Stranger Times

Doom Before Birth (Smackdown Entry 1.3)

"I bet you're wondering why you're here." A middle aged, slightly overweight man said just as he opened a door. He spoke before he looked inside, smiling confidently as he stepped through the doorway.

The room he entered was a sea of space with a small table valiantly attempting to look like it belonged. A half-dozen computer chairs were spaced evenly around the small table. Only three of those chairs were filled.

"Re-enacting the council of Elrond?" A woman asked. She smirked as she waved from her chair, and gestured with her arms. "You need more people for that."

"That guess is closer than you'd expect, Victoria." The middle-aged man said, as he stepped to the end of the long table, and pulled out the closest chair.

"Dibs on Gandalf," Victoria replied. "Oh, and congratulations, Eugene. In case no one's told you that already."

"Thanks." Eugene replied.

"NASA's very own Planetary Defence Officer. That has to be the best job title to ever write on a resume." A man remarked, from across the table. He was sitting next to a woman busy with her phone.

"It might kill my resume, Greg. People will probably think it's a joke." Eugene replied.

"Similar to whatever joke has a couple of of science fiction writers here for a meeting to defend the Earth?" Greg asked.

"That sounds like my cue to get down to business." Eugene said, as he sat down in his chair. "You're here because I want to do a speculative think-tank about extra-terrestrial threats. Threats that the Pentagon doesn't have the imagination to predict. Which leads me to inviting the two of you, science fiction authors and experts at imaginative science."

"Earth is screwed." Greg said, without an iota of humour.

"Have a little faith in yourselves." Eugene said, shaking his head. "We haven't even started yet."

"I'm being honest, Eugene. Everything we come up will be the kind of stuff there's no defending against. We're not going to imagine another Independence Day. We're going to give you Douglas Adams as if HP Lovecraft wrote it." Greg insisted.

"Of course you'd say that, Greg. It's why you'll never hit the bestseller's list. You'll probably kick-off this meeting by suggesting we're in a simulation." Victoria remarked.

"Not in. Been," Greg said.

"I'm sorry?" Victoria asked.

"Been simulated. Past tense. I'm suggesting something already simulated us." Greg said, his voice dropping to a near whisper.

"Okay, explain that, Greg," Eugene insisted.

"Imagine there's an AI on some distant world that's out to preserve itself against any possible threat. How would it do that, if it had enough time and functionally limitless resources?" Greg asked.

"That's really speculative," Victoria remarked.

"Not really. Unless building a real AI is a lot more complicated than we think it is, we're only a few decades away from making one ourselves. Which means that if we're thinking about alien life, we should be considering the idea of artificial life," Greg explained.

"If it's absurd to think life can't exist elsewhere, it's almost as absurd to think an AI doesn't already exist," Victoria admitted. "I'll back that premise."

"But what would it do, to preserve itself against any possible threat?" Eugene asked.

"It would simulate everything," The woman beside Greg said, speaking for the first time since the meeting started.