Chee Lan is glad that David Falkayn is not the Omnipotent. He responds:
"'You'd prefer Adzel, maybe? Or Muddlehead? Or Old Nick? Hey, what a thought, creation operated for profit!'" (XII, p. 448)
A joke idea but also an impossible one. If there were such a being as an omnipotent creator of all things other than himself from nothing, then we would not be able to make anything for him that he would not have been able to make better, in fact create instantly, for himself. Thus, he could have created us only for our benefit, not for his. Resistance to a great but finite power is difficult but possible whereas resistance to infinite power would be not only impossible but also unnecessary because he would be the source of our ability to do anything and even of any decision to attempt resistance.
When Falkayn names the rogue planet "Satan," explaining that, in one Terrestrial religion, Satan was the enemy of the divine and the source of evil, Chee Lan replies:
"'But any reasonable being can see that the divine itself is - oh well, never mind.'" (XIII, p. 457)
The divine is the source of all things, including evil?
However, the creator before the creation would be a self without other which is like a square without sides. The theistic hypothesis posits a conscious being, then denies the conditions necessary for the existence of such a being.
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