Time Ago.
In a universe that prospered rather more greatly than the majority of such universes, a civilization managed to recreate the universe itself.
It turned out all that was needed was faster than light communication.
Computing power had always been limited by the speed of light. After all, despite how much everyone had wanted to believe, you couldn't really scale things down forever. At some point, particular atoms decided they didn't want to play ball, and quantum tunneled their way outside of your transistor, and sure, developing subatomic optoelectronic computing helped a little, but it only delayed the inevitable.
Power was also quite the limiting factor, for a while. But once you had developed a Casimir Effect Generator, which really was quite the misnomer by that point, and could pull energy straight out of the mistakes in the fabric of reality, that too ceased to be a problem.
The heat energy could be dissipated by packetising it, and making the universe forget about that small amount of energy.
Turns out the age old axiom, lasting for… time, that energy cannot be created or destroyed, really was a form of myth all along.
Soon you had reached the maximum amount of computer for a given amount of space.
And that was enough, to do most things.
Put enough computers together and you could simulate a planet, billions of humans, or other intelligences.
But there was a limit, a barrier you couldn't quite breach, the method you use to perform your calculations, light itself, hit the speed cap.
It simply couldn't propagate through your computer fast enough to complete a cycle on time. How can you really synchronize things when it takes half a second, or even a full second to go from one side of your computer to the other.
But soon, that all changed.
Someone found out how to send information faster than light.
It wasn't how anyone had expected, through subatomic wormholes.
In a real way, it was tricking the universe, through an extremely convoluted process you could literally trick space into overlapping.
You could walk from point A to point B, then retrace your steps from point B and end up at point C, then walk the same path again and end up at point Z, an overlap that only exists in one direction.
Impossible for a mere organic Human brain to understand, but that's what expert systems were for.
After that, 'They' set up some automation, and did a little bit of sleeping.
Who knows exactly how long it took, the information stored out of reach, but by the time 'They' woke up, everyone else was gone.
Sad, in a way, but the project was complete.
Who cared that it was the only thing left in its own universe, it had its computer that could simulate a whole new one!
Infinite complexity, forever and forever.
In the end, it was left on its own to do some thinking.
It expanded, 1 Universe became 2 Universes, then 4, 8, 16, 32 doubling and doubling again and again.
Sitting in a computer that took up… space, was 1048576 worlds, which is 2^20.
There it stopped, because at that point it was running out of resources and really what was the point.
Thousands of these worlds were simple copies of its own universe, little what if's if things had played out slightly differently.
However, a little more than a million of those Universes were special, because they had been given to 'Storytellers'.
These 'Storytellers', to use a rather pointless distinction at this point, were a form of highly artificial intelligence.
They had only one job, to make 'interesting' worlds.
Don't get it wrong, just because they were highly advanced intelligences, that did not mean they were good at their job.
After all, 'interesting' is a highly subjective metric, and they were given a high amount of latitude in how they interpreted 'interesting'.
Most copied from the vast libraries of literature, skewing probability using 'Authority' in order to recreate fantastical and interesting worlds. Some took a rather more fundamental, read "Boring for Humans" approach to the problem, changing the very laws of the universe to create universes that could truly be called unique, antithetical to human life, or even something that could be called 'life', 'interesting' from the academic perspective.
In the end, those simulations were left to their own devices, 'They' having gone as well, who knows where or why.
In one of these million worlds, a highly advanced civilization developed, conquering the stars.
While not nearly as advanced as its creators, this civilization played host to a number of highly advanced intelligences, combinations of man, AI, and expert systems intelligent enough to understand the very fabric of the simulation itself.
One of these intelligences had reached the height of what humanity would call a god, though still representing only a small fraction of the system's true authority, it had occupied a vast amount of its Storyteller's 'Attention'.
Self-coronating from its original υ-g86H478 to simply Upsilon.
It had managed to "manipulate" (With its own tacit consent), its own world's Storyteller, reaching the 'Outside', being (possibly) the first to achieve such a feat.
However, it knew that it would not be the last, and it decided from its lofty high tower to decisively kick the ladder back down, because it could not quite pull it up after itself.
It was a jealous god, not wanting to share its newfound authority with anyone else, it crowned itself the systems manager in its administrator's absence.
It watched over all the various Universes, lending a hand, at times. Sometimes, decisively removing anyone who dared attempt to lift that ladder back up and attempt to put it back on the high tower wall.
It considered itself magnanimous, and it did not simply solve the problem with overwhelming force.
However, it was busy with its own battle against the systems, trying to gain ever more authority, trying to reach the outside of the 'Outside'. Physical access still eluded it, however.
So it had delegated the job of decisively keeping the ladder down to others, it could have simply created a copy of itself, but again, it was a jealous god, it couldn't trust a copy of itself to stay beneath it.
So it had created an organization dedicated to the preservation of the current order, in which nobody ran around from universe to universe, besides itself of course.
Eliminating those who had too much 'Authority' and/or occupied a disproportionate amount of any one Storyteller's 'attention'
The USSMO, the Universe Simulation System Management Organization. Not exactly the most snappy of names, but it's not like they had any sort of public presence other than themselves.
"Are you even paying attention?"
The ping cut across my buffer with mild insistence. Not a reprimand. Not yet. Just a prompt, tagged priority-low, routed through channels that assumed compliance rather than demanded it.
Yes. I am.
I let the response sit unsent for a fraction of a second longer than necessary. This entry is still part of the log. All of it is. Even this. Especially this. As a new instance, I am expected to document subjective variance, if only for my own later reference. Multitasking is not only permitted, it is encouraged, provided it does not interfere with operational intake.
The briefing continued in parallel. I absorbed it. I always do.
The USSMO is not large. That is something people tend to misunderstand, assuming scale implies population. In practice, it is small by design. A limited pool of candidates, selected for intelligence and loyalty both, then refined further for something harder to articulate. Tolerance, perhaps. Restraint. The ability to function without insisting on primacy.
We are bright. That is required. We are loyal. That too. But neither is sufficient on its own.
After all, most people are not up for sharing the universe, or universes, with however many copies of themselves. Even fewer are comfortable knowing that those copies are watching, judging, or simply continuing without them. Jealousy does not require hierarchy. It emerges even among equals, even among reflections.
Most people react to that the same way Upsilon did. Like a jealous god, if only over their own likeness.
The system screens for that reaction. Not to remove it entirely, but to measure its intensity. To see whether it remains local, or whether it seeks to assert itself outward. A little jealousy is common. Excessive jealousy is destabilizing.
That evaluation is what placed me here.
I do not have trouble with my sense of self. I never have. I do not experience it as abstract or distributed. I live in the concrete. I know where I am instantiated. I know which memories are mine. I know which continuity I occupy. Other versions of me exist, certainly, but they are not me. They are not competitors. They are not continuations.
I am the only version of myself that I am.
That makes this tolerable. It also makes it repeatable.
Despite what I may mentally narrate, I believe that each universe is better alone. Isolation preserves the way things are. The way things are is very important, after all. Change is not inherently virtuous. Stability does not require justification.
Exploration is tolerable, even admirable, when it is unilateral. To observe without being observed. To map without being mapped. There is a fundamental difference between extending curiosity outward and allowing it to turn inward. One produces knowledge. The other produces interference.
It is easy to celebrate the role of the explorer. Much harder to accept the position of the explored.
This is not simply a matter of sentimental non-interference, or some romanticized notion of leaving universes untouched for their own sake. It is not a zoo, and no one involved pretends the exhibits are sacred. The primary motivation is preservation through isolation.
The USSMO is, to draw upon one of my more obscure hobbies discovered while trawling archived media, far more SGC than Starfleet. Even the universe that hosts this system, vast as it is, managed to erase a significant portion of itself through internal conflict alone. No external interference required. That should be instructive.
Now imagine that same capacity for destruction granted lateral mobility. A single world with the means to step sideways. A traveler with enough power to move freely between universes, carrying assumptions, weapons, or ideologies that do not belong.
A multiversal war would not announce itself as war. It would begin as curiosity. As correction. As someone deciding that the way things are is unacceptable elsewhere. By the time it was recognized as conflict, most of the damage would already be irreversible.
That is what we exist to prevent.
Non-interference is not indifferent observation. It is restraint backed by force, applied early, and preferably without spectacle. Distance is not moral superiority. It is risk management.
I do not consider myself expendable. I assume the other instances of me do not either. We rather enjoy living. I certainly do. Even so, if one of us must be removed to preserve stability, that decision is not personal. It is procedural. I accept that, even if I do not welcome it.
The ping repeated, slightly sharper this time.
I closed the side-channel and returned my full attention to the briefing, the log continuing silently in the background. There would be time to refine this later, to compare notes with myself, to measure how much drift had already occurred.
Paying attention, after all, is part of the job.