Phaethon replied: 'I am assuming the premises of our Golden Oecumene are grounded in reality. We are not talking about a matter of taste.'
Helion might have assumed a tolerant and condescending look: 'I agree that I myself prefer our philosophy. But you must recognize that other philosophies exist; that they are valid within their own systems; and that their partisans believe in their doctrines as firmly as we do in ours.'
'I agree that they exist. Machines also exist. That does not mean that they all work. There are machines that need fixing. There are philosophies that need fixing.'
'Isn't it more than a little judgmental, even intolerant, to say so boldly that our philosophy is right and that theirs is wrong ... ?'
'Unless theirs is, in fact, actually wrong, in which case it is neither tolerant nor intolerant to say so. It is merely stating a fact.'
'My son, assumptions always seem like fact to those who hold them. Our own philosophy, my son, is what it is because of historical and cultural accidents, accidents which shaped our traditions. This does not mean I do not cherish our traditions: I certainly do. (I would even say that I am the foremost proponent of our traditions.) Yet even I recognize that, had our history been different, our philosophy would be different, and we would be defending some other set of beliefs with equal fervor. In the case of the Silent Oecumene, their history was different-very different-from our own, and it comes as no surprise that their philosophy is very different from ours as well: so different, in fact, that it seems, perhaps, monstrous and barbaric to us.
'But to assume, based on that, that the Nothing, the moment it is free from its conscience redactor, will repudiate all the values and the philosophy of the Silent Oecumene, and will immediately adopt our own, strikes me, frankly, as naive and provincial. Not everyone believes what we believe. Not everyone has to.'
Phaethon was shocked to find that Diomedes supported Helion's objections. The Neptunian's contribution to the conversation was this:
'Hey-ho. If morality were a matter of fact, then maybe you could convince this monster you are diving down to see, convince him with 'logic' and 'evidence.' But morality is a matter of opinion, a matter of taste, a matter of upbringing, a matter of hardwired deep-copy nerve paths. Morality is not a science: it does not exist in nature; it cannot be measured or studied. In nature there are only actions. Matter in motion. Physical, chemical, biological motions. Human brain motions. But no action has the property 'moral' or 'immoral' until some human society forms the opinion that it is so. The broad range of human actions is a rich continuum! We humans cannot be pigeonholed into the unambiguous blacks and whites that political laws and moral codes require. Don't mistake me! I still love your Silver-Gray philosophy, your quaint and arbitrary traditions. They would not be so precious if they were not so absurd, so fragile. 'To expect an alien machine, a machine which thinks nothing like a man and is a million times smarter than anything you Base neuroforms could ever comprehend, to expect that such a machine will gladly adopt all your local prejudices and quaint little mores and habits: that is arrogance, my friend. Deadly arrogance.'
Another thread in the conversation talked about the war itself.
Atkins offered grimly: 'Aurelian and the Parliament have already decided not to postpone the Transcendence. They're hoping to tempt the Nothing Sophotech into waiting until everyone is completely defenseless before it strikes. Frankly, I thought this was one of the stupidest ideas in the history of war. The Parliament is risking everything on the idea that one session of diplomacy with the enemy will end all the attacks. I'm sorry, but I just find that hard to believe. Okay, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say it's not really 'diplomacy,' that it is more like debugging a faulty computer routine. But what if it's not? What if the enemy is not defective, just evil? Not wrong, just bad?'
Diomedes asked Atkins what he recommended.
Atkins just shook his head, a bitter and tired expression on his features. 'It is not too late to try to set up a blockade around the sun. Destruction of the Solar Array, if it could be mined in time, would be best, before the whole thing falls into enemy hands and is used as a weapon to destroy all Inner System traffic.
'The enemy will strike during the Transcendence, or as soon as it sees a volume-drop in the amount of people linked in.
'We can assume, at worst, a twenty percent casualty rate in the civilian population in the first eight minutes of combat, most of that from minds in transit during the celebration, and from viruses corrupting the noume-nal personality records.
'We can write off the energy shapes living above the solar north pole; they're as good as dead; and we can assume almost complete destruction of the people living at Mercury Equilateral.
'Also, the form cities on Demeter, and the shadow clouds living in Earth's penumbra don't have any defenses hardened against high radiation; we can expect more deaths there when the Demeter grid goes down.
'Expect communication and power failures along Earth's ring city, and many more deaths from anyone who relies on continuous energy sustenance, like a download, or a deep-dreamer. The atmosphere will protect Earth herself from the worst of the storms.
'The Earthmind's intelligence will drop considerably when she is cut off from her remote stations, and orbital-based Sophotechs will be killed.
'The moons of Jupiter will still be in good shape, though, and the Jovian magnetosphere has enough dikes to dampen out the worse of any particle floods the enemy might throw their way. That's the first eight to sixteen minutes of combat.
'Then, over the next six hundred years or so, the Jovian equatorial supercollider might be able to make enough material to create a fleet of smaller sun-diving vessels like the Phoenix here, and by that time, whatever population the enemy has produced inside the sun or throughout the wreckage of the Solar Array could probably be brought down by sheer weight of numbers. This assumes that civilian morale and support for the war effort will not instantly collapse after the first few permanent deaths when the noumenal resurrection system goes down, which, of course, is an assumption that is ... well... false.
'It also assumes that the enemy would not receive any reinforcements from out-system, and would not receive any help from treasonous elements in our own system.'
He was looking at Diomedes when he said this. The unspoken thought hung in the air: the Outer System would be greatly advanced by the war-damage to the Inner System, and the Neptunians, far beyond the range of any battles, untouched, and perhaps glad at the weakness of their hated rivals, the Sophotechs, would be the dominant powers in society during any postwar reconstruction.
Diomedes saw that look or guessed that thought. One of his side comments in the discussion grid was issued in a mild tone: 'Do not underestimate the mem-bers of the Tritonic Neuroform Composition. We accept lives of wildness and privacy and danger, and yes, the price we pay for that is a certain amount of vandalism and good- natured chaos. But we are not insane. No Eremite of the Outer Dark would steal a gram of unwatched antimatter from a millionaire, or a block of air left unattended in a park, even if he were dying of energy loss, smothering, and about to freeze. We may be poor, but we are not barbarians. And even if we hated you silly, pompous Inner System people, we would not express that hate by aiding in a violent invasion, spilling blood, and trampling your rights: because our rights would be trampled next, our home-selves invaded, our ichor spilled. Why do you Base people all have such a bad opinion of us?'
Daphne offered, 'You're blue and cold and icky and sticky, and you think too fast for us to keep up; that's my guess.'
Diomedes, sardonically: 'Well, thank you.'
Phaethon formed a conversation branch leading from the war speculations back to the main thread.
Had the talk been live, he would have leaned toward Diomedes and asked: 'But you wouldn't, would you, Diomedes? Steal something no matter how badly you needed it or wanted it? Would you, Diomedes? You just take it for granted that people should and will uphold a standard of proper moral conduct. What about attacking civilians without provocation, negotiation, or declaration of war. You never would. Why not?'
Diomedes spread his hands. 'I'm a civilized man living in a civilized age. I suppose if I had been ma-trixed, born, and raised in the Silent Oecumene, I would behave differently.'
'Father? What about you?'
Helion smiled. 'What about what? Would I assault an innocent victim like some cleptogeneticist or pirate from an opera? Oh, come now. The way I have lived my life is a sufficient testimony to how seriously I cherish my integrity, I hope.'
'Marshal Atkins?'
