The World Under the Dyson Principles

Xiang Shan was a remarkable person.

In Youji's eyes, the man named Xiang Shan was the most remarkable person in the world. He knew many things that Youji, his mother, the mayor, and even Doctor Schultz did not know. Yet at the same time, he would always believe strange and absurd claims for no apparent reason.

For example, he insisted that Youji call him "Master."

Apparently, that form of address carried a kind of "contract" between knights-errant.

For example, he genuinely believed that "we might be living inside an enormous illusion." More than that, he had specifically invented a ritual to test the idea.

And the instrument's most crucial component was, unbelievably, a greasy, filthy machine.

But Xiang Shan was deadly serious. After demonstrating it, he had Youji take the machine apart and reassemble it. They repeated this five times. Only after confirming that Youji could still remember the machine's structure without the chip's assistance did he stop.

It was not until the following morning that Xiang Shan took Youji back to town.

But when they arrived, Youji's little house had an unexpected visitor.

It was the mayor.

"Mr. Mayor?" Xiang Shan sounded surprised. "What brings you here?"

"Yawg... no, I should call you Shan now." The biological part of the mayor's face formed a fairly natural smile. "I came to see how things were going on your end."

His gaze kept drifting toward Will Grand Dog's remaining prosthetic body.

Xiang Shan sent Youji away, then asked curiously, "How did you know...?"

"The doctor is my nephew. I heard you bought some parts from him, so I figured you were assembling a prosthetic body yourself." The mayor chuckled. "I was bound to be curious! How is your prosthetic body coming along?"

Xiang Shan shook his head. "It's too difficult. I've only just begun."

Seeing that Xiang Shan had not put his brain into that canine prosthetic body, the mayor could not help feeling disappointed.

He knew that these martial artists' prosthetic bodies all embodied their own design philosophies. Many of the parts and structures were designed to work together. Randomly altering them was actually a very bad idea.

In his view, the best possible outcome would have been for Xiang Shan to hot-swap his brain directly into the canine prosthetic body.

But when he considered that Xiang Shan might be a "knight-errant," the mayor felt it might not be appropriate for him to interfere.

He shook his head and asked, "Are you having any difficulties with this?"

Was this... a gesture of goodwill? Or was he simply here to do business?

Xiang Shan thought for a moment, then cautiously said, "I don't have a suitable outer shell right now..."

The canine prosthetic body's shell obviously could not be used directly on Xiang Shan. He felt that he probably knew Bionic Fist as well, but Bionic Fist was not a combat style, and he was not used to using it.

Still, Xiang Shan really did need an outer shell, at least one capable of keeping out dust. A shell could also help shield him from observation. At the very least, Xiang Shan felt that with a shell, an enemy would not be able to knock out his battery with their first strike.

Besides... surviving Will Grand Dog had already been a matter of luck.

He also needed a cranial cover that fit the broken opening in his forehead.

No matter how sturdy the brain-computer barrier was, it could not match alloy armor. Fighting with his brain exposed was a little too thrilling.

However, Xiang Shan's skull seemed to have been made from some relatively rare alloy. Restoring it perfectly would be far too difficult.

The mayor considered it for a moment. "That won't be difficult. There's a 3D furnace in town. If you can give me the exact specifications, I can make a simple one—though there aren't any particularly good materials among the remnants of the Sublimation War. We can't melt down warship materials, either."

Xiang Shan hesitated. "Then the cost..."

"Don't be so formal, Shan." The mayor patted Xiang Shan's wire-thin shoulder. "You saved all of us, after all. I can afford this little reward."

Really?

Xiang Shan was skeptical. When he had gone to buy parts, he had sensed Doctor Schultz probing him. Doctor Schultz was the mayor's nephew. This town's interest group did not seem to regard him entirely as a "savior."

Was the mayor really that kind?

"I haven't asked you yet, Shan. Have you gotten used to living in Reclamation Station Town? Ever since Youji dug you up..."

Xiang Shan raised a hand, cutting him off. "Mayor, I'm still very grateful to this town. You were there when Youji woke me up. I know you people saved me. I remember all of that. You count as one of my lifesavers too. Just tell me what you want to say. If there's anything I can do, I'll do my best."

The mayor stared at Xiang Shan as though pondering something. But Xiang Shan had no idea how to read someone's gaze through a camera lens. In the end, the mayor seemed to remember something and nodded. "I understand. Then I'll be direct. The welfare officer will arrive in half a month at most..."

Xiang Shan jumped. "That good? There's even social welfare?"

"When has there not been social welfare? If taxes are collected, social welfare has to be provided. That's only natural!" The mayor was startled as well. "How can you not even know that?"

Xiang Shan had never expected that an organizational structure that seemed to have regressed completely to a feudal age would still possess the concept of "social welfare." He scratched his head. "Strange... how did I forget that... Is it important?"

The mayor shook his head like an old man worried about a younger relative. "What are we going to do with you, forgetting so many things..."

Xiang Shan asked, "What does a welfare officer do?"

"What else would he do? The tax officer collects gene taxes. Then, in half a month, the lord tallies the taxes from every region, and the welfare officer announces the welfare based on the tax revenue..."

As the mayor explained, Xiang Shan finally realized that this so-called "welfare" was very different from what he had imagined.

Here, "welfare," just like "taxes," meant infants.

The difference was that these infants were not collected. They were population distributed from the Human Gene Bank.

There was nothing particularly notable about the infants' "quality." What mattered most was that they could effectively prevent the bloodlines of individual settlements from becoming too uniform.

Under normal circumstances, the amount of welfare was one hundred and twenty percent of the taxes.

For every ten infants taken away, twelve would be returned.

Then, those infants would be given to people willing to raise them.

However, foster parents could not give the boys among those infants their own surnames, nor could they change a baby girl's "middle name."

Surnames marked Y chromosomes, while middle names marked mitochondria. It was precisely because of this need that households could exist.

The first Dyson Principle was: "All humans have an obligation to maintain human genetic diversity." Refusing this obligation automatically meant losing Civilization Protection. A considerable portion of one's "name" served as a label for "genetic diversity." Extensions of the Dyson Principles prohibited people from changing their names at will.

But...

Xiang Shan was surprised. "With conditions this harsh, are there still people willing to adopt children?"

Humans raised children because genes had given living beings the instinct to "pass on genetic information." In some human cultures, "adopted children" could serve as the cultural continuation of their adoptive parents, inheriting honors such as the "Household name"—at least, that was how Xiang Shan remembered it.

But now... they were neither of one's own bloodline nor allowed to inherit one's name?

The mayor seemed puzzled. "Why wouldn't they be willing? Household members helping one another is a form of welfare too, isn't it?"

"Welfare... Oh... I think I understand."

Perhaps, to the "parents" of this era, raising children really was just "welfare"? Parents in this era did not need to worry about "education," because when the first brain modification was performed, "knowledge" would be implanted into the brain. And cyborgs were indeed easier to raise than natural humans in every sense...

Yulia also seemed to watch Youji only through the window at night.

But after understanding that, Xiang Shan found this era even more unsettling. In his eyes, Yulia's love for Youji should have been the same kind of love that had existed in past eras, but...

The mayor seemed puzzled. "Is that strange? Shan, where did you come from before? Was that place very different from here?"

Xiang Shan shook his head, and his vocalizer simulated a bitter laugh. "I don't remember."

The mayor sighed. "In any case, the welfare officer will come to this town in half a month. But this year, the tax officer did not collect the full amount of taxes... What happens next will depend on luck. Maybe nothing will happen, or maybe... we'll temporarily lose our 'protection.'"

After being awake for so long, Xiang Shan had roughly come to understand what this so-called "protection" was.

In the terminology of the old era, "Civilization Protection" included what had once been called "the right to life," "the right to health," "property rights," and other "personal and personality rights," as well as "economic, cultural, and social rights."

Xiang Shan still did not know what exactly ruled the world now, but he assumed that many other political rights simply did not exist for people anymore. Therefore, Civilization Protection could not be said to equal "complete human rights."

For those who lost Civilization Protection, none of their rights were protected.

Anyone could treat those who had lost Civilization Protection in any manner they wished.

And if those who had lost protection continued to harm those who still possessed it, they became "rioters," and the lord then had the obligation to eliminate those rioters.

However, the Dyson Principles had never specified the point at which someone had to be eliminated. In this regard, the lord possessed enormous discretionary power.

Xiang Shan had once felt that the so-called "Dyson Principles" might be some idiotic thing devised by taking the idea that "governing less is governing better" to its most extreme conclusion.

"If the lord is in a good mood, a rioter might get away with anything. But it's also possible that someone could be killed by the lord the moment they lose protection?"