Memoirs of a fallen Sith - Epilogue

in #deepthink6 years ago

Dangerous_Liaison_by_Philip_Jackson.jpg
(That's Ping in the corner)
Image Credit: By Steve Lee from England - IMG_0774, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19961430

Han, Reign of Gaozu year 1, Outskirts of Luoyang, Cemetery

“Good evening, sage of Tao. Contemplating mortality amidst our ancestors?”

“Good evening, scholar of Confucius. Life and death are one; it is only our perspective that shifts. My perception detects an uninvited company, hidden amidst the bushes over yonder.”

“Oh, Ping? An imperial . . . escort shadowing my movements; no doubt, for my protection.”

“It seems that the king suspects much.”

“They call themselves emperors now.”

“Bah! Truly, the arrogance of men knows no limits! Given time, they will confer upon themselves even divine titles.”

“Ha ha ha! Most men are overly concerned with appearance, rather than substance. Our good emperor honors me greatly by assigning an acolyte of our organization to accompany me to our meeting.”

“Ping is one of us?”

“A lower acolyte with limited training and abilities, but one who possesses the virtue of loyalty.”

“Unlike the traitor . . .”

“Yes, the nameless one. Even from beyond the grave, he nearly derailed me from our purpose.”

“Then the fool king has agreed to your suggestion of . . . reforms.”

“Oh ye of little faith! To think that you had doubts as to my success against an untrained Qin captain!”

“That fool . . . Ping was it? He is harassed by mosquitoes. Is he not even proficient at qi projection?”

“Not all men are so gifted in the internal arts, as you my apprentice. For Ping, it would take several of his lifetimes to master the qi arts, as you have so effortlessly accomplished.”

“Hmf! It was not effortless, master. Yet, how is he to offer protection, when he has not even grasped the basics of the internal arts?”

“Ha ha! You are an ambitious one! Do you think yourself a match for my skills?”

“Perhaps your overconfidence is your weakness.”

“Aha ha ha! Strike me down, and I shall ascend to a plane of existence beyond your comprehension.”

“. . . has that Taoist bluff ever worked to your favor, master?”

“No, every time one of my apprentices had to be personally . . . corrected for their hubris.”

“If there is a flaw in our organization, it is this profligate waste of resources in internecine conflict of advancement. Since the catastrophe due to the betrayer, you have . . . corrected five, six apprentices?”

“Eight. And two inner circle challenges.”

“Eight including the betrayer?”

“Ah! Then nine apprentices were corrected, since his defection. Qin Shi Huang was indeed a formidable adversary.”

“Yet, the Qin emperor remained mortal. Your apprentice did not gift his new liege with longevity, or was that knowledge denied him during training?”

“Ha ha! Your . . . yes, Li Si was my failure; I did not discern the flaw of idealism bubbling within Li Si, when assigning him to undermine the Qin system. Li Si’s apostasy, we suspect, has been more influenced by the force of Qin Shi Huang’s personality than Li Si’s deficiencies.”

“Such perspective fits your narrative that exculpates you from your failures, master.”

“Ha ha! It is the narrative that matters. Besides, who within our organization will dare challenge the established narrative?”

“. . . for now, master. Death comes for us all; even gods must live their allotted time and pass away.”

“Indeed, but once I am dead, what would I care how the new narrative is constructed?”

“So, you don’t actually believe in the Taoist theory about ascension or oneness.”

“Aha ha ha! Have you been masquerading as a Taoist for so long that you have gone native? Did you forget that we basically invented Taoism from the tattered remnants of Laosi’s musings? Or did you actually believe in my Taoist bluff from earlier?”

“. . . there are two other inner circle members, master. Are you all in agreement regarding the . . . narrative concerning Li Si and the Qin emperor?”

“Do you remember Lue Buwei?”

“Of course. His life is a lesson that not even the inner circle is infallible.”

“Aha ha ha! Such a veiled threat, apprentice. You will be elevated to master at your allotted time; eventually, I will commit errors for you to exploit.”

“Ha! Do you also have an illegitimate child around whom you would design dynastic ambitions?”

“Perhaps. My flaws are for you to discover and exploit. Besides, how would you access the new emperor without my intervention? Who would recommend a mediocre Taoist, such as yourself, for the portion of imperial spiritual advisor?”

“And our acolytes will infiltrate the critical positions of Lu Bang’s kingdom. What of the king? Is he a fop or a threat?”

“The emperor is cautious without being paranoid, curious yet restrained, confident but courteous. He is intelligent enough for our purposes without being too clever. His greatest flaw is his near obsessive focus on accumulation of power without purpose.”

“He is no better than a merchant who compulsively hoards shiny things that clink; a perfect tool for our purposes. The . . . emperor has no grander vision for his polity other than holding on to his political position?”

“Yes. Sad, isn’t it? What use is power for he who has no understanding of its use?”

“Better a fool on the throne, than an idealist, master. Lue Buwei and Li Si nearly extinguished the flames of our organization.”

“Ah . . . the narrative states it is Qin Shi Huang, not his ministers, who doused the fire of civilization.”

“Of course, master. The untrained Qin emperor somehow cleverly out maneuvered the inner circle and even turned your apprentice against us.”

“Ha ha! What is the fundamental character of man?”

“. . . you insult me with such a basic question fit only as an instruction for a stage one acolyte?”

“Oh, I thought I was speaking with Ping, since you fail to grasp the primacy of the narrative.”

“Ha! I refuse the primacy of your narrative, master. I do comprehend the value of maintaining a useful narrative.”

“I am well rebuked. Lue Buwei and Li Si forgot this central quality of man, in their mad quest for utopia.”

“Discontent.”

“Yes. Man’s lot is to be discontented. Stable political order is merely a fiction to organize this turbulent impulse towards something more constructive.”

“After centuries of longevity, Lue Buwei became convinced of his own godhood, deluding himself into thinking he can change human nature.”

“Indeed, though we can train men to mitigate their base impulses towards societal disintegration, we must always be cognizant of men’s persistent discontent with their very being.”

“Mortality can be disconcerting to those gifted with consciousness.”

“Most men are unconscious, thus, their constant petulance towards their environment, society, and station. In truth, their rebellion is against the cold touch of death.”

“How would most men use longevity, if granted? For nearly all, discontent has been their defining identity. Their ignorance and cognitive bias governs all their actions and decisions. Even if they are presented with the waters of truth, they will prefer to drink the sand of lies. That these men are mortal is a blessing upon all of creation.”

“Discontent even afflict the trained.”

“So too, violent deaths, master.”

“Ha ha! By the time of your ascension, apprentice, the Han society will have been bound by the dogma of Confucian rituals and convention. When the inevitable political dissolution occurs, reunification would no longer last centuries. With our unification of the Xiongnu as a constant northern threat, the Han will not dare look beyond their shores, lest the horde march over the Qin wall. Kingdoms, like men, must also understand their limits and station in life.”

“And so, in this, as well as in thousand other journeys, we shall fare well.”

—fin—

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I have not commented before I felt I was not enlightened enough. I enjoyed this and feel it has moved me to look deeper into the unseen world.

Hah, I love it! An excellent finish.

Any thoughts on what your next series will be yet?

Thank you for reading. I am glad it was entertaining. I am sifting through ideas for another serial story.

What an interesting narrative you have woven.

Thanks!

Thank you for reading. I am glad it was entertaining.

I am in the position of an uneducated farmhand contemplating some wondrous technology, I suspect, lacking the grasp of history and culture to fully appreciate the breadth of your work. Nonetheless, I can see it's marvelous, and am grateful you have undertaken it.

Is it me, or are the statues very phallic-looking? :D


“How would most men use longevity, if granted? [...] That these men are mortal is a blessing upon all of creation.”

Although I'm an immortalist, I've often contemplated the same. But there's no other way to evolve from here, I think. I compare our current 'system' of 'live learn and die' to the House that Jack Built: you have to repeat everything that came before to reach the next stage. Every time you lay a brick, you have to dismantle the whole house and rebuild it. It's just a stupid process. Why not keep people alive and keep teaching them? Why destroy an Aristotle and then teach everything Aristotle learned to a young person, hope that the young person will make some progress, kill him off, then start from the beginning by teaching everything to a new young person. As I like to say, until immortality is invented, humanity will still be in its nonage years: 100 years max lifespan is just ridiculous.


I wonder what series you're cooking up next. ... Oh ok mountain preempted me on that...

Larry Niven wrote a series of books examining potential consequences of longevity and immortality. I think World Out of Time was quite an excellent exploration into the consequences of immortality for the human race. If man lived beyond his allotted time, humanity will eventually organize their society into a highly centralized totalitarian polity, with social rigidity that would make the Hindu caste system progressive in comparison.

Immortality, and even longevity, would be limited to the elite ruling class. Such possibility would need to be kept in extreme secret, lest the hoi polloi rebel against their rulers in order to access the elixir of life. After all, what would not man risk for immortality? Unless humanity is organized under an absolute totalitarian oligarchy, civil society will collapse and anarchy inflicted upon humanity. Even if all of humanity is granted immortality, the problems of "equitable" resource distribution remains; in fact, it would be of greater problem, since potentially, the social classes will become rigid for all eternity.

I don't really know what would happen, but I often argue for the exact reverse of what you said: immortality is the only way to guarantee equality. You can't rule over 1000-year-old citizens. They'd be too wise. They'd have to go out of their way to remain ignorant for so many years.

No technology, I think, has ever been successfully banned. The uber-rich will discover immortality, if we don't. They're drinking young people's blood as we speak, like some sort of literal vampire. They suck people dry financially and they'll do it literally if they can. Public science must discover immortality or else it will be discovered behind closed doors by private interests. And then good luck opposing them: how are you gonna fight an immortal tyrant, who presumably will have the brains to match his increased allotted time? (There's always the possibility that the elite would be a beneficent one, of course.)

I'm promptly adding the book to my wish list!

I think our different visions of the future has basis on our assumptions regarding the human tendencies. I think more along the line of Farscape writers who envision an imperfect universe populated by inherently selfish, flawed, unwise sentients. Some view the future along the line of Star Trek: TNG writers who envision a cure for human foibles via technical and material advancements.

The blood infusion scheme is an interesting phenomenon, as almost all human sociocultures have myths regarding vampyrism. It may be there is some truth to the claims of the wealthy engaging in literal vampyrism; the magazine article may be a propaganda piece to normalize such behaviors as mere ecentric fansy of the elite.

Another aspect of human immortality would be scientific progression slowing to a crawl. Would there be any incentive for new discovery, when timescale is measured in eons? Why risk disturbing the status quo, when eternity lies ahead? Would men voluntarily live in cryogenic/hermatically sealed cocoons, interacting only via virtual simulation, lest they risk physical death through accidents? If you had eternity ahead, would you risk a premateur end by daring to step outside of your home at 24-30% probability of death?

Many good points here.

Regarding the crawling of scientific progress, it depends on what kind of cure you're envisioning. The most realistic right now is the kind of cure where we constantly need to be one step ahead of Death. Every individual "cure" will grant us maybe 20-30 more years, and by the time those are up, we'll have to figure out a way to beat the new issue that will inevitably come up. Doubtless this will some day cease to be the case, though.

Which leads us to people locked inside shells, interacting only via VR. I think that's a very plausible concern. The greater our potential lifespan, the more valuable our life becomes, which means death becomes a far worse thing. If I die now, I will lose a mere let's say 50 years of potential future life, and a 30 or so years of past life. If I die in the future after 'immortality' has been invented, my death might mean thousands of future years lost, and thousands of past years of investment as well. So yes, people will press governments (or the equivalent) to up safety measures/features greatly (driverless cars would be a simple example), and ultimately they'll stop going out of their house at all.

But there's so much we don't know. Maybe we will merge with machines, and we'll have many backups of ourselves, so if any individual token of the type 'John' perishes, it's no biggie.

Generally, I look at it more in terms of inevitability: I think it will happen, so we should better prepare for it. With the birth rates now, we're facing an economic apocalypse in the future. It's well-known and uncontroversial among economists that the population needs to keep growing to sustain the old. It's one of the reasons countries like Germany, with their birthrate of 1.5 per 2 people, are so eager to let immigrants in. But this is an unsustainable system, climate- and planet-wise. So the way I see it, unless we become immortal, we're doomed. Space travel is science fiction at this point, whereas mice are already living 5 times longer in labs. If it were cancer they'd already be in human trials.

Go here https://steemit.com/@a-a-a to get your post resteemed to over 72,000 followers.

Nooooo. Not 'fin'!

Thanks Soo. I've really enjoyed this series and learnt so much about politics, machinations, philosophy...

It's been a real pleasure. Can't wait to see what you turn your eye to next.

Cheers

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I am glad it was entertaining. Thank you for reading.

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