The Fourth Voyage

The staff meeting was hurriedly called for 8am. In outer space terms the morning hour meant right after the lights started to power up. In an existence without day or night, circadian rhythms told the time, and the artificial brightening signaled a new day. The jump was scheduled for ‘late morning’, and from the look of the bright green planet shining below, the Nole had made its scheduled arrival with time to spare. But why hold a meeting? This was not standard protocol, unless of course there was something very unexpected.

Belden hurriedly dressed, and was the last to enter the staff room. Weller was standing at the end of the conference table. He was already speaking, and looked unusually serious. "…. and moreover, there’s nothing special about the Tovalds colony. They were bright young engineers, modest too, and when they departed for the Nilux system, it was with high hopes, soaring idealism, and a desire to do things a bit differently."

"How differently?" Moore asked.

"Simplicity, independence. They wanted a collection of small city-states, all isolate and independent, yet sharing information transparently over a world net. A loose confederation is what they wanted, a thousand voices independent and respected, and without even the implicit and democratic governance of a Foundation. They wanted solitude over bustle, a time to reflect rather than a timetable that forced reflections. They just wanted to relax! The problem is, they’ve succeeded too well."

Weller pointed to a grid like overlay the circled a map of the planet.

"As you know, the electronic web that the Foundation uses for global communication consists of a series of geo-synchronous communication satellites that circle our planet in orbital lockstep. Using a simple transceiver, any individual can communicate with any individual, anywhere, and moreover, access any information about anything. With so much information, and so little time, we go by ratings, scores as to what individual minds en masse decide as important. This democratizes the spread of information, and allows a viewer to decide what information is good, bad, or irrelevant. The Tovalds colony had this too, and indeed it was the one major communications system it critically relied upon. And so what did this democracy bring, a wealth of inspiration, breathless poetry and boundless science?"

Weller pointed to an image on the view screen. "It brought this."

"Donkey carts?"

"And alchemy, witchcraft, messianic religions, and creationism! The entire world net is covered with such nonsense, and worse, the people believe it! Oh yes, there are some sensible things, a lot of sensible things, but they are on the whole ignored. For every site explaining the world as it is, there are a thousand others creating make believe worlds of gods and monsters, and universes of sugar and spice confected by the wands of fairies! It’s a paradise for fools, not thinkers, and it would all be laughable if these people were not our distant kin."

Belden shook his head in disbelief. "But how can an entire colony be turned into a group of raving idiots?"

"But they’re not idiots, and there’s no reason for them to be idiots. Certainly there are no clues in their history, and for what we know their minds are not impaired. Their social development has been on the whole unremarkable. There is no history of war, plague, alien invasion, and nothing special about the world either. In other words, it’s not the water! The society remains as it always has remained, a democratic, peaceful and healthy place. Except for a universal thoughtlessness and worse judgment, this place is a veritable Eden!"

Weller turned to the screen again. "But there’s one more thing, the only clue we have. The screen revealed a line trending, in some faintly ominous way, straight down. This is a graph that we derived from the world net archive that mapped and stored all the daily versions of the net from its first access four hundred years ago. Then, the net was like ours, a repository for all knowledge perfecting itself through the honest input of a billion minds. But then gradually, almost imperceptibly the net changed. It was as the entire planet was collectively losing its ability to reason and think. It was slowly losing its very mind."

Looking puzzled, Moore interjected. "But how can a society lose its mind? After all, if they still possess the ability to reason."

"But here’s the point. The loss wasn’t mental, but for some reason linguistic. They began to mix and match languages as if they were braiding socks. Subjective and objective, molar and molecular, moral and amoral became entities that could all be fitted on the same two-dimensional page. And in two hundred years they took each separate dimension of time, space, individuality, and value and flattened them into linguistic knots, full of sound and fury and infinite pretense, and signifying nonsense. And this is what we have: holistic physics, humanistic engineering, and a hundred theories of how one may direct the forces of nature through furniture arranging! And for this!! He pointed to a bucolic and medieval scene. And this is what our scans revealed of the product of their perfecting knowledge. No airports, seaports, or continent spanning highways. No satellites, no aircraft, just pushcarts and donkeys!"

Belden laughed. "And now we’re going to have to visit them to see how we too can be so progressive!"

Weller gravely looked at his officers. "Yes, we must find out how we could be like them. For if we don’t, then one day we may have the inspiration to make the Nole better and faster by placing her on wooden wheels."

___________

There was no spaceport on the planet, but plenty of grassy pasture, yet for a shuttle, a pasture would do just fine. The real problem was finding some spokesman for this rural utopia. Their largest city would be a mere hamlet on Transor. The whole world was a continuous bucolic scene of tiny hamlets, dirt roads, verdant fields, and cows!

The shuttle pilot soon found a spot of land, and the crew disembarked on a pretty green field covered with white flowers. A neat little cottage stood in the distance.

The party soon found a small footpath leading to the cottage door. A lady was standing on the porch with an eager and warm smile. She was a pretty lady, a young mother with two little children tugging at her apron.

"Welcome to my home!" she said gently. "I don’t recognize your clothes. Are you from hereabouts?"

"Not really," said Weller. "We’re simply travelers, tourists if you will. Your countryside is quite lovely. Its hard to keep it from a traveler’s eye."

"Oh yes!" She beamed. "It is a lovely place. We’re quite proud of our accomplishment. " She beckoned the party into her house. "Please come in! It is so delightful to have visitors from the outland!"

The home was simple and modest. Belden thought it was a most becoming example of a typical farmhouse in the nineteenth century. It was pleasant and airy, with handmade furniture of simple design, a wood furnace, quilts and flowers for accent, and oil lamps emitting a dull light. So this is the future of the world net, Belden thought, brilliant communications breeding brilliant simplicity.

She beckoned to a comfortable ottoman. "Please sit down, make yourselves comfortable while I bring you some tea."

Belden walked about the room. Then he noticed, hidden almost imperceptibly in the corner, a little computer screen. On the screen was a rotating model of their world, and in large bold letters on the top was the banner ‘WORLD NET ACCESS’.

Belden turned to the lady as she returned from her kitchen, tea service in hand. "So this is your access point to the world-net?"

"Yes! We all have access to the net. Its our lifeline to the world, it is our library, our adviser, it is a fountain for all knowledge."

Belden shook his head in confusion. "But its knowledge you haven’t used. You are aware of the technology you left behind, at least the pictures of Transor and its everyday life."

Sandra laughed. "Well, as you know, the Tovald’s colony always valued simplicity over complexity, we felt your machines were superfluous to our happiness, and when it came to the beautiful knowledge we truly cherished, really besides the point. "

Weller rose from his seat. "Beautiful knowledge, or bogus knowledge? I don’t know how to put this politely, so pardon me if I am blunt instead. You value knowledge, but you have abandoned the tools that discover it. The research tools you brought to this world, the telescopes, microscopes, you have abandoned them all. Surely you know how you can use such things to find reality, even if only to be rediscover it."

Sandra smiled and shook her head condescendingly. "But my dear Captain Weller. Life is not about particles and molecules and magnetic fields, it is about experience, the irreducible moment that is fractured and lost if examined too closely. I feel, therefore I am. Analysis is beside the point, and at worst merely a new way of killing the golden goose. "

"But you surely must at least be aware of the argument, the tempering logic of other points of view?"

Sandra smiled again, as if hearing with a mother’s gentle patience the whimsical fancy of a child.

"You can choose to study it if you want, but I am not interested in such things, and as you can gather, neither is anyone else. Would you like another brownie?"

"Thank you, no." said Weller, who bit his lip while barely containing his frustration. Meanwhile, Belden smiled greedily and helped himself to three.

Looking about the room Belden saw what appeared to be an empty fried chicken bucket. It wasn’t a left over but was gilded with gold paint and stuffed with what appeared to be wooden drumsticks.

"May I ask what this is?"

The lady walked towards the bucket, beaming with pride. That is my little KFC shrine. Kernel Sanderz, who when our ancestors struggled to build this colony, fed us with nuggets from heaven. When I was a child my parents introduced me to his teachings. He came down from above to teach us the virtue of cleanliness and thrift, of three square meals a day, of coupons that promised indulgences from heaven and fifty cents off. But the good part is when we pass on, we will end up in a heavenly buffet, and the secret ingredients of life will be revealed to us. Tell me, would you like to read about the holy word, I have these readings from the Book of Recipes."

"Thank you, no. I’m afraid as a group we’re a bit non committal in our beliefs."

"Oh, you’re agnostics then. Pity. You know there is an advantage in believing in the one true franchise. If there is no Kernel Sanderz, when I pass on there is no harm done, but if there is one, I am saved from an eternity in the deep fryer. You see, if you look at just the odds you should reexamine your beliefs"

Belden nodded at Weller in mock approval. "I suppose that answers the to be or not to be question, its all about a choice between original and extra crispy!"

"Yes, indeed it is!" the lady chirped. "You see, from the way Captain Weller’s eyes are popping out, you know he’s seeing the dangerous errors of his ways!"

Weller turned to the lady. "Madam, I’m sure that we are something of an exception in the cosmic scheme of things. You take note of it, but perhaps there are others who have remained obstinate even in face of the truth."

"Yes, indeed!" she said. "All communities have an eccentric or two who ignore simple and obvious truths and replace them with confusing tales that substitute the personalities of nature with impersonal forces of nature, and ignore even happy endings! We have one like that in our village, though he doesn’t talk much anymore. I guess he learned that he couldn’t fool us!"

"Who is he?" asked Weller eagerly.

"The blacksmith, Jefferson." She said. "He’s really an odd sort though, hardly worth your time. You’d find our KFC temple to be more interesting, we have a special this Sunday you know!"

"Perhaps we’ll drop by." Said Weller, as he quickened his pace towards the door. The party bade the lady farewell and left the cottage in the direction of the hamlet.

"Interesting", said Moore. Our records indicate that the original colonists had a four-month store of freeze-dried chicken drumlets, courtesy the KFC company. How can a supply of provisions and a marketing plug turn into a religion?"

"I don’t think it was intentional." Said Weller as he led the group up the trail. Memory frays about the edges when we are not reminded of the facts. However, memory can be rewoven to picture different histories when the mind, or maybe some other mind suggests alternative patterns to tie together the past. But the problem I’m sure can’t be the world net, it was incapable as designed of self-censorship. Why would they ignore the true facts of their existence in order to be supplicants for holy drumsticks?"

Moore pointed to the little shop in the distance. "Perhaps the blacksmith will know. I’ve pulled all references to him from the world net from my tablet recorder. He’s got quite a few pages on the net, but not too popular though. In fact, the statistics on his page show that we’re the first new visitors to his site in seven years!"

Weller laughed sarcastically. "So he can’t write, certainly an inability to think couldn’t hold him back."

Actually his stuff is quite clear, simple, but what’s astounding at least for here is that it’s correct. Look at this!"

Weller examined the on line documents for a few moments. He looked at Moore. "This is elementary mechanics, working schemes on how to build engines, on how to calculate inertia and force. It’s a chapter out of any elementary physics book! This is the most basic stuff, but why can’t it be basic in these people’s minds?"

But you really don’t see it, Moore exclaimed. "Elementary yes, if your aim is to build elementary things, like engines for cars and lawnmowers. But mechanical devices were scarcely important to the founders of this society. Remember, it was thought that counted, the sheer pleasure in weaving logical castles in the sky. The Tovalds colonists wanted to go back to the basics, to leave behind a world of contraptions that only distracted them from the sheer pleasure of abstract thought. It seems though that when they decided they could do without TV’s and toasters, they left behind their science as well! Perhaps that’s the key, the only difference between Transor and Tovalds is not the science, but its products. Somehow the science was abandoned along with its applications, a goal that was never the original goal for this colony. Not just the eternal questions of life and existence became a matter of faith, but the very logic that made for the material world and material things, from rocks to rockets. "

Weller pointed to a little sign in the distance. "Leaving us with mechanics for horse carts! Perhaps here we may find an answer."

Above the shop was a sign swinging from a pole. It said Paul Jefferson, Wheelwright, ASC Certified. They rang a little bell above the door, and they heard a man approach behind them. He was dressed in a greasy overall. His hair was tossled, and he held a wrench in his hand.

I am Paul Jefferson; do you need some wheelwork?

"No, not today. We come on different business. Let me introduce ourselves. I am Jonathan Weller, Commanding Office of the Foundation starship Nole. My first officer Jacob Moore, and um, our diarist, John Belden."

"Foundation! The mother world!!’ Jefferson bellowed in laughter. "Oh yes, the old Stoan Foundation. We all know about you! Did you know that you are a myth, a tale told to entertain children? You have been demoted in the hierarchy of founding fathers my friends, and all done in the space of five hundred years! After all, if you don’t fly in flaming chariots across the sky or throw thunderbolts, what is there about you to gain the popular interest and belief of the multitude? But how did you get here, and why?"

"Better propulsion systems mainly, and a little intelligence too, if you don’t mind a bit of infinite understatement. And the reason? To check on you, like a parent on a child, although our neglect was not intentional."

"That’s understandable, since we hardly expected to hear from Transor, save for radio transmissions several hundred years old. But even then, we don’t listen. Its not compatible with the world net. Besides, you folks are just a myth, your planet and its life is a tale told by wandering minstrels. Whatever your motivation in being here, the fact is gentlemen you ‘officially’ do not exist! "

Weller was astonished. "You mean you have no history of your origins."

Jefferson smiled. "Oh we have it alright. But our actual outer space origins are not popular in this place. Its just too mundane I think, can’t get the votes on the world net. Don’t look so upset. It’s all easily fixed. Why don’t you abduct some of us for a night, or burn circles in our fields? That should get their imaginations spinning! And while you’re at it, why not put on some skullcaps and paste some antennae to your head. Just do that, and in a few years or so, they just might believe in you again, as long as you can tolerate the naked puppet like characters they’ll make of you!"

"Well. Let’s get to the point. We’re here because of your post on the world net. I presume you were the author?"

"Yes, I’ve posted to the world net, but that was some time ago. What about them?"

"Well, we’ve read them, and I know this must be of some surprise to you, but its actually quite good, or more to the point, it’s correct."

Jefferson nodded skeptically. "Hmm. And you traveled all this way to agree with me?"

"Well, yes, and in more ways than you know. What you are writing about is not remarkable, it’s common science, or should I say common sense. I hate to bring you such bittersweet news, but I don’t know quite how to congratulate you for reinventing the wheel!"

"Perhaps to you its common knowledge, but to these people its eccentricity, foolishness, and worse, they think it dull and useless stuff. Talk to them. You’ll see. Unless the tale you’ll tell is in simple prose, shows them how to bake bread better, or has a punch line, you’d might as well bray at the moon!"

"But we have! Actually they’re quite friendly, inquisitive even. But they’re like little children really. Somehow its rather refreshing."

Jefferson looked disgusted. "Oh, you’ve been among them! Children? They’re a basket of idiots! At least children, for all their nonsense, have a secret wish to grow up! They put the universe on the back of a turtle, make mental life a swirl of psychic energies and forces, and biology the province of ghosts. When I protest, they nod, pat me on the head like a trained monkey, and then ignore me."

"But you have the world net to fall back on, surely the ability to reach so many minds…"

"Reach millions of minds!" Jefferson shouted. "But the ‘world-net’ is the problem!! I call the sky blue, but am drowned out by a million voices that say it is purple! Its global madness, evil, or just laziness, I don’t know! I post my ideas, try to argue them, but my ideas are suffocated by an infinite silence. They don’t take the courtesy even to shout me down!"

"But you have your own self-knowledge, confidence in your own work. It alone must suffice."

Jefferson sneered. "Oh? An intrinsic motivation you say? Am I to be inspired to write books that will only find shelf space in my attic, providing mere nesting material for rats? Why must I prepare my lines like a self-bemused playwright, only to sing with a silent chorus, to orate to empty space? Is this my lot, to take the continuous effort to roll a stone up hill, only to see it roll down again? I’ll pass on that eternal torment if you don’t mind."

Weller looked unconvinced. "But you’ve gone this far, and written this much! Surely you knew then what odds you faced?"

"Look", he said in exasperation. "I wrote because I once thought I could make a difference, that I could at least engage one like mind, just one, in a conversation on the ideas that weigh on me. Now I have four like minds visit me, a thirsty man overwhelmed by an ocean wave! But its too late now, I just don’t care."

"Well, perhaps we can’t help you now, but you can help us. This world was founded on egalitarian principles, a respect for knowledge, for the delight of the interplay and competition of ideas. And now!"

Belden shook his head in confusion. "But how did this all start? Surely you must have some idea."

"I have an idea, a metaphor really. If your garden it not weeded out, it just becomes weeds. Just let in one errant seed of rootless opinion, and soon they and their offshoots will take over the place. In my opinion, it started with the only mystery these people had when they founded this place. It was existence itself. How can you prove life after death, or heavenly powers behind the grave. Well, you kill yourself, and then see if you can what happens! A contrary proof if there ever was one. So I figured that when they began to find a better way to prove an afterlife than putting a gun to your head, they let in any idea that gave substance and sustenance to their hopes. But it got away from them, and their hypotheses became dogmas, their daydreams truths! Some time ago, I did a search for the prevailing worldviews of this place. I’ve got three thousand and fifty by first count, of which twelve views and their variants have become the dominant theologies on the world net. And what an assortment! Dragon gods, savior gods, angry, sad, and happy gods, and each possessing its own heavens and hells, rituals, rules and taboos in curious admixture, Moreover, each of these deities are useful in their own way, as a beacon of hope in an obscure and frightening future, and a cosmic guarantee to the weirdness of the infantile physics that must tag along to validate godly tempers and temperaments. And so religion can have us believe in a God who spins the universe with a spoon, makes a man out of clay and a woman out of spice, and places it all on the back of a turtle."

Jefferson looked dreamily in the air and smiled. "My favorite though was the Shazzam religion. It started with some guy coming down from a mountain, closer to God up there I think. And what was his revelation? That women wear gunny sacks and flower pots for hats, must hop about on one foot while chanting five times a day nursery rhyme prayers, that they must eat only cabbages on Friday, and make a pilgrimage once every ten years to their temple on Mount Leming. They grew until they were a pretty influential cult, until one year the bridge was washed out on the road to their holy mountain. But that didn’t stop them, for their faith after all moved mountains. Unfortunately somewhere in the fine print it didn’t say that it would enable them to cross mountains. And so they all one by one hopped off the cliff. And good riddance I say! If only the other faiths would be so progressive! Perhaps someday they will all recognize that the Promised Land is on the moon, or that salvation requires a pilgrimage to the surface of the sun!"

"And you couldn’t challenge them, but did anyone challenge them?"

"How could you? The rules of the game are rigged. Omnipotence is fine if you’re merely building the universe or creating people, but just invite the gods to a three-legged race or a horseshoe throw. If they decline by ignoring you, their silence does not refute their existence, but is rather a rebuke to our impudence! Let their existence be demonstrated by the eternal mysteries, or traditions winding an obscurity that suffices as fact. God works in mysterious ways, but the rub is that He must prove himself as mysteriously. That’s a deity for you, for even the miracles must be miraculous!"

Weller seemed unconvinced. "But certainly there are other means to spread information. You have parents, schools."

"But the parents are the strongest link in the chain! Credibility is after all found in the caring hand, and when their voice is multiplied by a thousand, wouldn’t you believe in a neon universe or of comets carried about in wheelbarrows? So a child would hear a thousand voices on a silent world-net, and with the consensual stamp of validity, would believe, in spite of what his eyes would tell him. The parents naturally take an active role in such things. They make sure that they are sheltered from this cacophony of voices, so they only allow a vision of certain ‘realities’. So, if you are surrounded by a thousand voices that envision the world square, any disagreement is uninvited, rude even, and more often than not, a mark of blasphemy."

"So the gods get angry?"

"Luckily for now, just the gods! For if it wasn’t for our long-standing tradition of tolerance, I would not be speaking with you today!"

"But in a tolerant world, there certainly must be alternatives. Is there nothing you can do? Certainly the likeminded among you could band together."

"Using what medium? Said Jefferson in obvious exasperation. The world net is the communications source for the entire planet, voice, data, everything. And you ask where is this circle of reasonable men? Who has the time to be completely reasonable, and who is to be the judge of an individual’s mind? Do any of you have the knowledge at hand to build an engine, to design a house, to concoct a vaccine? No. You have to go the opinion of others; you have to follow the consensus of knowledgeable minds. We had to trust some one, just like you do. And given the fact that we could not be the masters of all trades, we trusted a common voice to choose us the best of the lot. It was more than an invisible hand; it was an invisible mind."

Jefferson shook his head disgustedly. "But we were not held accountable for the actual application of our ideas; we had no universally acceptable test. And what was the standard of truth, only the shifting sands of a logic that could be complexly spun to justify any idea, to validate any creed. But now that it has control, the world-net is perpetual. There are no options to it. Unknowingly, it molded idiots, just the sort who wouldn’t question, who would be silent, who would conform to the universal truth, and the rest of us, in the cellar. "

"They’re Chinese! Yes, Chinese!" Interrupted Belden.

"What?"

"Its my world actually. They were a great, brilliant people, and a thousand years ago in my time they were building magnificent cities, printing books, and mapping the skies while my ancestors were living in thatch huts. They made an empire that spanned a third of a continent, and were confident in their brilliance, in their mastery of the facts of the world. Their knowledge was universally shared and agreed. But alas, they communicated too well, since how can you build on knowledge when everyone knows that your knowledge is complete? Their bureaucracy was like a world net, thousands of scholars whose status and promotion hinged on a standardized truth that was as immutable as the lines on the palm of my hand."

"And what happened to them?"

"They were overtaken in the space of three hundred years by brutal and ignorant folk from a continent away. The strange people questioned everything, and were never happy to know it all. They were barbarians, content not merely to question things, but to destroy what came before them. Indeed, to create the new means to destroy the old, they were driven by a passion for change unrequited. Their truth was embodied by their inventions, the things that their newfound physical laws allowed to be. And with the machines of commerce and war endlessly remade by an ever renewing physics, chemistry, mechanics, and biology, they smashed a world of beauty, order, and peacefulness."

"And you are the result, and perhaps ourselves?" said Weller.

"Yes. Maybe it’s being masculine; maybe its madness, or even perhaps it’s a higher purpose. Whatever the source, it’s a nature that drives us and guides us; it’s a human nature that abhors a vacuum of ideas."

Jefferson seemed flustered. "Then gentlemen, if this is the best of all possible worlds, do you propose to sit back and admire it? Or perhaps you should come back in a hundred years or so when the whole population is babbling like infants. There’s no stability in illogical thinking, its only end is chaos. Gentlemen, this world is devolving, and you must do something about it!!"

Weller nodded. "Yes, but what? Logic alone doesn’t seem to work, because they can evidently shade it to prove the earth square!"

Jefferson shook his head and pointed to the sky. "You must go to the source, that damned world net. There’s your key. Destroy that thing, or change it. There’s no choice."

Weller turned to Moore. "There must remain some uplink to the world-net, some place where some individuals still have control."

Moore looked at his recorder. "The hamlet of Mondred is where the uplink was located. It was where the original expedition landed, but from my scans, there is nothing there but a few farmers and cows."

"Then, people or no people, we’ll have to find out what happened."

"Whatever!" exclaimed Jefferson. "Whether its people or the mechanical legacy of people, you have to stop it, or at least set in motion somehow the incentives that make people think!"

______________________

Weller looked from the cockpit of the shuttle as it soared across the landscape towards Mondred. The whole world was a shimmering blue and green, untouched it seemed by technology. But of course technology had indirectly made this place. The world net, invisibly radiating out from above, had settled down even the irascible human spirit. It was a frightening thought, or wonderful, depending upon how you looked at it. What would his choice be he thought when he finally put his finger on the pulse of this thing?

"The concave building was covered with overgrowth, yet despite grass and vines and ubiquitous mold, it seemed intact. The building evidently had not been occupied for dozens, perhaps hundreds of years. It certainly couldn’t communicate with the World-net beacon even if it tried.’

"Here!" cried Moore. "A door!"

The door was hermetically sealed, and it took some time before the party could pry it loose. They entered into a large room with antique computer consoles. The room was empty, and evidently had not been occupied for scores of years.

Moore cleared the dust off a side desk, and opened what seemed to be a notebook or journal. "Look", he exclaimed. "The last entry was nothing. A few technical scribblings, some personal notes about lunch. It was as if at one moment everything stopped, and they abandoned this place. The backup has obviously worked. Ha! I can even power on the workstation after all these years! "

The machine emitted a low hum, and on the screen was what appeared to be directory. Moore pointed excitedly to the display.

"You see, it left a trail too. You can see here on this screen. They have off line archives that go back to the founding of this place, many of them hidden from our access until now. We’ll port them to my tablet, and then we can upload them to Q on the Nole. It shouldn’t take long. But I can see something right now even without looking at the records. Don’t you see, captain? This result was preordained. We should have predicted it, but of course it’s a societal path we never tried on Transor. Its why these people left, its why they became what that are today. They thought they could possess knowledge without having to use knowledge. They thought they could model realities in their mind, but they only succeed in multiplying them! A picture is worth a thousand words, but if the picture is only in your mind, it can be worth a million or more. For every bird that flies, for every fish that swims, the simple idea of it fixed in your mind can be fixed to an infinity of causes. Thus the fact that we live and breathe can be matched to fantastic events, and if that cause just so happens to comfort us here or into eternity, so much the better! Its all ultimately a matter of faith!"

"When logic is either absent or complex, when you won’t demonstrate or can’t demonstrate what reality truly is, your only recourse is to an abiding faith that it all works. You can’t prove a theory if you don’t have the means or can’t use the means to disprove it, so the means you can employ must be simple, it is just experience framed. That is, it ultimately must be a metaphor, a picture that is worth a thousand words or a thousand syllogisms. To see an airplane crashing, a society veering to tyranny or poverty, or even the actual motion of a planetary orbit is enough to reduce in the blink of any eye the best thought plans and theories to ash. Even faith can’t resist the practical workings of the world."

"Take a car, if you only had the plans envisioned in mind or on paper for a gas driven car, a foot driven car, an atomic car, or a car driven by the exhaust of balloons, where would you be? You’d have to take by faith that any would work, because who is to judge the logic of it all? It is complete they say, but who has really seen it to completion? There is no trial, no test, and who can know if you don’t even have roads. It’s a recipe to believe nothing since contrary cars are all you’ll get. It’s unacceptable for us, because we have to get from A to B. But what if you don’t have to, if mobility is beside the point?"

"Look at another example, what happen to their idea of chemistry for instance. In their ‘science’, chemistry has become a jumble of symbolic and poetic metaphor, replete with unique forces, and a marriage of subjective and objective in a jarring and useless mix. He pointed again at the screen. Look at this formula from a popular page on the world net. Water equals two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, and one part wetness! This is a motto for idiocy, a formula that works not from day to day, but in daydreams! But it works for them because they are self sufficient, because they do not need chemistry. Thus they can have fantastic chemistry because all they can only validate it in their fantasies!"

"They could afford to believe that flapping your arms could make you fly, and why not? After all, their knowledge could not be tested by the simple observation of crashing to the floor. They never even tried that!! They had to resort to their cherished logic to come to a similar decision, but they didn’t recognize that they wouldn’t have time for it or the discipline to use it. And even if they did, like the devil, they could quote logic to suit their purposes."

"And they did." Said Weller with a sigh. "Everything they have done is a matter of faith, or in this case a faith in their logic, the mental models that made and remade their world."

Belden nodded. "They merely created everyday mechanics for everyday cartoons. They validated their ideas by democracy, to use deduction and experiment was not even a passing thought. And if the future ever required them to use tools, they’ve lost the skills to get them to where they would want to go."

Moore looked away from the computer display. "Human conformity, the everyday certainties that guide our lives begin as fragile things. Only when we use them, become comfortable with them, see them regularly used by others do they become hardened into the beliefs, norms, and even theologies that act as the unthinking vehicles for the unbreakable truths that can drive us straight or as they may, straight off a cliff."

"There was one more thing, one final departure from the norm. As you know, the government funded the world net on Transor, it was never driven by mere populist principles, and therefore it could be driven by better criteria. There was no compromise to the standard because the standard was as immutable as a just law universally agreed. Their choice to live unencumbered by technology forced other choices on them, choices they thought were easy to bear. Without a central government, and with an individuality prized, the sustenance of the world-net was now dependent upon a thousand fold score of different voices."

"The world net started democratic, was disciplined by the economic, and when ideas rather than practicality leveraged its existence, it spun itself out of control like a compass losing its star. The whole colony was self perpetuating, self sufficient, and most importantly, simple, and that extended to the world net too. It’s incentive to think was never tempered the incentive to create, and the webmaster who minded this mindless thing obliged, and it too survived. Its wisdom was denominated in ideas alone, the vaporous ideas that drove its survival became its icon for survival. It was if an air-breathing mammal lived only to worship the air!"

Belden looked at him impatiently. "But it wasn’t built to be practical, in fact no world net has been built to be practical."

"Yes," said Moore. "And no problem either if it serves practical people. Remember, these people only had marginal use for practicality. Thus, since their ideas were not tempered by practicality they were practically rudderless, they spun out of control to justify the slightest whim. That is what happened here. You can see how it all happened. It was gradual. Like a moon nudged from its orbit, it fed on its own impetus until we see the eccentric orbits their knowledge has taken.

"Perhaps a moon is what it takes!" Weller pointed to a telescoped view of the World Net satellite. "We will simply replace the World Net, or upgrade it if you will. Forcible upgrades are still barely ethical are they not? Wasn’t the operating system for this thing upgraded every few years or so in the old days?"

"Yes, to everyone’s irritation." said Moore, with an eye to Belden, who seemed to be silently confused by the matter. "It was of course a necessary and billable thing in its many initial versions. But that was before the community took matters into their own hands, and simply designed their own. Quite an intellectual revolution as I recall from my history books. They tossed out the old OS as if they were expelling on a donkey cart some evil monarch. The new OS, the one we use is Lateral Integrated N U X, or PQUIN as we call it. It's the common OS for all devices planetary and cosmic. It hasn’t changed much either over the centuries. Hmm, I guess there's some irony in that, seeing how these people have been just as changeless!"

Weller looked at the little oblong satellite circling the planet. "So there it is, the repository of all their daydreams, their little attic of dusty ideas. So do we keep it there, and let them muse on into infinity with their shadow puppetry, or do we drag them out into the sun? It’s a question I can’t answer for them, but I do know what their founders would have wanted.

"Which was?"

"The truth, all the facts made whole and complete, and at whatever the price."

"But what price have they paid? They seem content with their useless stew of ideas. "

Weller looked down on the planet. "Maybe contentment is not the point. Certainly we didn’t travel this far because we were happy. If we had the power, we would reveal to all of them the intellectual nakedness of their otherworldly fantasies, as if to wake a child from a daydream, or in our opinion, a delirium."

Moore shook his head. "But these people are satisfied, and are quite happy with their lot. Surely you mustn’t disturb their little utopia."

Weller was unperturbed. "But do you think that deep down even these people want this? Do you think they have deliberated the issues, that they have contemplated them deeply? We disagree of course, and will act because of our own convictions of personal rectitude. I’ll give them back their doubts, and with them the pain that attends uncertainty. Perhaps its all prejudice, heaven knows it may be what ultimately propels us on, true rightness I guess is not our place to judge. Maybe ultimately it’s you Belden, the mind that you embody, or perhaps even a greater one that remains unseen. "

Belden smirked. "I wouldn’t bet even a penny that I’m a sort of child of God, unless God likes to play jokes."

Weller smiled. "Maybe that’s the point. Maybe life is all a joke, a perpetual motivating irony. But isn’t irony merely a problem, a nagging contradiction that you fall into by taking your fond assumptions to their ultimate implications? They were content when ideas were easy and didn’t need to be played out to the world, like silently reciting the notes in an unsung melody. I'll force them to really sing, and make them listen to the croaks that they had imagined were the voices of angels! The world net without intention made irrelevant the other ways to question the world. But without the world-net, they won’t find it as easy; they will have to develop choices, different standards whose clash will make them think. "

Belden asked. "So you aim to destroy the world-net completely."

"No, but to replace it with our own, and rid them also of their means to change it. If they disagree, they will have to find other means, learn to live with a little disharmony, maybe even engage an honest debate?" He smiled. "Everyone will now have to think for themselves, to wonder personally why the stars shine."

Moore surveyed the evanescent sparks that had been the world net, and looked down on the planet while shaking his head in regret. "They won't like this, and they certainly won't like you. They're not so stupid to forget who we were and what we did."

Weller smiled confidently. "I've cast them out of their little garden. Perhaps they will render me into a snake for tempting the fates into somehow destroying their idyllic fantasies. Who knows gentlemen, perhaps we have made ourselves for good or ill into the stuff of mythology!"

As the Nole left orbit, the planet soon shrank into the size of a small blue marble. Belden looked at the view screen from his cabin and thought of Weller's last words. Perhaps the new world net would not matter even now, mythology after all can spite the truth by being merely an easy and comforting thing. Perhaps he thought the colony was given not just knowledge, but a hint of the devil. But how that would shape their future only time would tell.