The Amoral God-King
You look out to the stars. That is where you belong. Not stuck here. Up there, where you can finally realize your dreams. But… those humans… it’s not a big deal, but you want to be able to sleep soundly at night. You simply can’t leave things unfinished. Better to take care of such things now, so that they won’t become a problem in the future. Hesitation is convenient, but rarely advantageous. Yes. You would be a responsible God-King, and deal with problems before they manifest.
Imagine you are an Amoral God-King. Your godhood has only recently begun. You have goals of your own that you want to manifest, but they don’t necessitate the mortals that currently inhabit your world. The only problem is the mortals in your realm have been using their magic to create other gods. They’ve already created lesser gods than yourself, and if given enough time, they will potentially create gods more powerful than you. What do you do?
You check your watch. It would all be happening very soon. But the humans had evolved from stupider animals. What would you do if one of those stupider animals one day became more intelligent, and then one day… tried to use magic to create a god of their own? You simply couldn’t be bothered with “checking in” every few million years. You have better things to do. The stars wait. Your dreams await.
I can tell you what I would do. I have goals I want to accomplish. I’m a busy god. I can’t be bothered by such an inconvenience as having to constantly monitor all the mortals, and stop them every time they seem to be making something more powerful than myself. There’s a much simpler way of dealing with them. Just kill them. Then they can’t bother me in the future, and I can focus my time and resources on my true goals. Just to be thorough, I’d probably scorch the Earth and purge it of all lifeforms. Evolution created the mortals one time, it could happen again, and those future mortals might discover magic and create another god. But there might be the chance of other mortals developing in other worlds, who might use their own magic to create gods. Better deal with that possibility too. I create and send out Von Neumann probes, with the mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out and destroy new lifeforms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no bot has gone before.
You see the fire engulfing Earth. It glows bright for a second. Before long, it will go dark, and be as barren as all the other planets in this solar system. You turn your gaze ahead, forward. To the stars, onward. The future awaits. Some of your probes start to make their landings. On Mars first, but they would soon move on. One celestial body after another, building more of themselves with the resources from other planets. You have millions of years ahead of you, it is always best to be prepared. Any such sign of abiogenesis would have to be wiped out. You smile to yourself. No, life would not be “finding a way” this time.
This is the easiest, and probably the default, tactic of an Amoral God-King. It doesn’t hate you. It doesn’t love you. You’re just… a potential problem. Something that would just make things easier if you simply didn’t exist anymore. Nothing personal, just god business. Controlling all the pieces in the game is just way more resource-intensive than simply removing them from the board. Controlling the pieces means holding them perpetually in a frozen state, committing resources toward doing so for an indefinite amount of time. Removing the pieces can be done quickly, and doesn’t need any future actions once it’s done.
