Chapter Seventy-One: The Moot

Bill convenes a massive moot of over ten thousand replicants to share intelligence gathered by Icarus and Daedalus about the Pan Galactic Federation and the existential threat posed by an approaching dwarf galaxy with a supermassive black hole. The chapter discusses evacuation strategies and reveals that the Federation abandoned known space over two thousand years ago, having already fled to the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Bill opens the moot with considerable fanfare, delighting in the return of the traditional gathering after a long absence. He announces that Icarus and Daedalus discovered a wormhole network belonging to the Pan Galactic Federation of 114 species across eight thousand worlds, now entirely abandoned. The pair uncovered that the Federation fled because the Milky Way faces destruction in up to one hundred thousand years: an approaching dwarf galaxy with a black hole larger than Sagittarius A* will either collide head-on with catastrophic results or pass close enough to disrupt both galaxies severely. Bill explains that humanity—numbering sixty billion across the UFS along with Deltans, Quinlans, Pav, and dragons—must evacuate at sub-light speeds since faster-than-light travel is unavailable. While wormhole networks exist, their gates require SURGE-drive transport to destinations, limiting reach to roughly halfway to the Magellanic Clouds within the timeframe. Icarus and Daedalus describe how the Federation solved the problem through digitally storing their entire population and transmitting them aboard ships already en route for centuries, though the Archivist refuses to confirm whether these stored beings remain conscious. Bill calls for brainstorming and opens discussion. Later, at a meal, the group learns from Howard that wreckage found on Jabberwocky bears Federation serial markings, indicating their scouts visited the region roughly two thousand years prior. Will updates the table on FAITH's governmental crisis following the evacuation of thirty thousand people from Romulus. The conversation shifts when Bob asks Daedalus about the galactic center, drawing descriptions of its raw power, before Daedalus jokes about the Archivist's frustrating queue system and limited information-sharing policies.