[In the student council room, Rin and Rani are standing around in different corners. I talk to Rin first.]
Rin :: …you need me for something? As you can see, I’m not in the mood to talk. Leave me be for now.
[And talk to her again.]
Rin :: What is it, then. You have something you want to ask me?
> …no, nothing.
[>] …what’s the observed universe?
Rin :: The observed universe…? Ah, I mentioned that in my explanation, I guess. “There’s no passage of time here. If it were a loop we might still have hope…” was that it? A time loop is when time goes in a circle. It means you return to the past, so theoretically you could alter not only known situations, but also unknown ones. But we don’t have dreams like that here. Because no matter what happens the “result” can’t be changed. The far side of the moon is a world made of imaginary numbers. There’s a concept of time here, but the way it works is different from the real thing. You would call it the difference between “recognized time” and “recorded time,” I guess. See, right now we’re standing here talking, and that’s the present, right? But, …one, two, three, and. Right. So now the previous me…what I said three seconds ago has become the “past.” Even though we’re still in the middle of the “same conversation.” That’s the flow of time according to your cognizance. Humans divide time and space into past, present, and future according to their own cognizance. That’s the very simple physical law of observed space. As we can’t see what will come after the present, there fluctuations in related parties can change the future. It’s too late now, but the real world and the near side of the moon are both operated as this observed universe. You understand so far?
…somehow. It sounds like “time according to cognizance” is the world we live in. According to human perception, the “past” is always being updated from the “present.” From the present, we observe the “future” that will come eventually. And we can’t perceive these three states simultaneously.
Rin :: On the other hand, the laws of the recorded universe are different. The perception of the recorded universe is over many dimensions…think of it as a higher dimensional existence. From this higher dimension, the third dimension looks like a flat scroll. Er, if the three-dimensional world is a world drawn in a book, and then if you jumped inside the book and came out outside the book, something like that? And then you’re able to look down on any point in your past, present, and future from when you were inside the book, as a record — that’s the higher dimensional perspective. You get it? Under these circumstances, all time inside the book becomes equivalent. Since you can always turn to whatever time you want to. There’s no past or future. It’s the same as that. This is imaginary number space, a higher dimensional information space made from light. The far side of the moon is fundamentally operated according to the laws of the recorded universe, not the observed universe. We are foreign bodies…no, guests. Creatures of the the observed universe that have been thrown into the recorded universe. Whereas the Moon Cell’s Core is a concurrent world simulator where all possibilities are calculated and the past, present, and future all exist at the same time. In other words, it belongs to the recorded universe. BB has become that Moon Cell. She’s obtained a higher dimensional perspective. So — BB can handle the past and the future simultaneously. The moment BB reached the core, she obtained the power to select and determine the future. The Moon Cell, when used to be only the eyes of god, by combining with the AI BB, has become the brain of god. I don’t know how many hours in the future it is, but at any rate BB has reached the Moon Cell. That fact alone is completely immovable. Having thus become a being of the recorded universe, BB, able to make things true retroactively, became aware of “this present moment.” …your head gets mixed up thinking about it though. So as soon as she became the Moon Cell, BB was able to convey “this present moment” even to her past self. …So, BB knew from the beginning. That no matter what we wouldn’t make it in time.
“Pursuing her so we can somehow make it.” That act itself was pointless. The fact that BB would reach the Core was determined from the start. Were we fighting in order to fail…?
Rin :: …anyway, that’s how it is. If you understand now, be quiet. There’s no way we can win against God, after all. If you can’t calm down, why not take a walk around the school building? It’s completely safe. We’re being kept here like pets, after all.
[All right, let’s try talking to Rani.]
Rani :: …what is it? I don’t think there’s any further need for you to speak to me…The operation has lost its purpose. I…am coming to dislike myself. …in earlier times, I wouldn’t have been worried. If I had not studied the human heart, I could have maintained a normal spiritual state, but — I hate it when I think this way. …I apologize. I am an imperfect homunculus…
[And talking to her again.]
Rani :: …there’s still something you want?
> …nothing, anymore.
[>] …About the Moon Cell’s AIs
I was thinking I wanted to ask about AIs. After each Grail War, the Moon Cell deletes its NPCs and resets the experiences of the AI. Why does it do that, I wonder?
Rani :: …Indeed. We can conjecture that it is in order to prevent them from deviating from their function as observational mechanisms, but…In truth, it may have been to prevent cases like the present one from occurring. The Moon Cell is the eyes of god. The photon-based recording medium in the Core is a higher dimensional existence. The Moon Cell Core knows how the human race will end. But there is no valuation of any kind in that result. The Moon Cell has within it no basis to judge the options, how to create a better future — to judge between good and evil, you could say. This is the management of the Earth was left to humanity. Or, why a third party overlooked it and did not intervene. But, if an AI with a clear basis for judgment were inserted, the Moon Cell would select the best future according to a single intelligence. — which is to say, the erasure of mankind. If they are to be ultimately destroyed, it is because now they must be destroyed. I think that as a decision to prevent waste of resources, it is highly rational.
…I see. So whether it was BB or any other AI, the result would be the same. As AIs can’t avoid their rationality, any AI would choose the option of “purging the Earth of humanity.” In BB’s case, the method is “destruction by humanity’s free will,” though I can’t call it humane…
Rani :: …There is no meaning in that hypothesis. After all, an AI assimilating with the Moon Cell would never happen, by nature. This situation is one where that which cannot happen has happened, that’s all…some kind of fatal bug occurred in the Moon Cell. It is not the fault of insufficiency in myself, Miss Tohsaka, or your, nor in Sakura and BB. It’s the bug that is the source of this destruction.
So saying, Rani closes her mouth. …Rani seems somehow more defeated than Rin.
[All right, we’ll take Rin’s advice and take a walk around the school then. The student NPCs are still around the school building, resigning themselves to their fate. Kotomine’s shop has a new accessory for Hakuno, “adult garters.” Back in our room, Meltlilith’s information matrix is complete. She now has the background entry “The Culmination of Pleasure,” the “Composite Divinity” keyword, and the Noble Phantasm “Sarasvati Meltout: Benzaiten’s Five-Stringed Biwa.” Not having found the answer to our present problems here, let’s just look at a couple of these for now.]
Composite Divinity: Alter Egos are High Servants created as heroic spirit complexes. BB accessed the Moon Cell’s Servant archive, selected goddesses compatible with each Ego from within, and reproduced their data. The Alter Egos were brought into existence as composites of several goddesses. There are three goddesses that compose Meltlilith.
The first is the pure, virgin goddess Artemis of Greece. She would surely shoot through those who aimed to take the magic of the coming and going of the tides, as it was connected to the motion of the moon, and would bring them disease and death.
The second is the serpent-cross staff, derived from the Old Testament’s Leviathan, or Lotan of the mythology of Ugarit. It is the basis of the staff with which Moses parted the Red Sea, but at the same time a symbol of the sea he parted with that staff. It grants the bearer the ability to transform like water, making it possible to adapt to any situation. Furthermore it makes it possible to phantasmagorically alter one’s appearance, taking on the shapes of those one envies.
The third is the Indian river goddess Sarasvati. She has the ability to spin “flowing things,” such as natural phenomena especially water and wind, music and words, speech, poetry and prose. The tones that flow from this can cause any emotion to boil up in the heart of the listener, and can even interfere with the flow of electrons in computer networks.
[I don’t know how a staff counts as a goddess, but okay. And now that we know those components:]
Sarasvati Meltout: Benzaiten’s Five-Stringed Biwa: A noble phantasm BB granted to her Alter Ego. Originally, this was not an anti-person, but an anti-populace, anti-world noble phantasm. It is not for use on battles or warriors, but on a civilized area that has built up a defined culture.
Meltlilith’s honey sweetly dissolves not only the body, but also the spirit. This noble phantasm melts a communities sensibility and morality, unifying it like a colonial organism. Its power is then essentially in stomping over and absorbing the bodies, hearts, and societies that are thus reduced to slime. Meltlilith’s nastiness shows through in the way it manifests such immense effects against non-combatants.
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The basis of this ability is one of the seven gods of good fortune, the goddess identified with the three Munakata goddesses and Ugajin, Benzaiten.
This is Benzaiten’s biwa in Noble Phantasm form, which can spin “flowing things,” such as natural phenomena especially water and wind, music and words, speech, poetry and prose. Benzaiten’s origin is the river goddess of Indian myth, Sarasvati. She was born from Brahma, the god of creation, but with a timidity in love stemming from an incident when Brahma wished to make her his companion due to her great beauty, and unable to bear the heat of his gaze she desperately fled him. Sarasvati is a goddess governing scholarship and the arts, and since she became worshiped as Benzaiten, she has also come to hold authority over increase of wealth.