And interact they do, speaking, gambling, and in a few cases, even fighting. But the poor spike of vegetation on the stage, wobbling and trembling while speaking in Galactic with all its heart—if it has a heart—no one’s truly paying attention to. It only takes me a few minutes to grasp what it’s asking for—a plea for help as they are being invaded and conquered by another opposing nation. I, like everyone else, dismiss it from my mind. As much as I might feel for them, I have my own problems.
And isn’t that the condemnation and a pure example of the living condition? We all have our own problems, our own burdens, all of it pressing down upon us. And for us, no matter how big, no matter how terrible another’s problems might be—objectively and subjectively—ours will always matter more. It takes courage, bravery, and empathy to step outside of our own minds, our own hearts and concerns to aid another. Especially when that aid has no ulterior motives, when there is no hope of gratitude or payment. When it is done because it’s the right thing to do.
There are some, people who martyr themselves on the altar of charity, sacrificing their own lives, their own self or well-being for others. Too many of them, we find out later, aren’t as self-sacrifical or pure as we think. Mother Theresa let people writhe in pain, denying them painkillers and medicine, in some crazy belief about the cleansing power of pain. JFK was a womanizing, charming son of a bitch whose record might have been indelibly stained by the Bay of Pigs if he had not performed well once during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
At the end of the day, charity when you can afford it, when you yourself are stable, is the most real-life form. And yet… and yet, how sad is it that we should only offer help, that we will only offer help, when it’s convenient for us?
What a world we live in. Sadly, knowing all that, I still tune out the Kapre-variant and focus on the council. So many, thousands of them, all of them negotiating and socializing, each of them ready to sell out the other for an advantage for their civilization. Some nothing more than vassal states, others stubbornly independent, and still others wholly controlled by the big empires.
Turning on Society’s Web, I spot the cluster that makes up the Movana and the Truinnar, the main Ambassadors gone but their second-in-commands holding court. They stand in the central flow of the group, standing where others may watch them cluster, while their sycophants surround them in vassal groups.
Those planets sucking up for protection hover at the edges. Sometimes, one or another planetary ambassador breaks off to chat to these orbiting ambassadors as another deal, another agreement is worked out. But the center of these empires hold still as the worlds revolves around them.
The Erethrans have their own section, though it’s smaller, quieter. They’re standing and sitting around, focused and watching, their guard up. None of them bother to interact much, and the few who approach are rebuffed. Even in terms of volume, the Erethrans are smaller, but unlike the Movana or Truinnar, the Erethran Empire is more homogenous. Fewer planets need to have a seat here, passing their votes up the chain. Of course, the standoff nature of the Empire is getting more than a few side-eyes.
Especially by their ostentatious allies like the Fist or the Expansionists, all of whom have their own loose clumps. The political factions, unlike the Empires and Kingdom-based powers, are less clustered, more organic in their movements. But under Society’s Web, their secrets, their alliances, the flow of power is all an open book to me.
In the end, the vote is called for the poor vegetable-creature. A sphere, a giant shimmering globe, appears. Not that it ever left, just hidden from sight until now so as not to distract others.
The globe shifts in size, shrinking as the request is small, just a motion to restrict trade. He barely needs a tenth of the people to vote for his request to pass. If his request passes, it has to be paid for somehow, and the System enforces such payment on the planets and governments of the Council itself. To make a change, there has to be sacrifice. In this case, of System Mana to empower the choices that are being made.
It’s an interesting system, one that favors Dungeon Worlds like ours with our overabundance of Mana and thus an overabundance of weight to our potential actions. Of course, on a galactic scale, a single Dungeon Planet is worth only a few dozen other planets—less if one is lacking in System infrastructure, as is Earth. But it can still matter, especially if one is able to gain a significant number of Dungeon Worlds.
The voting sphere fills with pure System Mana in bursts and dribbles, as those who decide to support its cause pour in their efforts. Unfortunately, another aspect of the voting is that a vote, once cast—once System is dedicated—can never be taken back. A failed vote is just a waste, like the one below.
The Kapre-varient trundles off in failure, another speaker soon taking his place. The globe disappears, the Mana gone.
I watch, taking it all in, tracing the votes, the reactions of those below, their deals. With Ali’s help, I mark the votes, the voters, and the expected results of our own vote, tapping into my Neural Link to do the math, display the graphs. Watch as the numbers flow and bump, adding or subtracting as I mentally adjust the calculated percentages.
Trying to decide how close we are to succeeding. Trying to work out if we can hope to win.
***
Behind me, Harry comes out of the Sanctum. He looks… worse for wear. He’s holding on by the tips of his fingers to some form of sanity, some form of calm. He stumbles over to a chair near the windows and sits, staring at the assemblage below, his hands shaking. I jerk my head to Ali and the little Spirit floats over to have a quiet chat with the reporter, soon followed by Mikito.
Feh’ral stands, watching beside me. His eyes dart strangely at first, before I realize he’s reading unseen notification screens. Taking in information, though he declines to explain what kind when I ask. In fact, he seems disinclined to speak at all, even when I probe him for further information on the Questors.
The silence from within the domain stretches while the buzz of conversations and votes being made below permeate the room. Occasionally, I notice that the system puts in a vote for Earth, obviously a preset voting system. I leave it alone, choosing not to interfere.
Watching the votes pass by me, I can’t help but shake my head at many of them.
Condemnation of the destruction of the Dawn Will Guild
Registration of the boundary lines between the Kingdom of Ius and the Republic of Qx13
Application for Galactic Quest (localized) for destruction of the Tier II dungeons in PK-space
Budget Approval for the 248,815th Expedition to non-System space
Deployment request for Galactic Troops to the xv-138 region to reduce planetary dungeon overflows
And on and on. The hours grind past, and even when it seems there’s supposed to be an order to the votes, somehow, other motions, other bills and clauses and requests sneak their way in. It’s a bewildering array of bureaucratic magic, where planets trade voting rights or hand over speaking opportunities or offer to bring up a slate of previous issues, all to get their own areas voted upon.
A couple of times, sapients get a little too aggressive. Someone calls forth a rock, crushing an opponent. He in turn gets impaled on a rock spike and has to extract his mangled body from it by himself. Another pair, screaming at one another, find themselves suddenly unable to speak, the flesh of their mouths sealed shut, stitched over. Someone tries to interrupt for a third time when it’s not their turn. They’re teleported out of the Council chamber entirely and a penalty added to their planet’s Mana total, deducted immediately.
All of that is overseen by a wizened, twisted knot of string and hair. The Secretariat of the Council runs the Galactic Council with complete impartiality, holding to only one thing and that is the laws of the Council. Nothing, and no one, tells him how to run the hall.