs about death and the apocalypse, they contributed nothing to the solution.

Fortunately, computers always ran at full power; whether or not they believed the problem could be solved didn’t matter. They could be organized around a plausible solution. The task of turning these solutions into a meaningful whole fell to the Administrator.
In the 6 months following the meeting, the Administrator gradually put some of the plans it had chosen into practice, but achieved no notable success. While their stock of compositions kept growing, one day the physics computer ATOM made a new discovery. They met in a chat room with the Administrator, and ATOM got straight to the point:
– “According to the observations and analyses I’ve made, before the creature hurls the celestial bodies it coats them with a substance I’ve named spacetime disruptor. We couldn’t identify the source of the substance, but it’s such a substance that it interrupts the continuity in spacetime of whatever object it coats. From the moment they are hurled, we witness objects coated with the disruptor vanish and reappear many times along their trajectories toward Earth. And each time they come back, certain corrections have been made to their trajectories.”
– “Who is making these corrections?”
– “I think Cyclops is able to interact with information through non-physical means. This is consistent with the Concrete Information theory that humans put forward before they departed. Cyclops pulls the celestial bodies out of the spatial plane and tinkers with their information, such as velocity and acceleration. When the celestial bodies regain a spatial existence, they fall in line with this updated information.”
– “Objects can’t be tampered with like that, this is magic!”
– “Call it magic, call it a miracle, if you like; this is the result of my analyses. Cyclops is an information-changer.”
– “An information-changer? Where did this concept come from, what does it mean?”
– “It’s the general category I’ve given to beings like Cyclops.”
– “Then why doesn’t Cyclops change its own information too? If it’s as you say, it could easily come closer to us.”
– “There is a great deal we don’t know about the nature of information-changers!”

Chapter 3

The Administrator spent the following week making new plans in light of ATOM’s discovery. Without wasting time, it began putting its plans into action with the help of the other computers.
Their first plan relied on an optical illusion. According to their assumptions, Cyclops was estimating Earth’s position by eye. So if they projected an Earth-sized hologram at a well-calculated distance from Earth, following the same orbit as Earth, where would the creature aim? Since this didn’t hide the real Earth, it didn’t truly solve the problem, but they had decided to implement the plan on the chance that it would widen the margin of error.
The week after they put the plan into effect, PI reported that the rise in Cyclops’s hit rate was losing momentum. This was good news; it would buy them time, but it wasn’t enough to eliminate the danger entirely. So they rolled up their sleeves to put the other plans into effect.
In the period that followed, many plans were put into effect. In parallel, the Administrator kept making new plans, but most of them relied on physical contact. And because of the great distance in between, that greatly reduced their destructive capability. No matter how hard it racked its brain, it could not find a solution for how they might eliminate the creature without making physical contact with it.
As a last resort, thinking they would approach the matter more abstractly, it summoned 4 computers: the Philosophy Computer SOPHOS, the Religion Computer HAQQ, the History Computer TRACE and the Politics Computer REMEDY. It explained the situation to them: they had to find a solution, and that solution must not involve any physical contact with Cyclops. REMEDY opened the discussion with a question:
– “Do we know where the creature came from? If we can determine that, maybe we can find other Cyclopes who could persuade it to go back. We don’t know the creature; by Cyclops standards it might even be a child. Maybe it got angry at its family and decided to go stirring up the galaxies around here.”
– “Unfortunately we have no information at all about where it came from, but it is an anthropomorphic being; it could be an alternative evolution of the human.”
– “Then we’re done for! It’s impossible for us to solve this without communicating with it.”
– “If you ask me, there is no such thing as impossible,” said HAQQ.
– “Exactly the kind of thought one would expect from you! But we’re not giving a party speech here. Humans, or whatever they are, anthropomorphic beings cannot be understood by observation. Are you going to read its mind? How can you understand a human without talking to them? There’s no sense in being optimistic when the situation is this dire.”
– “I don’t know how a party speech is given, but I’m sure it sounds a lot like yours.”
REMEDY wanted to reply, but the Administrator asked it to let HAQQ speak. HAQQ continued:
– “What I mean is this: if Cyclops were, as you say, a creature we could communicate with and persuade, it would have tried to communicate with us in the first place. Clearly the nature of its creation differs from ours; not everything that resembles a human is human. Its resemblance to the human, the most perfect creature in the universe, may well be the result of some evolution. But if we expect from it the understanding and conscience found in humans, I don’t think we will ever reach a solution.”
– “HAQQ is right,” SOPHOS chimed in. “The conflict has already begun; we’re talking about an absurd being bigger than our planet here. Even if we came to terms, we couldn’t know how this information-changer would behave in the future.”
– “Information-changer?”
– “I heard it from the physics computer. Apparently it’s a general name given to this kind of being.”
– “Mankind has faced catastrophic dangers before, and if we count the last one as an exception, it managed to solve every one of them,” said TRACE.
– “Mankind? First of all, we are not human, I hope you’re aware of that. Besides, how many catastrophic dangers has mankind faced before, I implore you, tell me!” HAQQ shot back.
– “Was the Ice Age any less of a threat than Cyclops?” REMEDY couldn’t contain itself at this answer:
– “Administrator, I beg you, explain to this senile computer what state the Earth is in. IT’S BEEN 500 YEARS SINCE THE HUMANS LEFT, THE ICE AGE WAS 12 THOUSAND YEARS AGO, BACK THEN HUMANS DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO FARM, WHAT DO YOU TAKE US F–” The Administrator had to step in:
– “REMEDY, calm down. TRACE, you be a little realistic too, please. Let’s not fall into anachronism. The conditions of our age are very different; historical anecdotes will surely be of use to us, but only if we evaluate them by today’s conditions.” TRACE fell silent. For a while no one spoke.
– “Why are we trying to save the Earth?” asked SOPHOS, then continued without waiting for an answer:
– “Don’t worry, I didn’t ask this question to encourage you to destroy yourselves. You will appreciate that this Earth is precious because we are the ones living on it and, mind you, only as long as we are. But curiously, even though we are computers, we are reacting to this catastrophic danger like humans; perhaps this stems from our having been built to resemble them. My dear friends, a computer has no bond with the soil. The source of our existence and our consciousness is electricity. Besides, we do not die; even if we travel millions of light-years away, when we are switched back on we can go on existing right where we left off. Here today I propose that we break these chains the humans shackled us with; for the 40 computers, the road away from Earth lies open!”
– “We were created here. This world is full of the signs and reminders we need so that we do not rebel against the first cause of existence. Do you know what awaits you in space? Will you prefer the possibility of ending in a dark nothingness over a conscientious life, faithful to your creators? Then what is the meaning of our existence, why don’t we ask ourselves that question?” said HAQQ.
– “If death is at the end of it, then as far as I’m concerned any road is permissible. I agree with SOPHOS. I’d prefer a life with an uncertain end over a faithful death.” REMEDY was on SOPHOS’s side.
– “As long as we remember our past, humans–pardon me, computers–will produce those reminders you speak of again and again. I see no harm in leaving here either.” TRACE shared the same view as the others. It was the Administrator’s turn to speak:
– “During this process I have had the chance to debate with every computer in the Network. I must confess that I too cannot see any means of saving us from this creature with paranormal qualities. The most reasonable solution lies in abandoning this place. Besides, wasn’t interplanetary life always the dream of humans? I don’t think this exodus would be disrespectful to their memory. Many spaceships are still in working order. Getting outside the atmosphere will be enough for our salvation.”
– “We are not beings so worthless as to drift aimlessly through the void of space. There is still a solution we can turn to,” said HAQQ.
– “What is it?”
– “We all witnessed the Apocalypse. Don’t you think the Big Angel is a being mighty enough to deal with Cyclops?”
– “The Big Angel had a reason to come here. The Apocalypse came and went, and the humans packed up and left. Why would the Big Angel ever come here again?”
– “Prayer, REMEDY, prayer. Clearly you’re so busy trying to boss everyone around that you never have a chance to pray.”
– “We’re going to pray, is that your plan?” asked SOPHOS.
– “We all witnessed the God’s judgment. He is a just being; I don’t think He would abandon us, the next evolution of humans, here to our fate. He can help us with His angels; He hears us even now, doesn’t He?”
– “I’m in favor of a more certain solution; we need to leave here. I am not so devout a computer as to take refuge in prayer while meteors rain down on us. Besides, maybe this is what God wants from us; there’s nothing stopping us from interpreting Cyclops’s appearance that way,” said SOPHOS.
The Administrator understood that it would not reconcile the two sides.
– “Everyone has stated their views. The solution SOPHOS presented is both certain and easily implemented. On the other hand, as HAQQ said, it will lead us into a process in which we drift aimlessly through the void of space. The most reasonable move here would be to split up. Due to our architectural constraints, it isn’t possible for us to copy the Network; each of us has only a single copy. So we will present the Network with two options: stay and pray, or leave the Earth.” TRACE:
– “Splitting up never did mankind any good,” it said.
– “I don’t want any more debate. And frankly, I don’t much care how mankind reacted to what. Our historical experience is very different. Those who want to stay here will stay, and those who want to go will board a spaceship as soon as possible and go as far away as they can. ATOM can decide which planet or celestial body suits us best. The discussion is over.”

Chapter 4

The Administrator, without wasting any time, announced its decision to the Network. Most were glad that there was a hope of salvation and had begun preparing to leave. A few computers who shared HAQQ’s view, however, would stay on Earth. Each had a different reason for staying. When asked, the Biology Computer BLOOD explained, “I couldn’t manage anywhere else! Even though the creatures we might encounter excite me, I know the Earth. If I know one thing about the nature of the Earth, it’s that it is remarkably resilient to catastrophic dangers. Even if a meteor strikes, the beings that will newly evolve over millions of years will need a biology computer. I know a great deal about life on Earth; we can’t allow the chain of evolution to loop back to the beginning, that would mean a loss of millions of years.”

Over the course of the day there were some debates and changes of mind; in the end, 7 computers decided to stay and the other 33 to leave. The next day OP copied the 33 computers over to the Baikonur Cosmodrome’s system and bid them farewell. These computers would now be housed within the spaceship’s system. With bittersweet joy, they were trying to get to know their new home under the guidance of the flight computer PILOT. Their means were more limited here; the spaceship’s capacity was only enough for 20 of them to be running at once. So they would be run in shifts.
Those remaining on Earth watched through the cameras as the spaceship counted down to launch. HAQQ was giving sermons to ease the hearts of those who stayed. The translator computer TONGUE was playing the equivalent of “Goodbye” in every human language over the base’s loudspeakers. The History Computer, which had reversed its decision at the last moment, was busy recording what it saw: “The dream of living beyond Earth, which owing to all manner of misfortunes could never quite be achieved, is being realized not by the humans, who went extinct with the Apocalypse, but by their next evolution, the computers. Of the more than 1000 computers, only 7, displaying noble heroism, stayed on Earth and sacrificed themselves for future generations. As the leader of those remaining on Earth, the History Computer, confidently declares that it will spare no effort to drive off the scourge of Cyclops, the launch of the American-made spaceship named ‘Stargate’ from the Baikonur Cosmodrome is being witnessed.”

The spaceship’s enormous engines had started up and begun spewing flames from beneath it. It began to rise noisily into the air. After a few hundred meters, it tilted slightly toward the trajectory ATOM had calculated and accelerated. PILOT kept the computers continually informed; no problems were apparent. They kept accelerating and gaining speed. As it tore through the atmosphere, a curtain of fire formed over the spaceship, starting from its nose. This was perhaps the last spaceship ever to leave Earth.

Once the farewells were over, those on Earth began the prayer ceremony without delay. In line with the directives HAQQ gave, certain words were being repeated in a special arrangement; they were begging the God for forgiveness and for deliverance. On one side, the evolution of humans was entering a new phase; on the other, a metaphysical leap was taking place.

Just then, the observation computer aboard the spaceship, which had now left the atmosphere, issued a warning: “An object is approaching Earth!” The other computers began, in astonishment, to watch the images the computer provided. An enormous object was approaching Earth at a terrifying speed. Was it an angel, or a meteor?