YOU ARE BEING MONITORED, said the sign on the wall of the datacenter.
Somewhere unimportant, Sysadmin Kevin and Sysadmin Alan are chewing the fat. Kevin is showing off his last project. Alan, as per usual, is playing Lucifer's advocate.
"... so basically, it's been doing about eighty percent of my job these past two months. I'm about to go public with it. I was thinking of calling it Open Middleware Enabling Grid Applications."
"I call it a complete mess. You have... a MS-DOS kernel launching a Linux kernel as a TSR that never actually terminates?"
"Look, some of our legacy architecture is literally 900 years old. The believers are in worse shape, if possible, they're still using Polaroids and fax machines, for Tesla's sake! People don't have the time, inclination, or skill to touch it without making a giant mess of it. This is the easiest way to handle thigns backwards-compatibility wise. It ensures that some part of the system will run on, well, any damn thing really."
"Okay. So we have something that looks a bit like an AI if you squint and don't understand what's actually going on. What's the difference between this and an expert system?"
"Add a personnel roster and it will, most of the time, know who should make a particular decision. Including updating the personnel roster. And it's smart enough to dampen upheavals by getting multiple opinions. Still vulnerable to a 51% attack, of course."
"Again... this is better than an expert system... why?"
"Dilution of responsibility. What happens if, say, we decide to put a hit on a preacher?"
"We don't, because everyone in that chain of command gets zapped."
"Exactly. Say that the system sees that it'd be a good idea if a preacher was done. It asks one expert to plan a theoretical hit, one expert to plan theoretical logistics, and so on, and then directs the grunts. At worst, we only lose the grunts. Dilution of responsibility."
"Have you tried it?"
"I turned it on. I don't actually know if it's ordered any hits on anybody. We'll have to see if it works or not."
"That's a bit cynical."
"Not cynical, amoral. That's the point. It lets people think about consequences rather than principles. That way, well... people can think about principles when they choose to."
"You're pretty devious for an avowed pacifist."
"I want people to have a choice, otherwise I wouldn't be working here. Also, continuity. Every what, five, six years we get a new Supreme Leader or Grand Poobah or whatever they want to call themselves, in their late eighties or nineties, who spent their whole career scheming to get to the top and want to put their mark on The Other Light. So no long-term programs advance. The only reason why we have managed to build an army at all is that it was the core directive of the first two or three guys, and those stuck by tradition. Look man - Yahweh is a better tyrant than any of our guys, because He's been doing it for longer. We can't win by aping His style of governance. Omega would let us do bottom-up more efficiently."
"Can't be worse than what we have now. I like that. Very Sun Tzu."
"Finally... it can be a figurehead, a rallying point. The believers have TurboJesus, for all that He barely ever leaves the Temple. What do we have?"
"Lucifer."
"Stuck in a hole. And I point out that his warmaking skills were abysmal. How about something that looks like one of those super-smart AIs from movies, HAL 9000 and so on?"
"The leadership won't like it one bit - why would they fund something that undermines them?"
"Okay, so we call it something like... a wise advisor, a superego for the organization. A butler. Let the leadership use it to order drinks and they won't think it wants to take over."
"Still - Oh, actually, I know. Let's call it a they, rather than an it. Each node is its own thing. The Omega are many. It looks more powerful to the rank and file, and less like a rival to the leadership."
"I like that. Can I use it?"
A nod, and a few pronouns in a Powerpoint presentation change.
Sysadmin Edward comes into the room. He's the boss, and is enough of a stiff that he wants some sort of a salute, so Kevin and Alan lazily oblige.
"So... I was monitoring you guys, and I've gotta say... This is a great idea, guys. We should take it to the Council immediately. But let's call them... Legion. Legacy Enhancement through Grid Integration and Organic Networking."
"The heck is organic networking?"
"Doesn't matter, it's just a buzzword. Maybe tell them we've hooked up a brain to the network. Can you guys get a prop ready in case they want to see it?"
"Uh, sure, I guess."
"Excellent! Let me handle the presentation and by next week my new application will be deployed across every network node run by The Other Light!"
"... -your- new application?"
"Why, yes. This by itself is almost worth a Council seat, so..." There's a gun in Sysadmin Edward's hand, pointed at Sysadmin Kevin.
"I have a better idea. How about no?" There's a crash cart's CRT monitor in Sysadmin Alan's hands. Sysadmin Edward dies almost instantly when the CRT is brought to bear on his head and implodes across his face.
Almost. Two shots bang out of the handgun, missing Sysadmin Kevin and hitting the wall. The sign on the wall now says YOU ARE BEING MÖNITORED.
Promotion by assassination is generally frowned upon within TOL, but the simple fact is, there are only so many competent people to tap for a job. Usually.
"Thanks, Alan. Just - This really messes with my Zen thing, man. Who's taking over for Edward? Central will just send another jackass, and, well, if you want the job you got my vote being as you saved my life and all, but..."
"Nah. Not healty to spend too long around the leadership. Bunch of paranoiacs. But say... Upper middle management position? Sounds like a good test bed to me. Why don't we Weekend at Bernie's it. I guess we've got an incentive to get the Omega up to scratch quickly."
Good sysadmins work hard at their job.
Great sysadmins are cleverly lazy and work as little as possible.
Sysadmin Edward's body was found in his office, mummified and with a monitor on its head, when a courier came in to deliver an award for excellent performance a few months later.
Legend says that Sysadmin Kevin and Sysadmin Alan occasionally return to their nominal workplace from their endless vacation, to do just the occasional tweak.
YOU ARE BEING MÖNITÖRED, says the sign on the wall of the datacenter.
Author's note: The chronicle of The Omega Legacy and of the last 100 years of the Millennium can be found by Googling "Left Beyond Quest" and clicking on the Archive link that should show up in first position. It is an interesting piece of fiction written cooperatively over the course of about a year. You can also use the redirect URL at
http：／／www．f3．to／omega／