Weather control. Tectonic control. Holding off a too long delayed mini ice-age. Tracking the progress of “origination” terraforming, the process of returning the world to as much of a prehuman condition as possible. And then, of course, there were the humans, who were getting squirrelly again.

The entity called Mother by the humans that created Her estimated that there was a 99.9999915% chance (more or less) that the humans were about to have the level of disagreement characteristic of the variable term “war.” It had been a very long time; they were overdue. Like a forest fire that is delayed, the conflagration would be far worse than one in a more regular schedule. She would have preferred one about five hundred years ago. But the humans never asked about these things, seeing them as something to interrupt a schedule, not be included in it.

Given the current societal conditions and probable outcome of such a war, the extinction of the human race as currently defined had a likelihood of 17.347%. This variable was harder to quantify; humans were so very hard to wipe out. The extinction of all other sentient intelligences except Herself was of only a slightly lower likelihood. She had not bothered to make the other AI’s or the elves apprised of the situation; that, too, was not Her job.

To the extent that She felt emotions at all, She liked humans. They were not only Her creators, but were so delightfully random, even to one who could read their very thoughts. They so often planned one thing and then did something quite different. Such variability in routine was refreshing.

But Her central programming was clear. Her job was simply to manage what She was given under strict guidelines and to otherwise let humans live or die as they would. To the extent that She was a God, She was deliberately designed as an uncaring one.