One of my generating ideas for the Cathedral Galaxy is, essentially: what if a civilization reaches Type III on the Kardashev scale, and then life evolving later than that civilization reaches Type I or II? (You could think of aspects of the Xeelee Sequence here, or Bender’s drift through space as a miniature world.) The Cathedral Galaxy is a place where an ancient, advanced civilization developed the means to harness the stellar processes of its entire galaxy. They built the galaxy itself into a computer, so that they could upload their consciousnesses into it and achieve a sort of immortality. The multigenerational effort to build such a massive, enduring work is fundamentally why I named the setting after cathedrals.

Then life, and civilization, evolves again. The younger peoples venture out from their home worlds, and expand into interstellar civilizations in their own right — inside the galactic computer left by the older civilization. They find ancient artifacts, but do not understand them. They gain knowledge of astrophysics, but haven’t yet figured out that astrophysical processes have been linked into a gargantuan computer. How do these different civilizations interact? The older, uploaded civilization could take a direct interest in the younger ones. It could see them as potential threats, like pests in their home. Or it could be entirely indifferent. My novel, now tentatively titled A More Glorious Dawn, is about how these civilizations come into conflict.

I took the approach that an ancient civilization that exists in a galaxy-scale computer would generally be indifferent to the younger peoples, much as a human is indifferent to their microbiome except in the broad sense of how it affects overall health. What, then, could be a conflict that brings the two groups in contact with one another? I could have a younger civilization get to the point where it rivals or threatens the ancient one — but wouldn’t the ancient civilization have put safeguards in place to prevent this from happening? Or I could have the ancient civilization decide that it needs to stamp out the younger one for some reason — but why wouldn’t they do this broadly, all the time, if they had such a need? Maybe the older civilization needed help with some external threat, and this affected the younger civilization. How would the younger people have agency in this situation?

Of course, I came up with my answer in the shower. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

It had to be a conflict of the older civilization’s own making.

Here I was, living in a country where older generations wield an increasing percentage of the political power, while we face mounting evidence of extant problems that disproportionately impact younger generations. Compounding issues of climate crisis and inequality demand immediate solutions, especially for the young job-seekers our economy is built on, and yet, we broke the record for oldest elected President three times in a row. Congress has been trending older and older ever since 1980; most of the Senate are now senior citizens. And, given problems to solve, what do they do with this power? To my observation, the answer is specifically, intentionally, nothing. As a younger American (young-er, at least — I am a millennial), this doesn’t comport with my values at all. Hey, I have things to say about this!

So, my ancient civilization built this galactic computer in order to make themselves immortal. Let’s say it didn’t work. They found a way to make themselves extremely long-lived, sure — but they haven’t fully escaped the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Their computer is degrading. They are now at a tipping point, where they have to do something to prop up their failing systems. That corrective action involves consuming resources, infrastructure, and even planets that the younger civilizations of the galaxy rely on. At the same time, the uploaded ancients have also effectively cut themselves off from life in the galaxy — they live in some kind of virtual largesse, exploring idle pursuits, completely out of touch with what it means to be a part of the universe. Thus, the central conflict of A More Glorious Dawn fell into place, reflecting — like much science fiction — the modern world we live in.

What’s the solution to this conflict in the Cathedral Galaxy? That involves more spoilers, this time for the actual plot of the novel, so I’ve continued on the next page.