The Blind Gods

In these future times, humanity had built its paradise: not content with exploring the stars and encountering other civilizations, it promised every member of its society food and shelter, free healthcare, and, at the end of life, a place in the After—a digital server where one could continue living indefinitely in a disembodied state.Refining a society that cultivated empathy—or at least tried to appear so—it had abolished the death penalty and prison. Authorities employed telepathic agents, ensuring that no innocent person was wrongly convicted and precisely measuring the sincerity of expressed remorse. The harshest sanction a criminal could face was the suspension of citizenship, resulting in the loss of free access to basic rights. Even so, those convicted were assigned paying jobs: a form of forced labor in these future times that would have been considered ordinary life in the 21st century.And yet, there were exceptions. Among them was the case of Garen Antor. A senior official working on experimental projects for the Starfleet, Garen had been deeply involved at every level in a sordid project. Its details were never fully disclosed to the public, both out of decency and to avoid spreading violent ideas. What was certain was that this project resulted in the suffering, torture, and death of hundreds of children and adolescents, as confirmed with pain by their families. The scale of this criminal endeavor shifted the trial, originally intended to be military, to a civilian criminal court.The temptation to return to pre-stellar era punishments was strong. On Calchas-3, home to "administrative detention centers"—prisons in all but name—crowds gathered: media representatives, societal tourists, embarrassed legal experts, and death penalty advocates among the protesters.Philosophers, peace activists, historians, reasonable people, and compassionate individuals appealed to the Transients—extraterrestrial life forms so advanced that they were indistinguishable from gods. They begged these beings to intervene and prevent a regression in civilization. The Transients, who had traded knowledge and wealth with humanity for years, were known for their undeniable benevolence and wisdom.When the trial began, one of the judges was a Transient who had incarnated in a humanoid machine to communicate with the court.To everyone's surprise, Garen Antor was not the cold, austere bureaucrat in a gray uniform they had imagined. He was a force of nature: tall, broad, charismatic, with piercing intelligence—an intelligence he demonstrated through silence amid debates that concerned not only his fate but the future of human civilization.The death penalty was off the table, and life imprisonment without hope of release was seen as unworthy of humanity's progressive ideals. Temporary imprisonment posed a real risk that Antor might be killed by one of the vengeful parents who had openly expressed such intentions on camera. In the absence of other options, the Transient proposed exile to an unknown, impossibly distant location from which Garen Antor would have no chance of returning. In these times, crossing a galaxy arm took mere seconds, so the Transient suggested an exile of one year—a distance unfathomable to the human mind.Garen Antor's lawyers argued instead for a lifetime suspension of citizenship, the harshest punishment ever issued by this future society, coupled with virtualization therapy—using AI doctors to modify his state of mind.They opposed the Transient's exile proposal through three arguments, now largely forgotten but once cornerstones of legal and moral education: the "unworthy ambassador," the "impossible punishment," and the "removal of eternity."The removal of eternity meant that society would deprive Antor of the right to upload himself to the After at the end of his life, effectively denying him eternal life—a fundamental right. By doing so, society would become as cruel as the man it sought to punish. Yet, this argument carried little weight against Antor's crimes, as no citizen felt comfortable sharing the same virtual paradise with such a wretched figure.The impossible punishment suggested that a year-long journey might take Antor beyond the boundaries of the universe—or at least into an intergalactic void where no life could exist—making exile tantamount to a death sentence. This argument was dismissed by the Transient, who assured that the ship would stop at the first stellar cluster after a year of cryogenic travel.The unworthy ambassador posited that if Antor ended up on a life-bearing planet or within a civilization, he would become humanity's representative. Could humanity bear such an ambassador?But the word of a Transient—who had brought so much good to humanity—was irresistible when weighed against a man who represented its worst.Thus, Garen Antor was sentenced to exile. Images of this towering man, silent throughout his trial, entering a life-suspension sarcophagus for his year-long journey, left an indelible mark on everyone's imagination. Cameras and microphones were offered to him for his final words.Resolute, exuding serene strength, and staring into the cameras, he declared: "I will return."But that was over a century ago, and he has never returned.