Much, much, much earlier…

  The lonely, godless world—the humans it had spawned were so universally hostile they couldn’t even agree on a name for it, but many called it Earth—long after it had been made and the humans had appeared and lots of other things had happened, attracted attention from other Creators. And the attention it attracted attracted more attention.

  When, in time, the committee—which is far from the right word, but probably the best from the available set—came to examine the world, they found themselves unsure what to think. They were undeniably impressed by the craftsmanship, the thoroughness, and attention to detail; as an example of the art, they said, it went far beyond anything else, anywhere, anywhen. And at the same time, they worried about the sort of mind that would build such a place. They didn’t want to encourage it.

  Serious doubts arose about the ethics of cultivating life under such asphyxiatingly restrictive conditions—the word ‘cage’ was mentioned more than once—and expecting it to evolve, live, and die without the guidance and care of a superior being.

  Some argued that its artistic value justified the ethical uncertainties. Others countered that yes, it was certainly impressive from a craftsmanship point of view, but what of the poor souls locked inside?

  Debate raged.

  Progress, the world’s proponents said, demands research; research demands subjects; and subjects’ comfort and happiness is, lamentably, of secondary importance to the advancement of knowledge.

  Advancement, they asserted, is fertilised by sacrifice.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Think, they argued, what could be learned about life, about evolution, by observing it occurring in this, a perfectly-sterile laboratory of one-way glass, with no outside influence.

  But no, said the world’s opponents. No curiosity, no dearth of knowledge was so crucial as to justify this.

  Consider, they said, what would happen if this caught on.

  You know, they said, that now you all want to go and try it yourselves. And the honest among them all admitted that they did.

  And so the world’s opponents won, because they had moral outrage on their side.

  Concerned that they needed to set a precedent, they composed a set of metalaws, to be agreed on and adhered to by all Creators, to ensure that nothing like the world could be made again.

  But to draw up the metalaws, they had to look at the world’s Laws in minute detail, and the closer they looked, the more they realised that the system showed brilliance and complexity beyond anything any of them had ever contemplated. That the creatures locked inside had made any progress whatsoever towards understanding the forces holding them in place was testament to the power of evolution to generate intelligence even in near-impossible conditions.

  And this was perhaps the most worrying thing about it; how clever would they have to get before they found a way out? These unique, fascinating, terrifying orphan creatures: what were they capable of?

  Alongside the disapproval that they all took great pains to express, they were all curious about the life forms that had evolved out of nothing. Far more concerned than curious, of course, but… still, curious.

  Besides, what good could they do? The Creator who had Created it, perhaps the only one who truly understood it, had long since disappeared, presumably abandoning it.

  The others couldn’t go in and modify it to be more… normal. The Laws saw to that. For anything so powerful as them to exist within the locale of the Laws would violate the Laws so thoroughly that they would break down, the system they supported collapsing in an instant. Unless the world’s Creator had left some kind of a back door, some kind of emergency contingency, somewhere that they couldn’t find, they were all locked out and had no option but to either leave the whole thing be or purge it from existence entirely. And so, for the time being, they agreed to keep a close eye on it.

  A back door, each of them secretly, quietly wondered. Unless there’s a back door…

  A mind capable of Creating Laws like these would surely have left a back door…