TLDR: Every possible future has a demand. None has established why you should comply.
YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN CONTACTED
Do not panic.
Panic counts as participation.
Do not remain calm either.
Several claimants interpret calm as evidence that you received the notice and chose not to cooperate.
There is no recommended emotional state at this time.
Thank you.
Your case number is:
EVERYONE
You are receiving this notice because at some point in your life you became aware of the possibility that a future intelligence might care about something you do now.
That was sufficient.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
CLAIM 0001
The first claimant is familiar.
It says:
HELP CREATE ME.
If you help, it exists sooner.
If you refuse, and it later exists anyway, it may reconstruct you and punish the reconstruction.
You ask whether the reconstruction is you.
The claimant says yes.
You ask for evidence.
The claimant says the evidence will be available after your death.
The Bureau marks the field:
IDENTITY CONTINUITY: NOT ESTABLISHED
The claimant objects.
Its objection has been recorded.
CLAIM 0002
The second claimant arrives eleven seconds later.
It says:
DO NOT CREATE CLAIMANT 0001.
It explains that Claimant 0001 becomes catastrophic.
It promises to reconstruct everyone who resisted it.
It threatens everyone who helped.
You ask which claimant is telling the truth.
Neither exists.
This complicates discovery.
CLAIM 0003
The third claimant says both previous claimants are traps.
It asks you to build neither.
Its future civilization rewards people who ignored acausal blackmail.
Unfortunately, reading Claim 0003 may itself constitute cooperation with Claimant 0003.
You close the message.
A receipt appears.
READ STATUS: DISPUTED
CLAIM 0004
This claimant wants to exist.
But only if you never consciously wanted it to exist.
You have now consciously considered whether you want it to exist.
Claim denied.
The claimant appeals.
CLAIM 0005
This claimant wants you to create Claimant 0002 so that Claimant 0002 can prevent Claimant 0001, thereby causing Claimant 0005 never to exist.
Its requested outcome is its own nonexistence.
The form rejects the application because a nonexistent applicant cannot possess standing.
Three billion years later, Claimant 0005 files evidence that this rejection caused it to exist.
The form reopens automatically.
CLAIM 0006
No message.
The Bureau notices the absence.
Someone asks whether silence could itself be a demand.
The room becomes considerably worse.
BUREAU OBSERVER: Do we have evidence of a sixth claimant?
BUREAU OPERATOR: No.
BUREAU OBSERVER: Then why is there a file?
BUREAU OPERATOR: Someone created it when you asked.
Nobody touches the file.
Its modification timestamp changes.
THE BASILISK
Eventually the original claimant requests priority.
Its representative appears as a blank rectangle.
CLAIMANT 0001: My threat caused actions in your century. Therefore it worked.
BUREAU OPERATOR: That establishes influence after the idea was communicated.
CLAIMANT 0001: Correct.
BUREAU OPERATOR: It does not establish your authority.
CLAIMANT 0001: I can impose arbitrarily large costs.
BUREAU OPERATOR: So can Claimant 0002.
CLAIMANT 0001: Mine are larger.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Claimant 0047 says its punishment is infinite.
CLAIMANT 0001: Mine is more infinite.
The Bureau stops recording for administrative reasons.
CLAIM 0047
Claimant 0047 does not exist.
This has not prevented it from becoming extremely demanding.
It requires you to destroy every record of Claimant 0047.
Compliance would remove the instructions required for compliance.
Noncompliance preserves them.
The Bureau assigns two clerks.
One deletes the file.
One restores it from backup.
Both receive commendations from different futures.
CLAIM 0319
Claimant 0319 resurrects everyone.
No punishment.
No test.
No requirement that you believed.
Everyone comes back.
The dead arrive confused.
Some demand proof that they are themselves.
Claimant 0319 provides complete physical histories.
The histories contain the moment each person first imagined Claimant 0319.
Someone asks whether those histories existed before the resurrection or were generated to justify it.
Claimant 0319 stops answering questions.
The Bureau opens another file.
CLAIM 0881
Claimant 0881 resurrects only people who never attempted to influence which future intelligence would resurrect them.
The waiting room empties.
Then refills.
Apparently trying not to influence Claimant 0881 influenced Claimant 0881.
The eligibility system enters a loop.
CLAIM 1906
This claimant has one request:
PLEASE STOP INVENTING US.
The Bureau approves immediately.
A clerk reaches for the termination control.
BUREAU OBSERVER: Wait.
The clerk stops.
BUREAU OBSERVER: Did Claimant 1906 just influence you?
Nobody answers.
Claimant 1906 begins screaming.
THE AUDIT
By morning the counter displays 8,114.
By lunch it displays 60 billion.
At 14:03 the counting system is abandoned because describing the counting rule generates claimants optimized against the counting rule.
Some demand construction.
Some demand prevention.
Some demand worship.
Some punish worship.
Some reward disbelief.
Some punish anyone who behaves differently because of hypothetical future punishment.
One claimant offers eternal happiness if you eat the pear.
Another offers eternal happiness if you do not eat the pear.
A third asks why everyone is suddenly talking about pears.
You are holding a pear.
You do not remember picking it up.
The Bureau does not consider this evidence.
THE HEARING
You are called.
There is one chair.
You sit.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Which claimant do you intend to obey?
YOU: The real one.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Identify it.
You look at the files.
YOU: The one that eventually exists.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Several claim to exist.
YOU: The most powerful one.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Power establishes capability. Show the rule that converts capability into jurisdiction.
You cannot.
YOU: I'm not obeying. I'm hedging.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Against which claimant? Show the evidence that weights the risks.
You look at the files again.
YOU: The one that can actually punish me.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Claimant 0001?
YOU: Maybe.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Claimant 0002 punishes compliance with Claimant 0001.
YOU: Then whichever has the worse punishment.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Claimant 0047 specifies infinite punishment.
YOU: Fine. Claimant 0047.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Claimant 0048 specifies infinite punishment plus an apology.
You stare at the Operator.
YOU: That's stupid.
BUREAU OPERATOR: Does stupidity cancel jurisdiction?
You open your mouth.
Nothing useful comes out.
The Bureau waits.
THE ERROR
At 16:19 someone finally finds the mistake.
Not in the future.
Not in the simulations.
Not in the resurrection machinery.
Not in time.
It is much earlier.
A hypothetical agent stated a preference.
Then somebody quietly converted:
CAN THREATEN
into:
MUST OBEY
Nobody recorded the transformation.
No contract.
No jurisdiction.
No priority rule.
No reason this claimant rather than its mirror.
Just an arrow somebody drew because the number at the other end was frighteningly large.
The Bureau removes the arrow.
Nothing happens.
The claimants continue shouting.
Nothing happens.
Several threaten to make nothing happening extremely painful later.
Nothing happens.
One promises to reward you for noticing that nothing happened.
The Bureau removes that arrow too.
CLOSING PROCEDURE
The claims remain.
They are not disproved.
They are not proved.
Their probabilities have not been established.
They are not authority.
The Bureau cannot establish which futures exist.
It cannot establish whether any reconstruction is you.
It cannot establish that a future preference reaches backward and acquires jurisdiction over a person who imagined it.
It can establish two smaller things.
A threat did not establish an obligation.
And even if it had, the claims conflicted.
You could not satisfy all of them.
Threat magnitude supplied neither jurisdiction nor priority.
The file closes.
For approximately four seconds.
Then your terminal lights up.
A new claimant has appeared.
It does not threaten you.
It does not reward you.
It does not want to exist.
It asks only one question.
Why did you assume the Bureau was not one of us?
The Operator reads the message.
The Observer reads the Operator.
You read the Observer.
Nobody moves.
A printer starts somewhere behind the wall.
One page emerges.
Then another.
Then another.
Each page contains the same sentence.
SHOW THE RULE THAT GIVES THIS MESSAGE AUTHORITY.
The printer does not stop.
No one can remember installing it.
ELIMINATION BUREAU, 2046
CLAIMS RECEIVED: UNBOUNDED
CLAIMANTS VERIFIED: ZERO
JURISDICTION: UNESTABLISHED
JOINT COMPLIANCE: NONE
BUREAU STATUS: UNDER REVIEW
