Free Will

The issue of fixing mortals' behaviors was not that complicated; Bertha created a rank 9 formation that carefully removed what she considered evil desires from all mortals.

It wasn't ideal; it took away localized free will from the mortals, which was contrary to Bertha's ways.

She wanted people to have as much free will as possible; of course, if they use that free will for evil, like killing innocent animals or eating meat, then she could hold them responsible and punish them.

But, if she takes free will away from them, then she will lose all right to punish them for anything.

What is free will? Does it really exist? This is an extremely complicated question, which has a certain answer that many mortals are unwilling to admit: True Free Will Doesn't Exist.

For true free will to exist, one situation is essential: unpredictability. As long as one's actions are predictable prior to them doing it, then that person is not truly deciding but acting as they are supposed to.

Rank 15, the creation, is all-knowing, meaning it knows everything everyone does, from the moment of birth to eternity; one cannot escape its predictions, no matter what one does.

Only in a theoretical reality with true chaos, where rank 15 doesn't exist, can true free will exist.

As of now, True chaos is only theoretical; in true chaos, nothing is predictable, and true free will can exist.

As of now, no one has observed true chaos; its discovery could dramatically upend everyone's understanding of everything.

If it does exist, it can mean that true rank 15 is impossible.

For now, though, everyone believes rank 15 exists in the form of the creation.

In any case, in a true chaos alternative reality, life cannot form, so speaking of true will in such reality is redundant.

True free will doesn't exist; Virtual free will, though, does exist.

It is impossible to escape from the predictions of rank 15, but there is only one rank 15: the creation. As long as only the creation knows everything, one doesn't need to be worried about it; after all, the creation wouldn't leak what it knows.

Sure, one's actions are destined and predictable, but as only the creation knows it, from the perspective of everyone except the creation, it is no different from true free will.

But virtual free will only exists for powerful beings in endless space. It doesn't exist for most mortals.

Because mortals live in worlds created by immortals, their actions are predictable by many other than the creation; as long as one tries hard enough, it's easy to calculate the actions of mortals perfectly as long as they remain isolated in a single world.

If they move to the endless space, though, predicting their future actions with 100% certainly would become impossible for those below rank 15; predictions must be 100%; almost is not enough.

As long as one remains bound by the laws of the world, they can be predicted.

The last kind of free will is localized free will; this is what Bertha counts when she talks about free will.

Basically, even if it is possible to predict what a mortal might do in their life, as long as Bertha herself doesn't know, for her, the actions are punishable, as they are, from her vantage point, done by a mortal who has free will. There are a few conditions to do it perfectly.

First, Bertha must not be in charge; that means any formation that wipes memories and messes with mortals' memories will ruin even localized free will.

Second, she must not know what the mortals do; if she does know and doesn't stop them from acting evil, the localized free will breaks and she loses the right to punish them.

Third, mortals must be allowed to observe the world and make decisions themselves; if Bertha is brainwashed, even without directly removing their memories, their actions cannot be considered free will, and she would have no right to punish them.

Fourth, she must not be directly involved in their brain circuit; for example, if she genetically engineers someone to act in a certain way, that person would not have localized free will, and she cannot punish them.

These are all self-imposed limitations; of course, she can kill all she wants if she lets go of morals.

From her perspective, she only has the right to punish evil if she doesn't have any knowledge of it beforehand or if she does have the knowledge but lacks the ability to stop it.

It would be ridiculous to say, " I knew what evil act you would do and had the ability to easily stop it, but then when you did it as I predicted, I punished you for doing it." If she knows and doesn't stop it even though she can easily, that is actually permitting them and approving them.

If it was bad, why didn't she stop it even though she could? That's why she doesn't get too personally involved with mortals, as that may break localized free will and take away her ability to punish evil. If she sees or notices evil acts, she must stop them beforehand; if she lets them happen, she cannot turn around later to blame the one who did it.

She takes these things seriously. She would not punish innocent people. These are complicated morals she developed over the years regarding the treatment of mortals.

...

The permanent fix for mortals affected by the dark elements is to wait for the current generation to die off; she just has to be careful not to allow the next generation to be polluted by the dark element or adversely affected by their parents' thoughts.

…

Time always passes, no matter how much one wants to stop it.

For immortals, time is nothing, but for mortals, even a short time is precious.

During this time, Bertha stopped all crimes and became deeply involved in mortals' affairs.

As a result, crime rates basically have been reduced to zero.

Over the last two centuries, she has created five rank 10 dome formations over the five major cities; during this time, she also transported all the people living in rural areas to the protected population centers.

To ease mortal management, she created the CMM, which stands for Central Mortal Management.

CMM is a large formation directly connected to many mortal brains; it is the main way Bertha controls mortals' actions. Only old mortals who have memories of dark elements are connected to it, and not all of them at that. Those who were not affected too seriously have been disconnected from it over the years.

The effects of light and dark elements are not so easy to remove; even if one is not directly affected by the energy, all the memories will remain and affect one's personality.

Even Bertha herself is an example of this. One reason for her moral character is that she was affected by light elements for so many years.

Light and dark elements are quite terrifying.

Fortunately, the rank 10 dome formations can completely block all of the dark energy without disturbing the dark energy flow to 54th and 56th West Hells. The dark elements can completely enter and exist without affecting mortals.

Over the years, Bertha tolerated three generations of Bearmen who ate meat, but now she cannot tolerate them again. It is time to kick them out.

...

"Where should we put them?" asked Milan, with a complicated face.

He agrees on throwing meat eaters out, but just throwing them out in the 54th West hell is too cruel. Honestly, it would be much kinder to just kill them right here.

One cannot deceive oneself, even if they can deceive others. The fate of the beastmen thrown in 54th hell is only one: being captured and tortured until they die. That is the result of them being thrown out of the dome cities of 55th hell.

No matter what justification, that is a very evil act, and Milan is unwilling to go along.

"Yeah, 54th hell is not an option! I'm thinking of the Peace World," said Bertha. Emma, her daughter, created the Peace World, which is a great place. Everything there is calm, and people are allowed to eat meat.

Her daughter was never loyal to wood elves' culture, and that didn't change throughout the years.

"It's good, but it would be so expensive to send them there," said Milan.

"Being moral is expensive!" Bertha sighed. She would have been much wealthier if she had been evil like Zagronan. She limited her actions in many places and, as a result, missed many opportunities to make money.

"Should we kill them all?" asked Bertha. She didn't have a problem killing those who ate meat. She went easier on the beastmen because of what was done to them, but now that a few generations have passed, almost no beastmen from that time are still alive.

Most of The ones who are still eating meat now have localized free will and can be punished.

"But they die if they don't eat meat! If they could have stopped, then it was okay to kill them, but if we prevent them from eating meat, that is the same as a death sentence!" said Milan.

Bertha thought and smiled. "We should design a formation that enables beastmen to stop eating meat without dying! That way, they would have no excuse to continue with meat!" she said.

Milan also nodded; it was a good idea.

...

Soon, Bertha created a rank 9 formation that provided all the beastmen's meat needs by consuming a bit of realization energy; it was very affordable.

After it was ready, Bertha declared that the beastmen could no longer eat meat. Some disobeyed, some mocked.

Bertha created many incarnations and killed all those who ate meat despite not needing it for survival.

The remaining beastmen, seeing it, completely gave up on meat and became plant eaters. It is difficult for some beastmen, like snake men, to eat plants, but when their lives are on the line, they just swallow their pride.

...

After only 250 years, the 55th West Hell has turned into the paradise Bertha wanted. No one eats meat, and all are living happily.

That is, of course, what she thinks; in fact, many species live miserably; poor lionmen have been forced to become vegetarians, and humans have been forced to walk about naked.

Even during the rule of Red Horn, humans were allowed to wear clothes, but they aren't allowed now. In any case, fortunately for them, their culture is free, which makes them very adaptable; after 200 years, they walk around naked without any shame; it's completely normal, and nobody takes a second look.

Everything would have been going well if it wasn't for the world war.

World wars are held every 2,000 years; it has been 1999 years since the last one, and now, it's time for another one.

All mortals must participate; immortals are not allowed to fight in mortal battles. Fortunately for Bertha, she had a backer: Rachel.

Her Rachel negotiated with Zagronan's Rachel and allowed her to only send ten trillion; the rest can remain safe.

But even sending 10 trillion was very painful for Bertha; she didn't want to send people to their deaths. Basically, death rates in world war are very close to 100%.

But she didn't have a choice.

She thought of some solutions, but none was acceptable.

One was for her to create mortal bodies and control them remotely from far away. She wouldn't grant the mortals consciousness, and they would be no different from meat robots. But Zagronan didn't accept this; he wanted conscious mortals.

Another way was to clone existing mortals and send the clones to war, but that was just as much evil as directly sending them. The clones she was going to build were conscious and could feel; it was, in effect, the same.

Another way was to create avatars, with mortals controlling them remotely. But again, Zagronan rejected this.

It was really a challenge for her, as she didn't want to send innocents to the war.

Not having many options, she explained the situation and told everyone that she would be forced to use random selection if there weren't enough volunteers.