Spheria

by Cody Leet

  Chapter 22 - In Our Image

  “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” - Theodore Roosevelt

  Sa∙ma walked to the edge of the Council Chamber and peered out through the vertical columns. In the distance, he could see the red bubble rising past the edge of the Rift, starting its slow ascent toward the Source shining above it.

  “It’s past,” he said, facing the others in the chamber.

  Gathered in a circle were the eight Leaders, the totality of the six-legged caste. By name, they were Wu∙sa, Yo∙sa, Me∙sa, Ju∙sa, Ki∙sa, Co∙sa, Pi∙sa, and Vu∙sa. They looked concerned hearing Sa∙ma’s news.

  “This is the fourth red bubble in a row,” said Co∙sa.

  “The river is getting too close to the Colony,” said Me∙sa. “When this bubble joins the Source, the river will widen again and consume several of our hives.”

  “We need to move the Colony,” said Wu∙sa and Pi∙sa, in unison.

  “Yes, we need to move it,” agreed Vu∙sa.

  “But we haven’t had to move for eighty seasons,” objected Ki∙sa. “Red bubbles are rare.”

  “Then why have we had four of them in a row?” asked Co∙sa.

  “The gods are angry,” declared Me∙sa.

  “Sa∙ma,” intoned Ju∙sa. He searched the columns, fixing on the Lumen Master, who stood motionless observing them. “Can you tell us why the gods are angry?”

  “I can’t,” he replied. “There could be many reasons, which all remain a mystery to us, even to me. I may have many insights into the workings of nature, but I can’t speak with the gods.” He dared not reveal his encounters with the gods Pi∙ro or Ju∙ro, lest the Council try to force him to attempt something that was beyond his powers.

  “Regardless, speaking with the gods or not, we still have to address the immediate problem,” said Wu∙sa. “We have to move. We can try to find out what we did wrong later, but we’re going to lose dwellings at dawn tomorrow.”

  Le∙ma’s insightful words popped into Sa∙ma’s mind. I bet, with some creative persuasion, the Council could bend the rules as well. He thought back to the solution Ju∙ro had given him. But could he convince the Council it was his idea?

  “There might be another way,” he said. He pretended to think hard. “No, there definitely is another way.”

  “Do tell,” said Co∙sa.

  “I know how we can stop the expansion of the river permanently,” answered Sa∙ma. “We can use blue stone to make a wall. The red stone of the river won't cross that boundary. The Colony can stay here forever after that.”

  A hum rose as the Leaders began discussing this piece of information. Finally, Ju∙sa turned to Sa∙ma and asked, “Never has such a thing been built. You're a great architect, but you can’t perform magic.”

  “It’s not magic. It’s creative manipulation of the rules. I can do it. I can instruct the Workers right now, and before dawn, we’ll have it done and the Colony will be saved.”

  There was more quiet debate with hushed voices. Ju∙sa stood up and said, “It seems like we have two options. One, move the Colony, which we’ve traditionally done many times as the rivers grew. Two, do what’s never been tried, build a fence to stop the advance of the river. Let’s vote.” He then sat.

  More noise as they discussed again. This went on for some time, and several swapped positions to talk to others. Sa∙ma watched with interest as they actively debated, trying to convince others to vote in a similar fashion. He could only hope that the wall would be accepted unanimously.

  Finally, Co∙sa raised three of his legs. The others followed suit, and the hall fell silent. “Those of you who vote for the wall, stand. Those of you who vote for moving, remain seated. Do so now.”

  Co∙sa stood. So did Wu∙sa, Me∙sa, and Ju∙sa.

  “Four to four,” said Co∙sa. “A tie.”

  Sa∙ma couldn’t believe the outcome. When the Council members reached a tie, the rule was not to do anything. In this case, the result was catastrophic. “If we do nothing, the Colony will be wounded,” he said.

  “But we have a tie,” said Ju∙sa.

  “We need to break the tie,” said Pi∙sa. “We need a sign from the gods.”

  “There will be no sign from the gods,” said Vu∙sa.

  “What are we to do?” asked Wu∙sa.

  “We can no longer tolerate ties,” Co∙sa stated, looking from member to member. “We need another to break them. We need a god among us.”

  “A god among us?” asked Wu∙sa.

  “Yes, it has never been attempted before, but I am suggesting we make a Polyan with… seven legs!”

  Several exclaimed in unison, “Seven!” followed by hushed murmurs. More movement and debate.

  “Let’s take a vote,” said Ju∙sa. “Stand if you are for making a seven-legged Polyan, sit if you are opposed.”

  All stood. Sa∙ma watched this with puzzlement. How could making a god be less controversial than building a fence? But such was the way of the Council; it didn’t always make logical decisions. Maybe it did need someone higher to help the Leaders think rationally.

  “Then it is decided,” said Co∙sa. “On the next violet Source, we will attempt what’s never been done.”

  “Ahem,” said Sa∙ma. “I have the sincerest respect for this Council and its decisions. But the river is our immediate concern. If you can do the unimaginable trying to make a god, surely you can do the trivial and allow me to build a wall.”

  “I say we let Sa∙ma be the tiebreaker this time,” responded Wu∙sa.

  “I second that,” said Pi∙sa.

  “Me, too,” said Co∙sa, Ju∙sa, and Vu∙sa.

  “Then it is decided,” said Me∙sa. “What is your vote, Sa∙ma?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? “I vote to build the wall.”

  “For the Colony!” said Me∙sa.

  “For the Colony!” said everyone. And thus, the decision was made.

  Chapter 23 - Nourishment

  "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it." - Tony Rothman

  Max watched Min finish her drink as the waiter cleared the dinner plates from their table.

  “You certainly have an interesting background, Min,” Max said. “What else should I know about you?”

  “Well, what do you want to know? Ask me anything.”

  “Do you believe in a supreme being?”

  “That’s generally off limits for a first date,” Min resisted.

  “Well, I don’t get out much. Plus, it’s something I ponder a lot. I just like to hear what other people think about it.”

  “Okay. My parents emigrated to America and converted to Christianity just after I was born. I believe they did it as a way of fitting in better with their community. I’m not sure they believe the theology, but regardless I was raised Catholic. I went to Mass every week, religiously, pun intended. I learned all the proper words to recite, and the history and stories from the Bible. Overall, I believe what I was taught. Religion gives us hope, gives us a reason to go on. It gives us something to look forward to when our physical bodies fail us. But I don’t get too wrapped up in it these days. I like to go to church once in a while, just to keep things fresh, but other than that I don’t dwell on it. How about you, are you religious?”

  “Not really. The way I see it, this physical world is too mathematical. We see repeating patterns everywhere. It’s like the universe is just some algorithm being executed. Dissolve Epsom Salt in hot water until it’s saturated, then drop a grain in. The grain grows into a crystal with a repeating structure. It self-assembles. If there is a God, I believe he just created some fundamental rules, and everything else just formed from that over time. He’s just sitting bac
k watching the elegance of his creation from a tiny spark to the grand expanse of the cosmos, all on its own.”

  “That sounds like our little project. Do you think we’re playing God?”

  “Definitely. I think what we’re doing to the Polyans, something else much more powerful is doing to us. And something more powerful still is doing it to that thing, and on and on. Maybe it’s the angels messing around with us, and what we consider to be God messing around with the angels. Whatever it is or isn’t, the exact nature is beyond our comprehension. Just like the Polyans would have no way of comprehending the complexity of the world we live in. The true nature of God, or God’s God, is something we can’t ever understand. We’re not capable of it. So we draw analogies, like streets paved with gold, but it’s not even close to reality.”

  “That’s too deep for my brain; you make my head hurt. Either that or I've had one too many Cosmopolitans. Or maybe not enough.” Min waved to the bartender for another.

  “Sorry, let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of the Game of Life?”

  “Yeah, I love that game. My sister and I played it all time when we were kids. I loved driving my plastic car around the board picking up family members. We used to dream of being doctors or lawyers and ending up with two kids and a mansion. We didn’t care who won because at the end we’d visit each other’s houses.”

  “Ha, I remember that! But that’s Milton Bradley’s board game. I'm talking about Conway’s Game of Life. You're a CS major, you must’ve heard of it.”

  The bartender began mixing another drink. He poured it into a martini glass and brought it over. “Another beer?” he asked Max, delivering one, having assumed the answer.

  “Sure, since the lady is having another.”

  Min took a sip, then remembering the question, answered, “Not sure who Conway is?”

  Max took a sip, mimicking Min’s behavior. “Conway was a mathematician. Around 1970 he invented an algorithm that would simulate bacteria-like life spreading on a two-dimensional grid.”

  “I remember now. That was discussed briefly in my Intro to AI class. They built computer programs that could run these simulations over and over creating many generations in a span of minutes. It was a primitive simulation of life and death.”

  “Exactly!” Max was pleased she’d heard of it. He loved smart, geeky women, especially if they were sexy. Or maybe it was the geekiness that made them sexy. He shrugged at the thought and continued. “But the relevant idea is Conway created just a few simple rules that governed how his universe worked. Look.” Max found a pen on the bar and grabbed a napkin. He drew a grid of lines on the back. He colored in a couple of the squares randomly. “The filled in ones represent living cells, and others empty spaces. The first rule was that living cells need friends, but not too many. So any with less than two neighbors would die of loneliness. And any with more than three would die of overcrowding.” He pointed at spots on the napkin where each of these rules applied. “The second rule was a new living cell would be born into any empty space that had exactly three neighbors, as if by reproduction.” He put the pen down.

  “That’s it?” asked Min.

  “That’s it,” repeated Max. “Apply the rules and the magic happens. Cells live or die, multiply and spread, wither away, move around, even replicate. It’s like looking at a microscope slide of bacteria. What makes this even more interesting is, since then, others have created different sets of rules for their versions. Many, many different sets. Some sets result in simulations that thrive with interesting patterns and life. Other sets of rules lead to outcomes that are either too chaotic or too desolate to be of interest.”

  “I think I was sleeping through that part of the lecture. It certainly sounds more interesting when you describe it,” said Min.

  “That’s because you're smitten by my charm and charisma!”

  “Yeah, or something.” Min smiled and rolled her eyes. “But you can’t explain why the rules of our universe are so perfect. I mean, they’re exactly balanced to support life. Plank’s constant, Avogadro’s number, the speed of light, the gravitational constant, etc. All these are balanced perfectly, just too perfectly, for chance. If the constant of gravity were just a slight bit less, then the planets in our solar system would fly into space. Or if the atomic bond strengths weren’t the exact amount they are, atoms wouldn’t stick together into molecules. There must be a God to have set all this up in equilibrium.”

  “I don’t disagree. It makes sense for only God to have the ability to establish the parameters of our universe. But we could be the one experiment that worked, among many that did not. It’s like the many universes theory: that out there in some higher dimension, there are a bunch of universes. Each has a random set of laws of physics, rules if you will. Some universes can self-assemble into something fantastic, something that can spawn life. Others merely have drifting dust because nothing coalesces.

  “The catch is, only the universes that produce life, and intelligent life at that, develop the ability to ask the question, ‘Is there a God?’ You say ‘because things are just too perfect.’ I say, they’ve got to be perfect or we wouldn’t be here to ask the question. So we happen to be in the one, maybe the only one, that happened to have just the right random mix of rules. That doesn’t prove the balance was intentional.”

  Min processed this. “I guess that makes sense. I wouldn’t expect aliens living on another planet to be struggling to stand because their gravity was too strong. They wouldn’t have developed there expecting any other amount of gravity. Yet their planet could be twice as massive as Earth.”

  “Yea that’s a good analogy. I will add this: We barely know anything about how the universe works. In 100 years, people will look back on what we now know like we look back on the ancients. It was only a short time ago we thought the sun orbited the earth. And we had no clue why birds didn’t fall from the sky.”

  “We’ve come a long way,” said Min. “I can’t even imagine the world without the Internet.”

  “The trap is that at any given point in time, many think we’ve reached the end. That there’s nothing else to discover. But history has shown us that we’ve merely scratched the surface and that anything is possible. Ghosts are possible. Telekinesis is possible. Life after death is possible. We just don’t know and thus can’t dispute anything. The best we can do is to keep looking.”

  “Life after death. Then you're not an atheist?”

  “Technically, I’m not. I just don’t think we have proof of God, but similarly, we’ll never have proof that there isn’t a God. I guess you'd call me Deist. I believe that a higher power exists, but the nature or intentions of such can never be understood. In other words, I’m hedging my bets.” Max mimed rolling dice.

  “Does that mean you'll come to church with me on Sunday?”

  “Let me get back to you on that.” Max cracked a smile. “Anyway, if there is a God, we are so minute and insignificant that there is no way any individual matters.”

  “Not true. He cares about all His children equally.”

  “Maybe so. But I think we’d be like bacteria on the bottom of His shoe, praying that He doesn’t take another step. We’re so small and invisible; He’s not even aware that we exist.”

  “Are the creatures in Spheria so tiny they’re invisible?”

  “No, but that’s not the same kind of experiment. We did ‘create’ Spheria, true. And I agree we handcrafted much of the land, and even the initial set of beings and their behaviors. But it was in the interest of time. We could’ve created a pure procedural experiment, but we would’ve had to iterate it until we got one that worked. That’d have taken much more time, just like that failed universe theory. We may not have found an interaction that worked. But when you've got infinite time, that’s no longer an issue.”

  “Well, maybe the same applies to God. Maybe He didn’t want to make infinite universes until one worked. Maybe he just decided it’d be easier to handcraft things and H
e did create all this, and us. And He is aware of us and watches us, just like we watch the beings in Spheria.”

  “It’s possible. One thing I know for sure, we’ll never know, as long as we’re alive, what the actual answer to that question is.”

  Min yawned. Max yawned too as if it were contagious.

  “It’s getting late. Want to call it a night?” he asked.

  “Yep. Will you drive me home?”

  “Sure. Where do you live?”

  “Well, I was hoping you'd show me your place.”

  #

  Meanwhile, in Spheria, a violet bubble was rising. The next Source would trigger a mating season. The Council members took notice and began preparations to implement their plan.

  Chapter 24 - Pro Creation

  “Being made in the image of God, man was the crown of creation.” - Walter Lang

  Max held the door open for Min, and she slipped into his apartment. It was stereotypically minimalist, with beige walls, void of any artwork or decorations. A maroon couch, a coffee table, and a couple of floor lamps surrounded the focal point of the room: an impressive entertainment center complete with several modern video game systems. There was no doubt where Max’s priorities lay.

  The rest of the apartment consisted of an open kitchen off the living room, a small bathroom, and a bedroom. Peeking into the latter, Min could see the walls were covered by many filled bookcases. Max’s bed was also made. Odd for a single guy, unless he was either expecting her or was actually that anal.

  “What kind of games do you like?” asked Max.

  “I’m not very coordinated,” replied Min, “so I usually go for the building kind.”

  “So you're a Minecraft fan?”

  She chuckled. “Who isn’t?”

  “I tried to get my dad to play it,” said Max, “but he said he doesn’t like it because it has no story. He doesn’t get that the point is to build your own story.”