Book 3 Chapter 9
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  "Chiharu, are you free?" Saki knocked on her sister's door a day later. She was at her wit's end trying to figure out why the world was composed almost solely of Dead Enders. If Chiharu didn't know the answer, the most analytical girl she knew, then no one did. The time had come to seek out wisdom, she'd exhausted her own on the last question.

  Chiharu opened the door, looking surprised. "This is unusual. What do you need? Help on your homework?"

  "Kind of." Saki said, stepping into her sister's room and taking a seat on her bed. "Eri, my friend you met at the amusement park, got an assignment from her parents to identify the existential crises facing mankind, and why almost everyone on Earth is responsible for them. She passed the question on to me, and I can't make heads or tails of it. I thought you might know."

  "Why is everyone a Dead Ender?" Chiharu repeated, sitting down on the bed beside Saki. "I've explained it before, but I guess you weren't there at the time."

  "You know the answer?" Saki looked up hopefully at her college age, sophisticated sibling.

  "Well there are multiple answers. The wyrds have a simple definition, Dead Enders are people who, if followed or emulated by the entire population, would result in the stagnation or extinction of the world, a flat line with just one possible future. It's easy when you consider a suicide cult or something, why that would result in only one possible future." Chiharu started.

  "See, I mentioned that too, but Eri said that was wrong. Even suicidal people are only making choices based on specific circumstances, most of which would never happen, so they could be safely followed or emulated." Saki said.

  "But I said a suicide cult, people who commit suicide based on an abstract belief, which transcends any particular circumstances they might find themselves in." Chiharu replied.

  "Oh, sorry." Saki retracted her objection.

  "But I guess that sums it up right there. Dead Enders are people whose abstract beliefs, if faithfully followed by everyone alive, would lead to stagnation or extinction." Chiharu said.

  "But surely most people's abstract beliefs are harmless. Take Christianity. It's the most widely held abstract belief on Earth. It's clearly wrong, you can't fit two of every animal on a boat, and the world isn't six thousand years old, but even though it's wrong, it's never led to the stagnation or extinction of mankind. Abstract beliefs, however false, are generally harmless." Saki argued.

  "Are they? Or are we just not looking far enough ahead? How long has Christianity been around?" Chiharu asked.

  "Two thousand years." Saki replied.

  "And how long does a single Wyrd live?" Chiharu asked.

  "Umm." Saki said. She really didn't know.

  "Maybe to them 2,000 years, or 10,000 years, is part of a rapid catastrophic disaster. I always liked in history, looking back, we describe the Fall of Rome as some sort of actual event, a happening that we can mark down on our calendars. But for the people of the time, they never felt Rome was falling. Rome was still Rome, the same as it had ever been. Oh, sure, new rulers were in power, and maybe they were poorer than their ancestors, but nothing had really changed. They would have argued hotly that Rome was still just fine, the capital had just been transferred a bit further east, that's all. Constantinople stood until 1453 AD. And the people living there still felt they were the same Roman empire they'd always been." Chiharu said.

  "So you're saying that we're just like the Byzantines. We say Christianity is harmless, and they say Rome's capital just moved a bit to the east, but an outsider's perspective looking in with an elongated timeline sees a complete collapse both times." Saki tried to explain things to herself.

  "Precisely. Wyrds and humans are different. They care about stuff that will happen far into the future, whereas we don't. They see the long term consequences of our thinking that we don't, while we simply enjoy the short term consequences of our thinking without a qualm, because the long term is a long way's away." Chiharu said.

  "But doesn't that mean that it's all nonsense? Won't humans simply change their abstract views once they start to hinder us however many thousands of years from now, thus completely dispelling the supposed crisis?" Saki asked.

  "Will they?" Chiharu asked. "We've seen it many times before, Saki. A culture that enters a period of total stagnation, no matter how many years pass. Egypt. China. The Australian Aborigines. Eskimos. Amazon rainforest tribes. Even Japan. And all of the inferior species of the Earth, who have lived for millions of years and never changed, not once, not even the slightest. There were times when countries were richer, more technologically advanced, and more populous centuries ago in their pasts than they were in their futures. Almost every single time, these countries did not reform and renovate themselves. There was no sudden enlightenment where they got their acts together and tried something new. No one rose up among them and said, "This isn't working, I suggest we implement an entirely different religion, political system, economic system, education system, and set of virtues in order to turn things around. Any change, at this point, would be for the better. Let's give it the old college try!"

  Saki giggled. Chiharu was right. People in the past didn't appreciate change or progress like the people of the present did. Sometimes those were considered dirty words, or even worse, their languages didn't even include them in their vocabulary.

  "No, there weren't any internal reforms. Every time it took an outside culture to dynamically barge in and change things for them. History is a giant patchwork of good cultures spreading out from tiny local sources, consuming the weak and failed stagnant cultures of their neighbors, and then proceeding to fail and stagnate in turn, when they reach the limit of their abstract potential, only to be replaced by some new invading innovative culture. This is how humanity has struggled upwards from the stone age, through migrations and conquests, cultural evolution, group selection of good ideas that worked over bad ideas that didn't lead anywhere for those who held them. The wyrds are right. Stagnation is a real threat. If the beliefs most people hold would eventually result in a stagnant world, once it began, we would never recover. We would never change. Humans, like their ideas, would be stagnant vacant morons who would just endlessly repeat things and never try anything new. It's happened untold times in history. It makes perfect sense that it would happen again." Chiharu said.

  "But why would Christianity stagnate even though it's ushered in progress for two thousand years?" Saki asked.

  "Hello? The Dark Ages?" Chiharu pointed out. "But even granting your premise, the answer is simple. Occasionally there are heroic individuals who can revolutionize their cultures all on their own. They're the people who can shatter the pattern and revitalize mankind with infinite possibilities. They've always been among us. It didn't start with me, or even Masanori. Anyone in history who appeared out of nowhere and changed everything was probably a Choice Giver. And there were probably millions more in history who nobody listened to or followed, who would have had just as dramatic and destabilizing an effect. Christianity was saved by a Choice Giver, Martin Luther. The history books won't say that, but it's true. Catholicism had become stagnant, corrupt, ignorant and cruel. All that changed when he nailed his ten points to the local church's door. He created a new future, one full of new possibilities, that to a wyrd, with imperfect vision, could easily be seen as infinite."

  "But if Martin Luther was a Choice Giver, why are Protestants Dead Enders? Or if Jesus was a Choice Giver, why are Catholics Dead Enders? Shouldn't they all be followers and emulators?" Saki asked.

  "The wyrds explained that. Martin Luther may have had all the answers in his heart, but he could only write so much and so well. He couldn't possibly explain himself fully about every last detail, concerning every last hypothetical future possibility. If a new circumstance came up and Martin Luther noticed it, he would've made the right choice that would have preserved humanity's possibilities, but what about his followers? They may not have been as bright as him, and without any guide from his words on the matter, they could come to a completely different answer. Just for example, during the American civil war, the South said the Bible condoned slavery, whereas the North said it condemned it. They can't have both been right. Jesus could only have had one opinion on the matter. But that opinion is lost to history. Looking back, we simply don't know, and everyone interprets his words to suit themselves, and all their interpretations aren't actually what Jesus would do." Chiharu said.

  "Following dead Choice Givers just doesn't work very well, huh?" Saki thought about it.

  "Dead Choice Givers have a half life. They're extremely valid in their day. Then they're pretty valid the next century. And then they might have a few good ideas the next. But by the forth century after their death, how many of their opinions still have any bearing on the real world? And how many people correctly remember and interpret his opinions? How many are still following the true Jesus Christ, Choice Giver, instead of their own made-up doppelganger?" Chiharu asked.

  "Considering most Christians don't even read the Bible anymore. . ." Saki surrendered. "I guess it could turn into a Dead Ender religion over time. Even if it started out as a force for progress instead of stagnation, it won't necessarily remain that way for all time."

  "Bingo." Chiharu said. "Only modern Choice Givers who have modern opinions and can explain themselves fully when asked about what they'd do, whose true motivations and visible feelings more eloquently deliver their meaning than any dry words -- these are the only people we can follow without reaching a dead end somewhere in the future. When I die, I hope no one gives a fig about what I said. I want them to be listening to someone else, someone the wyrds trust as much as me, who's up to date with all the latest changes, and can appeal to their target audience in whatever way works best for them. Choice Givers must continuously pass the baton to the next generation, or we'll become the next great evil, the next stagnant rut mankind falls into, rather than Good's champions breaking down all walls and making the impossible possible."

  "Choice Givers are prophets of a living God." Saki realized.

  "Well said!" Chiharu exclaimed. "That's what I mean. God doesn't just suddenly stop talking to us. Choice Givers have been among us every generation, speaking true prophecies, spreading the Truth as far and wide as they could, preserving our future and propelling mankind's progress. There's no end to revelation. The end to revelation is the end. Without new revelations, we'll stagnate. I don't care at what level, it'll still be a stagnant pool. Stagnation is death."

  "Insofar as old ideologies are still useful, it's because they've been reinterpreted time and again by other Choice Givers who took the baton and passed it on, like Martin Luther." Saki guessed.

  "Right. Only, there haven't been any influential innovative Christian thinkers in ages. You could make an argument for C.S. Lewis, but honestly he doesn't impress me. Then again, religious thinkers all strike me as pretty pathetic." Chiharu smiled wryly.

  "So Christianity has reached the end of its rope, as far as we can see, until a new Choice Giver revives it like a phoenix from the ashes with a whole new direction, and would ordinarily make any country who adopted it wither on the vine." Saki said.

  "Unfortunately, there are practically no Christian countries left to test this theory on that would prove my point. No one actually follows the religion anymore. They've moved on to Enlightenment thinking, which is almost the complete opposite of Christianity on every subject. But there is one Dead Ender religion which is alive and kicking to test it on." Chiharu suggested.

  "Islam." Saki knew the intended target immediately.

  "Bingo. Islam has lasted 1400 years, but all of its innovation has been due to outsiders, it is intrinsically incapable of reform or progress if left to itself. And as a result, Islamic countries are the backwater of the world, always behind in every field, always wrong about everything, and unwilling to do anything about it. Islam is the perfect example of how humanity could lose all of its possibilities, all of its potential, and stagnate its way to irrelevancy. To make things even scarier, it's the fastest growing religion on Earth. If left unchecked, it's conceivable that Islam could someday conquer the entire world, meaning no outside reforming culture could ever make headway and reform it from abroad, and then it would simply sit on their conquered world like a dog in the manger. It would do nothing with humanity, since its religion insists on doing nothing and changing nothing, but it wouldn't allow humanity to become anything other than Muslims either. After all, in Islam, the penalty for apostasy is death." Chiharu said.

  "So is that it? The world is composed of Dead Enders because the wyrds are foreseeing the victory of Islam?" Saki asked.

  "It's a possibility." Chiharu said. "But it gets even more interesting than that. What if you aren't a Muslim, but you insist on tolerating and celebrating the diversity and enrichment that is Islam, rather than forcefully opposing and preventing its spread across the world? What does that make you?"

  "A Dead Ender!" Saki said.

  "Right. It turns out that liberalism is also a dead end. It's so tolerant it cannot forbid anything. And on the other hand, it's so wrapped up in its worship of freedom, that it can't make anything obligatory, either. Category One Choice Givers like me realize the necessity for the obligatory and the forbidden for humanity to survive and prosper. Liberalism refuses to accept either of these concepts, and so there goes the 'civilized world.' They, too, would result in stagnation or extinction, because they do not have the moral tools to stop it." Chiharu said.

  "Eri mentioned those terms too. I guess that means her parents are Category One Choice Givers, and she's following their lead." Saki said.

  "Eri sounds like a cool girl." Chiharu grinned. "If I had my way, I would make a lot of things obligatory. I would also forbid a lot of things. Because each time, I simply do not see how humanity could succeed without said laws in place."

  "Give an example." Saki begged.

  "Okay, well here's a good one. I think it should be obligatory for people to accept known, demonstrated, endlessly repeatedly proven facts as facts, and not just be able to dismiss them as 'theories.' Nothing angers me more than scientific progress being made, and then abandoned again by people unwilling to accept the consequences. You should not be able to lie in public, or teach to your kids in private, or in any way say something so stupid as 'the world is flat' or 'the Sun revolves around the Earth,' and get away with it. Occasionally, tremendous expenditures of intelligence and will drag mankind an inch closer to the truth, through the extraordinary effort of our greatest heroes. And then it's all thrown away again by intellectual ants who turn their backs on said heroes. It's unforgivable. I don't see why I should have to forgive it, or allow it, or tolerate it, or give people the freedom to do it. It's just flat out unacceptable." Chiharu said.

  "But sometimes scientific theories are overturned when new facts come in." Saki rejoined meekly.

  "And at that time, everyone's free to discard the now disproven belief. But until then, they don't have that right. No one has the right to prefer their own microscopic pea brains over the tested and valid observations of science." Chiharu said.

  "But couldn't we just ignore them and move on?" Saki asked. "Do we have to hunt down every last dissenter to save mankind's future?"

  "Can we risk it?" Chiharu asked. "Suppose there are one hundred scientific facts which society needs to believe in order to advance to the next level of civilization. To transcend into a higher order of people capable of fulfilling a greater degree of Truth, Beauty, and Love, we need to, as a society, know and operate under the rubric of one hundred different scientific facts that inform our decision-making process every step of the way. Suppose the dissenters of ninety-nine of these facts are laughed out of the room and ignored. But for some reason, the dissenters in just one scientific fact get their way and become the dominant ideology. Then they make it somehow heretical to believe the Truth and ban its teaching in school, and persecute and 'laugh out of the room' anyone who cleaves to the actual scientifically proven truth."

  "Then humanity still loses. Especially if stagnant societies don't reform themselves eventually, but just go on mindlessly repeating their past mistakes every generation." Saki admitted.

  "Which is what we've observed in past cultures again and again. It's hardly a sky is falling scenario. It's simply what we've observed and what we can expect from mankind absent Choice Givers. They really are a bunch of sheep." Chiharu said.

  "But why wouldn't the same thing happen as in the past? New cultures could spread and save old failed cultures, like Perry's black ships sailing into Uraga harbor." Saki suggested. "Then this entire picture of a world crisis is just wrong. Even though most people have bad ideas, it isn't necessary for everyone to have the right idea all the time. The laws of evolution will make sure that those few who do have the right idea will always win out in the end."

  "This time it's different." Chiharu said flatly. "There is no 'outside' anymore. Globalism means humanity is all in the same boat. It is now possible for a single bad culture to dominate everyone on Earth simultaneously. After which point, no outsiders can ever hope to migrate or conquer their way into history's glorious annals. It will be the end of history. Globalism has already wiped out most differences between cultures worldwide. It's only a matter of time before all the differences are gone, and we become a ubiquitous monoculture that only mouths the same lines and cares about the same things, forever. If we don't make sure that monoculture is invented and tended to by Choice Givers, like the Vestal virgins tended to the shrine of Vesta's eternal fire in Rome, the Earth is lost. If any of the current prevalent cultures of the Earth, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Liberalism, Libertarianism or whatever, became Earth's monoculture, we will most assuredly stagnate into a flatline of unchanging irrelevancy. Humanity will never transcend under them. It's either us or nothing."

  "So we are in the deciding epoch of human history?" Saki asked, rather bemused.

  "I believe so, Saki. I think this is it. The next few centuries will either turn humanity into another failed organism, like the cockroach, that lives and does its thing, but never goes anywhere or changes in any way, until the sun explodes -- or we will cease to be human whatsoever, and surpass all our wildest dreams. The future rests on a knife edge. But in any case, there aren't any more second chances. If we fail, I do not believe we will ever recover again. Instead of the fall of Rome, we'll be looking at the fall of Man." Chiharu said.

  "That's pretty dark. It can't be that bad." Saki complained.

  Chiharu shook her head ruefully. "People keep saying that."

* * *

  "Now listen Eri. To achieve infinite possibilities, humans must first have what?" Father slapped his whiteboard with his plastic pointy thing.

  "Yes! Infinite power! Infinite knowledge! Infinite desire!" Eri replied.

  "Too quiet! Say it like you want it!" Father slapped the whiteboard again.

  "Infinite power! Infinite knowledge! Infinite desire!" Eri shouted.

  "Correct! Nothing's possible without power! Nothing's possible without will! And nothing's possible without imagination! If we don't know about something, we can't want it, if we don't want it, we can't get it, and if we can't get it, nothing will change! In that case, how can humans attain infinite possibilities?" Father slapped the whiteboard again.

  "Yes! We can't!" Eri shouted back with her loudest voice.

  "CORRECT! Humans are worms! Worms! Infinite possibilities are reserved for whom?" Father slapped the whiteboard again.

  "Yes! Infinite beings!" Eri shouted back.

  "In other wordsssss?" Father asked.

  "Yes! Gods! We must all be Gods!" Eri shouted back.

  "Correct! That's my daughter!" Father exclaimed, smiling broadly.

  "Honestly, you two." Mother sighed dramatically. "The neighbors will call the police."

  "That's impossible, because?" Father slapped the whiteboard with his pointer.

  "Yes! Because we live in a mansion and own the whole block!" Eri shouted.

  "Correct!" Father exclaimed. "Mwahahahahaha!"

  "I've changed my mind. You don't have to help me teach Eri." Mother said, rubbing her forehead.

 

* * *

  Isao was halfway in between reading a book and sleeping when an intercom buzzed from the outside gate. Shiori planned to move in to the mansion too once they were married, but she had said it was bad luck to live with someone before you married, so for now he was just hanging out with nothing special to do. It was probably a comfort to Kotone that a man was in the house, and he could fetch things for her and drive her around so she didn't have to work as hard. But he felt a little guilty to be earning 100 million yen a year just for that. Once he was back on his mission, he'd feel like his salary, and his status as one of the world's premier role models, would be his by right again. But when he'd seen Shiori crying that summer day, he simply couldn't stand the idea of leaving her alone again. Apparently, there were important things only staying still could achieve too. And whenever he got to see Shiori's excited, sparkling eyes just from having him nearby, he didn't regret the change for a moment.

  "Kotone? It's a visitor." Isao called out. But the mansion was hollow, dark and silent. She was probably at the hospital again. Somewhere in the deep hollows of this endless labyrinth, Rei, Onyx, and Cho Kai should be around. Awesome was still with Shiori, however, until she moved in. Capri had already moved out. Magnolia, of course, would be at Kotone's side. Which meant it was up to him to answer the door. What if it was someone from Kotone's work? She hadn't left him with any directions. If it was a newspaper salesman, he'd stab him through the heart.

  Isao touched the intercom and spoke into it unsurely. "Hello? Who is it?"

  "Iiiisssaaooooooooooooo." Shiori moaned like a wounded animal from the other side.

  Isao bolted to the front door and threw it open. He jumped over a hedge and unlocked the gate faster than he could think. Then she was in his arms, as he checked desperately to see where she was bleeding.

  "It's my parents." Shiori sobbed, her face puffy from crying and a small backpack on her back. "They've forgotten who I am. Something. . ." Shiori choked on her sobs against his chest. "Something is. . .terribly wrong. . .Isao. . .everyone's forgetting me. Everyone is. . .something is. . .wrong with me. . .please. . .Isao. . .help me."

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