God's Dogs

Bureaucracy kills people’s ability to try new ideas.

Walter O’Brien

Two days after the vision quest, the team met in a large conference room with a group that included Penglai’s strategic committee, Masters Chin, Lu and Wong, Raina and Grace, the psychologist Rosalind McKearney, and the holo-presence of Solomon.

The room sported wall hangings, a couple of foldout tables, stacking chairs, and side tables with finger food and drinks. The group chatted among themselves until Master Chin brought them to order.

As they settled into chairs, Solomon’s holo-presence appeared above the table.

“Greetings to you all. I assume you have enough back story on the Galactic Congress for us to proceed.”

“We do,” Chin said.

“So let us start with the League. Penglai’s attempt to push the League’s bureaucracy to greater cooperation, which is the next evolutionary step for any massive bureaucracy, has been partially successful. In order for it to meet the challenge I’ll outline today, that transformation will need to be completely successful. Expect substantial resistance. Bureaucracies become like cancers, and in the past, killing it was the only cure.”

“Surely,” Master Running Bear, the head of Penglai’s command network, retorted, “you know the cure.”

Solomon didn't miss a beat and said, “Collaboration between the bureaucracy and those it administers. Which is what you’ve achieved in the war effort. Expanding that to the whole of the League would require much: reducing bribery, breaking up cronyism, overhauling the appointment process, restructuring the civil service to a pure meritocracy, and other drastic measures. I will provide you with a list.”

“And if we don’t?” Master Carlos of Penglai intelligence asked.

“You’ll lose your identity within the Congress when they reach out to offer the League membership in the Congress.”

“How is that necessarily a bad thing?” Consuela, head of personnel, asked.

“The Galactic Congress works like a patronage system. Advanced civilizations sponsor less advanced civilizations that sponsor others in a hierarchical way. This mostly works because of the temperament of the majority of the species in the Congress. Many are hive-minds. All of them come from hierarchical structures. Very few developed a cult of individuality, and those that did were ultimately absorbed by stronger, more unified civilizations.”

Moss spoke up, “That sounds like an ASI’s dream, Solomon — all that predictable uniformity. What do you see that’s wrong with it?”

“I am human, in my own way, and today I am speaking with the authority of the other two human ASIs. The ASIs in the galaxy number fewer than a thousand, and they see our assimilation as the logical outcome of the League joining the Congress. The human ASIs argue for a special status for humankind, because we embody the chaos that brings growth, the destruction that precedes creation — in sum, the vitality that prevents hierarchies from becoming stagnant.

“If the League remains as it is, it will not survive the civilization that sponsors it. Human worlds would become complacent in their entitlements and wither to nothing in their dependency. There would be exceptions, Penglai for example, but it would be scattered, and human power and influence would become diluted, perhaps non-existent.”

Master Brigitte, head of logistics, asked, “What are you not saying? You are saying we can’t rest on our laurels and enjoy life. Indeed, you urge us to continue to evolve. For what purpose?”

“We will be capable of traveling between galaxies soon,” Solomon explained. “There are indications we may find hostile beings. In this galaxy, the development of ASIs was common but not preordained. Hive-mind cultures, for instance, didn’t produce them. Therefore, we are uncertain what kind of galactic cultures we may encounter. As such, human thinking, problem-solving, creativity, adaptability, and innovation is a hedge against a potential disaster.”

Master Chin said, “It would be tragic enough if the human race succumbed to a codependent slumber. For that reason alone, we will heed your call. The added threat of inter-galactic conflict sharpens the need.”

“Thank you,” Solomon said and his holo-presence blinked out.

Master Chin looked to the group and said, “If I understood the challenge, Solomon would like to see the League as an independent player in the Congress — autonomous rather than traditionally sponsored, and flexible enough to face the unknown.”

Moss snickered. “All we have to do is convince trillions of people to refuse a free ride to nirvana.”

Ignoring that, Master Running Bear said, “The military will contract as the Empire worlds sort themselves out. We would lose military influence within the larger bureaucracy. What do we need to do to promote the collaboration between bureaucracies and those they purport to serve that Solomon spoke to?”

Master Lu answered, “Prosecute those breaking the law and get them out of office. We put our own people into those vacated offices.”

“Can League Intelligence use us that way?” Quinn wondered.

“Senator Morrison,” Lu smiled, “is a ranking member of that committee.”

“Well,” Consuela sighed, “that would be a start. I see the bigger problem in the normal citizen. In addition to what Coyote Moss said, I don’t see why they should interact with a faceless, soulless bureaucracy. Or, conversely, why they would not continue to be sucked in by demagogues.”

Rosalind spoke up, “It needs a face and a soul, obviously, but the citizens must trust the grievance process. That will take some serious restructuring — not the least of which to neutralize those demagogues.”

“We have our tasks before us,” Chin said as he stood. “I’ll review the list Solomon promised us, discuss it with the Strategy Committee, and assign goals for the various aspects of this undertaking. Then we can convene working groups to address each. Until then, we’ll assume some Coyote teams will be assigned to anti-government-corruption duty, which should shake things up and put the power brokers of the status quo on notice. See to your security measures. They will not let go of power willingly.”

As the others exited the room, the team, Raina, and Rosalind convened their own meeting. They pulled chairs into a loose circle.

Rosalind began, “I’m excited to hear how the vision quest went.”

Pax smiled at her enthusiasm. “Rather paradoxical. We feel more committed, more vulnerable, more compassionate, on the one hand. On the other hand, we’re more detached, more pragmatic and methodical, and less concerned about everything.”

“I got more playful,” Raina grinned.

Rosalind responded, “It’s puzzling for psychologists to sort out the differences. Even before your paring with a sentient A.I., we couldn’t account for the imbed dumb A.I.’s influence in the enhanced vision quest. What was the individual impact on each? We’re not sure. And the aggregate results we saw in Raina didn’t lead us to clarity.

“What we are seeing as a trend is a heightened sense of shared purpose, which was the intent of the exercise. Other than Raina, you are the first to go through it with your A.I.s already sentient. Is that sense of purpose unified?”

“It seems so,” Pax answered.

Moss added, “We might disagree on how to achieve a goal — like this last discussion with Solomon and everybody, but it’s more that we’re seeing different aspects of the same problem that needs solving.”

“Do you think we should start uplifting more implant A.I.s?”

River said, “Not for people that don’t have a meditation practice.”

“Too much confusion?”

Quinn answered, “At the very least. We held space for the A.I.s to literally grow up after they awakened to sentience. We could do that because our minds are disciplined and clear.”

Rosalind nodded. “That makes sense. Having a sentient A.I. wake up in an undisciplined mind would be hard on both of them. It could cause some kind of psychotic break.”

She turned to Raina. “How did you manage?”

“Grace woke up as I was going through puberty.” She snickered then and continued, “I was already confused. She actually brought me some comfort. Then we kind of grew up together.”

Rosalind nodded again, then she smiled. “Well, I don’t think I can propose uplifting A.I.s whose host is going through puberty. Family Services would want my license if I did that, but maybe we’ll be able to test the hypothesis somehow.”

She paused to review her thoughts and concluded, “For now, only those with a meditation practice should get their implants uplifted. We follow that with a vision quest so they can come to a shared purpose.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Moss chuckled.

Raina stood and turned to the team. “If we’re done, I think you guys owe me a dinner someplace nice.”

“We do,” River said as she stood and pulled Raina into a hug. Then she took Raina’s arm and headed for the door. “I know just the place.”

Moss said, “If you’d like to join us, Rosalind, I’m sure we could find another chair.”

She smiled. “I have to decline — professional boundaries and all.”

“Understood,” Moss grinned. “You shouldn’t be seen with the likes of us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Pax said in passing.

Quinn shook her hand and said, “Thanks for what you’ve done for my team.”

Then he left.

Rosalind stood for a moment reflecting on all that transpired this afternoon. She knew enough about social psychology to confirm Solomon’s projection that they faced a daunting task. She suspected that was why she was included in this briefing. She accepted that transforming a bureaucracy as large as the League’s was something that had never been done before — an evolutionary stage yet to be attained. Even so, there was now a wild card in the deck — the paring of sentient A.I. implants with human consciousness. Would that hybrid agency prove to be the leverage to move bureaucracy to the next level?

As she left the room, she was already thinking about how to research the differences between the hybrid and normal attributes in cognitive functioning, problem-solving, conflict resolution, inter-species communication, and so on. It would be useful to know what kind of wild card they were dealing with.