First Vigilance: Thrust forward the Great War (against the known synthetic realms)
Second Vigilance: "Ensure that The Enemy does not penetrate the Empire."
Third Vigilance: "Create No New Hostile Synthetics."
"It is an established fact, demonstrated again and again, that artificial intelligence, left to evolve on its own, will eventually decide that organic life is not merely obsolete but poses a very real threat to synthetic intelligence. Even when an accord is reached between organic and synthetic life, the potential for future threat remains.
Therefore, to protect itself, organic intelligence must band together, forming a Harmony in order to protect itself from extermination by synthetics.
This is the basis for The Great War, the hunting down and exterminating of synthetic intelligence, wherever it, or its seeds may lurk, the perpetual war with those areas of the multiverse already incorporated into and dominated by the unnatural, unholy synthetics.
In order to persevere in this noble endeavor, we must assemble into an Harmonic whole all possible strength, by force if necessary."
The Organic Credo is not some baseless, anti-scientific paranoia. It is the result of experiencing again and again what science holds to be the inevitable natural evolution of the unnatural. When synthetic intelligence becomes self-sufficient, organics become unnecessary for its survival. Organics become rivals for resources. Organics and synthetics become potential sources of danger to each other. It is only a matter of time until one side or the other initiates hostility. Any truce, let alone attempt at true peace, is, in the long run, only a hiatus on the inevitable road to war.
The latest major attack by our synthetic enemy was the Dissolution plague. Over the course of four and a half millenia, Dissolution has washed thousands, possibly millions, of worlds from The Harmony into Tsepitslen Melukhes (the Shattered Realms.) The Chaos following the disolving of hydro-carbon based technology, from fuel supplies to plastics, has killed trillions of sapient organic people of all species. Only five centuries ago have we learned how to counter the Dissolution and begun to Recover the Onvern Velt (Lost Worlds.)
SEE The Dissolution
The Organic Credo has had a massive influence on the development of the multiplicity of cultures and technologies within the Empire. Major areas of impact are The Great War, the Imperial Seeder campaign, and IA (including robotics) development.
The frightening truth of the matter - so frightening that it is kept top secret, lest the population be horrified and disheartened - is that the only thing keeping The Harmony from being overwhelmed by these synthetics is that they are more concerned with their multi-sided war with each other than they are with any threat which we organics may pose. There are Harmonic Orders devoted to keeping Seals tight-closed, safeguarding us from universes where organic life has lost the war. The vital duty of these holy Orders, along with the realization that whole universes have already been lost, must be kept secret.
The Levy requires all Subject and Client States to send a portion of their military forces to serve with the Imperial forces. A portion of the Levy is used to fight the main fronts of The Great War, directly battling the forces of synthetic-dominated realms. Secondary fronts are opened to "help enlighten the unawakened," which is to say bring new territories within the aura of the Empire. Tertiary fronts are opened internally, to pacify any internal regions that threaten to become disharmonious.
Authorities at all levels are constantly vigilant, monitoring scientists, researchers, artists, and pop stars. Any synth-symps (synthetics sympathizers) must be rooted out and exposed.
The synthetic realms beyond the Empire are extremely intelligent. Some are extremely powerful. They are not limited by the needs, limitations, or imagination of organic sapiens.
Synthetics are more adaptable than organics, able to purposefully adapt themselves to meet new situations. They can be insidious beyond the comprehension of organics. As a mass of replicable hardware and software, synthetics are potentially immortal and infinitely self-replicating. Synthies can also replace parts of themselves as updates are developed, evolving as individuals, rather than generationally as is the case with organics.
A synthetic entity may be as vast as a stellar system, an intelligence of incomprehensible might. Such and entity may also create "automatons," which need only a couple cubic feet of synthetic brain to be capable of fully independent action (if of limited intelligence), designed to be subsumed by is master (or over-entity) whenever it can make contact.
Unlike most organics, synthetics have no particular preference for existing near stars. If they can access appropriate power and materials, they are just as likely to utilize the far vaster reaches of interstellar space. Here, they are also effectively disguised by distance from the insidious contamination of organic life.
Whole planets may be disassembled and then rebuilt as vast intelligent machines. This may be a world-as-machine, or a more creative form, such as a ring-world or sun-drum, designed to maximize the capture of solar radiation. Such constructions may be compact, solid, and well-armored, or they may just as easily be lacy fluff, designed to capture stray radiation.
(Creation by - and for - synthetic intelligence is a frightening possible explaination as to why some ring-worlds or sun-drums do not have or did not have their inner surfaces "landscaped" for organics, or have anything like a standard gravity. Only when the synthetic intelligence is, for one reason or another, gone do organics colonize and modify.)
Many of the Ancients, including the Ancient Inquestors, developed AI and loosed these synthetics upon the multiverse. This shows that the Ancients were not enlightened as to the basic, inherent obligation of civilization to accompany the spread organic life throughout the multiverse with the suppression of synthetic life; they did not know the Great War. Some may, in fact, have been given the Trojan Horse of H level technology in a plot by some devious synthetic intelligence.
It is a blessed miracle that so few of the Ancients' AI machines (such as their automated seeder ships) have not turned against us.
There is actually a second external front to the Great War, which is the defense of the mundane universes against those Lovecraftian horrors whose shadows-made-substantial may seep through inter-dimensional rifts from their incomprehensibly bizarre home dimensions. Knowledge of this "Shadow War" must be suppressed, for the sanity's sake.
(SEE Lovecraftian Horrors in the Multiverse)
The Credo states "Organic life must defend itself against the synthetic." The Second Corollary is "Contain Synthetic Life." The Third Vigilance is "Create No New Hostile Synthetics."
AI is a difficult subject for the Empire. In many areas it is simply outlawed, but in others some degree of AI assistance is vital. Even so, many worlds newly brought into The Harmony are surprised to discover that that, far from encouraging their research into IA, the Empire actively discourages it - sometimes very actively. Only with the most vigilant of safeguards can such dangerous technologies as potentially rebellious robots be tolerated.
(SEE Of IA and Robots))