The Great Game 🎲 The Aatari planet of Kollarum

The Orb

~ the present ~

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Our minds are finite, and yet even in the circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can of that infinitude.

The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable.

— Alfred North Whitehead

In his suite overlooking the city of Kollarum, Talfar shut the curtains and sat down in front of his coffee table. Floating six inches above the fragrant cedar tabletop was a translucent ellipsoid, tingling with tiny lights. The ellipsoid was commonly (and mistakenly) referred to as an orb. It was developed a million years ago by the sage Algotodo. In his Book of Fractals, Algotodo wrote,

The fractal orb is an extension of the self, yet it’s also a way to expand the self, which might be seen as the orb’s other half. Because it’s a personal computer, it’s able to serve as an interface between the self and the otherwise overwhelming variety of variables (or uncertainties) that affect our existence.

The patterns inside the orb changed moment to moment, depending on the data the orb received from outside, yet also depending on the physical and mental state of its other half. Heart rate, pupil dilation, blood sugar, body temperature, steadiness of hand, and brain-wave patterns were all taken into account and compared with previous physiological and mental states. A trillion algorithms negotiated between the internal chemistry of the other half and the local and cosmic environments around it.

The fractal orb was the most advanced personal computer in the 13 universes of the Kraslika. Powered by its own tiny subatomic engine, the orb could be as large as a football stadium or as small as a soy bean. What mattered wasn’t its size, but rather the other half’s history with it: what the other half had asked of it and what algorithms, networks, and data the other half had integrated into its operations. The information you got from the orb was only as insightful as what you asked it, what databanks you drew from, and what algorithms you activated. Like any communications system, you only got from it what you were shrewd enough to get.

Every fractal orb was impossible to hack. You’d need an exact copy of the other half to do that. But if you could hack it, it could tell you everything about the other half, and everything about all the secrets it kept to himself. Well, to itself and to the orb, which was in effect the other half of its self too. In this sense the orb was an expanded, geo-spatial half that held all the things the other half never knew or was liable to forget. It also held its most arcane, hidden, and improbable speculations. It held the permutations of how its dreams might work out, and it held disturbing scenarios of what would happen if they didn’t.

The trillion algorithms within the Vicinese orb were controlled by a diamond stone, which lay at the orb’s very core. This stone was a tightly-knit algorithmic sequencer and integrator that aimed to create a state of equilibrium in its owner. It was a sort of personal Raja Yoga device, a portable Diamond Sutra that aimed to create a state of harmony in both the orb and in its other half’s relationship with the outside world. The Vicinese fractal orb differed from the Fallarian scatter orb, which had a black diamond at its centre, and which operated in much the same way but aimed for novelty, departure, revolt, and tension.

Although today’s fractal orb had come a long way from Algotodo’s original design, it always kept its diamond core. In all fractal orbs, the objective, outer world of quadrants, quasars, quarters and quarks became contour lines. The subjective, inner world of quirks, qualms, quarrels, and questions became the inner variables that played a game of hide and seek between these lines.

The outward game of Vicinese life was full of diversity and tension, but the diamond stone rigged the understanding of this game in terms of harmony and integration. The result was a rather Buddhist view of “this fleeting world.” To the average Vicinese, and not just to Vicinese poets and mystics, reality was like it’s portrayed in The Diamond Sutra: “A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, / A flash of lightning in a summer cloud, / A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.” Their favourite poets came up with even more obscure ideas, like these of Ungaretti:

È nei vivi la strada dei defunti, / siamo noi la fiumana d’ombre, / sono esse il grano che ci scoppia in sogno, / loro è la lontananza che ci resta …

In the living lies the road of the deceased, / and we are the river of shadows; / these are the grain that bursts in dream, / and theirs is the distance that remains in us …

Such thoughts made Fallarians laugh. They were one of the few things that made Cagnazzo chuckle out loud to himself. If ever he was depressed, he’d read a few lines and then blurt out something like, Was für Träumer, diese Vicinesen! Sie bilden sich immer ein, sie wären woanders! “What dreamers, these Vicinese! They always imagine they’re somewhere else!”

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Every part of the cosmos was miniaturized in the near-infinite density of the fractal orb. And yet the orb was’t just an accumulator of dry facts. It held theories, poetry, art, and emotional landscapes of history, culture, and belief. Talfar thought of the orb as a miracle of rare device, a phrase from Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan.” Yet Coleridge’s poem also led him to worry about the tensions between the Vicinese and Fallarian empires, which could erupt any minute into another proxy war. And at what point do proxy wars combine with proxy wars to create a general state of war? He was reminded of the line, mid this tumult Kubla heard from far / Ancestral voices prophesying war!

Talfar pressed his right index finger on the word war and nodded his head. The word war glowed in crimson script. The orb floated up from the table and wrapped itself around his head. His head was now literally in the clouds.

High in the mountains of Central Asia, he saw beneath him an epic battle. It could be the Pandavas moving in formation against the Kauravas on the distant plain. It could be Alexander crossing the Indus. Or Babar descending into Rajasthan. Or Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke, together, through the force of their common enmity, reducing the capital city of Karakoram to dust. Or it could be the French army firing their canons at the citadel in Madras, while six British warships sailed south from Calcutta. Talfar merely had to reach out and touch one of these scenarios to explore it further.

The orb knew what to offer him because it knew him. It knew he wasn’t interested in specific battles, but in the more general meaning of war. He turned his head and looked away from the battle. He followed a deep Romantic chasm upstream, to a source that plunged deep underground into a subterranean sea throbbing with ancient life. He looked up into the wet sky that gave birth to the oceans. He reached out his hand to touch a cloud, and a fork of lightning bolted his mind to a faraway planet. Thalphemera was waiting in the lobby of an office building in a crowded city. It was raining outside. Her eyes were mesmerized by the reflection of the lightning on the grey streets. She waited for him to answer her call.

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Talfar kept the room dark and quiet, so that he could focus on the lines and shades in his fractal orb. He was trying to see an overall view of the big question: Should the Vicinese and Fallarian empires allow the Baulians to expand their empire? The Baulians already controlled the Orange Hoop universe, and were in the process of taking over the Violet Hoop:

Talfar saw his present location, on the twinkling blue planet of Kollarum, deep in the Aatari Lok universe. It was here at the Matterhorn, the most famous conference centre and political stage in the cosmos, that all the big problems were debated and negotiated. The Forum conference room was two stories above him. In an hour from now, he and Farenn were scheduled to speak to a crowd of 33,000 on the topic of the Baulian takeover of the Milky Way. After Farenn’s speech, he would address the crowd. Their words would be beamed to every corner of the Kraslika.

Looking at the shimmering orb, the overall dynamic was obvious: from nord to sood, the violet clarity of the Vicinese Empire shifted into the purple obscurity of the Fallarian Empire. Order and Chaos, just as it ever was. And he saw the universe clusters between: Dolcezza, The Great Triangle, The Grey Phantom, and Nebulast.

Talfar zoomed out and looked again at the spherical shape of the Kraslika. He zoomed in toward the centre, the Midbelt, which was comprised of the Great Triangle and the Grey Phantom universe clusters.

It was in one of these clusters, or between the two, that the Soul Star was said to exist. Most believed that it was in the Local Void, not far from the Milky Way.

Talfar asked out loud, “How are we supposed to find a star that is only said to exist?” He then zoomed into the Violet Hoop universe, which expanded to fit the size of the orb.

He remembered the famous Diamond Verse, from The Book of Fractals:

It rotates slowly, like a diamond sphere lit from within. While it is invisible to the naked eye, endless Ages are infracted in its infinite heart. Silently, slowly, in time and beyond time, it rotates in the silence of eternity.

Among the trillion galaxies of the Violet Hoop, one on the very edge floated to the centre, then to the surface: the Milky Way. This galaxy expanded and its periphery dissolved. Along the Orion Arm a solar system with eight planets floated to the surface. The sun disappeared and a green and blue planet consumed the surface of the orb. It was, once again, Earth.

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Next: 🎲 The Star to Every Wandering Bark

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