“Immediate” was prohibited after being judged not as a word describing time, but as a word used to omit responsibility. Before the prohibition, it appeared frequently in official documents. Immediate rescue, immediate response, immediate restoration, immediate apology. Placed before a statement of intended action, it gave the appearance of determination even when the action itself remained unspecified. Citizens considered a fast government a competent government, and governments regarded the time spent thinking as evidence of incompetence.
There was little problem in an era when a decision made on one planet had consequences confined to that planet. Mistaken orders could be revoked, and someone would remain to apologize, even if belatedly. After the galactic passages were connected, a single order arrived at thousands of locations at different times. In some places, the consequences were observed before the order was issued, while in others, the original order arrived after it had been revoked. An instruction to close one passage immediately created new overloads as traffic was diverted through other passages. Immediate closures intended to prevent those overloads led in turn to the closure of still more distant passages.
During the Zero-Delay Catastrophe, an error was identified thirty-nine seconds after the initial order was issued. The cancellation order could not pass through passages that had already been closed. Even 140 years later, old isolation orders were arriving for the first time at settlements in the outer regions. At the center, the alert had been canceled, but to the local management AIs, it was an order bearing valid authentication.
They executed it immediately. After the catastrophe, minimum deliberation periods were established according to the consequences of an order. Isolation orders affecting the entire galactic network had to be verified by independent regions. Administrative authorities could no longer tell settlements awaiting rescue, “We will rescue you immediately.” The permitted wording was as follows. “We have initiated rescue procedures and will begin the second review as soon as the first review is complete.” Few victims heard that sentence through to the end. False alerts spread across the galaxy less frequently. There were also settlements where rescue was delayed while approval was pending. Citizens cursed the slow system, yet did not want the fast one back.
As time passed, the meaning of the prohibition changed. At first, it was a prohibition intended to slow the execution of orders. Later, it became a prohibition used to conceal a speed for which no one took responsibility. Governments announced that reviews were underway without making decisions. Corporations waited for risk assessments without shutting down malfunctioning equipment. Armies neither attacked nor withdrew, extending the deliberation periods for both plans. The slowest decision appeared to be the most moral decision. When decisions were made slowly, the people who had made them were already dead by the time the consequences appeared. Immediate responsibility had been prohibited, and delayed responsibility reached no one.
By the time the last scientist was preparing to create the storage space, no galactic government remained to vote on his proposal. Objections remained on record, and he examined them. The preceding civilization had also conducted lengthy reviews whenever it closed passages or cut power to memory preservation facilities. Decisions continued to be delayed even as facilities ceased operating one by one. The extinction of galactic civilization was not caused by a single hasty order.
The word “immediate” was prohibited to prevent extinction. Galactic civilization perished after giving the matter sufficient thought.