Post by Floyd Looney on Dec 23, 2010 0:51:11 GMT -5
Tin Gods
[/u]by Floyd Geron Looney[/center]
Harkin sat at the large round table looking at the faces of the other men and women, a large holographic projection hovered in the air at the center of the room. It was a representation of Earth, or at least its clone, divided up into twelve portions.
One man was standing. “This is the time we begin, this is the time we become small gods. We will develop and nurture civilizations of our own. We now have the technology to live for thousands of years while our minds take whatever physical presence we wish elsewhere.”
Harkin thought the chamber was rather dark, lit only by the large bluish-white hologram at the center and the twelve individual purplish portals. These led to their independent chambers, no one else could enter their portal and the individual vessels were outside of space-time, impossible to find even for the other eleven ‘gods’ in the room.
“We will each plant civilizations. We will create our own peoples and we will watch and help here and there as they progress from the ground level to more advanced societies. We will live amongst them for generations at a time and we can will our projected bodies to change or to age to fool those around us until we decide to be young again with a new name. However we do this we can see the rise and fall of civilizations from whatever vantage we desire”
Harkin looked at the others around the table. Wilhelm who had only spent a few years in the real Germany after growing up in rural Canada just to assume the mantle of a great German leader with an exaggerated accent.
Seiji had grown up in Idaho, Utah and Georgia before enlisting as an agent of the Great Asia Unionist Conspiracy and then surrendering to the international forces.
Sergio had once been a guerilla soldier for a drug lord that had attempted to take over Chile, escaping before the Battle of Santiago.
These three men were more idealist and dreamers; they were useless as foot soldiers. How they had become part of this project was a blank. The other eight had names and faces but their pasts were a mystery to Harkin.
The meeting was coming to a close. They wouldn’t be having any more. This time it was for real, they would spend however many centuries or millennia their lives had as little gods of this world in front of them. Harkin entered his portal and was instantly nowhere. That is to say no longer a part of the known universe but outside of it and into a small bubble reality where his vessel and the god-power machines were waiting.
The nurturing cylinder that would contain and take care of his physical body didn’t look like much given its task, but from all the testing and preparations he knew it did. As he climbed in and watched the automatic locks shut the lid and begin pumping in the needed chemicals he briefly wondered how many other worlds the project was using. How many little human gods were out there?
The effects of the chemicals took hold and the machines performed their functions because almost instantly he was standing on Earth, looking over the Grand Canyon.
Of course it was not the real Earth, not the original. There was no theme park next to the canyon and he wouldn’t find any spaceport near here either. Instead the entire North American continent, or its clone, was an unpopulated land awaiting his creation of people.
Harkin looked down at his body and found none, just empty space. He immediately conjured an image of a Native American “Indian” and willed it as his body. Instantly it was. He could feel the sun on his face and the breeze on his hands, his hair rustling about his ears. He didn’t have to be a “red skin” of course. He could populate this land with any sort of human or a mix of them.
They could be Polish-speaking Eskimos if he wanted them to be. Harkin though, decided that he wouldn’t expend his energies on this. He would simply go with Native Americans who spoke English, which was his native language. He knew that the machines would translate whatever other language he might have given them in real time, but he wanted to get started right away.
First he conjured a chieftain and instilled in him the kinds of reasoning and leadership qualities that a wise ruler would need. Afterwards he set about giving him two dozen younger followers, or braves, and then enough women for them to all have wives. They saw Harkin as a shaman or medicine man.
He showed them which plants had medicinal qualities and how to treat snakebites. He taught them different hunting techniques suited for the dry desert climate and how to make animal hides into teepees that could be collapsed and moved easily to where the hunting was better.
Harkin found it interesting that in less than a month the tribe members were covering their bodies with animal skins. He hadn’t shown them or taught them to do that. Modesty was apparently an innate quality after all. Harkin showed the young men how to make basic stone tools like hatchets and knives and he showed them how to make spears and arrows.
Harkin was only using a small part of his consciousness at the village but all over the continent he was planting other villages with or without a physical presence. He visited them, of course, and was always greeted as a shaman or a wise man of some sort. He could even be present in more than one place at a time with practice.
Sometimes when it was night and he was bored of exploring or flying as an eagle he would go into other parts of the world and observe what was going on. They wouldn’t be able to see him but it allowed him to observe. He watched as the Romans of Wilhelm’s Europe learned to build brick roads to connect their future empire. Harkin watched the Greek city-states start to rise again as if from history but with differences than that of the real Earth.
He found a Stonehenge where the pyramids of Giza should have been. He found well-organized societies in Asia as if under strict control and with a central purpose, although this didn’t occur to him at the time.
In South America he found many warring tribes being produced by Sergio. Apparently that tin-pot God was amusing himself with ritual slaughter and bloody wars. Harkin wondered if Sergio was a participant in the battles and executions. He thought it was likely and had a passing thought that possibly that man was insane.
One fine day Harkin was amusing himself as a seagull flying high and hovering over the beach and then swooping low to gobble up a small crab or other juicy morsel. Then he became a human again, this time a young male matching the garb and look of the local tribes. He sat on the beach and watched the sunset as his mind examined other villages.
He had started this project more than four generations ago and wondered if there was a point. Could they be monitoring what was going on here? The organization that sent them here probably had that ability Harkin thought, seeing as what they had given us.
Unlike back on the original Earth these tribes were peaceful and there had been no real conflict between all of the tribes that had formed. It never occurred to him that he could become a tribal leader or rule an empire. He saw that Seiji seemed to be ruling the Asian lands personally, even though this was not allowed.
While observing Asian lands he had noticed small golden statues or totems in nearly every village but at first assumed these were like Buddha back on the first Earth. Only after many visits did he deduce that this was an image of an actual ruler who had lived far longer than possible. Tall white and gold palaces had been erected in several cities and the ruler was present in all of them at the same time.
During the next few centuries all of Europe was consolidated under the New Roman Empire whose maritime ships carried large cannons. Harkin began to become alarmed by the Asian and Roman Empires ruled by god-like dictators. Harkin thought such direct control was against the rules but the more he thought about it he knew there weren’t any rules.
He called a council of the chieftains of the twenty tribes that controlled North America and described to them the two mighty empires. He told them that their lands were ripe for conquest because the peoples were used to peace. Harkin explained the concept of peace through strength as best he could and told them that an organized defense with newer weapons could make a big difference.
The New Roman Empire had ships carrying three hundred armed with a dozen cannons that were taking control of the northern Atlantic Ocean. Harkin began teaching the construction of wooden catapults and devices that could launch dozens of fire spears at a time at vessels approaching the shores. He believed that within two generations the two empires would attack.
He began to doubt his ability to prepare the peoples on the continent. Then he decided to make direct contact. He flew over the imposing white and gold palace that rose high above any other buildings near where Shanghai should be. He non-corporeally entered through the large main doors and found himself in the huge throne room.
Seated upon the jewel encrusted golden throne was the one worshipped as a true God all over Asia and commanding a massive army. This God was lying on his side on pillows being fed grapes and fruits by young slave girls.
Harkin formed a body directly in front of the throne. The guards stiffened with alarmed at the apparition and the God barely widened his eyes.
“I have been wondering how long it would take for you to pay me a visit” Seiji said with a sigh.
“Seiji, what do you think you’re doing?” Harkin asked “We were to help at the margins, encourage them and make a discovery or two along the way, not become rulers”
“They never actually said we couldn’t” Seiji pointed out “Besides its fun. I like being pampered and giving orders”
The guards and slave girls did not understand what Seiji was saying judging by their facial expressions. Harkin knew that whatever language they used the other would instantly understand.
“What is fun about playing with toys? Isn’t it more interesting to give them freedom and seeing what they do with it?”
Seiji laughed and glanced at one of the slave girls who quickly raised a jug of wine to his lips. The other was ready to pat his lips with a silk towel.
“Do you think I only do this?” Seiji asked “Do you not think I have swum the ocean as a tuna? Do you not think I have raised a family as a panda? Do you not think I have flown across the skies? I have done many things. I could be doing those things now while we talk. It is you who have not used his gift to the fullest. My, you have been lazy these past centuries, haven’t you?”
Harkin had done those sorts of things too, of course. “What do you mean?”
“It is like chess, you remember chess right?”
“These are people, Seiji, not playthings” Harkin said, instantly regretting it. Of course from our perspective they were indeed like playthings. From one who will live for thousands of years with such power at a whim, mere humans might come to seem inconsequential. The way a human might treat a bug.
Of course it would mean that Seiji no longer considered himself to be a human being. Seiji might have forced himself to forget that his physical body, a mortal human, was in a nurture tank aboard a vessel somewhere outside of space-time. That he really was just a human when it all came down to it.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
“You have dealt yourself a weak hand in this poker match” Seiji told him “Even if I decide to march my armies east do you think the New Roman Empire will ignore you?”
Harkin was silent for just a moment “Are you working with Wilhelm?”
Another haughty laugh and then answer came from Seiji. “We both know the rules of this game but it seems that everyone else decided to play their own games. Too bad for them really, what happens to a God who has lost his territory? The twelve of us might be untouchable but living without our own turf would probably be no fun at all”
“Why must you play warlord?”
A rude smile was his answer. “Would you like me to march against Vijay’s hapless subcontinent instead? Do you think you would feel at ease with your conscious if you agreed to that?”
Seiji knew Harkin too well. “It’s too bad, Harkin. Had you given up this pathetic high-mindedness this would be a lot more fun. Having just the two empires is so straightforward. We will just gobble away at the rest of the world and then fight each other. Meanwhile poor Vijay is probably experiencing giving birth as an elephant, doesn’t that sound like her?”
Harkin hadn’t known her that well. Apparently Seiji had gotten a lot more information about the others, how long ago did he decide this was a game of conquest? Years before they ever set foot on this clone of Earth Harkin would have bet.
“Vijay will be able to amuse herself without her territory I’m sure” Seiji said “It’s not like we can actually harm each other. That is why I think of it as a game. Consider it an immersive computer simulation and you will feel better about it all”
“So you have absolutely no care for your own people?” Harkin asked
“I created them and I can wipe them away” Seiji said “They are not my people. You and ten others are my people. They are like stick figures on a chalkboard”
“They think, they have feelings, we made them but they are as real as we are” Harkin told him.
Seiji reached out and patted one of the pre-pubescent slave girls on the head. “Tonight I will make cruel love to this one and then I will become a tiger and eat her” he said “I can make another girl or a hundred in an instant. Why am I supposed to waste my compassion on these short-lived people when I have a higher purpose? That is of course having fun trying to conquer this planet”
Harkin knew Seiji would never understand the point. Seiji had lost his humanity or at least his regard for it. Harkin melted away from the throne room and once again stood upon his land in his own moccasins.
“No fun at all” pouted Seiji and then he leaned forward and licked one of the girls on the cheek.
