Chapter 188: Then Change the Objective Function

On the decision deadline, the representatives gathered around Station 50’s central console: the Royal Council, the Holy See, the dwarven guilds, and Lucian’s four companions.

Vane waited at the edge of the platform with his clipboard. The ancient controller offered two options.

[SELECT CONTINENTAL STABILITY ARCHITECTURE]

A — LEGACY KEYSTONE.

Simulated catastrophic failure: 0.04%.

Requirement: Permanently bind five optimal living operators.

B — DISTRIBUTED PROTOTYPE V7.

Simulated catastrophic failure: 0.83%.

Requirement: Distributed relay infrastructure, 1,284 archive nodes, and autonomous institutions.

Lucian approached the console.

He chose neither box. He moved them aside and opened the configuration tab beneath them.

ADVANCED CONSTRAINTS.

“Mr. Vance,” the inspector said, “adding a hard constraint can exclude the mathematically optimal solution.”

“I know.”

The cursor blinked.

Lucian typed the rule in Ancient Titan, with an English reference beside it.

NO LIVING PERSON MAY BE DESIGNATED AS PERMANENT, IRRE-PLACEABLE INFRASTRUCTURE.

He pressed Enter.

Calculations ran across the projection. Somewhere inside the server racks, mechanical bells began ringing.

[HARD CONSTRAINT CHANGES FEASIBLE SOLUTION SPACE]

Theoretical operating efficiency: Reduced.

Material and staffing requirements: Substantially increased over legacy baseline.

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“How substantially?” Lucian asked.

Evelyn checked the revised budget on her calculator.

“Roughly a hundred and twenty million gold over the first three years.”

He moved one finger toward Delete. “Remove the constraint.”

Every face in the room turned toward him. “Joke,” he said.

Evelyn narrowed her eyes. “You considered it.” “Briefly. For budgeting purposes.”

The System returned the recalculated options.

[HARD CONSTRAINT ACCEPTED]

Permanent dependence on living operators: PROHIBITED.

[ARCHITECTURE REVIEW]

A — Legacy Keystone: INELIGIBLE. Violates constraint.

B — Distributed V7: ELIGIBLE FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT.

Current stress-test failure rate: 0.83%. Independent operation: NOT YET CERTIFIED. Operator replacement and withdrawal: Supported. Cost: Unfortunately expensive.

“Story of my life.”

Eleanor stepped beside him. “Are you sure?”

He looked at her and remembered Astra at the dining table, her hand resting on the unsigned dossier.

“No.”

He let the word stand. “But I still choose it.” Eleanor smiled.

Vane studied the constraint on the screen.

“The ancient engineers could have entered that rule,” he said. “They chose not to. After the disaster, they considered survival worth any restriction.”

He looked at Lucian.

“You aren’t cleverer than they were, Mr. Vance. You have colleagues and institutions prepared to help carry a risk they no longer trusted anyone to carry.”

The inspector turned a page.

“What happens when the distributed system fails?” “We send engineers to fix it.”

“When the operators make mistakes?” “They will.”

“When local authorities disagree?” “They already do.”

“And if a future generation makes a bad choice that damages the network?”

Lucian looked beyond the reinforced window to the land below.

“Then it’ll be their mistake,” he said. “We leave them the tools and the records to repair it. We don’t keep five people in a machine forever to prevent anyone else from getting a decision wrong.”

Vane was silent for a while. Then he closed the clipboard. “The board records your choice.”

At a small table in the corner, the original Nameless Knight manuscript lay beside the archive plans. Lucian had brought it to return to Sylvia’s care.

He had started that book for language points. He had started gathering capable people because capable people made his life easier.

Both projects had developed a distressing capacity to disagree with him.

The console chimed.

[ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT PLAN APPROVED]

Transition window remaining: TWENTY-ONE DAYS. Interim safeguards remain in place during construction.

Independent-operation certification required before final handover. After decommissioning, no Supreme Guarantor will carry the network’s load.

[BEGIN IMPLEMENTATION? Y / N]

Lucian pressed Y.

The implementation orders spread through the linked networks of Solaris and Tartarus.

He immediately looked back at the budget. “I’m beginning to regret this.”

Evelyn tapped his sleeve with her wrench. “Moral development.” “Severe financial deterioration.”