Rectitude

“The door creaks too, simply amazing. How did you get the wood to smell aged as well?” The attendant behind the bar shrugged, only to continue drying glasses, fastidious in his approach and unmoved by the new potential guest, or more likely, a passing tourist. He made a few tentative steps closer to the bar, wondering if they were closed, only to see a few people scattered in corners, some in small built-in nooks along the wall, others seated alone at tables, slowly sipping their drinks, waiting for something or someone that was to never arrive. At first glance, it was a pensioners destination as described. The bartender finally motioned him forward, resigned that he was not peering in to see the faithful recreation, only to leave, like so many others. Without a word he placed a menu before him, pointing to one of the bar stools, and walked to the back room. The young traveler accepted his designation, sat down, and ran his finger down the menu without reading, peering to the side to ascertain the clientele. The discordant theme of the entire area, this establishment, was made all the more palpable, or maybe more vibrant, by the customers. Together they were out of place, but alone, ensconced in their various stages of drink, or conversation, were perfectly situated on the chalky black and white tile.

The bartender quickly returned through the Dutch door, the thick oak straining the hinges as it slowly pushed back to its resting place. He ran his fingers across his short beard, peering at the interloper, awaiting an order, holding out hope there would be no questions. “Make me something with Campari, I’ve never had the opportunity to try such a large selection of drinks, how do you source it all?” The bartender quickly pointed to the cargo pad miles away and commenced his task, making occasional eye contact while performing crisp motions with the ice, glass, and tumbler. He quickly produced a coaster and accelerated the drink towards it, only to then pause momentarily, ensuring it was properly aligned as it landed home on the bar.

An hour passed, or maybe two, as the guest tried to extract conversation with each drink he ordered. Unsuccessful, he gazed around, trying to extricate some novelty from the atmosphere, sensing the chance for even an ephemeral experience fading. He felt some solace that the bartender’s demeanor remained unchanged, even when a woman approached the bar, she received the same curt service, albeit with a lighter touch. Sensing his end, he peered around one last time to see a new patron arrive, who took a seat at a small table. His assuredness betrayed him as a regular, dressed in an indigo suit, not once looking up at the bartender. The man sat there, looking straight ahead at the wall, performing perfunctory adjustments to his cuffs, smoothing out his tapered trousers. The bartender sensed his arrival long ago, and ferried over a martini, his cold demeanor quickly shifting to warm deference as he bowed quickly before walking away. The regular waved to a couple at a far table, undoubtedly he knew the contours of the entire establishment. The young guest was close enough to be heard by the distinguished regular, but the lack of relative proximity prompted hesitation to engage without a good reason. He sat there frustrated, wishing that he had sat in a more fortuitous location to start a conversation. Closeness could erase any awkward pretense. The bartender, noticing him peering at the regular, sought to move the tourist along as best he could, “Would you like anything else sir?” “No, not right at the moment.” The traveler decided that an oblique approach was his best shot, “I assume the man over there in the suit is the owner, or at least a significant customer?” The bartender paused, putting his large hands out the edge of the bar, “Significant customer? Well he is a regular, been here as long as I have been here, he lives across the square.”

The suited man held up his martini glass, slowly turning his head back at the bar to see the young traveler, who sensed his opportunity and nodded. With his drink finally recharged, he sipped slowly, staring back at the wall again, “If you are going to sit there and stare at me, you might as well join me here.” The bartender looked at the young tourist, eyeing him to go to the table, clearly not wanting to upset his best customer. He finally got up and walked over the table, the man extending his arm toward the empty seat, glancing only momentarily before realigning his gaze at the wall, which was now obscured by the earnest tourist. “So this is your first time here, what do you think of the tile, does it look aged or is there a palpable veneer that degrades its authenticity?” The traveler realized quickly he was out of his depth but was eager for any back and forth, “I would say all the woodwork distracted me from noticing the tile. Well maybe at least initially.” The man smirked at him, “I’m Valentin, and yes, of course, a faithful reproduction, all of it simulacra of establishments from Plaza Dorrego, down to the fixtures, lamp posts, even the patterned square pavement.”

“This seems like a place for those who have everything, how long did it take to build all of this here?” Valentin sipped his glass, locking eyes with his interrogator, “Have everything? Maybe had everything. It was built a decade ago, back when reproductions of key cities and locales provided a great deal of revenue for resorts, particularly after many revolted against the Jovian Fathers’ critique of the trajectory of civilization on Earth and its plans for further expansion to other systems.” The bartender arrived again, nodding at Valentin, gently placing a new Campari for the young traveler, who had surpassed the test of being a mere transitory sightseer. “It’s funny you mention their work, I have a copy of the Ganymedian Discourses in my bag back at the hotel.” Valentin smoothed out his pants again, looking down at his shoes. “Yes, of course, the tome that broke our expansionist aims, or at least forced everyone to line up on one side or the other. It carried all the Manichaeism that humanity could bear in one tidy red volume, devoid of any nuance, it could only have been born in the stark wastes of the Jovian system.” The traveler reveled in this response, deliberating whether or not to engage further on the soundness of their wisdom or to critique it to gain favor with his new patron. “Well, agree or disagree, it has altered discourse about our shared purpose and trajectory for over one hundred years.” Valentin’s eyes flashed at this response, “Yes, it has been characterized as a discourse, which means a conversation or discussion, but many would find the description of this work as a discourse to be inaccurate, given the repercussions and how this tome was wielded, no?” “Ok, ok, I can’t disagree with how it was used, but I do not think they originally wrote it as an edict, or law, an interrogation of rational thought in the midst of what they observed perhaps?” Valentin smiled wryly, “Or was it cloaked in this presupposition, but in the end, we will never know their true intent.”

The starlight began to recede as the day wore on, betraying the facsimile of the establishment, emulating, or rather ignoring, the peculiarity of the sun that could never be achieved. “Enjoying your drink? You know that was widely consumed in the actual location we are currently pretending to inhabit? You probably don’t know why, it was brought in by immigrants, who left their mark on this locale, made it their home, this small element of a beautiful city that is no more.” The young inquisitor acceded to the role reversal, knowing he could still extract more experience, even if the place was starting to thin out. “You must have been here for years, or did you help design this entire plaza and its various shops, cafes, and old flats?” Valentin signaled for another drink, “Oh no no, I did not design it, like many I chose to retire here.” “Retire? You seem a tad young to retire from it all?” The drink glided between them, making a soft landing on the coaster, the barkeep’s precision never waned. “Yes I can understand that, you can think of it as rather unplanned, but then again we never quite know how things will end, our careers, our lives, what we built. This you do not understand yet, you are probably just starting to build out your life, charting how you will fulfill your goals and desires.”

“Well to be honest, given the systematic collapse across habitable systems, I haven’t given much thought, maybe I should just stay here and wait out my days. You probably have not seen what has been wrought out there over the last five years, it isn’t pretty.” Valentin loosened his tie a bit, looking over the young man’s shoulder at the blank wall again, “I do not have current first-hand knowledge you possess, but I have an understanding, enough wayward people like yourself come in here to clue me in, which is enough.” The stale, inert starlight was finally starved as the day closed, forcing the evening lighting to finally kick on. The bartender prepared and braced for the usual patrons that would arrive for drinks before dinner at the restaurant across the street. The young traveler looked about, the darkened wood finishes became a softer, somber enclosure as their discourse about simulations, and reality, and those who falsify their true aims.

“So you are here, retired, and alone? What did you leave behind that compelled you here?” The piercing question was denuded by the bartender who brought over a fare of bread, provoleta, and fried fish. “Please try this first, I have this every week.” Valentin pulled a plate, placing a bit of each on it and gingerly advancing it to his new guest. “Try the fish last, and let's get you a bottle of wine, the bite of the Campari will ruin it.” The bartender was frenzied as he accommodated new guests while ensuring their prominent customer was taken care of at every turn. To his relief, his evening support arrived, an understudy who was cautious and appeared green but was aware of the demands of their client.

“You used the word compelled, and I would not argue about its accuracy, but its implied usage, its function regarding my life and the trajectory that led me here. That you undoubtedly have wrong.” The young man placed his forkful of fish down, “Ok, so are you talking a self-exile of sorts? Or did you force a bad move that ended a promising career?” Valentin swirled his drink, the occluded remnants trying to advance up the glass. “Yes.” He reclined back a bit, signaling that he was quarry willing to divulge more if asked in a correct sequence. “Ok, so you were forced out because of an error, and you decided seclusion was the best option?” Valentin drew his fingers across his stubble, his previous stiffened pretense began to wane. “So you have seen the collapse, and if I remember correctly you said ‘what has been wrought out there’ which I must say is not an inaccurate description. Do you know why it all collapsed?”

“Well I have lived through it during the formative years of my life, mass starvation, colony collapse, a series of cataclysms, some related, some just poor timing from what I have gathered.” Assured in what he felt was a comprehensive response, the young man finished what was left on his plate, taking a long swig as he remained arrested to the back of the chair, the third glass finally kicking in. Valentin smirked a bit, which was belied by an unmistakable glimpse of sadness, the incongruity of his eyes yielding another insight for the young guest. “Well you just rattled off a list of facts, I can’t dispute that, but that isn’t an answer, that is just the impact of what occurred, not any sort of causation.” Realizing that he did indeed provide a sloppy response, the young traveler decided to employ his only remaining crutch, “Enlighten me then, I’m not a planetary scientist, it all seems far too complex, maybe that is it, the complexity of it all baffled everyone, or still does.”

“Well you are correct about complexity, what do you know about the inter-system resource management process?” “ISRMP, I mean, it’s there, or was there, but before this all started it was always there. Predictable, enabling exponential expansion.” Valentin looked down, then back at the empty wall again, “I created the whole system.” “So that’s it, you feel accountable for all this because you created the system that worked perfectly for so long amidst all the chaos out there?” The young man sat visibly perplexed, yet disappointed, concluding this was just unjustified self-flagellation on Valentin’s part, a means to increase his mystique as a knowledgeable, but damaged soul.

“Yes, it ran in the background, like the blackness of the deep itself, guiding our resource extraction endeavors, where and when to resupply, pulling us out of a medieval mercantilism quickly, integrating whole societies.” “Yes Valentin, exactly, it did all that, it gifted us so much, I’m not sure why you are faulting that, the rest was our misadventure mixed with unknown calamities that we could not foresee.” Valentin finally leaned forward, his passive open demeanor hardened quickly, bringing his shoulders and chest to bear. “What you do not understand was it was hubris built upon hubris, a dyad of arrogance that was so sublime in its rendering, even you cannot fathom the depths of its error, a mar that sat deep within it all, eating away.”

“I’m sorry, was it all a systemic miscalculation? I think it’s easy to say that now Valentin, it’s easier to make these clear judgments, but so many of the calamities happened in far-flung systems, there was no way to avoid them.” Valentin honed in for the kill, pointing at him, “That is where you are wrong, the veneer of separation, the unremitting distances is what fools you. We mastered single planets, automated that, and naturally, our folly was to try to scale that up.” “Scale what up, terraforming multiple planets and trading resources, do you know how many lives we created?”

“I should have had you around 20 years ago, you would have been the perfect salesman for what I created. We traded lives for a poor attempt to paper over our deep flaws with our technological ingenuity. We mastered a planet, and then thought we could master the cosmos, and on top of it all we tried to automate it.” Valentin grabbed the remaining wine, pouring himself a final glass. “Do you know the resource errors that occurred as a result, when one system fell upon disaster, it rippled across the entire network until the edifice collapsed on itself. I killed a billion people in two years through mass starvation and desperate attempts to escape denuded worlds.” The young tourist sat aghast, silent, and paralyzed from the revelation. Valentin stood up, looking down upon him, and back at the wall, “You said you left your copy of the discourses in your hotel, you can borrow mine, I recommend the opening of volume 48.” He placed a tired copy of the red book on the table, nodding to the bartender before departing.

The bartender finally came over to collect their arsenal of glasses and dishes. “Your chief customer Valentin is quite intriguing, I’m sorry I have to ask, what used to be on that blank wall behind me?” The bartender annoyingly signaled for his assistant to bus the table. “Valentin, who is Valentin? Do you have any idea who you were sitting with?” He turned quickly, “As for what was on the wall, it was a portrait of his family that he lost in the catastrophe, and don’t worry, he covered the bill, you don’t even have to worry about a tip.” The young traveler sat dejected, castigating himself for his pathetic attempt to divine even a minutia of the refined man’s life. Resigned, he thumbed through the volume, resting on the opening page of volume 48:

“The fashion of expansion turns inward upon itself, it seeks to fulfill, but it extracts, steals, its designs hold false promises beyond the firmament, the many hapless ventures have shown this to be so. For every promising resource or new home world there has been a tenfold increase in disaster meted upon those left behind. The endless escape has left us bare, our people enslaved, and their futures obliterated. The fundamental issue lies with our unresolved ethics and our unfulfilled morality. We damaged creatures venture out further, bringing our distorted image, wreaking their imperfections upon the cosmos.”

- Davrin, Ganymedian Discourses, Vol. 48.