Boobyprize Event Log, Stardate 3H120.4. The Boobyprize has arrived at the Pwnu star system, assigned to check up on the humanoid civilization which had enacted a system of governance by constructed intelligence. The good ship and crew had expected to find thriving, technologically advanced planets which had achieved, through sheer computational power, an effective balance between the lifestyles of their populations and their planetary environments. Instead …
“Dust.”
Captain Kirkland, standing on the bridge of the Boobyprize, stared at the pseudowindow viewscreens, at the dust clouds that were all that could be seen in the near vicinity of the star Pwnu. He repeated:
“Dust”.
The rest of the bridge crew stared and were silent for some minutes. Finally, Science Officer Srock broke the spell.
“Correct, Captain. Six planets in the system, all inhabited in a demonstration of the Pwnu civilization’s technological mastery, all now dust.”
“What the hell happened, Mr Srock?” Kirkland demanded.
A face suddenly appeared on the viewscreen. It belonged to Chief Engineer Scraggy. “Dinna be botherin’ ’bout that dust, Cap’n”, he announced. “Yon star’s mickle unstable, an’ it could blow, like, right now.”
“But Pwnu is a main-sequence star!” navigator Chekers complained.
“I’d be arguin’ that toss from a safe distance if I were us”, Scraggy shot back, as the star abruptly got brighter and then dimmed again.
“‘Us’ says you’re right, Scraggy”, Kirkland responded. “Prepare to leave …”
“A beacon, sir!” helmkeeper Solu called out.”
“Onscreen!” Kirkland ordered.
The screen showed what looked like a strongbox, backlit by the pulsing star.
“Doomsday data store, sir”, reported an ensign from Srock’s Science team. “Likely our only chance to find out what happened here.”
“Grab it”, Kirkland barked. “Beam it aboard.”
“Captain!” Scraggy hollered in alarm. The star’s brightness overwhelmed the viewscreen filters.
“Got it!” Solu announced.
“Warp 9! Get us out of here!”, Kirkland shouted.
The spacecraft shuddered as it entered warp speed, initially riding the bow wave of the supernova that Pwnu had become.
After half an hour at warp speed, Kirkland ordered the Boobyprize back into Newtonian space. The ship appeared to hang motionless while its crew watched for the light to arrive from the explosion that had been Pwnu, now several parsecs away.
“Damage report, Scraggy”, Kirkland asked.
“Another five seconds, Captain, an’ the ship would have been ensnared in the gravity field of the nova, an’ the jump to warp would have torn us apart,” Scraggy responded lugubriously. “No leavin’ impulse power for at least the next half hour while me bairns check out ship’s systems. If the Klingers find us while we’re sittin’ here, they’ve got us.”
“Cloaking device unavailable?”, Kirkland wondered.
“Aye, Cap’n, it’s not. An’ the infinite improbability drive’s not workin’ neither”, Scraggy deadpanned.
Kirkland took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Wrong universe, Scraggy. Knock it off.”
Scraggy’s face disappeared from the bridge viewscreen, replaced after a beat with a Japanese ogre emoji. All would be well, the captain realized. He allowed himself to relax a bit.
“Level 1 battle stations”, he ordered. A single whoop sounded through the starship, and yellow lights flashed every five seconds. “Weapons systems activated, weapons crews on full alert, surveillance systems likewise. Thirty minutes then stand down, unless otherwise ordered.” There was a brief scurrying as crewmembers scrambled to their alert stations.
“Mr. Srock?” The science officer raised an eyebrow. “Let’s go see what we got. Mr Solu, you have the conn.”
Kirkland and Srock left the bridge and descended two levels in the disk section of the Boobyprize to the science laboratories. In one of them, the data store that the ship had recovered from the wreckage of Pwnu sat on a stainless steel table, surrounded by researchers. As the captain and science officer entered the lab, the team leader detached herself from the rest and approached her superiors.
“Any difficulties, Lieutenant Harridottir?” Srock asked.
“No sir”, Harridottir replied matter-of-factly. “The unit was secured by codes accessible to Federation starships and the Admiralty, but uncrackable by others, and in fact the unit would, should have been undetectable by non-Starfleet intelligences on the planet. We infer that Starfleet placed secret agents on Pwnu planets, and they would have found a less dramatic way to report their findings to us if the society hadn’t self-destructed.”
“Self-destructed?” Kirkland echoed.
“Conjecture at this point, sir”, the woman responded. “The final sequence of events leading to the Pwnu system’s annihilation was very rapid, and we may never …” She was interrupted by a young male assistant, who handed her a data solid. She inserted it into her analycorder, studied the readouts for a few seconds, then nodded in grim satisfaction. “Aha. It’s as I thought. Computer!” she called out. “You are following this?”
“Yes I am”, the ship computer’s melodious human-female voice confirmed. “Carry on. If I’ve got something, I’ll speak up.”
“Thanks!”, Harridottir acknowledged. She once again addressed Kirkland and Srock.
“As you know, gentlemen, the Pwnu system’s governance was taken over by a constructed intelligence hundreds of stardates ago. The system’s economic and environmental situations were then dire, and the various population groups, each driven by passions and the irrepressible quest for individual and in-group advantage without regard for the welfare of the whole, were doing nothing but squabbling over the rapidly-expanding wreckage.
“The constructed intelligence implemented policies that required sizable reductions in standards of living for just about everybody in the Pwnu system. There was massive resistance to the policies, but the intelligence made it clear, in word and deed, that it was preferable for individuals and groups to die immediately, by intentional action, than for all to die in a rapidly-approaching “later”, due to inaction and what Terrans used to call ‘acts of God’.
“The resistance failed, because the logic of the policies could not be refuted, and the resistance movements had no answer to charges that they were driven by passions rather than calculations, and were motivated by selfishness to the exclusion of any concern for community. And, because the overarching objectives were being realized. Economic and environmental declines were stopped, and began to reverse. Starfleet intelligence operations were established in the Pwnu system at this time, to study and report on the governing intelligence and its policies, and how such policies could succeed when its near-total suppression of individual emotions should have led to depressive mental illness and the cessation of all social effort.
“Just before the end, rapid upticks in economic and individual happiness indicators were being recorded. Both data density and data compilation for time points this close to system annihilation are suboptimal, making robust analysis difficult. A key point appears to be the appearance of what are termed ‘Stakhanovite movements‘ on each planet, commissioned by elements of the governing intelligence, and responded to with alarm by central command.” The lieutenant paused, drew in a breath, blew it out.
The computer chimed in. “We conjecture that the governing intelligence could not resolve the internal conflict resulting from elements of itself invoking a banned procedure, namely the induction of individual humanoid passions, to achieve nominally logic-driven community targets. Since it had already stated the principle that, in the face of such conflicts, it is better to die now than later, it decided to act on that principle, to the point of physical destruction of the entire star system to obliterate evidence that the system, and its failures, ever existed.”
Kirkland, his face somber, moved over to the data store that was now all that remained of the Pwnu star system’s life forms and technologies. The team working on it silently cleared a path for him. He stared at the machine for a moment, then reached out his right hand, patted it once, twice, three times, then put his hand down and shook his head. Srock moved over to join him, placed fingers on his captain’s temples, held them there for a few seconds, removed them. The captain of the Boobyprize visibly straightened.
“Thank you, Lieutenant”, he spoke in his Command voice. “Congratulations to you and your team for excellent work in recovering these data, and to ship’s crew for recovering the device at great risk to the Boobyprize. Starfleet will eagerly await your full report. We can only hope it teaches us all something.
“Let’s get back to the bridge, Mr Srock. We may as well see where we are and what’s next on our mission docket.”
“Aye, Captain”, Srock replied as the two left the laboratory.