Prescience is terrible because it removes options.
All knowledge does that, even in the everyday world with no Gods or Omegas playing their games. The more surely I know what I want, and the more surely I know how to achieve it, the less freedom I have. Once I make a choice, that choice is gone. I have moved through it and it no longer exists. The imaginary futures of all the things I “could have done instead” are cut off. I never “could have” done them, the moment I saw that they would not lead towards my goal. My freedom is reduced by precisely the amount that I exercise it. Consider the possibilities open to a new-born baby. Compare them with the ineluctable specificity of your present state.
This applies to everything, to the great concerns of one’s life and to the small. Observe yourself in the simple act of walking from one place to another. Notice your legs taking one step after another, in total subjection to your goal.
Prescience is terrible because it removes options. The obvious benefit of the power is being able to create the outcomes you would like to see, but what you give up is so much more than that.
That’s because you designed the story universe so that there is exactly one way leading to the desired outcome. If there were multiple ways instead, the protagonist would have a freedom to choose between those.
Also, not sure if I understand it correctly, the protagonist must work optimally all the time to achieve the desired outcome (i.e. no free time to e.g. pursue a hobby that is irrelevant to the greater picture). That seems statistically unlikely, too perfectly balanced—in a random scenario, either the protagonist could take an hour off now and then, or all his time would not be enough.
BTW, despite these objections, I enjoyed reading the story.
All knowledge does that, even in the everyday world with no Gods or Omegas playing their games. The more surely I know what I want, and the more surely I know how to achieve it, the less freedom I have. Once I make a choice, that choice is gone. I have moved through it and it no longer exists. The imaginary futures of all the things I “could have done instead” are cut off. I never “could have” done them, the moment I saw that they would not lead towards my goal. My freedom is reduced by precisely the amount that I exercise it. Consider the possibilities open to a new-born baby. Compare them with the ineluctable specificity of your present state.
This applies to everything, to the great concerns of one’s life and to the small. Observe yourself in the simple act of walking from one place to another. Notice your legs taking one step after another, in total subjection to your goal.
“Do you know what it means to be able to choose so swiftly and surely that to all intents and purposes you have no choice?”
That’s because you designed the story universe so that there is exactly one way leading to the desired outcome. If there were multiple ways instead, the protagonist would have a freedom to choose between those.
Also, not sure if I understand it correctly, the protagonist must work optimally all the time to achieve the desired outcome (i.e. no free time to e.g. pursue a hobby that is irrelevant to the greater picture). That seems statistically unlikely, too perfectly balanced—in a random scenario, either the protagonist could take an hour off now and then, or all his time would not be enough.
BTW, despite these objections, I enjoyed reading the story.