“Good day, all. Welcome to this meeting of our Universal Science Festival. I am your host, Brian Greenbelt, a facsimile of another Brian of long ago. He was one that had always been fascinated by today’s topic of discussion, so thankfully, I am not alone in this obsession, though I still may be hiding in some dark corner of academia with my dusty books and candles burned low. No. Tonight, I will be joined by some others of various backgrounds, but we’re also joined by many notable persons of the past.

“Back, when humankind was first becoming accustomed to the times surrounding Zero Year...a time when religion was still more prominent than science, which even governed scientific thought...it came to be realized among the intellectuals that all the world could be known through scientific understanding. After the early geometric shapes were identified and prime numbers were found to go on ad infinitum.

“This was a major conflict with current thought, and a conflict within their own psyche which they fought to resolve. Some came to the conclusion that if all the universe’s mysteries could be solved with scientific methods, then their god, who was unknowable to their miniature mortal minds, had...made the universe...using specific parameters and rules, and that these rules were rigid, were certain...In this manner, God was a sort of...clockmaker. The universe was created, and then set to spin. 

“How relieved they were! They weren’t heretics! Necessarily, at least. Looking around, they saw no god, but this wasn’t evidence to the contrary. God’s agency was present only at the beginning of time, but at least there was a god. He may not be there, guiding us in some great plan as the religious powers of the day told us in order to retain political power, but there was a god. There were still some wary eyes cast in their direction, but they were spared the martyrs’ fate, unlike Galileo.”

Shudders of laughter rippled through pockets of the audience, while backs stiffened for others. Heretics were among them, to this day, and there were those that would label the speaker as such. To dissent was to evoke entropy. To evoke entropy is to conjure the pollen storms. As a public face for advocates of order and the benefits of attaining high coherence, words like these could get you canceled.  

” And today, what do we call ourselves? The People of the Book. Why? Because of him.” Brian swung his hand behind to the silvery humanoid figure standing stage-left. “Because of them.” His arms opened out to the audience, identifying the similar forms and various modified units, one for each attendee. “Because of this.” From his hand poured forth a stream of pollen, spilling out and becoming the display of the universe. 

“While our souls may last for eternity, our bodies do not. Yes, even with our current level of life extension enabling health spans of thousands, millions of years, or more, we die. When that happens, they upload the data of our semi-coherent lives to Reggie’s distributed ledger, the BeastChain.”

[Librarian Entry] No one’s going to remember the BeastChain! You’re talking over their heads. Their whole lives are reflected on the second layer. 

“Silent observers, they may be, yet passive, they are not! Do you know what’s inside their shimmery visages? Don’t you suspect there may be something, someone behind them? Of course, you do, that’s why you buy them little hats or pay to conform them into fashionable pins or animals, disguises to cover up the fact that they are watching our every move, recording our entire lives! We have leaderboards for the weights of our shit, how many base-line’s killed, the amounts of adrenaline taken in during games of Fear. They record everything about us. Nothing is sacred, and nothing is private. Your brain waves are measured, simulated, forecasted and then sold as data to the highest bidders; one of them, tonight, being me. I brought you here with advertising. And I’ve doomed you all.”

[Librarian Entry] Mr. Destroyer is coming. 

Brian’s fingertips crackled with energy. “I’ll save that for later. Yes.”