Vitalik's Sci-Fi Novel "Snow Moon" Chapters 21-22
- Core Points: Sierra uses preponderance of evidence reasoning to expose Delvot as actually a Northern propagandist whose goal is to dismantle the Order Society; meanwhile, Yann observes in Free City that defense companies are profiting through a shelter cartel, and Zego uses drones to counter the Northern threat.
- Key Elements:
- Delvot is confirmed to be a Northerner, weakening Viridia's defenses by manipulating the Guardians of the Order Society; the preponderance of evidence points to the Northerner at five points, with no other explanation exceeding two points.
- Viridia's court system of anonymously and randomly selecting judges effectively resists hedge fund fork litigation, and malicious appeals can be ruled as warranting punitive damages.
- Free City defense companies form a cartel, trading shelter space for weapons modernization funding, while the government indirectly rewards public-benefit behavior through road construction.
- Zego establishes a secret drone kill chain, using steganographic communication in Red County to counter Northern drones, and plans to hijack Northern drones for analysis back in Zego.
- Zego's indoor carbon dioxide levels dropped by over one hundred points in a month, with privacy and biosecurity awareness rising rapidly, driven by coordination from language-upgraded machines.
- Yann is commissioned by Zey to find a defense company skilled in airlift, to replace the previous partner that was only proficient in maritime transport.
Chapter 21
Meldan, Viridia · 3724 Fogtime 20
Sera, Vil, Deya, Lily, and Zwen were all gathered around the table at Sera's house, waiting for dinner to arrive.
"Thank you for coming and keeping us company," Sera said softly. "It really means a lot to me."
"Any news from Febric and Hreda?"
"I just sent them some more Zip coins a few days ago for their personal expenses. They're just living the best life they can in Damae Port. The schools are full, but one of the other refugees is a math teacher, and we're hiring her to give them and a few other kids some informal lessons."
"No word on when they can come back here?"
"Still nothing. Now I'm starting to suspect that the Northerner plan to unify everyone is meant to invade other parts of Viridia."
"Well, at least they're safe."
Sera sighed.
"How's your lawsuit against Fork going?"
This time Vil sighed.
"A few months ago, we won at first instance. But then they appealed, and a completely different set of judges was selected by lot to hear the case; a month ago, they also ruled in our favor. But just a few days ago, we learned that the other side filed a second appeal."
"Can they drag this out forever? Another appeal, another lottery to select five judges, and you have to convince them all over again; rinse and repeat until you're too exhausted to keep going, so you give up and accept a quarter of the compensation?"
"Fortunately, no. Viridian common law stipulates that judges can rule that a lawsuit was filed in bad faith and order the filer to pay the other party a substantial amount in punitive damages. Frivolous appeals are frequently penalized this way."
"This time, their latest appeal filing included some new footage from Leap's internal surveillance system. All that material was of course encrypted, but a former employee had access permissions and handed it over. The other side found some videos and messages that make several of us look quite embarrassed, and they're claiming this gives their appeal legitimate grounds. But none of those videos actually contain anything truly relevant to the case. I hope this round of judges sees through Fork's tricks faster than the last one. We've already alleged bad faith in our response brief; with any luck, this should be over soon."
"These hedge funds really are despicable, aren't they?"
"If trials weren't conducted anonymously, with randomly selected judges and split into two semi-independent panels each round, I'm confident they'd find ways to threaten or bribe the judges."
Just then, Lily burst into the room.
"Uncle Vil, Auntie Deya, Mom! I got eighty-one percent on my latest citizenship exam!"
"Congratulations, Lily!" Deya replied.
"Normally I'd say you've now earned a trip to the Northern Woodlands," Vil added. "But, uh..."
"If it's safe in a few months and Gladias doesn't need me, I'll take you somewhere in the United City-States. Maybe Mably," Sera suggested.
The doorbell rang. Before anyone else could react, Zwen ran to the door to get the food.
Zwen opened the door, took two bags from the robot, and closed the door. Zwen brought the food back to the table and immediately started unpacking. He, Sera, Deya, Vil, and Lily each found the box containing their meal, and the five of them began eating.
"Zwen, how's school been treating you?" Deya asked.
"My team won at Hailis again yesterday!" Zwen answered excitedly.
"A month ago, I also got ninety-five on my physics exam. The teacher is really impressed with me."
"That's wonderful," Sera replied.
"So a few days ago he took me privately to a garage and showed me a mini rocket. He let me look inside, then pressed a button to launch it. It was so fun!"
"When I grow up, I want to build a rocket! And then ride it into the sky. Maybe someday I could even go to the moon!"
"Sounds like you don't need me to take you on adventures!" Vil added.
Deya continued asking the family for status updates.
"So Sera, anything new with you?"
"Well, besides Febric and Hreda, I've basically been thinking about my recent meetings with other members of the Order."
"Can you say any more?"
"I can't give specifics. But overall, I get the sense that someone is manipulating the Order in a highly coordinated way: they say different things to different people, tailoring their manipulation to each person's specific position; they have astonishing espionage capabilities, and their objectives don't even seem to have any commercial motive."
"Is it the Northerners?" Zwen blurted out, with the excitement of a detective novel hero solving the mystery.
A silence fell over the dinner table.
Sera sat in a chair in the basement, staring at her handheld device.
Hurry up, she thought. Gladias should be waking up any moment now.
She slapped her face with her palm for the fifth time, ashamed of her own blindness. Gladias had been attending these secret meetings for half a year, and she had asked nothing, assuming everything was under his control—and even if Gladias couldn't figure it out himself, his mysterious friend Moff could always get to the bottom of it. But it turned out both of them had been played by this man from start to finish. After his initial disguise—a kind-hearted person who cared about peace and freedom—fell apart, they were fooled again by a new mask, believing he was from Silver Tongue.
Sera herself had seen through the Silver Tongue cover in less than a day—in fact, within minutes she'd grown suspicious. But she hadn't investigated fast enough. She had also considered that it might be the Northerners behind it, but dismissed the thought: Delvot's rhetoric was completely different from anything Lord Ephelion had ever said. Why would a Northerner praise peace and freedom? Yet now, all the pieces fit together. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
Her watch rang. It was Gladias.
She called back immediately.
"Sera! I've missed you so much. How are you?"
At first, she wanted to scream.
"Gladias, you idiot! Do you know what you've done?!!!"
At first, silence.
"What's wrong, Sera?"
"Delvot."
Silence again.
"I see. Moff told you?"
"Moff is an idiot too. The fact that you trusted him makes you twice the idiot. Yes, he did tell me, Gladias. But I saw through Delvot's lies almost immediately, and I dragged Moff out to do my own investigation."
"What did you find?"
"He doesn't work for Silver Tongue, you naive fool!"
"What?"
Silence fell on Sera's end again as she thought about what to say next.
"What do you know?"
"We found two other Guardians who had been approached by Delvot. One of them was responsible for the environmental sensor data retention rating criterion. Delvot approached him the same way he approached you, persuading him not to bother pushing for stronger privacy protections in security or environmental data collection."
"Then we found another one. She was responsible for the education rating criterion. Delvot persuaded her to cancel incentives encouraging private schools to properly teach Viridian civics."
"Finally, to further confirm, we found the Guardian responsible for the rating criterion that Silver Tongue should supposedly care about most—social media openness and interoperability—and Delvot, or anyone else for that matter, had never contacted them at all."
"But... what about Moff overhearing Delvot talking to someone from Silver Tongue? Could there be someone else who also wants to buy off Silver Tongue, persuading them to boost the recommendation weight of certain content that aligns with their position?"
"No, you idiot. That was Delvot performing. Come on, his counter-espionage skills are far better than Moff's—he must have discovered long ago that Moff was following him, so one day he deliberately planted that lead to make his cover identity more convincing."
"So..."
"Think about what we now know about Delvot's objectives. You thought he cared about freedom—but where's the freedom when he's pushing for unrestricted surveillance? You thought he was anti-war—but he said nothing at all to the second Guardian about it. Finally, you thought he cared about Silver Tongue—but the Guardian group responsible for the rating criterion Silver Tongue cares about most, he never even tried to infiltrate!"
"The Guardians are divided into three groups, and they don't talk to each other. He could always join the other two groups."
"The key is the preponderance of evidence!" Sera said sharply. "Remember the probability updating formula—Hreda has yelled it at us plenty of times. Each piece of evidence on its own might only shift the odds ratio by two or three times; but three independent factors all pointing in the same direction, multiplied together, shift the odds ratio by eight to twenty-seven times."
"Fine, then what do you think Delvot's real motive is?"
"He's a Northerner."
"What?"
"It's truly unbelievable. Nothing he said to me sounded anything like Lord Ephelion."
"Gladias... how can you be so naive?"
"Ephelion and Delvot aren't thinkers—they're propagandists. Their goal isn't to find and share what they see as truth, but to adjust the discursive environment—whether for one person or an entire nation—to serve their own interests: turn bystanders into friends, and enemies into bystanders."
"Ephelion's goal is to inspire people within Viridia to join the Northern cause. So he publicly presented a version of the Northern cause that would appeal to certain intelligent but pathological and twisted Viridians."
"Delvot's goal is to dismantle the Order. He knows he can't make the Order side with the North, but he can render it ineffective. So for him, the most effective rhetoric depends on the rating criterion and the person he's talking to: sometimes supporting freedom, sometimes supporting peace, sometimes supporting something else entirely."
"Why are you so sure?"
"Because of the preponderance of evidence. Let's list all the evidence."
"What are Delvot's objectives? Not what he says they are, but what's visible from his actions?"
"One: reducing support for open-source defense hardware. Freedom one point, peace one point, Northerner one point, Silver Tongue zero."
"Two: pushing for unrestricted surveillance. Against freedom one point, peace zero, Northerner one point, Silver Tongue zero."
"Three: pushing for Viridian schools not to teach people Viridian civics. Delvot specifically said: 'People should learn to love Viridia by seeing how great it is.' Freedom one point, peace zero, Northerner one point, Silver Tongue zero."
"Four: no involvement in the social media openness and interoperability rating criterion. Well, there are three Guardian groups, so this one can be multiplied by one-half. Freedom zero, peace zero, Northerner zero, Silver Tongue negative half a point."
"Five: after his identity was exposed, he sent you off to Zego. You might say that was good advice—Viridia really should learn more from Zego. But that's not the only explanation. Another explanation is that he wanted you far away, half a world away, so that even if you became suspicious, you couldn't interfere with any of his plans! Both explanations are possible, so one point each."
"Six: his espionage capabilities exceed any company's, far beyond what some non-profit idealistic group could manage. Idealistic liberal or pacifist negative one point, Silver Tongue zero, Northerner one point."
"Adding it up: Northerner five points, freedom two points, peace two points, Silver Tongue half a point. If you say he's a Silver Tongue person who also cares about freedom, fine, add another half point. I'd even be willing to double the weight of that last espionage capability; that gives Northerner six points, and every other explanation gets zero or half a point."
"Think about what this means, Gladias. He approached you, and through you infiltrated one of the three discussion groups. The military, the parliament, the media platforms—he and his associates walk right through all of them. The only doors he can't break through are the ones where he can't find the key: the Order, the courts, the Graph Grants. Privacy isn't a luxury; it's because of it that we're still standing here."
Sera stopped talking. Gladias was silent for a moment.
"I'm sorry, Sera."
"I'm sorry I didn't trust you enough to involve you in this. I love you. I should have trusted and respected not just your heart, but your mind as well."
Silence again.
"So what do we do?"
"I wish Delvot were wrong, that you were useless in Zego, that you could show off something amazing from all the adventures you've had there, and that I weren't constantly crying because our children are trapped in an enclave surrounded by Northerners while I try to clean up your mess."
"I think I understand their military quite well now. Or rather, their shadow military. The official Zego military is as compromised as ours, and so is the rest of the government. But they've essentially established the Mingpentai Tournament as a covert military training ground, having long bet that the important war would be a drone war—more like Mingpentai than Hailis."
"I've been doing my best to convince them that the next battle will be in Viridia, not Zego—that we're ahead in the technologies and industries that could pose a threat to them, but completely behind in defense—and that if they want to save themselves, they need to come help us first."
"Good. I hope, for the children's sake, for Viridia's sake, and for your sake, that you'll actually come up with a plan to make that happen."
"Convincing the Zegoans is only half the battle. We also have to convince the Viridians to accept them. And not the Guardians—the parliament. That same parliament whose subcommittee barely approved you as a Guardian by eleven votes to ten, with no legitimate reason to hold a negative view of you; unless they had some magical foresight and already knew how naive you are, which I doubt."
"I know."
"Do you know what we should do?"
"I don't know."
"I can try to figure this out. But you have to trust me."
"I will, I promise."
"No more secrets, okay?"
"Okay."
"I promise."
Chapter 22
Liberty City, United City-States · 3724 Fogtime 22
Yann sat in the taxi, looking out the window. He saw the chaotic architectural mixture typical of Liberty City: some glass and steel, some concrete, some stone, some tall, some short, some beautiful, some ugly.
The taxi drove under a highway, and he saw the roadside piled with uncollected trash. Almost as soon as the taxi emerged from under the highway, it passed a small park on the left and a tall industrial building on the right. A subtitled film was playing on the wall of the industrial building. Yann looked left again, trying to see where the film was being projected from. Just before the taxi drove past the point where Yann could no longer see, he spotted the projector hidden under a park bench. He thought that even without Graph Grants or rating criteria, someone would always provide public goods.
Overall, everything looked normal—though Yann barely noticed that there seemed to be slightly less activity on the streets than usual.
The taxi drove under another highway. On the other side, on the side of one of the buildings, Yann noticed a huge advertisement.
Buy a luxury room in a shelter at the northern edge of central Liberty City.
10 meters underground, highest-grade physical, biological, and informational filtering and isolation protection.
Only 325,000 Zip coins!
A minute later, another advertisement:
Shelters of all shapes and sizes for ordinary people.
Starting at only 50,000 Zip coins, with mortgage plans available!
The taxi continued west, entering the area the advertisements had described. Yann saw a type of activity that seemed to have been steadily increasing over the past six months: road construction. He had also seen many shelters going up, and the scale of road construction followed closely behind—especially in the northern part of the city.
Yann's handheld device, resting on his lap, buzzed.
Taxi Fare
Driver base fare 3.69
