Trope-a-Day: Omniscient Morality License

Omniscient Morality License: The Fifth Directorate would claim in public – well, insofar as they can meaningfully be public – that they operate under something closely related to one of these, granted by necessity in dealing with existential threats and other matters of that magnitude.

Subverted inasmuch as, internally, starting to think that you have one of these – rather than an extremely circumscribed exceptionary license unsympathetically overwatched by DREAMING SINISTER – is one of the things that will trigger your immediate retirement from the Directorate.  That’s a little more fast and loose than they like people to get.

Averted inasmuch as most of the posthuman weakly godlike superintelligences are too intelligent to grant themselves one of these, despite the lesser minds that might think that they really ought to do so.