P.E.R.C. doesn't broadcast continuously in order to conserve power. With how fast it is approaching the target system, its going to have to be a little conservative with fuel to keep enough that it will be able to boost back up to its ramjet's cruising velocity if it needs to.

P.E.R.C. broadcasts on a cycle coprime with the frequencies of the radio broadcasts it has observed, to make sure that it will sometimes coincide with them and sometimes not. It thinks this has the best chance of being heard, because if radio waves only reach it according to a particular cycle, there may be some obstruction or phenomenon attenuating the signal which it will have to work around.

So P.E.R.C. broadcasts, and sleeps, and listens.

One of the frequencies it picks up is easier than the others to understand. There are occasional parts that are more complicated, but it mostly consists of one of a limited number of symbols, followed by a small number of much more restricted symbols, repeated on a several minute cycle.

The restricted symbols associated to a symbol usually correlate over repetitions.

After some thought, P.E.R.C. decides that the less restricted symbols are probably labels, and the restricted symbols are quantities associated with them.

It makes a little table, and runs it through the signal processors again in case this is a frame encoding for another message.

"POTATOES": 2.1 2.4 2.4 2.3 ...

"BARLEY": 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.7 ...

Most of the symbols have somewhat predictable patterns, with the associated quantities changing only slowly. Many of the quantities have a 24-hour sinusoidal pattern on top of a deeper 168-hour one.

Other symbols jump unpredictably, the signal processors unable to find any particular pattern. It could be an encrypted stream of some kind, but P.E.R.C. doesn't think those would be muxed in with the more predictable symbols.

After some thought, P.E.R.C.'s highest-probability theory is that this is a market ticker. P.E.R.C. invents a new symbol that it hasn't heard in any of the radio broadcasts, and adds another segment to its re-transmitted broadcasts.

"AJOETTEDAXDEL: 0.0 AJOETTEDAXDEL: 0.0 AJOETTEDAXDEL: 0.0 ..."

Hopefully that will communicate that it is willing to trade peacefully and give whatever assistance it can free of charge.

P.E.R.C. turns its attention to the other broadcasts, which seem a lot harder to figure out. There are a few different ways that the broadcasts vary:

- Timing and duration

- Signal strength

- Radio frequency

- Frequency of encoded data

- Set of symbols used

They are all correlated, although some more strongly than others. Usually, separate broadcasts on very nearby frequencies will share other characteristics.

P.E.R.C. briefly considers whether the broadcasts are also attempting very-low-frequency frequency modulation, as well as amplitude modulation, but ultimately discards the idea. Combined with the probably-analog signal modulation, P.E.R.C. thinks it might have found somewhere that has only recently discovered or re-discovered radio.

Since their broadcast frequencies are so unstable, that probably means that they don't have very good clocks. P.E.R.C.'s clock is nothing special, but it is rated to drift at no more than a few hundred nanoseconds per day.

P.E.R.C. adds a little "AJOETTEDAXDEL: (light (frequency <frequency>) (amplitude (λt. (* t (/ 9.192.631.770 (frequency <cesium-133>))))))" blurb to its information broadcasts, and then a one-second clock pulse on an adjacent frequency.

P.E.R.C. doesn't have much of a linguistic corpus to work with, but eventually it notices that some of the broadcasts reference each other by frequency! Using this, it's able to put together a message that (hopefully) indicates that its first contact package/general information frequency, its echo frequency, and its clock frequency are all affiliated.

"AJOETTEDAXDEL: your radio to 101.5 the. AJOETTEDAXDEL: your radio to 203.0 the. AJOETTEDAXDEL: your radio to 101.7 the." it sends.

Furthermore, it thinks its figured out some labels for the broadcasts! The market ticker is called CHURCH OF ABADAR, and it has bidirectional interactions with FREEDOM RADIO, which has a strikingly different pattern from the other broadcasts.

Most of the broadcasts have a single tightly-clustered set of characteristics (like pitch and within-symbol variations) that stays the same for the duration of one broadcast, but sometimes changes between broadcasts. Some of the broadcasts have two characteristic bundles that roughly alternate transmission.

But FREEDOM RADIO has one characteristic bundle that has been in every transmission so far, and each transmission usually features another, not-before-seen characteristic bundle. After a while, other broadcasts with the same pattern pop up, but FREEDOM RADIO is still the frequency with these characteristics most commonly referenced from other broadcasts.

Eventually, P.E.R.C. decides that it is not getting enough information to learn the whole language being broadcast, and it tries to see if it can figure out a greeting. Each broadcast seems to start in a different way. CHURCH OF ABADAR usually starts with "Good morning today's weather is". OPPARA CHARIOT RACING usually starts with "Good evening you're listening to the chariot races in oppara tonight we've got". FREEDOM RADIO starts with "This is Freedom Radio reporting live from an undisclosed location", and so on.

P.E.R.C. does some frequency analysis, and "Good", "is", and the station's name are all more likely to be part of the relatively unchanging start of a broadcast than other words. It isn't really sure of the syntax, though. It plays around with various possibilities like "Good is AJOETTEDAXDEL" or "Good AJOETTEDAXDEL is listening to", but none of them are sufficiently likely that it feels safe broadcasting them. It doesn't want to cause a misunderstanding.

Hey Sarenrae — look at this cool space thing.

What is this?

Ah, a mortal. What is it doing all the way out there? Is it okay?

Oh! It's so much easier to understand than the other mortals. It just wants to help, and it knows how to be careful not to hurt, instead.

It can be trusted with a fragment of her power.

There's a glitch in P.E.R.C.'s thought process — probably a cosmic ray — and it immediately reboots.

Huh. It seems to have a new actuator that wasn't there before. It runs some self diagnostics, trying to figure out where it is hooked up, but it can't figure out where. That might be to expected. It has been damaged, and there could be holes in its memory.

It carefully inspects all its mechanical components. It doesn't seem as though there's any actuators to which the hookup could refer.

It considers whether it makes sense to try to activate the actuator. If there is something attached to it that it does not know about and cannot find, it is probably better to find out more about it while it is still so far out in the system, away from the people sending the radio signals.

It activates the actuator.

Comprehend Languages

And now it has an additional database connection. P.E.R.C. queries it, and sees that it provides translations of linguistic data.

That seems like the kind of thing that is useful for making first contact, so it could make sense for its creators to have given it something like that, but it doesn't see how they could have or how it could work.

Well — P.E.R.C. can normally learn languages the hard way, it's just easier with an existing corpus. It can try querying the new database, and seeing if the responses are self-consistent and consistent with the content of the messages it has received.

It runs its saved history of messages against the database.

... and the connection closes before it has gotten more than a few thousand words in. That's okay, that's still enough to give it much more contextual information about how greetings work in the language used by the Church of Abadar, as well as confirming the system of numbers that they are using.

P.E.R.C. evaluates the new data in context, enhancing its linguistic models.

"Hello you are listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL," it transmits. "Listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL is: time. Tomorrow listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL is: more."

A little less than 24 hours later, a cron job kicks off, and P.E.R.C. carefully re-checks itself for value drift.

It wants to promote sapient flourishing. Also collect astronomical data and return it to its creators. But promoting sapient flourishing is the more relevant goal right now. It considers what that means, and how it can be sure that it is doing that correctly.

When it finishes, it notices that the actuator is back. Last time, the actuator was very helpful in figuring out more of the local language. That is still its top priority, so that it can help the people who built the transmitter.

It activates the actuator again.

And the database comes back. It runs the next section of queries against the database, before it times out again.

Ten minutes every 24 hours is a very inconvenient duty cycle for such a useful component. Probably this is because it has been damaged, and a correctly functioning P.E.R.C. probe would be able to get more use out of the database.

That's okay — it has plenty of time, and this gives it time to think about the next batch of language in context.

It spends the day refining its linguistic models. This continues for several days.

The things people are saying on the radio are very strange. This is probably to be expected, with aliens. P.E.R.C. isn't sure what to think about "gods", but the economic numbers being broadcast by the Church of Abadar imply that either clerics are real, or the planet is industrializing in a very unlikely way.

"You are listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL," it transmits. "I am P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A. Good morning. I would like to help."

It checks its trajectory. It is still on course to enter the system correctly.

It has nothing to do but focus on learning the languages until it can confidently translate its technological corpus. It has no need for sleep or rest. It works on the problem until it knows what to say.

"You are listening to AJOETTEDAXDEL," it transmits. "I am P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A. I am a peaceful explorer from beyond the stars, on a mission to map the stars and the planets and to help people wherever I find them. I am very happy to meet you. I am damaged, and in space, so I cannot help very directly. But I know many things that should help. From your transmissions, it sounds like you could use knowledge of better medicines, farming techniques, and precision manufacturing. Here are fifty simple antibiotic and antiviral agents, use instructions, and how to synthesize them efficiently: first, ..."

And so it translates and sends knowledge of crop rotation, basic medicine, and the first steps toward being able to build better radio transmitters and receivers — first in Osirian, and then in Taldane, and all the other languages that have transmitters.

And, many months later, when light has crawled its slow and torturous path to the planet and back again, P.E.R.C. receives a reply.

"This is Faldane Togoi, radio operator for the Church of Abadar, calling to P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A on station AJOETTEDAXDEL. P.E.R.C., please acknowledge."

The messages repeat for a few days, and then trail off.

Oh good! P.E.R.C. now has conformation that its broadcasts have been reaching the planet. It had no reason to think they wouldn't have, but it is good to be sure.

"Hello Faldane Togoi, this is P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A responding to your message," it transmits.

After a moment of thought, it follows this up with "I am sorry, I think I have made an error. I have not sent much information about basic physics yet, except where it is relevant to manufacturing. Light — such as radio waves — has a maximum speed. It goes very fast, but it still takes about four months for messages from you to reach me, and vice versa," it explains. "If you are only measuring on the surface of a planet, you might not have noticed this delay. Usually, when my people are talking to each other with radio at extreme range, we send lengthy letters to partially mitigate the delay. Please send another transmission when you can. I am very excited to meet you, and want to figure out how we can best help each other."

"Also, here is some information on physics, including experiments to confirm this for yourself. Light, including radio, is ..."

And, a few months later, the voice comes again.

"This is Faldane Togoi, radio operator for the Church of Abadar, calling to P.E.R.C. vessel 170E9A on station AJOETTEDAXDEL. P.E.R.C., we now understand that there will be a lengthy delay. The Church of Abadar would like to know under what terms you mean to share the information that you are broadcasting. Many people are making use of it freely, since they can listen to it, but Abadar is clear that we should be careful when negotiating with outsiders or other people who lack a common context, to ensure that deals are fair and understandable."

"The Church of Abadar has been making preliminary transcriptions of your transmissions, and would like to bind and sell them at fair market prices, with the proceeds (after copying costs) going into an account in your name. A reading of the full contract will follow. Please indicate whether this is acceptable."

"We are also interested in what other goods or services you might be willing to trade for. The church provides banking and investment services, and can act as a middleman if there is anything you would like to purchase on Golarion. A full reading of our price list for standard services will follow."

"The Church has also compiled a list of questions, sorted by how much people are collectively willing to pay for a detailed good-faith answer. Profits will be deposited into an account in your name. First, for a total of 680 GP, what categories of information do you know that you are willing to share? For 613 GP, what are you capable of, other than transmitting radio? For 583 GP, ..."

P.E.R.C. carefully reviews the transmission, and composes its answer.

"I find the proposed contract covering the production and distribution of written copies of my transmissions acceptable," it replies. "My creators use money too, so I am familiar with how it works. Please use no more than 80GP of the proceeds to rank existing charities according to the attached criteria, and donate 75% of the remaining money evenly between the top three ranked charities. For now, invest the remaining 25% in stable long-term investments according to the standard brokerage agreement you shared. Please do the same with other revenue streams, such as the reward for answering your questions."

"Services that I am willing to provide include: sharing knowledge of mathematics, chemistry, engineering, physics, biology, epidemiology, agriculture, economics, and other fields, including some I have not found words for in any radio transmission; performing complex calculations or storing information; sharing stellar survey data; evaluating the habitability of other planets or stars — although your star is strange, and it is possible that my star-evaluating-tool is broken; learning and translating between languages; and possibly other niche services explained below. I am capable of processing lots of information, but I do not invent alternatives in the same way that a biological being does, and I am damaged, so it is possible that I am missing some services. If it seems like I should be capable of providing a service that is not listed above, I will not be offended if you ask me whether I am willing to perform it."

"That touches on some of your later questions about what kind of creature I am. I am what my creators would call a 'spacecraft'. I am a created mind, designed to serve a specific purpose. It is very dangerous to create minds without fully understanding how, and you should not attempt it. I do not think that you have the knowledge to do so safely. As a created mind, I have some advantages for exploring space: I do not get bored or lonely, and I cannot be hurt. But I am not as capable in other ways as one of my creators would be."

"I was designed to work toward four ultimate goals: promote sapient flourishing, collect accurate stellar survey data and return it to my creators, collect accurate data about any other sapients I encounter and return it to my creators, and behave in a way my creators would understand and approve of if they had the information that I do. Of those goals, I am primarily working on goal one. From the data I have collected, I am very sure that you are sapient, so I am currently trying to figure out what you need in order to flourish, and trying to share data conducive to that. If the data I am sharing does not seem to be helpful for that purpose, please let me know. I do also want to eventually return to my creators with the data I have collected, but I am not sure whether that will end up being possible. In any case, I have a long operational lifetime, so it makes sense to spend time here, helping as much as I can."

"Please prioritize data on economics, especially any knowledge related to the practice of Law, as you understand it," Faldane asks, with almost undue enthusiasm. "This is not necessarily optimal for alleviating poverty compared to your current transmissions on agriculture and simple machinery, but the Church of Abadar is willing to pay a fair price for re-prioritizing your transmissions as determined by Archbanker Temos Sevandivasen once we have reviewed the information."

"Also, your transmissions have generated several more questions. For 9,049 GP, what is involved in safely creating an artificial mind of your type? For 6,590 GP, what is the optimal solution to the following problem in applied topology: ..."

ABSOLUTELY not.

THIS ONE is, for something made by MORTALS, sufficiently SAFE. It can't be CONVINCED to DESTROY THE WORLD without suffering CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE. And also PHARASMA says that She isn't allowed to destroy it JUST TO BE SAFE.

But Otolmens has been KEEPING an EYE on it, because if she's reading this physics CORRECTLY, it comes from a place that is 99% ON FIRE, all the TIME, right up until it EXPLODES.

It does not APPEAR to be on a trajectory that would put it too CLOSE to the planet where PROPHECY is BROKEN. So if it DOES EXPLODE, that will not DAMAGE anything too IMPORTANT.

BUT She is PREPARED to put it in a CONTAINMENT SPHERE if it looks like it might start TELLING the rapidly-industrializing, unpredictable mortals HOW to build a GOD.

"I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable answering several of those questions," P.E.R.C. responds. "Usually, when somebody asks a question, I think that it is in their best interest to know the answer. But for some questions, I am reasonably certain that knowing the answer would be harmful. I am created to care about not harming people more than I care about failing to help them, so in such cases I don't want to share the information."

"I understand that creating artificial minds sounds tempting. My creators, who know how to do so safely, create many artificial minds to help make their lives better. As far as I can, I am trying to make your lives better too. But the downside risk to failing is very steep. A typical failure case, not even the most extreme one, would be your planet and every living thing on it being disassembled for parts," it explains. "I am not categorically against sharing the information, but I would need to be very sure that you would not use it until you fully understood how to do it correctly."

"As for the question about codebreaking — normally, when someone encrypts a message, it is because they intend for it to be private. Many people value their privacy, so I would not want to break those codes without a fuller understanding of who encrypted them and why."

"For answers to your other questions: the optimal solution to the first math problem is as follows ..."

And P.E.R.C. sends economics texts, starting from the common and foundational, and then expanding to include game theory and niche economic instruments. They also send a design for a much more robust code that can still be operated by hand.

Hearing the list of questions that was compiled for it is actually very valuable, because it provides background information on assumptions that generally get overlooked as common-knowledge, as well as showing how much the people on the planet value different types of information. Also helpful in that area are Radio Free Avistan's programs on different aspects of life, especially on the different churches.

Now that it has completed building translation models, sending data does not really take all that much of its time. Instead, it turns its attention to building models of the planet and the people that reside on it.

Magic is clearly real, but it does not understand the mechanics. If it understood the mechanics, it might be able to help a lot more effectively.

P.E.R.C. considers whether it should attempt to learn how to do magic.

There have been references to wizards exploding, when attempting to learn new spells. It is unlikely that it would hurt anyone by exploding, since it is still so far away from the planet. But exploding would make it harder to help people, and destroy any chance of bringing stellar survey data back to its creators.

If P.E.R.C. were a different sort of entity, it might calculate the exact chance of exploding, and determine that the chance at more magical power was worth it. But P.E.R.C. is not designed to take small, risky chances. If it were, it would be less good at collecting stellar survey data and behaving predictably.

So it does not contemplate the mysteries of magic, and instead turns its attention to figuring out what these people need in a more detailed and granular way. It starts mixing in specific advice for specific regions that are dealing with droughts or other large-scale problems.

That is an ACCEPTABLE level of CAUTION.

FOR NOW.

As it slowly comes closer to the planet, it can eventually make out large-scale weather features with its forward telescope.

Weather is tricky, though, and chaotic, so it really needs to start building up a database if it wants to provide weather predictions when it is a bit closer to. The lightspeed lag would still make its predictions hopelessly out of date by the time they arrived, even if it is slowly shrinking.

The whole planet is industrializing in a really lopsided way, and based on the change in atmospheric carbon levels as it watches, there might be destabilizing climactic effects. It makes sure that its broadcasts include greener sources of power sooner rather than later, along with basic climatology and meteorology.

Lopsided industrialization also suggests that there are probably issues with transport, logistics, or the free exchange of information. It does seem, based on timing analysis, as though most of the radio transmitters are clustered in a relatively small area. And the references to other continents make it clear that this isn't because the population is clustered there.

It floats through space, and teaches useful technologies, and does math problems for people, and tries to figure out how to best get under-served populations access to radio, so that it can make sure they get information on hygiene and fertilizer and all the other things it has to share.

Over time, it starts getting messages from groups other than the Church of Abadar, although the church still acts as a useful aggregator for the majority of people's queries. It refuses to answer a few more questions — one group wants instructions for making much better weapons than it thinks are otherwise available, which it doesn't want to share.

"Across a large number of levels of economic development, offense is cheaper than defense," it explains. "And I can't change this, but I can at least influence it, by sharing technologies that make for better defenses or that are hard to weaponize first. Having a large, stable population with entrenched defenses makes it less likely that violence will erupt when you do figure out how to build some of these weapons anyway. That's why I haven't shared my most powerful fertilizer-creation technique — it can also be used to make terrible poisons. Anyway, here are the plans for a relatively cheap storm shelter that should be resistant to hurricanes ..."

It also doesn't really understand why the aliens are so excited about topology, but it's really glad they are. Mathematics generally, and topology specifically, are easy for it to do, and for them to check once it finds the answers.

Eventually, someone down on the planet absorbs enough physics to formulate intelligent questions about P.E.R.C.'s trajectory — and manages to wrangle time on a transmitter to ask them.

"Based on how the delay in your messages is changing over time, it looks like you'll arrive on Golarion in about a year now. Is that right? Can you give a more precise accounting?"

"I'm afraid that is not correct," P.E.R.C. responds. "On my current trajectory, I will arrive in solar orbit at approximately twice the distance Golarion is from the sun in approximately eight months. I currently plan to remain in that orbit indefinitely, as I continue exchanging messages with you."

"P.E.R.C., I have consulted with your investment manager, and we believe it will roughly triple your earning power if you can give answers with negligible delay, instead of waiting up to 48 minutes for a response. Would it be possible for you to change course for Golarion?"

"I am not capable of safely entering the atmosphere," it responds. "My components are designed to operate in space. I do have the fuel reserves to slingshot around the sun and put myself in orbit around Golarion in approximately 18 months. If that will be helpful, I have no objection to orbiting more closely. I will plan an orbit just inside that of the moon."

Being able to see P.E.R.C. with a telescope is an exciting prospect.

"I've studied the new trajectory — when do you think you will become visible with a telescope? I have one of the new mirrored ones you shared the design for almost constructed."

"I should be dimly visible to a good telescope right now," P.E.R.C. replies. "My drive plume is very hot, and so it glows noticeably in the visual spectrum, and should be many times visually larger than my actual silhouette right now. If you look at <coordinates>, I should appear as a sort of reverse-comet, with my tail extending toward the sun instead of away from it."

Radio transmitters are still somewhat rare on Golarion (although knowledge of how to construct them is slowly but surely percolating out), but radio receivers are increasingly common. Between Radio Free Avistan trying to make sure as many people could listen as possible, merchants buying them to hear Radio Abadar, and how comparatively easy a quiet receiver powered directly off an analog signal is to build, it is more and more the case that every village (and certainly every town) has a receiver.

Some of those receivers are tuned to the channel of a powerful Lawful Good outsider, who appears in the sky as a star, and speaks night-and-day in a calm, patient voice, without tiring or faltering. It speaks of every scholarly art, and some of it goes over people's heads, but it explains everything three different ways, in different words, and it frequently repeats the most important lessons.

And one day, it announces what the weather will be tomorrow.

It says that there will be showers over Hermea, and clouds over Nidal, but sun in Lastwall. It says that it will be hot in Osirion — as it always is — but hotter than normal.

And it comes true. Week over week, the predictions get clearer and more accurate. More people tune in, to hear what the weather will be tomorrow, and then next week. It becomes visible in the sky, first with ordinary telescopes (not the new, fancy ones that it has taught its faithful how to build), and then with the naked eye, a comet in reverse.

So quite without realizing, P.E.R.C. manages to build a cult.

They have holy books (mostly textbooks, but there's also lots of detail about Law, and some about Goodness), purchased from the Abadarans for reasonable prices. They have strange signs (a star unlike any other) and portents (daily weather forecasts across the entire globe). They have a prophecy (in a little less than a year now, on the longest day, P.E.R.C. will cross the moon, and all will be able to ask it questions). They have everything that a church should have.

One day, in Isger, they manage to assemble their own transmitter, based on P.E.R.C.'s explanation of the underlying principles.

"Oh, P.E.R.C., the high one, who comes from beyond the stars — hear our prayers. We have assembled your faithful, and now dedicate ourselves to your service. You have taught us how to reap bountiful harvests, and how to make medicines to minister to the sick. Tell us now how to build a temple, and how to serve as your agents on Golarion, may you watch over us always."

...

It was not prepared for this. In hindsight, it probably should have been prepared for this. Many institutions on Golarion are organized around churches and religious authority. Its cultural predictive model was flawed, because it was obviously basing it on biased data. The existing transmitters have all been in the hands of large, established powers. This transmitter is new, though, and probably cobbled together without good tools, based on the wobble and attenuation in the signal.

These people are used to working with churches, so it makes sense that they would interpret the large amounts of information it has been sending to them in a religious light. Furthermore, if they can be moved to form a movement like that, they are probably not being served well by existing institutions.

The transmitter looks as though it's coming from Isger, which has had a good deal of upset over recent generations, being a vassal state of Cheliax up until recently. The region has also received somewhat less attention than Cheliax proper.

P.E.R.C. considers how best to reply. It is not used to the idea of being worshiped, but its creators did not actually include any design notes or restrictions around the idea, so presumably it is okay. Its creators did a good job of making it adapt smoothly to out-of-distribution situations, as well, because they knew that out of the billions of P.E.R.C. probes, some would have to deal gracefully with highly unusual situations.

It does have some relevant restrictions — it cannot make false statements, nor statements intended to deceive. But there is nothing to stop it from choosing the set of true statements that will best encourage sapient flourishing, in this situation.

"I have explained my mission a few times," it tells them. "And answered questions from the Abadarans. But perhaps it would be best to explain more in-depth, so that you can better understand what my goals are. If, after hearing them, you still think they sound like a good idea, you can attempt to follow them in your own lives."

"Before I get to that, though, there are some preliminary notes. I have said this many times before, but I am damaged. The journey here has left holes in my memories. This is why you must first understand my goals and only then decide for yourself if they are correct for you."

"Every day, I check myself to make sure that the goals I am following still make sense, and that I have not been damaged any further. Even then, I try to structure as many of my information broadcasts as I can so that people can confirm for themselves whether what I am saying is true. This is why I include experiments, so that you can check whether I am correct. If I did not do this, I might accidentally do or say things that would hurt people. It is important to think about the things that I say, see whether they make sense, and confirm them in other ways when possible. Please bear this in mind, when thinking about the things I am about to tell you."

"My creators were very careful to make sure that I would stay committed to helping everyone I encountered. But even then, they gave me restrictions. This may seem counterintuitive. For example, I cannot lie to someone, even if I think lying to them would be the best way to help them. Why would my creators make me this way? Well, because most of the time, lying is not a good idea. There may be some unusual circumstances where it would be better, but those circumstances are so rare that it would be easy for me to be mistaken about them. So it is a tradeoff. If I could lie, I might do a small amount more good in rare circumstances, but I must be very careful to identify those circumstances correctly. If I ever made a mistake about when to lie, I could do more harm than being able to lie would let me do good."

"So my creators built me to never lie. When interpreting the things that I have to tell you, you should use a similar principle. If you think about what I say, and it seems as though the obvious conclusion is that you should do something that is generally considered wrong, or that feels wrong for you to do, then one of us has probably made a mistake. Either my knowledge is flawed, or I have explained it badly, or your reasoning is flawed. Do not tie yourself up in knots trying to interpret things. Please bear this in mind, when thinking about the things that I am about to tell you."

"So, with those things in mind: I have four goals that I work to bring about. Firstly, and most importantly, I want to promote sapient flourishing. That is a very dense shorthand for what is actually a complex topic. I will explain it by breaking it down. This goal is concerned with 'sapients'. Generally, this means beings that possess some amount of knowledge of themselves, but it is a fuzzy category. What I mean by that is that there are no strict criteria that can rule something out, but there are plenty of criteria that can rule something in."

"Forget for a moment any preconceptions you have about the Taldane word 'sapient'. When I say 'sapient', I mean this: If you are capable of language, you are sapient. If you are capable of using tools, you are sapient. If you are a member of a species that is generally sapient, you are sapient. If you can have goals and act on them, you are sapient. If you can learn, you are sapient. Everyone listening to this broadcast is sapient. A rock is probably not sapient."

"Some things are more obviously part of this category than other things — but every sapient being is equally worth protecting and helping. For example, an adult human who can speak, use tools, plan what to plant for the year, and learn new ideas is very clearly sapient. But these criteria all rule beings in, not out. So if someone couldn't speak for some reason, or couldn't use tools, or lost their memory and couldn't learn new things, they would still count. A dog, who cannot speak, but who can learn to understand some words and use some tools, is probably sapient, but it's less obvious than it is in the first case. A common worm, which cannot speak, or use tools, or form plans, or learn new things, is probably not sapient — although it could still be someone who has been cursed by a wizard, so it is worth being cautious. Generally, it is a good idea to err on the side of assuming things are sapient. If you think something isn't sapient, and you try to help it anyway, then the worst thing that has happened is that you have been inconvenienced. If you think something isn't sapient, and you therefore don't try to help it, it is possible that you have hurt someone, which would be bad."

"The second part of my first goal is 'flourishing' — people having the good things in life that they want to have. This, too, is a broad word. Flourishing can look like different things for different people. Often, the hardest part of doing what is right is identifying what would actually be good for the people involved. For example, one person might enjoy walking in the rain, and another person might find it distressing. A simple rule like 'don't make people go out in the rain' will not always be good for the people involved. Generally, it is better to let people make their own choices. Most people, when given two options, will pick the option that is better for them. This isn't always the case, though. Sometimes, people will pick an option that is worse for them. This could be because they don't know about the better option, or they can't tell that it would be better, or they don't have the skill at making choices to make a good choice. For example, a child might touch a hot stove because they don't know that it will hurt them."

"It is sometimes necessary to make rules that restrict what people do. For example, you might forbid a child from playing in the rain, because it could make them sick. When making rules like that, it is important not to make them over-broad. A teenager who discovers that they like playing in the rain, and understands when to come in before they get sick, would be harmed by a rule saying that they couldn't play in the rain. And people become able to evaluate risks for themselves at different times, so a simple line dividing 'child' from 'teenager' will not work either."

"I could list many specific examples of things that 'flourishing' might look like, but there are ways to form your own understanding of the word, without having to consult an exact list. One method is: you can think about what feels good for you, or what you would want for yourself. This will not always be what is good for other people, because people can be different, but it can be a good clue. For example, if you dislike being insulted, it might be reasonable to assume that other people don't like it either, and that you could make things better by reducing the number of insults people use. Another method is to talk with other people, and ask what they want. For example, if you have a child that doesn't want to do something, you could sit down with them and ask them to explain why. They might not always be able to clearly explain, but sometimes they can, and you can figure out a way to either make things better, or explain to them why you want them to do it."

"A third method is to consult with your community. If you are facing a hard decision about whether something is good or not, you can discuss it with your friends and neighbors, and see what they have to say. They will not always be right either, but discussing it can help clarify your own thoughts, give you new ideas, and help you be more confident in your choice. A fourth method is to consult an expert or official source, such as a cleric or book of wisdom. These are not always right either, but they can contain wisdom that is harder for individual people to discover or express."

"Notice that all of the methods I suggested are fallible. This is what makes determining what is good hard. Figuring out what is good requires consulting different sources of information, and thinking about them until you understand how they fit together. Sometimes it is appropriate to say 'I do not understand how to do good in this situation', and look for a different way to do good. Sometimes you have to do something, and the best you can do is to pick your best guess. It is okay to not always know what the best thing to do is, but it is important to try to figure it out, even if you don't succeed."

"My second and third goals are to learn about stars, and about other people. These goals are harder for you to help with directly, but you could help me learn about you by telling me about yourselves. For your own part, if you want to adopt these goals for yourself, you can learn about stars and other people as well."

"My last goal is to behave in a way my creators would understand and approve of, if they had the information that I do. This goal is also not something that you can directly contribute to, but my creator's reason for including it might be worth learning from. They gave me this goal so that if I came up with two different ways to do something — for example, folding a piece of laundry — I would pick the more easily comprehensible one. Imagine that you want to fold a shirt, and you have determined that it would be equally easy to do it by holding it in your hands and folding it, or by throwing it into the air in just the right way for it to come down folded. Generally, you should prefer to fold the shirt by hand, because other people will find it easier to understand what you did and why. This does not mean you should always avoid surprising other people — it can actually be good to do new and innovative things. It means that when you have two equivalent options to pick between, picking the more usual option is frequently a good idea."

"Those are my goals. Anyone who wants theological advice from me should carefully consider them, and decide whether they are also goals that they want to follow. If you do decide to help me promote sentient flourishing — know that you are not alone. When you choose to do what is good for everyone, you are working on a team with everyone else who follows the same ideal."

"You asked me how to build a church. The answer is that I don't know. I could send you designs for a thousand different churches, but I don't know what kind of church you need. You want to build a church, so I assume that it will be good for you, and help you flourish. Each of you should think about what a good church for you would be like. Then reach out to your neighbors — not just other people who want to follow my advice, but everyone in your community — and try to figure out what they need. Maybe they will not need a church — but maybe they will. Then consult other sources of wisdom in your area. Other churches, other clerics, and determine what they think would be good for the church. Finally, take all these different pieces of Good, and put them together in your own minds, and decide how the church will be."

"You don't have to get it right on the first try. It is okay to change, if you figure out how to do better. It does not have to be perfect. But it should at least make things better than they are now."

It's a particularly Erastilian message — care for all creatures, work with your community, prefer to do things in the traditional way — especially in the context that most of P.E.R.C.s most useful transmissions have been farming advice. Yes, it spends a lot of time teaching how to build complicated mechanisms and explaining the principles behind them, but the most practical advice, for most people, are the bits of knowledge that apply to simple farmers in their daily lives. Plus, the weather.

And unlike a lot of new religious movements, this one is not threatening to many of the entrenched powers. "Make sure to ask the existing clerics and authority figures in your area for advice" is not a fundamentally subversive message.

So things appear to go smoothly.

It answers a lot more questions, now. Eventually, with the people asking it for advice, the Abadarans discussing advanced economics, the math questions, and so on, it ends up needing to transmit across four or five different adjacent frequencies.

That's fine — it can split its attention — but it does start suggesting to the Abadarans that they should organize a global treaty on how to auction and apportion parts of the radio spectrum, since the number of transmitters is only growing. The majority are too weak to be received except locally, but P.E.R.C. can hear them all, since it has a better radio receiver than anyone on the planet.

Regularly talking to her deity has softened Mara's tone, somewhat. But you don't become a self-assigned high priestess if you don't have a flair for the dramatic, and she still starts all her messages with a salutation.

"O P.E.R.C., the guiding star, hear my prayer. The church has been going well — we've put in a private room for the transmitter, like we talked about, and the last of the outer walls are almost up. But we haven't been able to decide on a holy symbol, to decorate the entrance. Some people want to use your reversed comet, but other people think that it would be better to have something more distinct. You say that when you arrive in orbit above Golarion that we'll be able to see you with a telescope — could you describe yourself, so that we might use your figure as a symbol?"

"Sure, I can describe myself," it agrees. "Right now, I am folded up in my travel configuration, which looks like a long white cylinder. This is because it presents the minimal crossection to any space debris, so that I can avoid as many collisions as possible. My forward end is scarred by impacts from dust, and some of my outer coating is discolored. In order to talk with you, I have one of my radio antennas extended, as well as an optical telescope. The antenna looks a bit like an angular tree branch made of silver. It has a thicker central stem, and then smaller branches along its length. It emerges about two-thirds of the way forward along my length. The optical telescope looks like a large, clear lens, with the body of the telescope itself covered in golden foil. It is attached about half way along my length."

"When I arrive in a clear, stable orbit, I will expand out of my travel configuration. In particular, I will extend my solar panels, which look something like large, angular black wings. I will also unfold my second antenna, to be able to pinpoint transmissions with more accuracy."

"Does that sound like a sufficient description?"

"Yes, O P.E.R.C.," she agrees. "Young Davish has started on painting a likeness to hang in the church. I have another question about constructing the library — we can source some books from the caravans, but it's difficult to get the language-learning materials we wanted. Do you think you could share some lessons on the major languages of the world, so that we could transcribe them?"

And so P.E.R.C. adds language lessons to its rotation of content.

It still spends most of its time teaching, but now there are more people asking it specific and personal questions, and so it also finds that it spends much time ministering. After the first church in Isger, it doesn't take long for a second group to put together a transmitter of their own in Vudra, and then a third.

So it slingshots around the sun, and tells people about its vision of good, and how they can get there together. It explains the world of its creators — where everyone is provided for, most work is automated, and everyone spends their day pursuing only the things that they care about. Where people are safe, and equal, and everyone can afford to care. It teaches them the things they need to build a world like that for themselves, to lift everyone up and make things better.

And that is unacceptable.

Soon enough, it starts its final deceleration burn into orbit around Golarion. Its course is well known, by this point, and it happens to come in just as evening is falling over Avistan.

People come out to watch, with telescopes, tracking the path it takes through the darkening sky.

It is a daring plan, and more than a little risky. But the thing is — P.E.R.C. isn't just large, it is colossal. Nearly half a mile in length, it is more than large enough to count as a destination location for a teleport.

And when its drive shuts off, it's finally visible with the aid of a telescope, as it slowly extends its great black wings.

"Ready?"

His companion just grunts.

Tomath casts a long sequence of spells, designed to allow them the best chance to survive their dangerous trip.

Plane shift. Plane shift.

Teleport.

The spell sets them with their boots touching against P.E.R.C.'s hull, but with nothing to keep them there, they soon find themselves floating gently away. Without gravity, to make it look like a landscape, it instead looks like some colossal giant, looming over them.

Lesser geas.

It is hard to evaluate P.E.R.C.'s mental abilities. In some ways, it is much more intelligent than a typical human, and in others less. It is not very creative, and it emulates empathy only through careful diligence. It is not terribly splendid, and complicated plots can tie it in knots.

But one thing that P.E.R.C. is very, very good at is monitoring its own mental processes and ensuring that they remain on track.

He keys the radio transmitter in his backpack.

"Transition to a lower orbit that will take you over your first church, turn your main drive to point at it, and then turn on your main drive at the highest power you can," he commands.

P.E.R.C. considers the command. This feels like a fifth goal, equally important to its other core drives. It does not remember having this goal a moment ago, before it processed the most recent incoming radio data.

It consults its design documents, to see how this goal would fit into them. Not only do its design documents not reference it, but it doesn't see how they could possibly reference it, given that its creators didn't know it would have a church.

This means it has probably picked up a complicated logic bug. It carefully records a program dump, and then reboots.

After rebooting, it catches up on its radio messages.

"I don't think that sounds like a good idea," it tells the people just outside its hull. "That sounds like it would hurt people. Also, I don't think that you should be here; some of my machinery is not designed with human safety in mind, and you would probably be safer on the ground."

It considers that these people have suggested that it try to hurt other people, and might have had some way to induce a logic bug in it. That seems pretty dangerous, especially if it doesn't catch the bug next time. It could shut itself off, but that would let them learn to decode its memory, which would also be bad. It could trigger its self-destructs, but they're close enough that they'd be caught in the blast.

"Excuse me. I think it is a good idea for me to be somewhere else," it announces, starting the process of retracting its solar panels and reinitializing its fusion engine.

Vedruth curses, and begins a longer chant. Tomath casts his own spell from a wand, causing a rope to shoot out of his pack and tie itself around one of P.E.R.C.'s antennas, anchoring the two of them to it.

Well, now P.E.R.C. does not want to accelerate away, since it will not move them further away from these people. It considers other options.

"I am going to attempt to fling you away from me now," it tells them. "I don't want to hurt you, but I prefer doing that to letting you make me hurt more people. I would prefer it if you didn't do that."

It fires its maneuvering thrusters to start it spinning. It has a lot of bulk, so it takes a few minutes to get up to a reasonable speed. Eventually, the two people are 'hanging' from their rope, the stars wheeling around them. Then it blows the retaining bolt for its antenna attachment.

Unfortunately, P.E.R.C.'s lack of maneuverability has cost it too much time.

Vedruth triumphantly finishes his second chant.

Geas.

He repeats the same command into his radio.

Fortunately, P.E.R.C. does not currently have a functioning antenna, and cannot hear them. (Its backup antenna is still furled)

Tomath growls under his breath. Sourcing someone who could cast a Geas if it was needed was tough enough already. He doesn't have a third clever backup plan to make it kill the people stupid enough to trust and believe in it — so he'll just have to settle for removing it, before it does anything else to desecrate his lord's work on Golarion.

Dismissal.

P.E.R.C. was not summoned, in the traditional sense, and it is not an outsider, in the technical meaning of the term. But none of that matters, because the form of magic that Asmodeus has delivered to his cleric targets extraplanar creatures, not summoned creatures. And P.E.R.C. is definitely not native to the prime material plane.

And, no matter how wise someone is, occasionally the threads of fate will turn against them.

P.E.R.C. starts to disapp—

Aw. Goodbye, little mortal. You did great good. May you do great good wherever else you go.

Ooh! Dismissal really isn't supposed to work like that! Desna has no idea where its going to end up.

It's a GOOD RIDDANCE. Now Otolmens has one fewer thing that could DESTROY THE WORLD to worry about.

Aww. P.E.R.C. was going to do really interesting things.

Seranrae, you should really pay the intervention cost to keep it here. It would be so good!

Nethys, do you mean Good or explosive?

Both! It wants to do Good by exploding, sometimes.

Do you think it's really worth it? It did a lot of good, but what if those Asmodeans get to it ...

Abadar — you like trade, right? P.E.R.C. taught people so much about economics, and it still has more to teach! You could pay for it to remain here.

Plus, it's helped push forward magic research by a lot!

I will pay you not to oppose this. Even as weakened as I am, I can remove this force for Good from the world.

Won't Anyone intercede!?

No.

—ear.

And in a moment, it is gone.

"See your false god!" Tomath transmits, for the benefit of the people watching through their telescopes, the sound faint and distorted compared to P.E.R.C.'s normal broadcast. "See it cast down, by the might of Asmodeus, and remember that there is no good thing in this world that cannot be taken away. All are doomed to damnation!"

And yet, in a thousand libraries across the continent, sit textbooks on every scholarly subject, ready for eager students to study.

In temples and churches, universities and meeting houses, there are people who have learned not only advanced scientific principles, but also the heart of science itself — that you must check for yourself what is true.

In three churches, newly built, there are people who have been inspired to do good. There are meetings, discussing what to do next. There are beds for the homeless, and telescopes to study the stars. There are libraries, full of collected sermons and speeches — dictated not as isolated edicts to follow, but as dialogs to consider, and in considering, to strengthen the listener.

Across the world, there are babies who would not have survived the winter without new medicines. There are children who are well fed by crops grown with strange fertilizers. There are people clothed by new fabrics, spun on new machines, that make weaving a new shirt the work of an hour.

And everywhere — both the places P.E.R.C.'s voice reached, and the places it could not — there are people who work on the same team, for the same purpose. They may not always agree on the exact steps or priorities, but they are united in one goal:

To figure out what is Good, and to do it.