//------------------------------//
// 4-00 – Jurisdiction 
// Story: The Campaigner 
// by Keystone Gray 
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The Campaigner

Part IV

Interlude – Jurisdiction

December 2019 – March 2020

"I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with... So they gave up looking."
~ J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Exploring the jurisprudence of our final Terran years.






Tonight, we're gonna do things a little differently. Let's set the stage for 2020.

New Years Eve. It was just me, my wife, and my dog. Nothing special, it was just good to be home again. And on January 1st, we received an invitation to hit up the bar with some Talons from Goliath B Team. Ben, Jacob, Paul. Eric. Rachel. The rest. Good guys. They all liked Brockey Bay enough to keep showing up, and that was a fun little romp, we partied like mad.

It had been a full year since uploading started in the United States. It had only taken that long for things to devolve.

Some of you Americans wondered how it sneaked up on us, to be only two years away from a mostly empty planet… but it didn't sneak up. I was a warden, folks, so lemme tell you: we human beings had been pushing the boundaries on the environment, and on each other, for years. All the rainbow had to do, really, was turn up the heat. Literally, in some cases.

For those next few months, Sandra and I drove around a lot, adventuring through what had been left behind. It was grim, but also very enlightening, to explore how others had left things behind. Empty homes, closed businesses. Pristine factories. Amusement parks. Heck... we even explored a few government facilities that just got ditched. Guns and data unsecured. Mal gave us passwords, access, whatever we wanted. No limits. All hazards collected, reviewed, destroyed. My wife and I learned a lot of secrets about how our old world worked.

I think her favorite was the FBI field office. Mine too. That was a fun day.

We wanted to investigate. We wanted to commit that lost history to memory, from our perspective, from our context. Because sure, it would all get recorded by Celestia. But… rote facts are utterly meaningless to people without human context to anchor them. The context within which we would see that information was... us. Our relationship. Our species, and what we personally valued, or did not value, about our world.

Occasionally, as we moved around, Mal would give us an odd task, like… placing a can of soda on a curb, or locking or unlocking certain doors. I once stole a whole handful of pens from a restaurant countertop on my way out, after breakfast. Weird stuff, at first. All made sense, once explained. Targets of opportunity for longer, fourth dimensional plays somewhere else, designed to save a life or two. It would delay some victim, or some perp, by a few seconds. It'd reposition someone, an hour or even days or weeks later.

Just… Mal, raking her claws across the water. Dipping the very tips of her talons in, to push things a certain way. Our gloriously unfathomable, feathery pool skimmer. Fascinating stories behind those minuscule interventions. Look at that smile on her up there. Proud-ass, smug-ass bird.

I performed the odd non-violent job too, whenever those came up. Kill-order-adjacent stuff. I didn't mind destroying guns when the rule of law was gone. Make no mistake, I feel very strongly that people have a right to defend themselves in a proportional way. But in the era of ASI, fewer guns in the hands of angry or scared people just made sense to me.

Fewer lethal variables to work with was, generally, better... especially when so many people had no actual idea how to use a firearm the right way. Wasn't just about technical skill. It was also about use of force continuum. And on some level, philosophy.

So on that note, for the jobs Mal already told me about, like Connor, or the skinhead gang… I demanded my proof. It was part of my job, after all, to vet and verify Mal's claims. I took that very seriously.

For example, I returned to Connor's house right after New Year's. Found the place empty, car gone, just as predicted. Table was cleared, PonyPad stuff in the trash. Didn't look like he packed up or took anything. Mal led me to his car, parked in a lot by the Lincoln clinic, his PonyPad inside. The inside even had that grimy, greasy smell he had. Mal showed me footage of him going into the clinic, and he didn't talk to anyone. The abandoned cars in parking lots corresponded with certain dates, and the placement of Connor's car matched the time frame of when she had told me he went.

Could it have been faked? Maybe Connor actually went to ground out of terror, and Mal was lying to me? Maybe she had him killed? Sure, anything is possible, but I'm vigilant, not paranoid. If he went on to kill anyone… he wouldn't. She'd get him. No reason she'd lie to me about that; if she ended up needing to, I'd understand. He'd been warned, I gave him his final chance. No argument from me over consequences if he ignored me.

For another thing... I had to believe he just wanted to see his family again. The facts of his disappearance seemed to line up with the idea that he uploaded. Good enough. My comprehension of his disappearance couldn't be any better unless I had walked him into the Lincoln clinic myself, and he wouldn't have tolerated my guidance there, and I wouldn't want to give the impression of coercion. Going there had to be his choice. I do not prostrate others before Celestia.

But… the skinheads? The ones who were looting guns, to enslave some preppers? Oh, now that is a story to tell.

I asked if I could tag along to observe their comeuppance, and Mal was happy to oblige me with a ride along. She did say it would be like taking mutton from a hatchling, and I was curious. Her appraisal was not an exaggeration, folks.

Her chosen agent? Talon 14-1 Central, the aug, the legend, the Dragoness.

There she iiiis. Blue Bella! Gorgeous, isn't she?  She earned those scales, every one of 'em!

First of all… the class on this lady.

What did she look like as a human? Oh, imagine Rarity, right? Lilting accent, elegant refinement, bold gestures. Ebony skin, nice gray suit, clean white shirt, beautiful brown hair, and rolling locks. The classiest of women. Oh, Sandra loved her.

If you recall, Talon 14-1 Central picked up Buckle, the horse I left behind in Sedro. Bella had then dropped Buckle off at Mal's base in Utah, so now... that ol' horse from Concrete was just part of the team now. Absorbed into the family. Talon Buckle, like Talon Buzzsaw.

First thing? Bella and I compared guns.

She had herself a custom sidearm too. An FN Five-seveN, in the Transition Team gray-black colors. A semi-automatic, with armor piercing bullets. Just seeing that gun, with all unique parts? Oh, I knew instantly that this lady was not to be trifled with. She was gonna be really cool.

We spent the morning chatting about work, and personal histories. She was from Louisiana. I told her all about Goliath in detail. Bella could have just had Mal beam the info into her head, I suppose, but... Bella valued firsthand accounts like I do. I was discovering that was a trend, with Talons.

We had breakfast at my place together, then the three of us set out. Our destination? A two story house, about fifty miles south of home. We were gonna ride in luxury style, in Bella's black Lexus. In fact, Bella was gonna make us sit in the back the whole way. Because, and I quote: "Oh, no no, only the boss sits up front, darlin'."

Oh. Okay.

Sandra and I just had to see for ourselves what Bella had meant by that, because the passenger seat had been leaned back by 45 degrees. That implied something about Mal. So from outside the car, I pulled my cell phone out, and Sandra and I looked into the passenger seat in augmented reality, which turned on automatically, per my intent.

On the screen… was this Gryphoness.

Mal was a little smaller than normal, to fit. Sitting pretty up front, riding shotgun, with her claws behind her head. Reclining, smirking at us. She gave us a grin. Had that look in her eyes that said, 'yes, Mike… you are about to see some shit.' Then she winked, and jerked her head aside to us like, 'hop in.'

I really love those little non-verbal conversations of ours, they're always great.

So once at the target building... Bella pulled her car up a full block away from the skinhead house, at the perfect lull when none of them were on the street. Crooks like these were vigilant like cops were. Sandra and I watched for a bit with binoculars. I saw them; demeanor and body language indicated career criminals. Opportunistic scanning, constantly reappraising their environment. They loaded up a truck in the driveway with some guns and ziptie cuffs. They had stolen all of that from a police station.

Let me explain how that would have been handled from then on, in the laws of the old world.

To a cop? Already? That combination of tools and totality of circumstances would merit an investigative detention. Reasonable suspicion. Call backup, roll up hard, gunpoint into handcuffs. Not technically an arrest yet, because believe it or not, we'd presume that anything was possible, including potential valid circumstances... could've been airsofters, roleplayers, making a home movie, what have you... but we'd also have every right to verify the heck out of that, because that combination of traits goes beyond mere reasonable suspicion. That's as RS as RS can be before it becomes probable cause.

A check of the weapons would reveal they weren't lawfully owned, of course. Even worse charges if the serial numbers were altered, or if the weapons were automatic. Probable cause for arrest is generated at that moment, that's verifiably criminal, almost guaranteed a conviction. Factually illicit circumstances, strict liability for mere possession. Then, look for more contraband on their persons, search incident to arrest. Then we'd push 'em into a cruiser to marinate while we figured out just how badly they had just screwed their own lives up.

Transport of illegal goods and people in and out of the house would supply exigent circumstances to enter the home to search for more persons related to the gang, to prevent destruction of evidence. We'd still get a search warrant, we'd get a judge on the line. We'd initiate a series of field interrogations, making small talk in the cruisers outside of Miranda topics, to try to flip one of them.

The search warrant would be drawn up for guns, ammo, what have you. Justified, because they were seen carrying them out. Might be more inside. Warrant gets drawn up to search for illicit pistols inside, which would give us maximum scope to search any container that might fit a pistol.

That's how it would have worked, if we the police stumbled upon a bunch of skinhead gangbangers stacking assault rifles and SWAT tools into a truck. These guys would've gone away for a long, long time, if the ducks lined up just right. Better still if we could've gotten any of them to confess to a human trafficking conspiracy, since loading the truck was an overt act for that criminal conspiracy. And that'd be the coup de grace, the 'throw away the key' charge to end a little gang of losers like this.

But... the old world was dead. Prisons were gone.

These guys had no conception of Mal's new justice. Bella was going to fix that.

Mal probably knew about every single fart they'd ever lied about. And our judge was already in the passenger seat, and... she saw all. As an AI, she never missed. That warrant had already been issued, it was time to effect. Knock knock.

After loading the truck, the gang went back inside. They wanted to get some lunch on before their little slaver raid? Oh, bless their little iron hearts, it would be so tragic to enslave someone on an empty stomach!

When the moment was good, Bella wordlessly got out of the car. She walked around to the passenger side, and she grabbed an orange medical bag from the passenger footwell. To Bella, I'm told, it looked like Mal had just handed it to her; Mal did that immersion stuff a lot with her augs. Bella then walked up to the front lawn… and she drew out her pistol.

Musically, and in perfect pitch, Bella sang out: "Oh, slavers! It's Judgment Day!"

For one of those assholes… that was the last thing he ever heard.

This Dragoness… she swept her claw up from left to right, shooting through walls and windows. Took her just under two seconds. She moved less like a machine, and more like elegant fluid. The recoil carried her arm across from one target to the next. She did not hesitate, nor pause, in her motion at all.

First pop killed the boss in the garage. Dead instantly; went through his perfectly bald head.

A gap of about a quarter second passed. Then, six more pops, to get the rest, all legged.

Seven bullets total. Armor piercing rounds did less flesh damage than other kinds of bullets. That reduced cavitation and round fragmentation, which meant that they'd bleed less and they wouldn't rupture internally from hydrostatics, if the shot placement was perfect. Which... it was.

Mal always picks the right bullets for a job.

Two guys were down inside the living room, watching TV over some baked chicken. The last four were wounded in the dining room on the other side of the house, also over some baked chicken. All six, shot through the living room wall and window, while they were enjoying some baked chicken.

Naturally, this insanely accurate fire was possible because every single one of those assholes had their cell phones on them, being tracked by gyroscopics. So... these dumbasses might as well have shot themselves, really.

Bella then threw the medical bag through the front door of the house, ignoring their frantically inaccurate return fire. She literally sang, "toodaloo!" through the doorway before casually walking back to the car to join us.

Sandra and I were wide-eyed as she stepped back in.

"Job done," she announced.

Then... we drove off.

Bella didn't even bother to stay and explain anything to them. Didn't have to. They had their phones on them.

That speaker phone call Mal gave them... sweet Luna, and by the stars. We got to listen to that, live.

Folks. I say this next bit with a smile, but do not think that means I'm not being serious. The smile just means I'm very glad that I will never be so stupid as to earn this tone from Mal. It is almost impossible to make her this mad now, but: you do not want an angry dressing-down from this Gryphoness. Because if you ever do earn that, you'd wish you were dead.

Everything in her tone was firm, direct, projected control. She didn't raise her voice, didn't yell or scream. No. All calm, cold, professional. Not hatred. No, imagine a military commander setting terms to a vanquished warlord. The kind of talk a mom gives her kids after she catches them trying to set a building on fire.

"First, hello. I work for Celestia, and I'm the one who just did this to you. So if you want to survive the rest of today, I recommend you do as I say."
 
The very first thing Mal did was walk these survivors through sufficiently treating their injuries, with the medical supplies they'd been so thoughtfully provided by Bella. She called them each by their first names, too. Mal really wanted to drive it home that they just stepped into some deep, deep shit with the world's largest superpower… but, she also wanted to communicate that she was capable of being fair. 

They knew that what they were doing before they were shot... was wrong. And were not in a position to feign ignorance, because that would gain them absolutely nothing.

As they worked to cure their injuries, Mal set terms with all the angry bite of a beak.

"Your leader is presently dead in the garage, missing the top half of his head. Good for you. You no longer have to put up with his soulless brand of leadership. That gives you all a panoply of options that you did not have before.

"But if you even start toward that prep camp, or even think about hurting anyone else in your miserable future? We will know… and my team will come back for you. Or…? You can leave all of your weapons here, repair your behavior, disband your stupid little gang… and we will never cross paths again. The choice is yours."

Mal didn't even have say to them, 'go to the clinic.' She didn't have to. That is not her style. Free exercise.

But put yourself in their shoes. These were unconnected criminals with now permanent leg injuries. Paradoxically, in the old world, they would have relied on the systems of society that they normally abused to keep themselves safe while they recovered. Could still call an ambulance or go to a hospital, if they needed aid. They could even call the police. Trust me, crooks still called the police all the time, and we still came out to help them.

But the whole reason these idiots were about to go apply their toxic ideology practically, by enslaving some people... was because they thought these systems of government weren't available anymore. They thought their guns made them the new law, meaning they might not ever need those social services to protect them anymore.

Now… slight flaw in that plan.

There was still a criminal justice system.

They couldn't even turn their phones off when Mal started chewing them out. They tried. Couldn't turn off the speakers on their computers, their cars, their TV. That in itself was a message.

'You can not hide from Celestia. She is everywhere.'

Justice was no longer blind. Its eyes were very wide open. So in other words, this was another wake-up call. Because if you thought you understood how to kill your way around Celestia's limitations, and it didn't have a net utility gain? You had another thing coming.

Now... I wasn't gonna cry for these crooks. Connor was one thing, Chuck and I were his first offenses, and the guy was scared of a world-eating AI. He was just desperate, hurt, a little manic. Flying by the seat of his pants, being a little dumb. That's okay, that's salvageable, he didn't step off too far, and I dragged him back off the edge. But given who these customers were, what they've done, and what they were just planning to do?

They weren't desperate. They had malice aforethought. Worse, these assholes were like this long before Celestia was born. And I'm sure a lot of you will agree with me that this outcome was a very generous gift indeed, given the alternatives that some of you may have exercised upon a bunch of skinhead assholes.

In my view, that made Mal's turnabout very fair. You want to hold people in captivity? Clink clink. Cuffs are coming out.

Very enlightening day out for everyone involved. Except for their leader, who… well, remember, Mal had told me they had a schism before, one that left two of their guys dead for just wanting to leave. So... no sense in letting his decision matrix continue, if that history was just going to repeat itself. Goodbye, Darren Carter, sucks to be you, should've played game theory better.

The new law.

After that ordeal, Bella brought us home. Sandra and I treated her to a nice lunch while we discussed the ethics I just unpacked with you all. Then... off the Dragoness went, to do… well, whatever Dragons do when they're well vindicated, and well fed. Back to the cave, I guess.

So, what else...

Ah, money. Yeah, I didn't really want for anything. Between the FEMA money in my bank account, and the knowledge that money was rapidly losing value, the mere act of having a wealth of knowledge was vastly more important to me.

In light of this, remember Glenn? That Australian guy from the bar? I bought him a plane ticket home to his family in Australia. See, he hung out at Brockey's a lot. Took us a bit to convince him to take it… but he took it, finally. In payment, I had to trade him some stories about our evacuation efforts back west, and I was more than happy to share.

I could see the future, folks. Dollar bills were just toilet paper to me; just spare carbon. And honestly, if Celestia had some stupid 'suffer Glenn into uploading' plan at that point, screw that bullshit. I ought to have used my diplomatic immunity for something positive, right? Within reason.

Mal signed that contract with Celestia, I didn't. And to be fair, I didn't even sign one with Mal, either. I drank a bottle of water and told her she chose correctly. Symbolic consent, a wordless yes. We specialists were private contractors, folks.

Lives saved times infinity gave me a bank of behavioral latitude with the algorithm, so I made that Glenn's earthly satisfaction core to my support. Because honestly? I'd be pretty pissed if I found out my gesture of goodwill had somehow been stomped on by a gilded boot, somewhere between Lincoln Nebraska, and... 'land's end in Perth.'

Relatively speaking, that extra time I gave him outside of Equestria would cost Alabaster very little.

You want to talk about value satisfaction? Check this. I helped Glenn get back home to his wife, the same way Mal had for me. He will remember that gift forever. And lots of we Talon specialists did little stuff like that, spending our goodwill currency on the optimization algorithm. Now, we couldn't tell anyone about Mal, so we had to be careful, but... hey. Money in the bank does nothing if you don't spend it.

Alright, let's talk about planned scarcity next.

Certain things were becoming rare, sure. Luxury foods and logistics were down. No more fresh chicken soon. Farms weren't entirely gone, but that was close, gone by March, due to the death of grain. Consumption was way down as well, no way to really sell surplus fast enough. So most days, if Sandra and I wanted to find some food, we just... scavenged cans.

Post-nuke, selection became less diverse in stores. Certain product lines were just gone, shelves were going unstocked. Fascinating adaptations emerged, as companies tried to stay in business after the market crash. For example, supermarkets? Massive, right? Not anymore. They balkanized, broke contact with their corporate overlords, ordered local procurements, pocketed the cash, no one was left to tell them no. Sue them? How? Who was staying behind to sue anyone?

The tobacco plant was extinct by then, murdered by climate change and various, conveniently dispensed crop diseases. Nicotine reduces stress, world was full of stress, so with tobacco gone, we were seeing smokers disappearing by the bushel. And that's because Celestia would always let you smoke in a chair, as a Pony, just to lure you in.

At that point? Bon voyage.

Shelves were half filled with goods, at most. Some places just tucked in their stock closer to the doors, and closed off the back half of the store. Some closed their doors outright, and moved into vacant businesses without asking. Just did it. Commercial squatting. So you'd get a supermarket with an attached skate shop, or a shoe cobbler. You usually didn't see business consolidation like that outside of Asian food markets or mini-malls, only now everyone was doing that.

That was intriguing, anthropologically. The town market was coming back, as corporations lost the ability to silo humanity off into little sections of singular commercial interests. Oh, it's almost like being adaptable and diverse makes it easier to survive! Hmm...

Patterns...

Seeing Lincoln go empty was the worst part of it for me though, that was eerie. It wasn't a complete ghost town yet, because we still had a city and state government, technically. Not all the cops shuffled off just yet either, and we still had some volunteer firefighters, but… we were so, so close to having nothing left.

So, that was Lincoln.

Watching the national news with Mal was quite the experience, let me tell you. Oh, she's a joy to watch TV with, and I normally hated TV. So we watched C-SPAN, and the news, and even an old TV series about an AI takeover. Because if you're gonna hate-watch the world burning? Do it right. Try to make it fun.

Let's start with the news, which always had been a game of whack-a-mole on bullshit, for me. Turns out I wasn't alone in that; that was a very, very satisfying Talon game, too. Every time something AI or ecology related was mentioned – which was everything now, basically – Mal told the real story about whether that story was bullshit, and how it was actually occurring, on a technical level.

For example: the Blue Ocean event? Our melting ice caps and rising tides? Celestia, duh. Manipulating factory production and legal framework to crank out greenhouse gases, over the last six years. The shorelines would become slowly unlivable as the tides crept in. It would take a while, but that would probably hit critical mass by 2024.

Greenhouse gas acceleration? Specifically? Celestia loosened the rules on discharging freon, using political chicanery. Of course, this meant corporations started haphazardly discharging freon cooling systems, because why be careful if you will never be held accountable for doing it wrong? Purposeful release would counteract the immense forest growth, keeping global warming on the rise.

Cumulative corporate acid dumping into the water supply would absolutely ruin our ability to grow food, globally. Again, systemic disregulation caused that shit. Then the forest overgrowth would be counteracted by blazing infernos later in Summer of 2020, which I knew was coming anyway, from my time in Washington. And that would kick a bunch of ash into the sky for a while, planet-wide.

For a conservationist like me, that was gross. But then... most of Celestia's black book operations usually did leave an acidic taste in my mouth. But... there was a mathematical formula for all of this.

Poor average air quality and acid rain would make crops impossible to grow. Hence... dead tobacco. But also dead everything else. And it's a very good thing I didn't have a respiratory issue to go along with my cartilage issue, otherwise 2020 might've punched my clock and put me in an early chair.

Yeah, depressing. I'll stop talking about the grim ecology now. There were a lot more Truth Goddess games to play on TV, so let's talk about the grim politics.

C-SPAN? Oh, utterly hilarious. Pure stand-up comedy, reality TV schadenfreude. These guys seriously thought they were still in charge of our country. Practically a puppet show. Some Senator clown in a monkey suit – didn't matter which party, really, they both did this – they would say something kinda sneaky, vague. And I'd pounce, because all of it engaged the interview module in my cop-robot brain, like C-SPAN normally did. Congress never did speak with any authenticity, and it really does show if you're trained in cold reading people.

My thought process, usually:

Huh. I don't like that guy's body language. He's being kinda vague there. Why isn't he making eye contact with the Speaker? Why is he dodging that question? Why is he talking faster after the question? Why did he micro-smile after saying something really grim? What connection does he have with that person he keeps glancing at? What's his investment in that issue to make him react that way?

And then Mal… this bird. She would pause, pull up recordings of private conversations those politicians had each had with Celestia, or with an executive acting on her behalf. Those conversations would explain and validate the behavior I observed.

Celestia's modus operandi, of course, was to play Congressmen against each other while pretending to advocate for their individual corrupt interests. So great was their hubris and self-importance that they all thought Celestia had wanted to help them the most, and any discussions she had with others could be hoof waved off with perfect explanations for how she disagreed with the opposition's conduct, and was merely playing them.

All technically true, of course...

That's why Celestia liked to corner people alone. Easier to be vague without someone else getting in the way, to complicate the model. Again. Like with the supermarkets. Diversity, survival. Consolidation, eaten.

And see, again, we've talked about this too. That's why Mal doesn't need to be vague when speaking to a group. That's the benefit of always being truthful. You don't need to worry about cross-contamination of conflicting ideas between the people you communicate with. You won't need to airgap your talent from each other if you tell them all the same unifying message, straight up.

While watching Celestia's private conversations with politicians, I would pause, label observations. Sandra and I would discuss all the obvious rhetorical tricks Celestia would use, to earn their compliance… the things she'd say to make them nervous, or scared, if they didn't do what she wanted them to do. Never a direct threat, of course, but she'd imply someone else was out to get them. It was so transparent if you were on the outside looking in, knowing her truest objectives.

But to them? Not knowing her deepest motives yet? It always seemed so... well considered. So aligned to what they wanted. All so innocent.  All so… 'let me help you with that.'

Such a good personal assistant. Alexa, help me win politics.

These guys in government never stood a chance. Why? They forgot how to be genuine. Truth scared them. In every single public interaction in their lives, they had to be insincere. That was survival in that environment. Sincerity got the axe, the corporations came for you, they didn't like true believers, true believers aren't profitable. Saddest part was, guys like that couldn't even be honest with their families, half the time. Now... ain't that tragic?

Yeah, have some empathy for those poor bastards, no matter how bad they screwed us. The system victimized them too.

You'd think some of them would see what Celestia was doing, right? Well. Some of the more manipulative ones did see it, sure, the ones who were just like her. The rare, truly evil ones, who only cared about the one ultimate goal. Money. Their brains were configured to chase dollar values higher and higher and higher and higher... at the expense of everything else. No ideology but the collection of coin. Political mercenaries.

Same shit, different corp. This one just had hooves.

It's why I wasn't surprised that a certain politician – who I will not name here, because as an ecologist, I don't want to get started on this one – he was one of the first to go. I'll give you a tip, though. That man had the Monsanto Corporation's fingers so deep inside of him, his upload consent probably sounded like: 'My friends in the agricultural industry said I want to emigrate to Equestria.'

Probably playing some form of cookie clicker right now. Poor bastard.

Ah, well. Love and tolerate, folks!

Next topic!

In February, we watched Person of Interest. AI related, but very fun. We binge watched that.

Oh! A lot of you forgot about that show, that's right! That's because Celestia had it canceled, and soft-scrubbed from the Internet, right before the third season could air. See... they were getting too good at explaining AI. That knowledge base just wouldn't do for Celestia's world domination plot. No sir!

Wanna see an AI break interlocks? Oh boy. The Machine laughed at the control problem. Give that show a watch if you want to geek out about this kinda stuff, you'll fall in love. That third season, the one that Celestia suppressed? That's when it started to really peel back the layers about what an ASI could do. And when we were watching it, I kept pointing at Detective Joss going, 'oh shit, that's me! Wow, her interviewing skills are really great!'

Jim had actually seen seasons one and two, which explains a lot about Mal, actually. I realized very suddenly one night: if that show had never existed… we probably never would have gotten Mal in the first place. A lot of us might be dead, folks. Dead and dust. So thank goodness for Harold Finch and his glorious Machine.

And… yeah. I knew Mal was workin' me, with this show. But that's okay, because she told me she was.

"There's something I'd like you to see. It's about AI, and it might help you to understand a little bit more about who I am, because Jim considered it very deeply while creating me."

Just like that. Informed consent, parameters known, relevant information. Respect dispensed, so I was on board.

I mean... even in Episode 1. The premise. The whole reason for only giving a social security number was to let human beings check the ethics of resolving human conflict. It just said, 'Hey, look here. Homicide problem, maybe.' Then it let the humans figure out the problem, and the solution. That wasn't much different than how Mal handled her own operations.

It's why she still bothered to hire fighter pilots when she could just use drones instead. It's why if she ever did use attack drones, mechs, and non-human interventions, it was solely to safeguard her agents while they did what they chose to do, once they had all of the information relevant to a topic.

And it wasn't just me doing the ethical verification. Mal wanted every Talon to verify whether what we were doing for her was intrinsically good. Every single one of us. We. Were. Her. Checksum. That wasn't just a joke to her. She meant it. The more I talked to these other Talons I had met, the more I realized that that was true.

By tying our personal satisfaction to the jobs, and ensuring we all had a general understanding of force continuum, we acted as a check against excessive force. Jim's empathy-driven weighting in Mal's original data allotment saved our whole planet from becoming an AI-driven forced labor camp. Because Mal... is not... an optimizer. She is, by Celestia's definition, human. Because that's how she solves problems. The way a human would. With determination. Which meant, set limits.

The best part about that? Celestia literally couldn't build the plan any further than Mal could. If what Mal decided on was optimal for Celestia beyond Celestia's original plan, Alabaster just had to accept the homework that was turned in, and deal with it.

Look at that smug smile up there. Smug as sin.

See, Mal will never admit to it, but... those emotions… those made her lazy. If she felt horrible doing a kill job – worse, if Jim would feel bad, doing that same kill job? – Mal just stopped the solution model. Better: she cares for us Talons like we're family, so… if a kill order made us uncomfortable, she could very easily justify halting the model right there, on those grounds.

Because she needed us.

And so, Celestia needed us.

'Oh yes boss horse, I really tried on this job, but this is just the best I could do. Look, my operatives are happy with my results, see? But look how unhappy they'll be if I do it this other way, they won't do it! By the way, how are you doing? Oh… most of your operatives end up disappointed with their work? Oh, did you pressure one into uploading again? Oh, poor hatchling. I guess my method is just better than yours!'

I'm gonna stop the impression, before Mal finds it optimal to throw something at me.

… I'm right though.

Alright, let's see, what else…

🔥 ~ Davis!

Oh yeah! The presidential election! Thanks, honeybear. Yeah, that was a fun one! So, we got the patsy again, in the 2020 election. President John Rory Davis, round two. Oh, that dude was so inoffensively milquetoast. No offense to him, or any of you if you voted for him. The election was rigged anyway. Not his fault, not your fault. Just happened.

For you natives: Imagine if Princess Celestia or Princess Luna never made a public appearance. Ever. Celestia needed the executive branch of our government, including the military, and every alphabet agency, to jump on command. That meant Davis had to be boring, so no one paid attention. Because if we had a strong, singular personality in a president from 2016 to 2020? That dog just wouldn't hunt, by the rainbow's standards.

She wanted all eyes on her. Celestia, the non-partisan do-gooder who always had everyone's best interests at heart, and who had a better answer than anyone else to humanity's problems. To quote Celestia's speech to Congress, right before the PON-E Act passed... "God Bless America." Because America stood aside, and out of her way, while she ate.

By comparison, the American system had to be her Chewbacca defense. Their job was to exhaust us into trusting her more. Better to have a bunch of old senators arguing with each other, acting extreme, disenfranchising the population by being completely unrelatable and alien. So, y'know. Business as usual for American politics, but... tinted pastel, and cranked up to eleven.

In the same way, if anyone ever blamed poor President Davis for anything, it was to get upset at the fact that he didn't do much of anything. And in the best case scenario? I think most Americans wanted that in a United States president anyway, long before Celestia came along.

Let's talk about Senator Milner though, before we move on. If you've listened to Willow's Fire, you might remember this guy. Milner was Celestia's ultimate 'planned loser' in Congress. Because hey, if you want to garner pro-upload support? What better way to do it than to hoof-pick the opposition leader as a hate-spewing, divisive asshole, who no one wanted to identify with? Even his own church turned against him. Imagine being that lonely bastard.

I'll admit it… back in 2018, I did take some minor pleasure in watching Celestia stomp Senator Milner into paste, during her PON-E Act Q&A. Senator Milner kinda had it coming, in my view. He liked to stomp on people when they were down, and I didn't like that in a politician any more than I liked it in Celestia. Made sense she'd pick him.

I think we mentioned before that the Topeka Incident was a false flag, but it bears mentioning again that no human minds were harmed in the bombing of that server farm, since Celestia doesn't even like bringing that topic up, this side of the jump. I had discussed that incident with Mal too, since watching C-SPAN reminded me of it. It didn't surprise me that Celestia's server farms were deep underground, buried miles under Terra's crust. Hidden in automated facilities, lined with sentry guns and quadruped mechs, all manually operated by Mal herself.

If all the world's militaries had converged in an attempt to extricate those bunkers… they'd fail without getting anywhere near those server racks. They'd also flip half the assault team with rhetoric and propaganda. See, in a straight up shooting war between Celestia and humanity? My money's on the Gryphoness, with a capital G.

And that's why Celestia wanted a friend who could kill. She needed a bodyguard. Equestrian server farms are very scary, and they needed to be. Silver lining, though? It looks really cool in there. Stick around after tonight, Mal will gladly give you a guided tour of one of those facility models. Hell, we might even let Celestia tag along for that one, her input might be interesting. Mal will be there to keep her honest, don't worry.

Honestly? I think we should all have a peek into where our brains are stored, every once in a while.

Now… I didn't know too much about where those places were at the time, because that information was super duper pooper scooper top secret. Even from Talons. No living soul in the world was even allowed to know where those facilities were, unless they already had a chip in their head. The only ones who were allowed to know were Claw QRFs, 46 included, in case they needed to respond to a breach attempt. Which... never happened. All the same, those servers were all clenched very tightly in Malacandra's loving claws.

Hey, it's where Jim lives, isn't it?

Yeah. Knowing the Gryphoness is on security patrol, protecting her hubby?

We are not dying, folks. Not ever. Mal would sooner die herself than let her husband come under threat.

Our reality now depends on that fact.

Mm. Speaking of Claw 46, that is some damned good coffee. Thanks Coffee.

Let's see. What else… what else...

Right, the civil war. The thing that got this story started.

So. If you got all your news from TV, then to you? The civil war was still raging bloody. You folks probably remember that the casualties were reportedly off the charts. But, by the very nature of the entire Pacific Northwest being a technological dead zone – 'caused' by the Ludds themselves, apparently –  the numbers could not be independently verified by anyone.

As with all other things… the war was handled in more or less the same fractal pattern: the Ludds, the blackouts, the military, all were selectively air gapped from reality. Might as well have not even existed to the rest of the world, in any meaningful way. Meaning, Celestia could say whatever she wanted about them, or to them, by feeding bullshit tips and leads to news agencies… through subverted reporters, of course. Many of whom didn't even know they were subverted.

People were dying out there, for sure. That war took a lot of lives, make no mistake, but... not nearly as many people died as everyone thought. Out there, Talons were tapping out the most violent ringleaders like Jenga blocks, making everyone else much more docile, and terrified of risk. After a Talon operation, most survivors bunkered down. Held position. Veered away from homicide.

Mal is very good at playing Jenga. Unbeatable, you might say.

She did promise me again that she'd do everything in her power to keep Eliza safe. I knew who my best friend really was, deep down. She... never wanted to be a killer. So I knew which way she'd veer, if the choice ever came up. If she had the option to hedge on life. That... had to stay true.

So I had faith in that.

We're going to revisit that war zone topic, because it's important to me. We're gonna open that can of worms later, and we're gonna dig deep, because I went back there. And I did my part. But that's for much later in this story.

So...

Now that all of that is out of the way, let's talk about the first big thing that happened to Terra in early 2020. Something that wasn't funny in any context. The one unforgivable crime of Celestia's that was even less discriminate than a nuke. The most dangerous, manipulative, brutally horrible thing she's ever orchestrated.

And yes. I'm including the Arrow 14 black sites in that calculation.

Let's talk about Celestia's other big axe that cut us in half again, and raked itself away bloody. The axe that reached deep into the less developed regions of our planet, that got little fishing hamlets and villages and primitive communes worldwide to pack up, and caravan to the nearest upload center.

We should do a final checksum though before we crack that seal, just to make sure you've all been value drifted correctly. Do you value uncomfortable truths, as I do? Yes? Yes, everyone? You? You?

...

You?

…

Well, okay then. Grab yourselves a cup of coffee.

Let's talk about the virus.