Has anyone else noticed how the world seems to have become blander, fundamentally less interesting, recently?


High above the clouds, ten streamlined capsules streaked along their predetermined paths toward the most dangerous point in known reality.
Commander Arkol Ernos was heading for the last job of his career. Below, the world rolled past with invigorating speed. Ahead, the sky was split in two.
   He aimed his mind at one of the other pods, a barely visible point ahead. Fabulous technology established a secure connection.
   "Dr Ringood, no one can hear us," he said.
   The answer appeared in his mind with all mental static removed. She believed it was already too late.
   Ernos replied. "You have inside information about the forbidden fusion experiment." He had scanned her brain back at the conference without her knowledge. She hadn't noticed that five minutes of her life were missing.
   She said: "I'm sure you've done much worse things."
   "You may experience mild hallucinations, messages from your subconscious."
   "Actually, I was hoping this would happen. I have nothing to hide."
   "It took eight thousand years to build EarthSun," Ernos continued. "The World Mind hasn't made an error in seventeen centuries, which is why it runs our lives. Now a human under your command has set up a fusion experiment which may shatter Earth into approximately a quadrillion small asteroids. At this point I welcome any theories you may have."
   "It's more than a theory, commander," Ringood said. "I have proof, as you well know. Unfortunately, the explanation is so complicated no human can understand it. It appears to violate Thermonics, Chaotics, Quantonics, Alda's Meta . . ."
   A pod passed in the other direction in a millisecond flash. "What can you prove?" Ernos asked.
   "The experiment has created a closed timeloop," Ringood said. "Its future effects caused human history."
   "That's not impossible," Ernos admitted.
   "It explains a phenomenon that should be impossible. Civilization has peaked just as progress has stopped. We've had nuclear fusion for fifty thousand years. In these two thousand generations, we've never sent a human to another star. Despite or perhaps because of millions of lesser medical advances, we're somehow still unable to replace the human body with machines, meaning we all still die of old age. Most importantly, we haven't learned anything really unpredictable in ages. Mankind has reached a dead end."
   "Evolution had a purpose?" Ernos asked. "That notion was rejected before the last ice age."
   In the other pod, dr. Nolan Ringood made mental contact with the familiar refuge of the World Mind.
"A septillion bytes suggest otherwise, Commander," she said. "Scientific research has continued at a constant rate, but the return has diminished throughout history."
   As Ernos absorbed the diagrams, she continued. "Note that for the first half of human existence, during the Stone Age, the progress curve is almost flat. Around 13,000 BCE (old calendar), skills accelerate noticeably. As the centuries pass, the learning rate increases geometrically: at least one new invention per day. Early in Century Twenty-One, it is noticed the rate of new discoveries is decreasing, and since then each new step takes longer. As you see, human civilization is described by a leaning S-curve."
   "Amazing," Ernos remarked, "we're right at the asymptote." The cloud layer approached frightfully fast. "And your fusion experiment is responsible?"
   "According to the World Mind, there is no real 'arrow of time'," she said. "A future cause could affect the past. Because of certain boundaries, that's unlikely to occur in our universe, but this illegal experiment has created an effective zero-entropy zone in our reactor core. The World Mind predicts initial effects many millennia before the experiment was set up."
   As the capsules entered their terminal dives, the ground-based decelerators came on. Each craft was targeted by a narrow sonobeam bouncing back in a lossless transaction. Quantonic pillars could lift whole buildings if necessary.
   They plunged through the kilometer-thick cloud layer.

The world was powered by the massive reactor dome ahead, a gray bulk still beyond the horizon. An artificial mountain assembled over many millennia, its mass deflected orbiting satellites by several meters.
Below was a complex array of support buildings and smaller reactors receding in all directions. One of these structures was venting a giant column of steam to rival any volcano. Rivers had been drained to create it. Glancing at the base of the funnel, Ernos guessed there would be a second monsoon this year.
Or nothing at all.
   "One more question, doc. Why would it only affect human history? Why not change the environment, weather patterns, chemical reactions, whatever?"
   "This experiment was created by humans," Ringood answered. "The result is us. I always thought our evolution was unlikely."
   The sonodishes under the capsules unfolded into rotating blades as the pods entered a vast, half-open building. A fleet of larger transporters arrived at the same time.

   Ernos stepped out of his pod, slow and heavy again, feeling the humidity and heat. The air was eerily still, tornado-calm with distant flashes of lightning.
Ernos sensed a subharmonic rumble from the dome. He couldn't make out the echoing proclamations from the speakers, which weren't meant for him anyway.
   Followed by three guards, Ernos joined dr. Ringood at the entrance of the Control Building.
In a few steps the air seemed to freeze around them. Walking through the security causeway, he said, "Your theory is one of many, doc. In one hour we will apprehend the person responsible."
   "The past month convinced me," she said. "I read the key article only hours before the experiment began, preventing a paradox."
   The causeway led to the control room, where timeless routines had ruled for centuries. Ernos saw endless banks of consoles arrayed toward the distant walls, technicians gathered in hyper-specialized instrument bays, ancient command stations around massive pillars.
   As always, Ringood met the assistant controller upon entering. "We completed run 206," he said. "You saw the steam on the way down. Reactor output is 49.6%, but judging from the mass fractions, nothing has changed in the Sun Room. The Entity demands to be fed."
   The assistant walked Ringood to the giant displays showing the fusion zone. At its heart was a sea of light.
"You'll never see this inside the sun," he said. "We're injecting isoplasm-5 into inner spiral 27 to prevent point implosions. Plasma and neutrino flows show maximum synthesis. We should be getting record output. There's energy in there, but our thermal exchangers could barely light up a city."
   Ernos waited while the discussion continued into technical abstractions like mystical poetry. The person who had caused this mess had to be around, yet he found himself pondering Ringood's theory.
   Whenever his mind wasn't owned by World Security, Ernos liked to study ancient civilizations. Great cities and forgotten empires had ruled every point on Earth, their subjects living their ultimately meaningless lives. All a side effect of a physics experiment?
   "The energy must be wrapped through the outer Moeboid," Ringood noted. "Core redshifts suggest a sheet singularity, but no gravitational deflections. An unusually pure plasmasphere moving in lockstep. Extropy must take more energy than Rahm calculated. Clearly energy is going back in time."
   "A fine theory," the assistant controller said, "yet it doesn't explain the reactor coil mass increase."
   "We're close to solving the puzzle."
   Ernos received an urgent thought. The person who had sabotaged the reactor was about to be captured. He could witness the arrest from every angle.
In a burst of controlled violence the sedate technicians in this room would never appreciate, the suspect was captured alive.
   Minutes later he and Ringood were hurling down a levitation corridor, the fastest way to cross the vast complex. Their feet seemed to touch a smooth, unmoving floor as the walls passed by at amazing speed. Massive doors opened and closed just in time.
As they plunged down into the dome access shaft, the doctor finished her calculations. Ernos had left the guards in the control room.
   Presently they emerged at the base of the ten-kilometer-wide main reactor coil. They only saw a portion of the tightly wound hypermagnet, a cable as thick as a skyscraper and much denser. The whole barely curving golden torus glowed softly.
This object was both the source of the subharmonic rumble everyone could feel, and of most of the facility's gravitational field. At its focus, the magnetic field could tear apart atomic nuclei. Stabilizing the coil required half the World Mind's calculating capacity. It released not only energy, but all kinds of exotic particles. It was the only device that could make stable metallic hydrogen.
   Among the vast cross-braces and girders of the reactor, Ernos saw no signs of the operation. Where were the intelligence officers, the support units, the flying guards? The dome was big enough to absorb a whole division, but they should at least have set up a perimeter.
He had just enough time to realize the magnitude of their defeat. Before the doctor's concentration could be broken, dozens of dark figures appeared around them, smooth assassins who effortlessly bound and immobilized Ernos and Ringood.
He didn't even try to resist. Ringood shouted and struggled before reluctantly accepting this latest violation.
They were carried through a maze of narrow, pipe-filled passages into an anonymous room like almost half a million others here.
   A woman in a Technician uniform waited there. She was younger than them, but seemed to exude the serene confidence of a lifetime of achievement.
"Sorry about our intervention, commander. I hope the ease with which we defeated you proves that resistance is pointless." She smiled. "You're outmatched, even though I am the person you were looking for. We wish to ask for your help. This is a rare honor."
Ernos sat comfortably on the floor. "Anything is possible," he said.
   To Ringood she said, "We admire your work, doc. Your theory brilliantly accounts for every fact. Too bad it's wrong. There is indeed a hidden pattern in human history, only it wasn't caused by this experiment. It's the intricately plotted outcome of a conspiracy which goes back a very long time: to the end of World War Three, in fact."
She turned back to Ernos. "We have removed every mention of this war and many other events that we consider spiritual pollution from your history books. This experiment is the final phase of our development plan for the human species. We need a new energy source to reach the stars, and decided the risks were acceptable."
   "You were wrong," Ringood said.
   Ernos added, "I'm positively overflowing with questions."
   The woman replied, "We'll tell you more than most. We intend to persuade you to help us."
A large diagram appeared in midair. Seeing the chart, Ernos remembered what he had to do.
   He shut his eyes as the robot carrying the electric gun burst through the ceiling like it wasn't there. A geometric flash of lightning felled most of the guards. One man was somehow immune to the shock. He raised a black box, but seemed to vanish in a blinding thunderclap. There was a hole in the floor where he had been standing.
Then the short but immensely strong Clonoid troops stormed in. The battle lasted only a few more moments. Expressionless, the woman allowed them to wrap her in a transparent tube that was placed upright beside the door. She hadn't reacted since the attack began. Ringood looked incredulous.
   As the silence returned, Ernos addressed his captive audience: "I understand your confusion." He gestured at the Technician. "I must inform you that you were both wrong. Human history is indeed being manipulated by a grand conspiracy, but not theirs."
   He turned to the confined Technician. "Your group is one of many, each sincerely believing it is the only one. Now it has served its purpose, and is being dismantled by the central organization. We work through all the security forces. For what it's worth, you were right about the need for a new energy source. Let me assure you that we have humanity's best interests at heart." He smiled briefly. "What your group calls World War Three was actually the fifth one."
The woman was far too evolved to react to the fact that her life had been ground to dust.
   Ernos was about to continue, only to be interrupted by the doctor, who spoke almost tiredly.
"No, you two are both wrong. My theory is correct, but its effects manifest themselves through these silly organizations you are running. There are probably higher levels still."
Ernos tried to reply but she cut him off. "Naturally, I took this factor into account. The curve was much too smooth to represent a fully human plan. You are both part of an equation you can't understand."
   A Clonoid troop lifted the packaged woman. Ernos stopped him with a thought while Ringood continued.
   "It should have been obvious even to you. The Gauss curve I showed you earlier has two sides. The measurable effects began over 50,000 years before this experiment, and they will continue for about the same time after. The second half of the curve predicts our inevitable decline. Once the theory becomes widely known, there will be self-reinforcing complications."
She tried to reestablish her connection with the World Mind through the heavy signal jamming.
   Ernos said, "It is you who is mistaken. You and the Technician will follow me to the control room, where we will shut down the fusion core. Then everyone's memories of today's events will be corrected."
   "Interesting plan, commander," Ringood replied, "but you won't need my help. The World Mind has already terminated the experiment." The deep hum around them was indeed changing.
   Ernos said, "Impossible. We control the World Mind. It does what we tell it to do."
He focused his thoughts, and tried to contact the World Mind. A frown slowly built up on his face and he started to sweat.
   "It seems to have a mind of its own." Ringood said. "Linking it to the reactor coil was a mistake. Inconvenient for your organization, but not surprising. A computer linking all mankind could control human history much better than any of you."
   Ernos finally seemed agitated. "If your effect has taken over the World Mind, anything could happen."
He tried to mentally alert his peers. All he got was the echo of a larger presence beyond the static.
   "Worse, commander." Ringood explained patiently. "The effect has always worked through the World Mind and its predecessors, and they have controlled your organizations since ancient history. In the 1930s, a proto-human named Alan Turing invented the first digital computer. Shortly thereafter society began to be automated, and human progress began to slow."
   "Your theory deals with human destiny!" Ernos exclaimed. "What do machines have to do with it?"
   "Ever since it became possible, we have stored most of our knowledge in computers. In 50 millennia, we have acquired so much data that almost all of it exists only in memory crystals. The World Mind knows everything we do and much more. It has become the true soul of humanity. The graphic I showed you earlier suggests it will replace us. We may already have been replaced. The way things are going, we might not even notice."
   "I promise you it won't be today, doc," Ernos said as the lights went out.