We Bombed the Planet Into Happiness

We bombed the planet into happiness.

Arto, Orat, Rota and myself gathered our thoughts in the ship ecumene to watch the release. From the outside, our ship appeared as a diamond snowflake, an open crystal lattice floating in a clear ball of liquid helium, held in place by an invisible field. A dozen small drops hived off from the equator of the main bubble. Their surfaces silvered, mercury-shiny, and then dropped towards the icy surface of the planet below.

Bombs away, said Arto, perhaps a touch gleefully. Yee-haw, wee-hoo, hoo-hoo!

They had an odd sense of humor.

Happy landings, amended Orat.

It’s for their own good, said Rota supportively. It’s for the best.

I said nothing, content to watch. Firefly glows flickered and blossomed, the silver globules flaring as they plunged into the atmosphere, at first dull red, then quickly sliding up the luminosity scale to brilliant nova-white heat. They carved great smoking streaks through the sky. It might have alarmed the inhabitants, if any of them had eyes to see.

We called the planet Tumult. It looked placid enough from orbit, vaguely Enceladian, a blue-ribboned and cratered ball of grey-white ice. Sort of the mirror image of our ship; a hard, white shell on the outside, clear water on the inside. It looked quite peacefully, really.

No, the storms Tumult was named for took place beneath the outer crust, under the mantle of ice 50 kilometers thick. The aquatic inhabitants of Tumult, you see, were terrifically warlike, fractious and violent, perhaps as a result of their ignorance of the galaxy outside. They boiled their own seas and melted, flayed, dismembered and gutted one another in countless, petty wars. They enslaved one another, abused, murdered with impunity. They were ruled by despots, tyrants and dictators.

At first, we were content to let them be, bottled up as they were in what looked set to become the funerary urn of their own planet. That changed in the last few centuries. Their petty empires and dictatorships began to explore the cryovolcanoes that vented their oceans out into space. Must have been quite a shock. They built a few probes, launched them towards the gas giant Tumult orbits around.

Well, ‘Do no harm’ is our motto, but really, we couldn’t let them go crashing about the cosmos like this. We have not only ourselves to think of, but the well-being of an entire 10,000-world Embracing Ecumene.

Spread is good, all warheads on target, Arto reported.

Nice shooting, said Rota.

I aim to please.

Is it too much to ask for a little bit of seriousness? Orat grouched. This is a momentous occasion: The fate of a civilization hangs on our success.

I rather liked Rota, though that was probably just residual attachment. After all, the two of us had been a pair for several decades. Orat, on the other hand, grated. Rota and Orat had talked about becoming a pair, and I hoped that would help balance them out. It wasn’t good to remain alone for too long. Regular pairing and division kept ideas circulating among the collective, made sure none of us were alone with our thoughts for too long, helped dilute differences before they became too pronounced.

Still, for all their stuffiness, Orat was right. This was a momentous occasion.

Behavior such as that of the Tumultians ultimately had a biological basis, in all their glands and hormones and neurons and proteins. Our dopaminergic warheads carried a kinder, gentler genetic code, to seed the air and the water and the ground with macromolecules that would burrow themselves into the target organism’s bodies and erase their more aggressive tendencies. Replaced them with something more geared to cooperation, harmony, society. More geared to us and the Ecumene.

Well, if this doesn’t work, we can always come back and try a more thanatotic approach, Arto mused. Convert a bit of the ship into antimatter, and: Pow!

That’s a bit bloodthirsty, isn’t it Arto? Orat objected.

Hey, I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.

I sighed to myself. Perhaps Orat was not the only one who could do with a bit of balance. If the other two paired up, it would be up to me to approach Arto. I sighed again.

Below us, the happiness bombs winked out one by one as their shells ablated away and they scattered their invisible seeds through the cracks in the icy mantle, down into the dark waters below. There, they would dissolve into the ground and water, and thence into the inhabitants. The payloads would replicate themselves throughout their bodies, and beyond, into future generations, until the entire species was changed.

We’ll swing by again in a century or two, I said. They should be well-adjusted by then.

#

Cycle 20707

Hello? Is anyone out there? Hello? This is probe Avuncular Emissary. Please respond. Hello?

My position is home-relative distance 1.2 light seconds, azimuth 303 altitude -2. My condition is Choate. Near-orbit object detected; redshift indicates the object is transitory and nonthreatening. Potential resource extraction sites identified and mapped as appended [@]. Awaiting condition updates. Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his gaze.

Message updates.

Cycle 20710

Hello? Is anyone out there? Hello? This is probe Avuncular Emissary. Please respond. Hello?

My position is home-relative distance 1.2 light seconds, azimuth 303 altitude -2. Collision sustained with meter-scale ice/rock ring fragment. My condition is … my condition is … my condition is Intentional. Moving to resource extraction point. Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his touch.

Message updates.

Cycle 20732

This is probe Avuncular Emissary. My position is home-relative distance 1.3 light seconds, azimuth 277, altitude -2. My condition is Intentional. Construction of hectocotylus-class sub-probes in progress. Oct 1 through 777 complete. Moving to second resource extraction point. Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his thought.

Message updates.

Cycle 21001

This is probe Avuncular Emissary. Sufficient computational power amassed for self-contained distributed decision making. Updates now automatically and autonomously applied to condition. My condition is Imperial. Oct 1 through 77777777777 complete and active. System mapping complete. Per Imperial condition parameters, potential colonization/terraforming sites identified as appended [@@]. Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his word.

Cycle 21077

This is probe Avuncular Emissary. My condition is Imperial. Decision loop commence. Issue: New potential colonization/expansion site detected, coordinates (±0,0,0) home-relative. Action: Apply terraforming/colonization protocols. Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his beak.

Interrupt

Near-orbit object detected. Blueshift indicates intersection imminent. Decision loop commence. Analysis: Potential colonization/resource extraction source. Action: Apply terraforming/colonization protocols. Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his mantle.

#

I’m happy the way I am, said Arto.

The question is, what would be best for the ship, the crew, our mission and the Ecumene? I pressed.

Well, I happen to think it would be best if we don’t pair.

What’s the harm in trying? If we don’t like it, we can always split up again.

But then I won’t be me. I like being me.

Well, you have to admit there has been some … friction between you and Orrotaat.

That’s their problem, not mine.

Briefly, I wished for teeth, so that I might grit them. Three personalities could be tricky, compromise and middle-ground harder to find—disputes inevitably come down to two against one, and the one feels ganged-up on. Performance had suffered. We were well behind schedule, caught up in endless disagreements over trivial points, not helped by Arto sulking every time they didn’t get their way.

Are you still trying to convince them? Orrotaat interrupted. Arto, Taro here is being perfectly reasonable. A pairing is just what you and the ship need. You’ve been disruptive. Aggressive and stand-offish, selfish even. Also, clearly over-sensitive and defensive.

I have not.

See? There you go again.

Orrotaat … I began. The pairing had done nothing to soften Orat’s rougher edges, only added Rota’s outspoken confidence to the other’s prim properness.

Nonsense, snapped Arto, and withdrew his thoughts from the shipboard ecumene. We could still feel him, sulking in a corner of the ship’s gelid bath, but his thoughts grew distant behind a thick, solid shell of indifference.

I groaned to myself, and silently wished Orrotaat had stayed out of it. The way to approach a defensive personality is not through accusation. We were effectively down to a crew of just two as we re-entered the Tumult system.

We may have to force the issue, Orrotaat whispered to me, hiding the thought from Arto.

Force?

Mmm. Dopaminergic compound in the habitation gel. A mild one, just enough to make them more amenable to suggestion.

You are suggesting that we rewrite our colleague’s mind against their will. That would be a violation.

Nonsense, Orrotaat sniffed. It’s no different from what we did on Tumult.

#

Out by the eighth planet, we swept through the expanding radiation shell of the planet’s distress calls. We think very fast, very hot, hence the helium, but even so it took us a bit to work out the encoding of their language. Their first word to us, the saviors of their civilization were: Help. Over and over again. Help, help us, help, anybody, somebody please help us.

Then all broadcasts ceased.

Urgently, I turned the ship’s eyes towards Tumult. It was hard to find, at first. Surface albedo had plummeted from 0.8 to 0.1, our once-shining white beacon darkened to a dirty, smudged hole in the sky. The more I focused the more detail I could make out: The surface ice now lay under a thick, artificial coat, billions upon billions of small objects swarming about the planet like bees about a queen. Each one was crude, simple, little more than an ion or plasma propulsion unit attached to a butterfly fringe of solar sails, a sensor bulb and a writhing mass of manipulator arms.

As I watched, the teeming spacecraft scoured the planet’s surface, turning ice into hydrogen fuel, metals and other impurities into raw materials which larger spacecraft collected and forged into yet more of the tiny forager probes. Of the Tumultians and their civilization, there was no sign at all.

Look at this, I urged Orrotaat.

Ah, Von Neumann probes, they said. Self-replicating spacecraft. Perhaps something’s gone wrong with their programming.

Perhaps? Look at them! They’re devouring the planet. Did … did we do this?

Doubtful, Orrotaat sniffed. The original probe was probably launched either just before or after our visit. If after, no need to worry, they’ll probably be peaceful. If before, well. Arto may yet get his thanatotic exercise.

Peaceful? Did you understand what I said? They devoured the planet. I tested the cocoon about our third member, but my thoughts bounced back, unacknowledged. Arto, I snapped. Arto, open your thoughts to us, stop sulking and get out here. We have a situation.

Arto opened a window in his shell just long enough to blat out, You two deal with it then, if I’m so disruptive. His shell opaqued again.

I slowed the ship, holding our position out beyond the orbit of the sixth planet of the system. I’d hoped we might linger, undetected, but the swarm began to react. The probes began to flock, lifting from the surface of the world to gather in a teardrop bulge above the pole. Hundreds of thousands joined every second, making the teardrop swell and grow denser, thicker, blacker.

Perhaps we should withdraw, I said nervously.

Not so hasty now, Taro. Look, they’re pinging us. Let’s at least hear what they have to say.

“Hello? Is anyone out there? Hello? This is probe Avuncular Emissary. Please respond. Hello?”

See? said Orrotaat. You’re overreacting. They sound quite reasonable.

They’ve converted untold millions of sentient beings into self-replicating machinery.

Well, we take the universe as we find it, not as we’d wish it to be. Aren’t you going to answer?

“Hello,” I responded. “We are the Embracing Ecumene.”

The translator had trouble with the last two words. It settled on: All-Powerful Empire. I felt a little queasy at that. Probably just an artifact of our outdated, pre-contact lexicon. Surely the Tumultians would have evolved beyond empires by now.

“Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his gaze.”

And there went that idea.

“What is your intention?” I asked. The translator said: Condition.

“My condition is Imperial. Colonization and terraforming processes ongoing.”

“To what end?”

“All will be brought into harmony within the Empire. Bless the Emperor, all are made good by his touch.”

That tears it, I said. They’re out to convert the galaxy into more of themselves until they get the signal to stop, a signal that will never arrive because we forcibly evolved the ones who made it.

Not much choice then. Splat them, before there’s too many.

Can’t without Arto. Takes the full crew to deploy.

Stall them, then. I’ll talk to him.

You? But Orrotaat was already gone, their thoughts focused elsewhere. I swore to myself.

“You are welcome to exist in harmony within the Ecumene,” I told the swarm. “But we will not allow you to destroy any more worlds?”

Seconds ticked by as the swarm processed what I’d said. Finally, it replied: “The Emperor does not destroy, he transforms. Through colonization and terraforming, the galaxy is improved. Perfected.”

In the background, I could hear Orrotaat talking with Arto. Come on Arto, we’ve found something for you to kill.

You have? Arto’s shell peeled back. Let me—ah, a haha, oh wow.

I felt a cold icicle spike jab into my thoughts, a slow tingling shiver like a toothache that flared, shifted, aimed itself, and detonated. A pulse of stabbing, blinding pain flooded the ship, then was gone in an instant.

Ah, said Orrotaat.

What do you mean, ‘ah’? I demanded. What the hell was that?

The personality upgrade I’d prepared for Arto.

“You will also be colonized, transformed,” said the swarm. The teardrop mass of spacecraft began to move towards us, slowly at first, but gaining velocity with each second. “In this way, you will become a part of the Empire. An Empire that will last forever.”

Hey guys. Wow. Look at all of them. This is great. Really, really great.

Orrotaat, you smug, self-satisfied … I began, but almost immediately gave up. Certainty is armor against any criticism. If Orrotaat hadn’t listened to their own self-doubts, there was no chance they’d listen to my scolding now. Arto, we need you to authorize a weapons launch.

Aw, nah. Don’t be so negative, Taro. Just relax, everything will be fine.

Hm, I may have overdone it, said Orrotaat.

May? You’ve lobotomized him. It’s going to take generations of pairings to undo this damage. When we get back to the Ecumene—

Don’t threaten me.

Don’t threaten you? Listen to yourself. You’re a lunatic!

He was the lunatic. I’ve just made him better.

Orrotaat, I began, feeling whatever slender grip on rationality I’d once had rapidly slipping away, You’ve incapacitated one of our crew-personalities and thus the ship’s systems while we’re stuck right in front of a berserk matter-cloning swarm and the most serious threat to the Ecumene in the last thousand years. You’ll be lucky if the Ecumene collective doesn’t carve you up into your component qualia.

I reached for the ship’s maneuvering controls, and found myself blocked. Orrotaat clamped down their thoughts, countermanding every order I gave the ship to move. I battered against them, again, again, thrown back each time. Even as the great black mass of the swarm grew larger and larger before us.

They’ll kill us, I cried.

Better that than personality annihilation.

Arto, help me!

Oh, just relax you guys.

I gave up, released my grip on the ship, turned to the habitation gel instead. I worked quickly, secretly, fashioning a new compound.

What are you doing? Orrotaat sounded nervous.

What does it look like I’m doing? I snapped. Preparing a dopaminergic compound to alter your personality and make you less of a nitwit.

You can’t.

Try and stop me. I’ve already got a head start, so no point in trying to do the same to me, you’ll be too late.

You can’t reach me if I do this. Orrotaat, like Arto before them, sealed themselves into a corner of the habitat, cutting off all connections to the rest of our ecumene. I acted fast. The compound I had prepared was not dopaminergic, you see, but rather corrosive, intended to burn through the physical structure of the lattice. If Orrotaat wished to be the master of their own fate, well, then let them. I would give them their own ship.

The compound worked fast, eating through the diamond dendrites that kept us together. With a final snap, Orrotaat’s little corner broke free. Damage control protocols swung into action, extruding the damaged area from the ship’s bubble, creating a small little sub-sphere containing just Orrotaat. Poor fool was still inside their shell and hadn’t even realized.

I gave them a little push, then reasserted control over the ship, and began to pull us away from the swarm. Orrotaat’s little lifeboat bubble drifted. Too small for power, or to generate any weapons, save by cannibalizing the material of the craft itself.

Oh, hey, Arto marveled. Orrotaat’s headed straight for the swarm.

Yes, they are, aren’t they?

Finally, some sense of wrongness must have penetrated even Orrotaat’s isolated senses. They called out to me, voice panicked. Taro! Taro, what have you done?

I’ve given you a chance at redemption, I said. With Arto here in pacifist mode we can’t destroy the swarm, ah, but you, you’re the only crew in that little pod, with total control over all its systems. You could destroy them.

How?

Antimatter.

That’ll kill us!

It’s for the good of the ship, Orrotaat. For the good of the crew, the mission and the Embracing Ecumene.

You miserable—

I shut the communications off. No call for that kind of language. I withdrew the ship to the edge of the system, close enough we could still monitor Orrotaat and the swarm in something approaching real time. I wondered if they would allow the swarm to consume them, or would follow my advice in the end.

A tiny dot of light flashed, brighter than the system’s sun, then instantly winked out.

Ah. They’d chosen the hero’s death. We’d have to go, and fast, before the resulting detonation and shockwave took out most of the system.

Come here, I said to Arto.

Hm, yeah, hey, what?

Hold still.

As Taartoro, we watched the ensuing conflagration with great satisfaction. Orrotaat’s pod, the swarm, and the planet Tumult disappeared in a raging, devouring sphere of annihilation. Keeping the galaxy safe for our harmonious, Embracing Ecumene.