The Gambit with Perfection (The Phantom of the Earth Book 2) (42 page)

The universe is a dynamic cobweb of energy exchange, with a basic substructure containing all possible versions of all possible forms of matter. Nature is not blind, mechanistic; it’s intelligent, purposeful, making use of a cohesive learning feedback process of information being fed back and forth between organisms and their environment, reinforced by an infinite conscious intelligence with infinite potential.

The infinite consciousness is spread by the gods throughout the universe by the zeropoint field; it continuously shapes and directs matter. It constructs an infinite variety of laws and values for physical constants, then lets those laws and values evolve into the stars and planets and life forms of an infinite number of universes. As all beings are part of this infinite consciousness, how we treat with one another is independent of the gods; where our government requires we carefully control our emotions, the gods are indifferent to transhuman thoughts and behavior.

The Big Bang and evolution are the tools whereby our particular universe and its conscious life forms became actualized in unpredictable and creative ways. The material reality, the places we see, the objects we touch, the music we hear, the food we taste, the sensations we feel, are primary to our experience, not exclusive; there is an infinite consciousness in the metaphysical realm, which transhumans experience at a higher cognitive level than any ancestral hominid.

Our higher cognitive processes result from our interaction with the zeropoint field, which, at times, manifests in a physical realization of the Twin Gods of the Cosmos. Places exist in the universe where the transhuman connection with the cosmos is strongest; here in the Earth, those places are the Comb Cove and the Spa of Delphi. And it’s at the spa where our doors to perception are altered in a manner that creates a physical recreation of the gods before us.

That’s how we know the Twin Gods are real, the observations of the infinite consciousness in physical form, repeated and repeated, by the entire transhuman race. It is from Delphi that we learned the gods initiated creation with the Big Bang, balancing the energy of expansion with gravitational braking in such a way that allowed for the creation of stars and galaxies that exist as we know them, implying that you and I and the earth surrounding us are made of recycled cosmic dust. We’re part of an old universe, one that had enough time to develop the critical elements required for life.

In rendering the universe as a divided version of itself, the gods produced from pure energy all that now exists, including physical and metaphysical universes. Our world reflects a physical realm where creation is ongoing, constrained by laws of nature that result in some things that work, some that don’t, and some that work for a time. This imperfection allows the gods to enrich the infinite consciousness through experience, yours and mine and all transhumans that lived and will live, and all living creatures in the universe. Indeed, the gods live in the physical realm through us; we are one with them and they are one with us, and one day, whether transhumankind makes it back to the surface or not, our consciousness will return to them.

To paraphrase our great chancellor, we Beimenians are truly one being.

We’re theoretically immortal and immune to most disease, including aging, and 99.9 percent of the Earth’s natural pathogens. The gods, however, are infinite rather than immortal, for they created space and time and are therefore beyond space and time. They enable us to perceive the world through the zeropoint field; they don’t dictate how we see or experience that world. From the field emerges infinite possibilities; it is through our perception, our selective subtraction, that the finite manifests in the physical realm. Thus, we transhumans place limitations on the infinite, creating real experiences in a world of imperfection.

Scholars who perceive the Second Hundred Years’ War as a conflict created by the gods or a dying Earth fail to account for the infinite consciousness. All transhuman life is valuable to this consciousness. It is this consciousness that creates our perception of physical matter, not the perception of physical matter that creates our consciousness. The universe is beautiful and unique, expanding and finite, random and creative. The chancellor’s precepts, which require transhumans to treat each other with respect and compassion, are a moral absolute, primarily because all beings participate in the infinite consciousness that created them; if we harm one another, we are harming ourselves.

The gods desire partnership, not servitude the way our commonwealth does. As citizens of not only the Great Commonwealth but of the universe, you must ask not what the gods can do for you in your immortal life but rather what you can do for your gods—not out of fear and not for their benefit, but for your own.

When you understand all of this, you will understand that
we
transhumans created the underground hell in which we live, not a lack of resources, not a dying Earth, and certainly not the gods. Neither the gods nor the Earth can be made unhappy or angered by transhuman behavior, for we’re all participants in the infinite consciousness. Then what, you are thinking, caused the war, our near extinction, and descent underground?

The transhuman desire for perfection, or put differently, the desire to undo the imperfections of our universe.

As all of you proceed through your development and take the Harpoon Exams, remember that you are not perfect; you are beautiful; you are intelligent; you are the most advanced species in the history of the Earth; you will enable the gods to experience the physical and metaphysical realms in ways they don’t yet imagine.

Don’t let the ghosts of transhuman past influence your lives today.

In short, never forget that your lives matter, in both the seen and unseen realms.

And with that I’ve run out of time.

Good luck to all of you in your Harpoon classes and on the Harpoon Exams. May you all serve Beimeni and live forever.

In studying the events prior to and after the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, the major zones of Earth (including the surface, Polemon, Beimeni, Middle, and Lower Level zones), and the Evolutionary War of 308–368 AR, many unfamiliar terms arise. It’s admirable for the studious and dedicated to try to better understand the world’s history and future. Hence, the glossary that follows.

ABSOLUTE ZERO:
0 K on the Kelvin scale, which is a thermodynamic (absolute) temperature scale, and -273.15 degrees Celsius on the Celsius scale.

AFTER REASSORTMENT:
the terms After Reassortment (AR or A.R.) and Before Reassortment (BR or B.R.) are used to label or number years in the Livellan calendar. This calendar era is based on the traditionally recognized year of the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, with AR counting the years from the start of this epoch and BR denoting years before the start of the era. (
See
Livellan calendar.)

AGE OF MASIMOVIAN, THE:
began with the election of Atticus Masimovian as the first chancellor of a newly created commonwealth he called Beimeni in 168 AR.

ANSIBLE:
also called the
ansible communicator
or the
ansible
; enables instantaneous interstellar communication through the ZPF; functional only on celestial bodies with weak or no magnetic fields. (
See
zeropoint field.)

ARTEMIS SQUARE:
the northern square in Beimeni City that contains three amphitheaters.

ASTEROID MINING:
the extraction of raw materials from asteroids and minor planets.

ATHANASIA:
the gene therapies designed to give transhumans a theoretically infinite life span.

ATHANASIA POOL:
(
See
Fountain Square.)

ATHANASIA-QUALIFIED:
included in classified dossiers in Marstone’s Database; an indication of whether or not a citizen is eligible for entry to Fountain Square. Service to the commonwealth generally assures access; the exceptions are for (1) citizens considered a threat to peace; (2) members of the Great Court; (3) Couriers of the Chancellor; (4) Harpoon candidates; (5) the deceased; and (6) Lower Level exiles. (
See
Fountain Square.)

ATHANASIA’S KISS:
(
See
Fountain Square.)

AUTOCRAT, THE:
the highest political and military office of the Western Hegemony. (
See
Western Hegemony.)

BEFORE REASSORTMENT:
(
See
After Reassortment.)

BEIMENI ARISTOCRAT:
an appointed position as either overseer of a district or ward within a village or city, or as a Harpoon developer. (
See
House of Development.)

BEIMENI CITY:
also called the
great city
or the
capital
; the capital of Phanes Territory (founded and constructed in 197 AR) and the second capital city of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni. The first capital city was Livelle City, Natura Territory (founded in 168 AR and constructed in 170 AR).

BEIMENI CONTRACT EXCHANGE:
a market in which securities are bought and sold.

BEIMENI POLEMON:
also called the BP; the colloquial moniker given to the Liberation Front by Lady Isabelle Lutetia.

BEIMENI PRESS:
the government-controlled media arm of the Burdigalian Consortium.

BEIMENI TRIUMVIRATE:
the cornerstones of power in the Great Commonwealth during the Evolutionary War, including the Barão Strike Team, the Masimovian Administration, and the Liberation Front.

BEIMENI ZONE:
a layer of the Earth that is, on average, between two thousand and two thousand five hundred meters deep; some parts of the commonwealth are deeper and some parts have shallower depths.

BENARI:
monetary unit of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni, delivered telepathically (via the ZPF), manually (in commonwealth cards), or physically (benari coins).

BENARI COIN:
A benari coin is made of a proprietary blend of synthetic silver, gold, and platinum. They are 2.1 millimeters thick with a circumference of 8.3 centimeters and weigh 8.2 grams. They are used primarily as a means to support the shadow economy of the Great Commonwealth, which Chancellor Masimovian believes contributes to law and order in the underground. They also provide a means to alter the money supply physically—all benari currency is backed by the RDD’s supply of synthetic resources.

BIOMAT:
A biomat suit is used by anyone approved for a surface excursion on Earth. The inner layers are synthetically designed at the microscopic level to mimic the Venusian surface, one of the deadliest places for life known to man. Early iterations of biomats protected against exposure to the Reassortment Strain 70 percent of the time; later iterations achieved percentages as high as 95. Breaches have never been understood.

BIOSTAR:
a synism capable of synthesizing or manipulating minerals and metals via biologically mediated nuclear processes.

CENTRAL COMMAND:
Candor Chasma on Mars is home to Central Command, Beimeni’s largest extraterrestrial research site in the solar system. Vastar Alalia once suggested to Chancellor Masimovian that he begin a new colony on Mars, but the chancellor refused, wishing instead to return to the Earth’s surface or travel to an Earth-like exoplanet.

CEREBRAL CORE:
the domed, spherical room that contains Marstone.

CEREBRAL NETWORK:
transhuman brain impulses scattered throughout the ZPF, stored within Marstone.

CHIRALITY:
also called
handedness,
the aspect of a structure or property, such as the configuration of a molecule or the spin of a particle, that renders that structure or property distinguishable from its mirror image or symmetrical opposite.

COLLAPSE OF THE WAVEFUNCTION:
an actual event results not by an evolving wavefunction, but by the collapse of the wavefunction by observation. For instance, a particle such as a photon doesn’t exist in space-time; photons carry light in tiny packets, but they also behave like waves, which extend in all directions, forming the electromagnetic field that spans the universe. There’s a probability of finding a photon anywhere in the field, but as soon as you do, the probability is no longer necessary; the act of observing has transformed the wave into a particle. That a particle can exist in an invisible state suggests that prior to the Big Bang the universe contained all possible probabilities; when the wavefunction collapses, there’s a subject-object split whereby the invisible particle comes into existence; prior to the subject-object split, reality is an infinite one. (
See
quantum probability.)

COMB COVE:
the strategic expedition (strike) team headquarters, which opened in 207 AR; decommissioned by Chancellor Masimovian in 273 AR.

COMMONWEALTH CARD:
identification cards issued to all Beimenians upon entering development; contains the commonwealth security number; connects to the Beimenian banking system. (
See
commonwealth security number.)

COMMONWEALTH LIAISON:
a chief spy in the commonwealth who acts on behalf of the Liberation Front.

COMMONWEALTH MISSION:
an official mission sanctioned by the Office of the Chancellor; typically conducted by the strike teams and in agreement with the ministry, the board, and a majority vote by the strike teams.

COMMONWEALTH SECURITY NUMBER:
the nine-digit identification number given to all citizens registered within Marstone’s Database.

CONSORTIUM:
a combination of institutions, private and/or government, designed to foster economic profitability and conversion.

CONVERSE COLLAR:
the technology used by the commonwealth to suppress the transhuman connection to the ZPF.

CONVERSION:
a discovery.

COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS:
the advisory board consisting of thirty-one members who aid the chancellor in making economic decisions for the greater good of the people of the Great Commonwealth; led by a chairperson and vice chairperson.