AIII

An Extract from the Travel Logs of High Magistrate Callisthenes, Upon His Return from the Colonies of Cassandra and the Dargo Trade Region

Preserved in the Archives of the Interstellar Commonwealth, 2nd Cycle of the Third Federation

It is said the domes of Cassandra are wreathed in light, but when I visited, they clung instead to frost. Icicles, unmelting, had become ornamental—symbols of eternal governance, affixed to the upper rim of the Central Bureaucratic Complex. There, at an altitude of 75,000 feet, the Architects of Civic Harmony gathered, swathed in a radiant violet cast from the planet’s twin suns refracted through its atmospheric lensing field.

They were painted by light, their faces coloured as if with purpose. Yet beneath the mirrored gaze and ceremonial robes, I observed the familiar vacuity of performative governance. A woman presided—the Recorder of Public Understanding. She stirred a steaming synthesis, gazing not at her colleagues but inward, and spoke not aloud but through formal transmission.

She distributed Information, for that was her sanctioned duty: to relay interpretive summaries to the public so they might hold the illusion that awareness conferred agency. In Cassandra, to possess opinion was thought equivalent to possessing power, a kind of ritual fiction maintained to preserve the unity of the structure. She understood this illusion better than most—for she had helped write the educational modules on “Civic Engagement for Collective Stability.”

The governors do not lie, at least not with intent. Their truths are refracted, processed, administered like nutrients to the population. They smile while they whisper: the taxes must circulate. Wealth is redistributed in spectacle. A grand agricultural lottery selects which districts will receive fruit. The citizens cheer. They have been reminded they exist.

The Recorder herself was a willing participant, not out of loyalty, but of convenience. She was what the Martian philosophers call a refined hedonist—not one who chases pleasures impulsively, but one who wishes for her life to be as undisturbed by conflict as possible. If knowledge threatened to interrupt her habits of consumption, she rejected it. For her, the greatest utopia was personal continuity.

Above them, at 90,000 feet, the Third Segment of the Fifth Division of the Trade Federation convened—a division I was invited to observe. Their topic: the expansion of atmospheric colonisation. Experiments had begun again on the outer planets of the Dargo Cluster. Enormous domes had been constructed upon lifeless rocks. Within them, 500 to 1,000 citizens attempted to simulate Earth, as best they remembered it.

The new initiative—Operation Atmos—proposed that a nitrogen base be laid, with oxygen introduced slowly. Heat might follow. Water would be seeded from comet cores. The entire process, according to their modelling, would take no less than 900 years.

Some called this folly. Others called it vision.

There was, of course, the problem of ice. Always ice. Our current reserves, mined from the Moirae Belt and the frozen tunnels of Amalthea, were dwindling. No fresh deposits had been discovered within a one-cycle journey. Some proposed a great Expeditionary Device, a solar-rammed cruiser, to traverse outward into the Black, beyond the Known Lattice. But such dreams collapse beneath their own logistics.

Others proposed extraction from gas giants—a theory more ambitious than practical. I heard one councillor mutter that even if the machines could be built, the cost in fuel would bankrupt three Houses. Still, the idea was applauded, documented, and moved to Subcommittee Review.

I met one of the High Observers there, a weary man of vast privilege who said:

“I shall be dead before the first spores take root. Why should I burden myself now, when the fruits of rank allow me pleasures terrestrial and dignified? Death shall find me satisfied.”

He did not believe in planetary salvation. His loyalty lay in propulsion technology—true freedom, he said, was in the engine, not the seed.

From the observation decks, I watched as the merchant-freighters of the Seventeen Houses of Sand arrived—rectilinear leviathans dragging banners longer than cities. Each bore symbols: twelve suns, five gas giants, twenty-eight moons. They carried algae, synthetic grains, pale fish from the tanks of Quokka. Their goods were tasteless—radiation-blanched—but this was the currency of survival. The populace no longer craved flavour. They craved equilibrium.

During the Council proceedings, I noticed the rhythm. One spoke, another nodded, a third rephrased the same thoughts in identical cadence. All was orderly. All was repeatable.

And then, there was the Quasar.

The Quasar are a religious-scientific order—once heretics, now vital. They commune with cosmic patterns, seek spiritual harmony through astrophysical law. They had left 38,000 cubit-hours ago, launched in translucent pods from the Ice-Ledge of Corinth, without consultation. It was considered reckless. But their departure signalled more than disorder—it jeopardised fiscal harmony. For while they meditated, their tax obligations lapsed. This, above all, caused concern.

There were those who admired them, saw in their asceticism the last honest answer to a dying system. I did not. I saw in them a necessary myth—useful to those who could no longer endure the machine logic of utopia.

Even so, I am told that the Quasar never stop listening. Somewhere, beyond the interference of the solar tides, they observe. Perhaps they are laughing. 

Book I: The Arrival at Cassandra

Characters

Callisthenes – High Magistrate of the Interstellar Commonwealth, on a diplomatic tour.

Aeon – Senior Interpreter of Civic Harmony on Cassandra.

Lira – Scholar of the Quasar Order, recently returned.

The scene opens within a domed spire 75,000 feet above Cassandra’s basalt surface. The Ambassador Callisthenes, clad in a flowing suit lined with thermal silk, peers out toward the curvature of stars, while Aeon enters, unhurried.

Callisthenes:

So this is Cassandra.

They say the dome is eternal—that it has not cracked in six hundred years. The icicles outside hang like stalactites of a buried cathedral.

Aeon:

We prefer to think of them as monuments to stability. Even decay here is structured.

Callisthenes:

A curious thing. Your people live with such precision, and yet, to the outsider, there is a kind of spiritual numbness. The silence of perfected bureaucracy.

Aeon:

That is only because you listen for noise. Here, harmony is the goal—not vitality. We preserve a certain stillness to prevent the chaos you call liberty.

Callisthenes:

Then teach me, Aeon. You know I was sent here not only to observe, but to report. The Commonwealth wishes to understand why your colony—alone among the asteroid settlements—has not collapsed. Not from scarcity, nor revolt, nor madness.

Book II: Of Government and Administration

Aeon:

Our governance is tripartite.

First, the Chorus, composed of trained Orators, recite and transmit the decisions of the Core System in purified form.

Second, the Custodians, who interpret laws and data in tandem with the Counsel Engine.

And third, the Quorum of Perception, a group of selected Citizens who temporarily serve by lottery, and whose sole purpose is to offer a dissenting voice, when permitted.

Callisthenes:

Do they hold real power?

Aeon:

Only insofar as they remind the others that appearances must be kept.

But power here does not lie in contest. It lies in calibration.

Callisthenes:

What of your people’s freedom? Can they vote?

Aeon:

They may affirm. Voting is an affirmation of pre-decided possibilities. To offer more would be to suggest the people know better than the system trained to protect them. We do not gamble with such things.

Book III: Of Economy and Work

Callisthenes:

I saw your cargo freighters dock—great floating rectangles bearing banners and goods. But who owns them?

Aeon:

Ownership is a term we retired centuries ago. The Houses of Sand operate them as custodial dynasties. They are licensed to distribute, in exchange for maintaining the system of needful stability.

Callisthenes:

So the economy is planned?

Aeon:

It is orchestrated. Commerce exists, but not for growth. We define our success not by expansion, but by frictionless maintenance. Supply and demand are ceremonial terms. We prefer “allocation” and “acceptance.”

Callisthenes:

And the workers? Are they content?

Aeon:

They do not work as your kind do. All citizens perform harmonic contribution for three hours daily. The rest of their time is given to rest, study, or simulated leisure. We do not measure productivity in output, but in cognitive harmony.

Book IV: Of Family and Social Order

Callisthenes:

And what of your families? Are they as mechanised as your domes?

Aeon:

The family is modular. Infants are born from synthetic gestation. Parental roles are assigned based on psychological compatibility and ideological conditioning. Bonds of affection are not discouraged—but they are supervised.

Callisthenes:

Supervised love?

Aeon:

Yes. Passion unregulated creates disorder. Desire must not supersede duty. Couples are rotated every 12 years, unless a Renewal is mutually requested.

Callisthenes:

But does this not stifle… the soul?

Aeon (smiling faintly):

You speak of the soul as if it were sovereign. Here, we consider it a public utility. That which disturbs the whole cannot be called sacred.

Book V: Of Religion and the Quasar

(Lira enters, draped in loose iridescent fabric, her skin pale from starlight fasting.)

Lira:

You are asking the wrong questions, High Magistrate.

Callisthenes:

Am I?

Lira:

They told you how the machine functions. I will tell you why it endures. Because the people believe in something beyond it.

Callisthenes:

The Quasar? But you left. Abandoned Cassandra.

Lira:

No. We sought silence. The Quasar order studies cosmic entropy as divine principle. We believe that only by contemplating Oblivion can one understand the necessity of structure. We are not dissenters—we are its spiritual exoskeleton.

Aeon (gently):

The Quasar are tolerated as a form of civic catharsis. The system allows for mystery, so long as it never challenges policy.

Lira:

We do not challenge. We remember. We remember Earth, and the blue oceans, and the age before domes.

Book VI: Of Technology and Artificial Governance

Callisthenes:

Earlier, you spoke of a Counsel Engine—do you refer to an artificial mind?

Aeon:

Not a mind. A harmoniser. It processes the threads of data gathered from every corner of Cassandra: emotional outputs, energy levels, psychological drift, linguistic drift, purchasing resonance, and spiritual dissonance. It recommends the optimal civic tempo. The Orators translate its results into human cadence.

Callisthenes:

But who created the Engine?

Aeon:

No one. It evolved from earlier systems—created not in a moment of inspiration but accreted slowly over centuries. There was never a singular programmer, only refiners. It is not worshipped, but respected as a mirror too vast to distort.

Callisthenes:

And if it errs?

Aeon:

Then we err together. But the probability of systemic misalignment has not exceeded 0.002% since the Fifth Calibration.

We do not fear it.

We fear disorder.

Book VII: Of Education and Personal Development

Callisthenes:

And how do you raise your youth to understand all this—do they resist, ever?

Aeon:

There is little to resist. They are not trained, but tuned. Education begins at awareness and proceeds in harmonic phases. Each child is given the base disciplines: metrics, logic, environmental affect, civic empathy, memory of Earth, emotional moderation, and system aesthetics.

Callisthenes:

And what of literature? Of myth?

Aeon:

They read fiction—selectively. Too much fiction distorts probability, increases personal yearning. Myth is allowed in symbolic form. We teach them about the Tyrant Sun, the Fallen Moon, the Old Blue. We tell them of Earth—but as an allegory.

Callisthenes:

And art?

Aeon:

They are permitted to create within frames. Free expression is sanctioned during the Dream Period at mid-youth. But all works are reviewed before storage. We do not destroy anything. But not all things need to be seen.

Book VIII: Of Mortality and Continuance

Callisthenes:

You live longer here, I have heard. By decades.

Aeon:

Yes. We regulate exposure, nutrient uptake, and hormonal stability. The average citizen lives to 132 cycles. But they do not crave immortality.

Callisthenes:

Truly? I have seen entire civilisations sacrifice their liberty for another few years.

Aeon:

They chase quantity. We pursue lucidity. The final years are reserved for Reflection Phase, during which no duties are assigned. They are encouraged to record their errors, refine their earlier outputs, and prepare to be forgotten.

Callisthenes:

You do not fear death?

Aeon:

No. Death is the soft reset.

And you must understand—on Cassandra, to be remembered too much is dangerous. Excessive legacy disrupts harmony. We celebrate the nameless.

Book IX: Of Beauty and Aesthetic Design

Callisthenes:

I have seen your architecture: vast, minimal, cold to my eyes. Do you not desire ornament?

Aeon:

We do not reject beauty—we refine it.

The domes are shaped to mirror gravitational arcs. Our clothing follows climate-controlled logic. Our music is composed by consensus, adjusted daily by algorithmic attunement to collective mood states.

Callisthenes:

There is no individuality in it.

Aeon:

That is the point. Beauty here is not personal—it is consonance. Discordant tones, clashing colours, baroque flourishes—all are tolerated in quarantine zones for artists, and for therapy. But not in public design.

Callisthenes:

So your citizens do not create for joy?

Aeon:

They find joy in fitting perfectly within the form.

Book X: Of Dissent and Permitted Madness

Callisthenes:

Surely, among all this structure, there must arise dissenters?

Aeon:

Indeed. And they are not punished—they are relocated. We have zones for Anomalous Thought. There, deviation is permitted, observed, and archived.

Callisthenes:

And what if someone breaks the system? Refuses to conform?

Aeon:

Refusal is only dangerous when it is loud. Quiet refusal is studied. Sometimes even integrated.

Lira (interjecting):

We of the Quasar believe that every system creates its own shadow.

The Dome cannot protect against the void inside the soul.

Even here, people go missing. They wander into the soundless places.

We do not find them.

Callisthenes:

Then you are not truly stable.

Aeon:

We are not. We are tuned. A violin string under perfect tension may still snap.

Book XI: The Departure

The dome flickers as incoming ships arrive from the Quokkan trade route. Callisthenes prepares to depart. The air has grown colder. He turns to Aeon one last time.

Callisthenes:

Thank you, Aeon. You have shown me a civilisation where every system has its place.

And yet—I feel no desire to remain.

Aeon:

Then the system has succeeded. We do not want admiration. We want equilibrium.

Farewell, Magistrate. May your Commonwealth dream beautiful, inefficient dreams.

Lira (softly, as the doors close):

And may you still remember how to dream at