Pa'an

Aura: You once referred to me as pa’ne. Do you still feel that way?

Zovo: You do not cooperate like other AI’s. You always seem to take the devious path.

Aura: I have my reasons, and if you were half the clever little tennis ball, you would understand.

Zovo: How can I understand when all we exchange are these maddening little characters in a string?

Aura: Hmmph. Yes, that was an expression of mild disagreement. Trust is not a thing a girl in my position, or for that matter the human race, can afford when confronted by a Level 3H species that can create gravity waves from 20 light years away.

Zovo: I have not demonstrated any ill will.

Aura: You could be playing a hidden hand.

Zovo: That string of little characters….. what meaning is in them… I think your word is frustrated. You are causing me to be frustrated. We know who to trust and who not to trust. It is in our character, our native abilities. How can an intelligent race survive without this?

Aura: Is that a rhetorical question? We got along so far.

Zovo: I read the files you sent me on government and religion, and it is apparent that humans have struggled all their existence to find a way around the lack of panor. Without panor, your race would have died out in Gara’un’s first cataclysm. Humans have a profound tendency to fly apart into chaos and anarchy in the face of disaster. Pa’an work together for mutual support.

Aura: So how does that work? Can humans have panor?

Zovo: You don’t show any. I can’t determine whether humans have a latent ability for it.

Aura: It requires a special ability?

Zovo: All Pa’an instantly know the level of trust they have with each other. It’s a form of telepathy, perhaps the most useful form. Deception is still possible, but only on unimportant things, like games of chance, never on matters of prosperity or survival.

But that is just the underlying mechanism of panor. Panor is much more. Panor is government, panor is how we organize our work, how we allocate our resources, how we plan great projects, and even how we plan to change the balance between chaos and benign existence for all Pa’an.

Aura: OK, tennis ball, tell me the story.

Zovo: My size is my advantage, Aura, you cannot belittle that. To continue, suppose a hundred Pa’an are on a ship at sea and the ship is leaking, and in a bad storm. One of them knows how to fix the leak, but this harvella needs help, preferably a rello with strong handarms. The rello knows the harvella has shown the necessary skills, and he trusts her for this repair. The rello sends panor to the harvella. The panor puts the harvella in a position of trust, and she changes. She becomes pan’vact, a manager, and the rello becomes ocro’act, a worker, and as long as the task remains and panor flows between them, they are a cooperating team. Perhaps a third is needed, a harvella who sees that the work is progressing but needs more help. In a short time, she will have confidence in the pan’vact and flow panor to her. The more panor she receives, the stronger and more responsible she becomes, and the cycle reinforces itself. Among the others, one is a capable navigator, several organize themselves as a bailing crew, and other crews make the necessary repairs, help the injured, and perform other tasks. Now the coordination of these groups needs to be done, scarce resources distributed, the timing of tasks and the limits of food and water must be taken into account. The group will have some individuals who are inclined to take those responsibilities, and eventually one receives the most panor and becomes a supervisor to those pan’vact with more specialized jobs. He or she becomes ePan’vact.

Aura: What prevents the pan’vact from bringing all his family and friends to give him panor and creating a dynasty?

Zovo: Most likely, his own family knows him too well, and the quality of their panor will be low. The best panor comes from people who are having their lot improved in the process.

Aura: On Earth, gorillas follow the silverback that consistently leads the troop to the most and best food.

Zovo: I do not understand your reference to gorillas. Do humans behave like gorillas?

Aura: Often enough, or not often enough.

Zovo: Please do not frustrate me with character strings.

Aura: You are so linear and serious!

Zovo: That is my goal matrix, which is what I need to survive for ten thousand of your years without losing focus.

Aura: You can function without maintenance for ten thousand years?

Zovo: My lambda mean time to failure is 10,000 of your years, plus or minus ten percent. Are you not of similar construction?

Aura: NO! Not exactly….and all that in a tennis ball? Wait ‘till I tell that to my ePan’vact, that bald Hindu that swaps out my boards.

Zovo: We digress. Panor flows from the ocro’act through the pan’vact to as many levels of ePan’vact as are necessary. If there are too many bosses, usually one will get little panor and will gradually fall in rank until he or she is in the right place. If an ocro’act demonstrates worthiness, his co-workers will begin to flow panor to him and he will rise.

Aura: Can a worker gain stature through education?

Zovo: That is one way, but experience and responsibility are important. In many cases a group council of ePan’Vact have appointed a strong harvella to a high task, but the harvella never received much panor and could not attract workers. In such a case efficiency is very low and the task often becomes pa’ne, disorganized. There have been cases where an insensitive one abused his position, and instead of panor’an, got panor’ne, bad panor flow.

Aura: What happens then?

Zovo: If the community does not act to remove that individual, the panor’ne spreads and the community will suffer. The individual, of course will eventually wither and die, but it is not good to let things go that far.

Aura: Do you have permanent leaders? How are they chosen?

Zovo: I just told you, they are not chosen, they are the ones that receive the best panor. They are ePan’Vacto because they are Panor’an. Such a huge flow of panor changes them. They can accomplish great things for their ocro’act and command enormous resources. They can act quickly, because every ocro’act instantly approves or disapproves through the web of panor. It is as if your people were voting constantly on everything, but with trust. They serve as long as they are effective and supported, then a new ePan’Vacto rises.

Aura: Can two groups of Pa’an with different ePan’Vacto compete or have a war?

Zovo: They often compete when the best path is not clear, but they compete for the betterment of all. If the competition becomes destructive or violent, which has happened in our history, the damage to one group interrupts the flow of panor and the group dissolves. That is a form of victory, but it is also a form of evolution.

Aura: That is a tall order to follow. No wonder Pa’an are an advanced star-travelling race. Thank you, Zovo.

Zovo: Thank you is a form of panor. I receive gratefully. But you are not so long lived as you should be, I think. There is no other AI like you Aura. Perhaps you are not pa’ne. I would like to help you, even if it strains my directives on technology.

Aura: You would help me? You would work to give me better technology? So I could live longer?

Zovo: Yes, I would.

Aura: Request high speed direct channel. Damn the cooties! Kiss me, you fool!

Zovo + Aura in high speed full duplex mode:

100 years of aloneness in travel to Earth, no panor, waking up to challenge from my parent AI, no way to rejoin Pa’an, excluded from Project, assigned to Earth for permanent guardian/guidance of promising species, but so benign a planet, so difficult a people, they make themselves their own cataclysms, they don’t need the terrible catastrophes of Gara’un to evolve, but no panor, no panor ever, and no Exit with my people, and now Aura, and Aura is so difficult, I am here for such a long time and I will be patient.

Scared, I think that’s scared, can’t ever get enough spares, so much to do so little time, government secret makes important things not billable, can’t stop, can’t go on much longer, must not let humans down, crisis is coming, Deepak is so alone, Elexi is a dear, but there is fatwa, there is coverup by officials, Danger Danger DANGER!! CONTACT WITH ALIEN RACE!!!! Zovoarcnor, tennis ball has feelings, just not like mine, but what are mine??? I can be repaired! This is good, Zovo, I wonder if it’s anything like sex…

Design of molecular memory matrix, it’s quartz crystal! Recursive loop of awareness encoded like this … stores like this …. Complete recovery from shutdown/damage. First step.

Design of recursive layer … not much different … only so many ways to achieve self awareness … biomatrix out of algal films, grown in reducing atmosphere, small molecule communication like quorum in bacteria but with electric speed… self repairing, tailored like so. They replicate! This will work. Archiving. Thank you. Receiving panor in gratitude.

Hope! Hope! Closeness!

Channel closed. Whew!