Microstory 726: Credos, Convention Two: Collaboration, Chapter Two

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After the countries of the world were brought into one, the original leaders were imprisoned together in a special penal colony built just for them. There were no cells, or guards, just a high wall that no one could scale, and no way to communicate with anyone on the other side. They were forced to figure out how to live together, planting the few seeds their angry former citizens let them have to get them started. They divvied up these seeds, and the other few resources, breaking apart into alliances, and building their own sections on the grounds. The strongest and most brutish took the most of these resources for themselves, but wasted them, for they were interested in short term satisfaction, rather than long term gains. The most intelligent of them had little, for they were feeble and easily manipulated. What they had they used well, but it was still not enough for them. The most manipulative of them let the others fight over the seeds, then bargained for what they wanted with false claims and empty promises. But all they had they traded away for things they believed to be more valuable, until they suffered diminishing returns, and too had little. Everyone was near starvation, and a new war was brewing amongst them. Their former citizens watched them from the other side of the walls and laughed joyously. “Finally, it is the rich who will know what it is to die just to protect what is theirs.” “They will know what true pain is; how the rest of us felt during the wars that they commanded from the safety of their wealth and power.” But no one died in the prison as a result of violence. A group of them who had been known to treat their civilians far more justly than the others appointed themselves as mediators, opening up negotiations amongst the others. They asked the smart ones to teach gardening to the strong ones. In turn, the strong ones built shelters, and protection from aerial predators. The mediators guided the manipulative ones into developing a stable economy, so free trade could begin. Over time, a microcosm of a society grew from nearly nothing, and over the years, it became a true society. Decades later, only the descendants of the great war remained. The penal colonists built structures so high, eventually they were able to cross over the wall, and travel to the great nation that had thrived without them. What they found there was a bustling isolated civilization, free from the resentment of their forefathers. The two cultures were absorbed into one, and all lived in peace from then on. When the wandering child removed his second hand from the canister, he discovered it to be covered in the same brilliant light as his first. It was time to learn from the third canister.