"You see, once a man is called for to fight, wherever he is, he will come to fight."

"No, I wouldn’t do that," I said.

"I see. That brings you a step closer to being woke."

***

That was wrong. I had the power to make the choice to not fight. That had value, indistinguishable from will.

Ideology was merely willful possession. I pondered over the element of the fourth wall in Life of no Legacy. The game could simply have been an attempt to recreate reality. It was instead something in between.

‘I think, therefore I am,’ said Descartes. I wondered if all the statues and exposées I saw would come down crashing instead. I knew they would. The art section made sense. Art recaptured reality, and the theory of reality itself. The theory simply attempted to come alive.

Compared to that, my own experience at recreation of reality was limited. It was philosophical eyewash. A weird digital town square, with the characters as the merchandise.

For me, in hindsight, wokism – wokeness – simply reflected the notion that prevention was often cowardice. That meant I should be happy for being able to visit the art section of the Royal Lucretius.

Habit was religion. Non-hard-science law was institutionalized religion. ‘I think, there I am.’ That was a far cry from ‘we see the world the way it is, because we exist.’ It was perhaps fortunate that existence was a theory, limited by space and time. Existence was not limited by history (even with the limitation of time), nor by institutionalized religion.

In that case, why did art come to exist?

Without knowing that, I simply raised my head. A saint would observe people, and perhaps receive charity. A tyrant simply did what he did, and observed its hard effects. Religion. In my mind, a scapegoat and a scarecrow stared at each other.

I reverted to my reading. The first article described – in 2018 – the implementation of facial recognition systems into school settings, by Chinese authorities. In one example, a camera was set in a classroom, above the blackboard. The camera monitored the emotions of the students, including feelings of anger, happiness, sadness, surprise and fear. The AI monitoring the camera recognized behaviors too. This meant you paid a prize for slacking off. (Harridy, 2018)

Compulsory attendance was not enough, it seemed. To my mind, two thoughts came. The first one was that we would sooner have an authoritative AI god, than a human-experience-based Babel god. The second thought was that the article was simply blog content when presented inside a game.

How I would perceive or react to the presence of an AI god, or such equivalent, other than YouTube deep-thinking, I did not know.

Since it was not a debate, nor a stage, I kept my thoughts to myself. It was an interesting article. Why care about the article? It was because ideals obliged. Command of respect was agnostic to a great extent. Might as well understand what was happening, as an individual.

I chose this moment to go on an MBTI rant.

Hikkigaya Hachiman went ‘Totsukawai’ instead of finding an ENFP-like intp of his age. Maybe that was not ENFP-like for him. The equivalent was occasionally a weird effervescent smile, or a certain resemblance with the Esfp equivalent of baby face. Or it bore resemblance with an estp like Demi Moore or Batman's girlfriend. I knew little of the personality inside. I

If I were Hachiman and that I had not watched the music clip for Aldnoah.Zero op 2, I would probably have gone for Yuigahama. It was an irrelevant personal opinion. ‘No, seriously. From the perspective of stories, that was basically what fictional religion was – griping, bragging or fanpersoning.’

Anyway. The Royal Lucretius provided a particular kind of environment. I was pretty sure this aspect of the game could just have been a series of presentations and research papers, unless it counted as virtual reality. Or you presented risqué jokes in a song, so that society would at least sneeze, but allow you to have your opinion. Possession of opinion would be the first principle of freedom, given that philosophy itself required sticking to the first principles. Elon Musk constantly emphasized on having first principles.

...Unless you wanted to go scarecrow or scapegoat mode on non-negotiated, non-personal, non-hard-science, institutionalized religion, which was, obviously, often the case. That was why you had to trample freedom.

I picked the next article. This one was from 2021, Earth time.

It talked about the social credit system in China, which likely started in 2020, what with the fortuitous COVID-19 virus outbreak and all. For Chinese individuals, their trust level with the state’s law rested on personal behavior.

[For me, the state’s institutionalized religion – which was what social laws ultimately were – was the same grid-lock of power that fueled identity politics. It was as necessary to be transcendental as the differentiating opposite negated the efforts of transcendence. I had read of protests against a civilization test, for the ability to vote, in South Africa, but I could be wrong.]

Personal behaviors that could be penalized included slacking off in a single area, that was, being lazy, and having a smoke in no-smoking zones. Binge-playing video game quests was also an act worthy of persecution. You were screwed if you did not pay your bills on time. Making false claims and spreading false news landed a sock in your mouth, instead of food or glory. Burning crosswalks was also an offensive behavior for the social credit system.

Low credit scores could result in travel bans and reduced web connections. It could result in not getting specific jobs, and you were prohibited from attending particular schools. (Slick, 2021)

It was basically like having religious coins, without control on their meaning, and being unable to give it back. Just like a social Sisyphus. All things said, religion was a set of ideologies, rooted in perceived meaning. It simply was about what was important to you, and how dumb you were. It would be radical to claim, that all sources of power, by virtue of being power sources, had the potential of ideology.

I remembered the pond I fell into, when I first woke up, in the Plain of Desolation, at level 0. That pond had been more familiar than a scarecrow. Reynolds, the electro ghoul, came to mind. His painting was a good catalyst. Next to the articles, I found a comic strip.

It was about a young boy, his dog, and two persons. The first one was a man. The second one was a woman.

[Man: Go back to serving tea in India, you loser!

Woman: Don’t listen to him. You’ve got your chance. Grab it.

Boy: I can’t. My social predestination has already been determined since my birth. The robot has given his verdict on it.

Woman: Listen, Garuda. You are free to do anything.

The dog barked.

Woman: You too, Sunshine. Every person can use an assistant, at all levels.

The dog barked again.

Woman: I see you are going to be more joyful to have around, than practical. That’s fine, as long as you don't turn into a chimera. That would suck. *laughs*

Boy: That’s not funny.

Woman, cheeky: I had to mention my views, xD. Good luck, Garuda.]

On the last image strip, I could see Garuda running, with a blue background, on a green platform.

"Bruh, where are you running?"

I wondered how Nina was doing. I wondered how the red slimes were doing. Was there a way to dampen the flames of the burning castle I saw after killing my first red slime? I had completed my first regional quest by rescuing Emma Decker. I had met Nina Pyrrhos and completed my first covenant quest.

I figured I would take up another quest after being done with my visit.

I stepped back from the newsstand. I turned to my right and went on. Ahead, I was greeted by a room of small-sized buildings. These were probably constructed by silicon and glass, given their sleekness. There were trees and clear, open spaces.

System Notification

This is a miniature model of the Royal Lucretius institute. This attraction is known for being difficult to put down, given its detailings. Its architect, Mr. Jack Glia, is proud to have evolved the miniature project by actually building the Royal Lucretius.

As I looked at the model, the image of an old building came to mind, with rocky layers upon rocky layers forming its walls.

Glia had successfully carried out the vision he held.

Who was Jack Glia? What were his thoughts and feelings? Why did he make the Royal Lucretius? What kinds of stories could he tell me? I did not know.

I entered another open area. Overhead the next room, I saw four dragons. From the indention under each, I could discern ‘quasar dragon’, ‘neutron dragon’, ‘red-sun dragon’, and ‘plasma dragon’. Maybe I would see a ‘super-dragon’ inside.

Believing or not believing in the existence of these dragons was another matter. Charles Dickens concentrated a lot of realism for his novels. For my part, as I looked at the dragons, I had a feeling my inner narrator would take over, like any decent artist would, over his realm of ideas, people and products.

Dragons. That was a nice theme. A nice myth to go along with that, and it would be awesome.

I entered the science section. I saw a hologram of a solar system.

I had expected to see a human skull, but none of this kind of luck. A skull would likely be available in the next room.

The hologram of the solar system broke down into clouds of gas. The clouds of gas swirled, and accumulated. They formed into the solar system. I noted that Life of no Legacy also followed the nine-planet pattern as our universe's home solar system. The solar system shortly broke into clouds of gas again.

I remembered that when space-time oscillated, it carried energy. It created a wave that carried quanta. Quanta were packets of energy. I knew, because I was enthusiastic just from knowing this fact, reversible if it may be.

Light shone about the solar system in a steady fashion. The hologram changed form again.