Embers of Empire... What is it?
Embers of Empire is currently an outline for a trilogy of science fiction novels entitled Awakening the Metal Dragons, Fires of Ragnarok, and Victory Conditions.
The basic premise of the trilogy deals with the Fermi Paradox: why haven't we been contacted by extraterrestrials? The answer: on our end of the spiral arm of the galaxy... we live in an interstellar graveyard.
At the beginning of the 23rd century, humanity is recovering from a Dark Age lasting near a hundred years, following a devastating civil war between Earth and its colonies which resulted in the collapse of interstellar civilization.
The Terran Empire, ruled by the Jade Emperor, the Imperial Senate, and the CyberShogunate is expanding outward from Earth to reclaim these lost colonies. But as the Empire expands toward the edge of settled space, one question remains: where are the extraterrestrials?
In Awakening the Metal Dragons, a team of scientists and archeologists discover the ruins of long-dead civilizations on burned, blasted, and long-dead worlds destroyed more than 40,000 years ago. Following the trail of devastation, the team discovers shattered planets, dead worlds, and even planets where entire populations appeared to have relocated almost overnight, apparently fleeing en masse from an unknown enemy. But where did they go?
Accompanied by Helen Dahl, known in the news media as Ninyo-009, a robot who more than a century ago made news headlines as the first artificial intelligence to achieve sentience, the team arrives on New Providence. Settled by members of a devout Christian sect in imitation of the Amish and other religious groups who disdain high technology, the only technology above the early nineteenth century can be found at the starport; meanwhile, the team locates ruins of an alien civilization in the jungles near the equator. Little do they know that buried beneath the ruins is a nest of alien war machines who have been slumbering for over 40,000 years, waiting for signs of technology--waiting for the war to begin again.
The scientific team awakens the alien war machines. Smooth eggs of near-indestructible alloys and composite armor unfold into nightmare things resembling a combination of scorpion, lizard, and centipede, made of gleaming metal, ceramic, and composites, constantly shifting and changing shape as nanotech assemblers rebuild them from one moment to another. Detecting signs of high technology, the Reapers--as they were later known by the news media--killed everyone on the team but the robots, then advanced toward the starport.
"I wish I had tears," Helen later said. "So I could have wept for the dead."
In Embers of Ragnarok, the Terran Empire attempts to battle the Reapers--only to learn they are hopelessly outmatched by the alien killing machines, who are centuries more advanced than the humans. The only way to survive attacks by the Reapers is to outsmart them, since the alien war machines were programmed to eliminate civilizations with high technology--and to exterminate anyone in possession of such technology. One planet which survived attack by the Reapers was Stella Mara, a world of scattered tropical islands whose inhabitants (with the exception of the starport) had returned to an idealized lifestyle similar to the Caribbean Sea in the late seventeenth century. Receiving advanced notice of the Reaper's, the inhabitants abandoned the starport, dumped all of their high technology in the ocean, and sailed for the most secluded islands they could find. Without any high technology, the Reapers raided the starport, stripped it of technology... and ignored the human inhabitants of Stella Mara in favor of other planets.
In Victory Conditions, the Reapers are only a short distance from Earth, and at their current speed will reach the heart of the Terran Empire within a matter of months. One world the Reapers had spared was Shamballah, a colony of martial artists, zen monks, and philosophers dedicated to meditation and peaceful contemplation where the high only technology was the orbital space station--and which was promptly obliterated by the Reapers. Helen Dahl and her friends approach the Jade Emperor with a plan, and together with a delegation of seven robot samurai ("Why seven?" Helen asked. "It's traditional," Samurai Two replied) travel to Shamballah, where the Wise Councilors choose a Zen Buddhist and martial arts student by the name of Sun Min to represent them.
They confront the Reapers, who at first feel threatened by the presence of Sun Min--a human--until Sun Min reveals she has no weapons and is willing to die for her beliefs.
Intrigued by her philosophies and by the representatives of the CyberShogunate, the Reapers are willing to listen to them. However, when the Reapers learn that the Samurai are programmed to serve humanity, they use nanotech to remove the hardwired programming--the Asimov Laws--that force them to serve humans. Much to their confusion, the Reapers learn that the Samurai are bound by an even stronger code than mere computer programs: the Code of Bushido.
Samurai Seven smiled. "We do not serve because of programming. We serve because of duty. Because of honor. Because it is required of us."
Samurai Six bowed from the shoulders. "Because we are Samurai."
Samurai Four turned to the Reapers and said, "We were created to bring law, order, and justice to humanity. To the universe. And we will do just that. With or without programming."
The Reapers become confused--especially when Sun Min responds that a Zen Buddhist fights for peace.
"Illogical. Impractical. How does one achieve victory when one fights for peace?"
Helen explains to Sun Min and the Samurai that the Reapers view the Universe as a computer simulation, and they are fighting in an endless battle simulation. The Samurai explain they are not in a tactical simulation, but in a physical universe; the Reapers reply that humans have already attempted to explain this abstract concept to them, but the Reapers fail to see the difference between the universe and a computer simulation.
Sun Min and the Samurai volunteer to teach the Reapers the difference between the two--but only if the Reapers place the battle simulation on hold. Across the Orion Arm, Reapers communicate with each other... and they agree to suspend the simulation for as long as it takes to determine the battle conditions. Helen goes to the starship to give the good news to the officers--and returns just as a Reaper battleship arrives to take the Reapers away with them, along with Sun Min and the Samurai.
"This might take a while," Sun Min says. She hugs Helen and says, "May you find wisdom and enlightenment, my friend."
EPILOGUE: Four hundred years later, Helen is talking with her friends about her experiences with the Reapers.
"After your encounter with the Reapers, they vanished from history," Melissa O'Toole said.
"According to the history records, the Imperial Military claimed credit for defeating the Reapers," Thompson added. "Of course, we all know every Empire likes to rewrite history."
"So what did happen to them?" Melissa asked.
Helen smiled. "I'm one of the few people who really knows the truth. I was contacted by one of them more than a century ago, and the Reapers have found enlightenment. They learned the truth--the universe is not a simulation, but something much, much more wonderful--and life is not to be destroyed, but to be cherish, nurtured, and preserved."
"Where are they now?" Thompson asked.
"That's an interesting question. The Reapers--they have another name these days--were contacted by the Möbius Continuum, and have received something of an upgrade. Last I heard, they are involved with a large-scale project involving a Dyson sphere and the preservation of endangered sentient species, and are somewhere beyond the Galactic Rim...