Microstory 1837: Foreign Fighter

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In 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics broke apart into fifteen distinct nations, which thrived independently of each other to varying degrees of success for three decades. Russia was the largest of these by far, and maintained strong political power over the rest of the world. The rest developed their own governmental bodies, and systems of law. In 1994, inspired by these developments, a district of Russia called Sakhaido declared its own independence. Sitting about 400 kilometers from the island of Sakhalin, as a sort of second peninsula branching from the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhaido always needed to maintain some level of autonomy in order to function. It once belonged to the Empire of Japan, and still consists of a significant population of Japanese people. The Japanese language is spoken by 24% of the population. Much of the leadership of Russia at the time did not want to let Sakhaido go, since they felt it shouldn’t be necessary, but the president himself did not want to cause any civil unrest, and had to admit that it wasn’t worth using up resources, and damaging their reputation. Sakhaido prospered after that, forming its own democracy, and becoming a hub of international trade amongst the other nations in and around the region. In 2016, a new president of Russia took office, having built his political platform upon strength against both enemies and allies. Russia was meant to be the dominant force in Europe, and he wasn’t happy with the direction his neighbors were going. A few months ago, he decided to attack Sakhaido, but had no intention of stopping there. The rest of the world was going to learn who called the shots, whether he was their official leader, or not. He didn’t need to take Sakhaido over, or any other country. He just needed to make sure that someone was in charge who would do what he wanted. The invasion began.

Nations of the free world condemned the Russian president for his cruel and unwarranted attack on Sakhaido. They made political and economical maneuvers against him, thinking that he would back down when it started causing his people harm. But he didn’t care about his people. They had suffered so much up until now, and they could continue to suffer, as long as he got what he wanted, which was pretty much everything under the sun. The Sakhaidoans held their ground, maintaining a nigh unassailable border between them and the Kamchatka Peninsula, but they could only do so much. They were not prepared for war, they did not have the resources, and they did not have the help. Refugees fled to other countries, nearly all welcomed by Japan, Alaska, and even Usonia, but that didn’t solve the problem of how to save their homeland. Their military force was only so great. They needed additional support. They needed—I believed—people like me. According to my country’s laws, it was not illegal for me to temporarily join the army of another country, as long as the actions I took there weren’t treasonous, and I wasn’t planning on defecting. So that’s what I did. I went across the sea, accepted the gun they put in my hands, and fought for a bunch of innocent people who had never done anything for me. Because I wasn’t just fighting for them. I was fighting for democracy all over the globe, and for justice as a whole. I was fighting for peace. Not everyone was happy with my choice, and I returned home to find no parade, no thanks, no welcome mat. But that was okay, because I know I did the right thing, and this assassin they sent to kill me knows it too, whether he can admit it or not.

Microstory 1726: Southern Crown

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I am a member of the royal court for the Southern Crown. There are two kingdoms in our world. One holds domain over the entire Northern hemisphere, and we rule over the South. We are a fair and just regime, and while not technically democratic, we do listen to our people and recognize their needs. We do not condemn those who would criticize us, and we do our best to make everyone happy. It was a long road that took us to this point, and no one here would welcome the opportunity to endure it again. We used to be broken into hundreds of independent nations, and though the majority of them were indeed run by democracies, they were full of corruption and selfishness. It was quite easy to get elected when you had the money, knew what to say to your voters, and had the right people backing you. That didn’t mean you would act in the best interests of your people, and it didn’t mean that you were peaceful. Now that there are only two separate states, things are much better for everyone. We don’t pay much attention to the goingson of the North, but according to our intelligence, they feel the same as we do. We have always met each other in peace, but not warmly. We are not allies, and we are not friends. Each kingdom can provide for itself, so we are not even trading partners. For the most part, we leave each other alone. But things have now changed. The threat we face threatens us all equally, which means there is no one to help us but our collective selves. We all have to do our part, and we all have to agree about what that means. A dragon has been on the attack for decades, even before the two kingdoms were formed. Some believe in the dragon, and others do not. Some believe, but are still not worried about it. To them, the dragon is always either far away in time, or in space.

The dragon is invisible, you see. Like the wind, we detect its impact on the world. We see the fires, and the smoke. We feel the heat as the water boils around us. We suffer the great storms that ravage our lands. We know that it’s there; we just can’t prove it, and without proof, stopping it from destroying everything may be impossible. Some of us have taken measures to slay this dragon, but it is too heavy a task for us, the brave few. Everyone must first admit that it is real, and help with the effort, if only in their own way. I am one of the more vocal proponents of fighting against the dragon, but there are not many who feel the same. The others, they laugh at me, or simply dismiss my concerns as not much of a priority. This region needs to send food to this other region, because they are not getting enough rain for their crops. This other region has had a bad fishing season. These are the issues that must be prioritized, according to the rest of the royals. I try to tell them that it is the dragon that is burning the crops, and it is the dragon that is poisoning the fish. They will not hear of it. It couldn’t be. No way could a dragon do so much worldwide. And if I make any attempt to convince them that we were the ones who released the dragon in the first place, they will surely have my head! No man could birth a dragon, and if he did, it would be easy to maintain, so that cannot be the problem. But no man birthed the dragon. We summoned it. Together. We summoned it when we did not take care of this world. It has come in response to our neglect, and the only way we’ll be able to kill it is if this becomes the accepted truth. I fear this cannot happen until the right person places that Southern Crown atop their head. And if it must be me, then it will be me. I cannot let the dragon consume us all.

Microstory 1482: President From Earth

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Things were pretty bad after the Deathspring sent a bunch of people from Earth to Durus. The Durune didn’t want them there, and the Earthans didn’t want to be there. Two seemingly contradictory things were happening at the same time, which sort of fed into each other. Durus was trying to get rid of all the misogynistic laws of the past, and become a more just society, but they were struggling to accomplish that with all these refugees here. So they treated those refugees poorly, and didn’t really give them that much thought. They tucked them away in isolated camps, and got to work on rebuilding their government from the ground up. It was years before they started listening to the people who were trying to explain to them that the Earthans would be able to help them do that. After all, they had just come from a world of equality and fairness, so maybe they had a few pointers? Well, it took some time, and a military state, but society eventually figured it out. Some of the Earthans went back home with the Elizabeth Warren interstellar ship, along with a few Durune who wanted to start new lives, but for everyone left, there didn’t appear to be much chance of further rescue, so the best thing to do for the Earthans was to dig in, and get used to the here and now, instead of dwelling on what might have been. That got easier over the course of the next two decades as policy adapted to the diverse population. One major thing to further this philosophy came in 2185, when the first person to have been born on Earth was elected as president of the Democratic Republic of Durus. They were long past the elitism and bigotry that formed in 2161, but it was still a huge step for the original Durune. On the other side, the Earthans had mostly accepted this as their new home, and that was impressive as well. Everyone was a native now. As for the new president himself, things were a little rough. Earth had moved so far beyond a standard representative democracy by then that he had some trouble understanding that Durus was not technologically advanced enough for a comparable system. He had to make a lot of mistakes, and reach some compromises, and he only lasted one term, but it was a decent start.

Microstory 1477: Reconstruction

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For the 2175 elections, the people of Durus were not only voting for the people they wanted to lead them. There were certains laws and projects the current administration wanted everyone to decide on. One of these projects proposed that the city start rebuilding all of the towns that they lost during the final battles of the war against the monsters, and afterwards, when the remaining structures were all pulled together into the city of Aljabara. By this time, there were already several outposts built away from the city. Before powerful builder Andromeda retired, and later died, she agreed to help people spread out into new communities. There was nothing wrong with these towns, but some thought it might be nice if they went back to their roots, and honored their history. They weren’t intending to break Aljabara apart, but construct new buildings where they were once standing. It wasn’t necessary, but it could be kind of cool. This would be yet another symbolic gesture, to signify the rejection of the former Republic, and a return to the glory of the Mage Protectorate, though with more democracy. Polls suggested that it would be a tight race, because not everyone was convinced. Sure, these towns were part of their history, but their downfall was no less part of that, and some were worried people would forget that. If they just ignored the last eighty plus years of their past, and made it look like it would if it had not happened, were they doomed to repeat their mistakes? No one was really worried about who their next elected leaders would be. The incumbents were fine, and their competition was fine. They weren’t going to end up in some kind of fascist state because of them, so the 2175 elections were more about debating the reconstruction issue. People from both sides made arguments in the streets, and in more organized forums. The news was dominated by the topic, and everybody had their own opinion. The more people talked about it, the more they realized that this was far more complex than just a single yes or no response. Some of the original town sites were already being used for other things. Ladytown was already built on top of Hidden Depths, and even though that had a history of its own, it was still standing and still going. The original Springfield was already being revitalized, the Earthan refugee camp that came up after the Deathspring was built right next to where Shieldon used to be, and they were already starting construction near Watershed. In reaction to these arguments, the vote was scrapped, in favor of a more long-term approach. They would still consider doing this, but they weren’t going to be able to figure it all out by the time election day rolled around, so the next administration would be in charge of solidifying whatever plans they were going to go through with. One thing was for sure, they weren’t going to remain exactly as they were. They were absolutely going to build new outposts, so it was just a matter of what and where, and whether they would have anything to do with the old towns. This didn’t mean they wouldn’t make any decisions at all when it came to the reconstruction effort. Everyone agreed that they wanted to move forward with the completion of Town Sixteen, which was famously unfinished by the time the war ravaged the lands. They just needed to know what to call it. The people chose Gimura.

Microstory 1472: Democracy Prevails

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The nightmare was over. Life wouldn’t be all rainbows and ageless puppies from now on, but at least Durus finally had a real democracy. Everyone over the age of fifteen had a vote, and everyone’s vote was worth the same as everyone else’s. The Earthan refugees and the Durune natives were starting to come together, and consider themselves all part of the same community. People were starting to dig in, and make a decent life for themselves. It wasn’t really over yet, though, until every member of their former military occupiers was gone. It was a great big relief for the world when the majority of the salmon battalion disappeared through their portal. The achievement almost made people forget that some of them wanted to return to Earth as well, and the salmon could try to give them that. So it was an even bigger relief that not all of them had left yet. There were still a couple people there who would be staying to help in any way necessary. Unfortunately, the way they needed help was not possible. Even though the officers had come from Earth, they did not do so using their own agency. They were beholden to the powers that be, and if these mysterious controllers didn’t want the Durune to go back with them, then they weren’t going to go back with them. Hopefuls could even try to literally step through the portal, but nothing would happen. They would just pass right through it, as if the portal were not there at all. Even if the salmon wanted to try to help, there was no telling when and where they would end up on Earth. Their job was to travel throughout time, fighting in wars. They were sometimes given lead time to prepare for a particular battle—what kind of uniforms, and other clothing, they were given to blend in was often a really good clue—but they didn’t ever have much else to go on. There was just no way for the battalion to take any Earth-bounders with them, as much as they may have wished they could. The last of them left in 2170, but they didn’t go alone. One man was chosen to join them, though not by the leader’s decision, or himself. He was conscripted against his will. Fortunately, this man wanted nothing more than to fight for justice throughout all of time. The problem was, now they needed to find a new mayor of Aljabara.

Microstory 1471: Salmon Battalion

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In an alternate timeline, the paramounts on Durus started a war with the regular humans. Most of them didn’t actually believe that those with time powers were superior to those without, but they were tired of the Provisional Government, and they wanted to see real change in their world. They figured creating a common enemy for the native Durune, and the Earthan refugees, to fight would unify them. Well, that part of the plan worked, but the part where they would arbitrarily end the war, and try to form a peaceful union for all, was lost. Some of the paramounts decided they were happy with this new direction. Yeah, people with powers were better, and they ought to be ruling the planet. As one might imagine, this caused a lot of problems, and the sort of fake war transformed into a real one, with plenty of empowered people on both sides. This meant that it would probably end in the total destruction of humanity on the rogue world. Worried this would happen, and not wanting the fighting to continue either way, a time traveling paramount went back to the Deathspring in 2161, and purposefully made sure that he was sent to Earth. Once there, he contacted someone named The Overseer, who was the go-to leader for any major endeavor that involved salmon and choosing ones working together. Salmon were a subspecies of humans who experienced nonlinear time, but lived under the control of a mysterious group called the powers that be, while choosers were people with powers, who could choose to use them at will. They were the Earthan equivalent of paramounts, and they had a pretty reliable network, which could make things happen. One of these groups was called the salmon battalion. It consisted of a few hundred people from all over time and space. They fought in various wars throughout the timeline, turning the tide to their leaders’ will, which was generally to ultimately create peace. Some members fought only in one battle, while others were more long-term participants, and these people cycled in and out of the battalion as necessary. The Overseer was not in charge of the battalion, but she could petition for aid if she felt it was warranted, and the powers that be were obliged to at least consider the request. Though Durus was beyond their scope, they agreed to come set things right. The highest number of simultaneous battalion members transported to Durus, and created a new timeline, which wiped away the formation of the New Crusades. They took control of the government, just for the time being, and started the Salmon Battalion Military State.

Now, this was a scary thing to call it, and though they kept the peace through peaceful means, the battalion did use that fear to keep people in line. They didn’t tolerate violence, or bigotry, or the infringement of people’s rights. They let protestors speak their peace, but most people eventually became glad that the battalion was here. They brought with them people who were experienced with democratic procedures, and though these experts didn’t dictate how the new republic would be set up, they did provide them with a lot of great advice. They helped them figure out what the Durune leaders would be called, and what responsibilities they would have. They helped build the capitol, so the new government would have a place to work out of. They helped set up the 2168 Special Election, so the first administration could star making decisions on their own. And finally, they helped them draft the Constitution, so that everyone would understand what the laws were, and what was expected of them as citizens. To that end, they wanted to ensure that every single person on the planet was considered a full citizen, whether they descended from Earthans who came in 2016, or if they just had arrived in 2161. Everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, disability, age, or temporal status would be treated as an equal, and enjoy the same rights as everyone else. As far as what the paramounts were allowed to do with their time powers, the battalion left that up to the administration, and the people of Durus. Immediately following the special election, which established the leadership until at least 2175, nearly all members of the salmon battalion left Durus, and returned to their respective time periods on Earth, or on to the next mission. Only a few key officers remained behind to tie up loose ends, and answer any lingering questions. In the end, the people were grateful to the battalion for them having been there.

Microstory 1470: The Transition Continues

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Since 2100, the city of Aljabara had not gone more than five years without holding an election. Most of these weren’t fair or legitimate, but they did take place, and those who the government decided were worthy of casting votes were free to do so. After the fall of the Republic, there were a lot of decisions that needed to be made in order to sustain the Provisional Government, but these weren’t determined through formal votes. They were polls. A special committee formed which did what they could to understand public opinion, and then used the general consensus to form policy. But no woman alive today had been free to cast a real ballot on Durus, except for Ecrin. The year 2165 was meant to be the time to do that, but this temporary governmental body wasn’t quite prepared for it. The greatest number of people ever, by a huge margin, would be voting in this round of elections, and no one around knew how to handle that. Even the visitors from Earth who had always been part of a democratic system didn’t know how to organize it, because none of them had experience in that field. They did their best, and tried to include everyone, but ballots were lost, or miscounted, or damaged, or people weren’t registered correctly. It was a huge mess. They would have remained in the transitional period even if it had gone smoothly, because no one had written a new Constitution...because no one knew how. Even so, it was a requirement for full-fledged governmental recognition, according to a recent poll. So new people were elected into leadership positions, and new committees were formed to make decisions, but nothing was official, and not everyone recognized the authority bestowed upon certain people from the votes. No one knew whose ballots were counted, and whose weren’t, but people whose preferred candidate lost tended to believe that their voice had been ignored. However close to accurate as it might have managed to be incidentally, no one was completely happy with the results, since it was so unclear. People began to protest, and demanded a revote. Few people were against this happening, except of course people who were still, or now, in power. It didn’t start a war, but the whole thing might have collapsed in a few years if something wasn’t done about it. Fortunately for them, a threat was on the horizon that galvanized the people of Durus into action, and finally forced them to form the Democratic Republic. But until this was official, the people lived under something called the Salmon Battalion Military State.

Microstory 1469: Drumpf is Fired

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One of the first paramounts to rise up after the Hokusai and the Deathspring changed the whole system was a young woman named Andromeda. She was a builder, who could configure building materials in complex and extremely useful ways. She was one of the most powerful people Durus ever saw, save the source mages and Jayde Kovak herself. Because of this, Andromeda garnered a lot of favor amongst both the Earthan refugees, and the Duruen natives. She would later turn Aljabara into a real city, with stable buildings and roads, rather than the haphazard fustercluck it was before. She built outposts as well, like the settlements that formed during the Mage Protectorate. But even before she did all that for them, everyone loved her, and listened to her, much like they did Ecrin, so when she came to some kind of decision, it was tantamount to law. Some insisted on calling her Queen Andromeda, but if they were going to do that, she in turn insisted they address her as Your Badass. It was a play on words, and modeled upon certain other honorifics, like Your Honor, or Your Highness. Despite his higher standing in the Provisional Government, even Drumpf had to acquiesce to her authority. But this authority was not taken, or earned, it was just given to her. Because that was how this new transitional system worked. People trusted whoever proved that they could be trusted, and when that person started to fail them, they demanded the individual be removed from power. For now, this would probably be okay, because of the whole provisional part. But it was not necessarily a good dynamic in the long-term. It could end up okay, like the Adhocracy that formed a hundred and forty years ago. Or it could just lead to anarchy. They needed something better; something more formal, and though it would take a very long time to actually get there, progress towards this goal would start with Andromeda. They held a meeting, where governmental officials pleaded for her to help them with the reconstruction efforts, and she was happy to help, but she had a list of demands.

While the people were busy trying to correct their history of misogyny, they unwittingly fell into another trap of injustice. They treated the people who had come here from Earth a couple years ago as second-class citizens, forcing them to live separately in a refugee camp. The Durune weren’t openly hostile, but they were preoccupied with their own problems, and didn’t want to help these new people. Andromeda had to explain to them that they were all part of the same community now, and if that truth were to be respected, everyone would be able to contribute in their own way, including the Earthans. The Provisional Government had to officially recognize the Earthans as citizens. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t be allowed to leave if an opportunity came about to return to Earth, but it would allow them to enjoy certain privileges, such as moving about the surface of the planet at will. She also engineered a way for Poppet Drumpf to step down as provisor, because she could easily see how toxic he was, and how he had not changed from his past. He wouldn’t have done it on his own, so Andromeda had to ask for help from a friend named Loa, whose time power it was to broadcast what she was seeing to anywhere—or everywhere, as it were—in the world simultaneously. He said some nasty things about his people, and they finally understood that he really hadn’t learned from his past mistakes. It would be a few more years until a round of elections came about, but for now, the government was at least peaceful and stable, and would be allowed to continue trying to make the world a better place. She wouldn’t do it forever, but Andromeda did use her powers to construct homes and other proper buildings, and would die a rare hero in most people’s eyes.

Microstory 1468: Paramount Issue

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By the year 2162, the Provisional Government was well underway. They had successfully shed some of the worst laws that the Republic had instituted, and people were yet to feel like they were taking too long to prepare for a new round of fair elections. That problem would arise after 2165 came and went, but for now, people were happy making piecemeal policy changes, using the leadership who stepped in to fill the void after the previous administration was removed. Despite Drumpf’s constant hesitations when it came to making these changes, he was balanced out with Ecrin’s radically progressive ideas, so things were moving forward at a reasonable pace. A series of laws were proposed that no one asked for, but still made people happy. These extra little decisions weren’t designed to make huge changes to the way society was run, but they did serve a nice purpose. One particular example of this was what they would call people with time powers. No one really understood what was happening, but mage remnants no longer seemed to be remnants anymore. After Durus barely survived colliding with Earth, and created the Deathspring portals, those who had special abilities started noticing an increase in their powers. They were stronger, more precise, more useful. It was as if their fated journey towards annihilation was holding it back, and now that it was subverted, these remnants were free from their bonds. They weren’t mages, though, and a provisional policymaker thought it made sense to formalize this reality. She asked the public to come up with a new term that would replace mage. She proposed a couple of ideas herself, but openly asked for anyone else’s input. It wasn’t the most important thing to do right now, but it had symbolic significance. People wanted to move past their past, and start fresh, as if this world were only now being colonized. The nomenclature of yesterday just reminded them of their mistakes. Over the course of a few weeks, they started paring down the assortment of ideas, until only one was left. People with time powers would now be referred to as paramounts. Historical records would remain as they were when discussing their ancestors who lived during Mage Protectorate, but any powered individual still alive today, or born from now on, would go by the new designation. Again, this didn’t absolutely have to be done, but most people found it a welcome relief to be involved in something so trivial. It showed them that there was more to this world than its history of misogyny, and the monumental work that needed to be put in to fix it. They just needed a win, and the good thing about this vote was that there was no real way to lose. Just about everyone was happy with the results, because they were achieved democratically, and that was what they were striving for all along.

Microstory 1467: Ecrin’s Release

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One of Provisor Drumpf’s first orders of business was to release famed mage hero, Ecrin Cabral from her prison cell, where she had been living for the last sixty years. He wanted to endear himself to her, and to everyone. She spent six decades in relative isolation, and there were few people left around who still believed she had deserved it. How quick they denounced their old ways, and how many of them began to pretend like they weren’t just as much a part of the misogynistic system as everyone else. The planet needed to move forward, yes, but that didn’t mean ignoring their past, and as the years went by, Ecrin Cabral would be there to remind them of how terrible they had been. Even the people born into the system knew what they were doing was wrong. You couldn’t brainwash a child enough to make him grow up and live his whole life under the impression that there was something wrong with the women around him. At some point, they had a responsibility to realize that this was not okay. Until then, Ecrin just wanted to be free, and to try to scrape together some kind of new life. She never had the pleasure of keeping up to date with the goingson of Durus while she was in hock. It was actually illegal for anyone to share information with an inmate, no matter how small or insignificant as it may seem. Ecrin hadn’t heard any news about the outside world since the early 22nd century, which meant that she was going into her new life with a huge disadvantage. One of these disadvantages was that she was completely out of politics, and wasn’t aware of who was in charge, or who had been in charge, and this ignorance extended to the current provisor of Aljabara. She wasn’t told who Drumpf was, or what he had done, but she could still tell that he couldn’t be trusted. A blind person can smell the bullshit in the air. If he was waiting for her support, then he would be waiting for the rest of his life, and then some. Of course, though, he wouldn’t need to wait that long, because his days as a leader were numbered, and she knew that.

For the five years the Provisional Government was up and running, Ecrin used her many years of experience as a protector to guard diplomats as the people of Durus attempted to fix what was broken. Everyone wanted her on their detail, but she refused to be quantum duplicated, so there was only so much she could do. People were just falling over themselves to apologize for what she had been through. Some took too much blame, even though they weren’t around when she was imprisoned in the first place. But some people didn’t take enough responsibility for the system they let stay in place all this time. Ecrin grew a little bit resentful as the months passed following her release, because she could never be satisfied with anyone’s attitude or semantics in regards to how she had been treated. Some even attempted to avoid saying something insensitive and sort of pretended like she was a normal person, but that made her mad too. She had to seek therapy to get by, which was not easy, because all educated psychologists were men, and they had been conditioned under the same misogyny as everyone else. They tried to be empathetic, and help her work through her issues, but the truth was that they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. She declared that all mental health professionals were unfit, and even though she did not technically have the authority to stop them from practicing, everybody just kind of accepted her decision. She realized she could do a lot of good during this transitional period, helping people understand what exactly was wrong. She had been born on Earth, so she had seen pretty much every form of government this world had tried up until they locked her up. That gave her a unique perspective that Aljabara desperately needed. While she still maintained her work in diplomatic security, she used her access to advise the most important people, and when the new republic formed many years later, they used her wisdom as its foundation.

Microstory 1466: Drumpf Returns

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For the next five to seven years, things were really rough on Durus. As great as it was that the world was finally changing, it wasn’t a painless process. The Republic did pretty much die overnight, but its replacement didn’t come until much later. After Hokusai Gimura saved two planets from their destruction, the people rose up, and overthrew the administration. The Thicket spearheaded the effort, but people who had thus far had nothing to do with the revolutionary movement were also in on it. It was not a fun time for anyone who was responsible for maintaining the oppressive government. Regardless of how committed—or secretly against—someone was to misogyny, if he was part of the system, he had to go. Citizens rejoiced for about a week, until reality set in, and they realized that they had no idea what they were going to do now. Every system of government until then had been created to replace whatever was already there. Even the Interstitial Chaos was less chaotic than the name would have it sound. But who could lead them? Remanoir Amrit Bax was nowhere to be found. There was no evidence that he had been killed, however, so the assumption was that he was accidentally transferred up to Earth during the Deathspring. Most of the other former primary leaders were also missing, though, so perhaps there was indeed some kind of conspiracy. Only one man came out of the shadows, and promised a brighter future. Former Sekundas Poppet Drumpf started to appear in front of crowds, making people feel like only he could deliver them from uncertainty. He spoke of his past mistakes, and heavily implied that he had just spent the last several years on some kind of walkabout vision quest in the wilderness, even though witnesses reported seeing him all throughout the city this whole time. He talked about the prison of his own mind, and regaled them with stories of breaking himself out of his old prejudices, as one might break free from a real prison. He fancied himself the Nelson Mandela of Durus, which was offensive on so many levels, but no one could trace this claim directly back to him, so in a lot of people’s minds, he was a changed man. People loved him on both sides, which was quite frustrating. He told them he didn’t want to maintain power forever, but until a new democracy could be formed, he might be the only one with the experience to save them. So they did it. They installed him in a new position called Provisor, so he could help them transition to something better, more progressive, more fair. The truth was that he had every intention of holding onto power forever, and not everyone was fooled by his new beginning bullshit. He only lasted two years before the people of Durus had finally had enough of him. The Provisional Government needed someone they could trust.

Microstory 1435: A Child is Born

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As the source mages were coming into control over Springfield and Splitsville, they came up with a lot of rules about how to keep the town safe, from the monsters, and any other threat. Some of these rules were for the people to follow, while others were internal. But these internal laws were still devised in order to protect the citizens. There were certain things the source mages would allow each other to do, and things that they would not. For one, they would not let themselves become the leaders of some kind of religious cult. There was a scientific explanation for their time powers, whether anyone understood the science, or not. They were still just people, and God should be left out of it. Furthermore, ruling power could not be consolidated into one of the mages, or even all of them. It would remain a fair and democratic society, even though a lot of their conventions would feel very medieval. That was only because of their combination of magic, and only enough technology to survive, rather than an actual feudal system of government and justice. One thing they decided, in order to prevent any abuse of their position over others, was to outlaw mage children. This was especially important for the sources, but town mages couldn’t conceive children either. This made the logistics of competition a little difficult, but not impossible to overcome. Two mages could raise a child, of course, but only if that child was born before either of them had their powers. This meant that a twelve-year-old mage—that being the minimum age at the time of the Selection Games—simply would not be able to have kids. Unless they waited to be sourced their abilities. Like deferring college enrollment, a winner could delay being given powers until after they had however many kids they wanted. This delay was limited to ten years, however, so if they didn’t think they could make it happen by then, it was probably best for them to just wait the full twenty years before the next competition. Again, this complicated matters, but the source mages didn’t know what kind of power a legacy child would have, and they weren’t jazzed about finding out. It just seemed like too much of a risk, except in one case. Knowing which power a new mage received—and how powerful it was exactly—could take too long if they just waited for them to figure out on their own. The holistic diagnosticians belonged to a single bloodline of people with the ability to understand a patient’s abilities just by examining them. The Taggart family was the only exception to the no-child policy. Breaking it was kind of a big deal.

Out of all of the source mages, only Valda Ramsey and Lubomir Resnik were in a relationship. It wasn’t technically disallowed, but the others did discourage it, because it could lead to a breach of their other internal rules. None of the others took any romantic interest in anyone else. They were absolutely not asexual, and they didn’t think of themselves as elitist, but they certainly had trouble relating to other people. In 2077, Valda and Lubomir took their relationship to the next level by having unprotected sex with each other. They weren’t trying to get pregnant, but they weren’t trying not to either. A part of them wasn’t thinking about the consequences, or how upset the others would be for it. They were just in love, and caught up in the moment. Another part of them, however, was terribly curious what the child of two source mages would be able to do. Nine months later, Valda delivered a little baby girl. Fortunately, the source mages saw time move differently, and fully expected to live forever, so the fact that they didn’t see Valda for seven months didn’t seem strange to them. Most of them didn’t even notice she wasn’t just busy in the other room. They named the baby Jayde, even though they knew they couldn’t keep her. If she developed powerful abilities, she would have to do it somewhere else. No one could know that she was the offspring of two source mages. They searched through the census, and found a nice couple to raise their daughter for them. The Kovacs had been wanting a child of their own, and Valda and Lubomir knew that they would take care of her, and also not tell anyone that Sadie never carried a pregnancy. Jayde would grow up to change everything about life on Durus, but for now, she was just an infant, and she didn’t deserve to be treated differently because of her unique origins. Valda and Lubomir regretted letting her go, but they would see her again one day, and they would never regret having her.

Microstory 1423: The First Mage Games

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Later Mage Selection Games would come with better organization, and a better understanding of how to measure a competitor’s potential to become a great town mage. That didn’t mean, however, that the first one went terribly. Well, at least it could have been worse. There were some bumps, and some mistakes they wish they could take back, but in the end, it got the job done, and all the winners went on to prove to be good choices. The source mages were careful to plan it out, so things wouldn’t just fall apart. They spent a great deal of time working on coming up with appropriate challenges, because they were going to have less help with it than they did for other aspects of the new government. While the Mage Protectorate was definitely going to be a democracy, that didn’t mean everyone had to be able to express their opinion about everything. They chose not to ask the people how they wanted to handle this competition. They didn’t even consult their experts all that much. If they alone couldn’t figure out what made someone worthy of being a mage, then they were not worthy of being mages either. Besides, letting a regular person design a challenge could put the entire process in danger. If the fastest runner on the high school cross country team, for instance, suggested every town mage had to be able to run a mile in five minutes, well, that person was obviously just setting themselves up to win. The source mages were the only ones entirely ineligible to compete, so they were the only ones capable of engineering it.

The contest would last the whole day, and be composed of a series of challenges, each testing various aspects of character. They didn’t come up with a list of character traits, though, and try to match each challenge with one trait. A given challenge could allow a competitor to exhibit multiple traits, and in different ways from each other. Some of them were physical in nature, while others were academic, and some were psychological or emotional. The scoring system proved to be, by far, the most difficult component to specify. Was athleticism more important than intelligence? Maybe, maybe not. They needed experience to understand which influenced time power aptitude the most, or if neither of them mattered. They didn’t have very many examples to go on, and they didn’t want a bunch of test subjects running around with powers, who had never gone through the competition. So, without this data, their best guess seemed to be their only option. They kind of had to surrender to the fact that the second time they tried this, in twenty years, was going to be better than the first. The town had to understand this as well, that nothing was going to be perfect. Even ignoring these issues, they didn’t know if they ought to only award points to the winner, or winners, or if losers simply received fewer points. The answer was obvious to most of the mages; just because a competitor wasn’t the best, didn’t mean they weren’t good at all. Few should be so bad at something that they received zero points for their effort. Still, how many points was a challenge worth, and how would they determine the increments of scale, and how they would rate a competitor’s performance with very little in the way of comparison? Standards. How would they set a standard, and how exactly would they know when someone reached, or surpassed it, and if someone surpassed it too greatly, did that just mean they needed to reexamine the standard? All of these questions took months to answer, and even then, as previously mentioned, the system proved to be less than ideal, and more importantly, not entirely fair. So the first Mage Games actually took place over the course of two days, which were separated by a month of repreperation time. They should have known that the best way to see how well the competition would go was to do a dry-run ahead of time. Even though history would remember the Mage Protectorate as having held four games total before it fell, there were technically five, but most agreed that the first one didn’t count.

Microstory 1422: Proto-Protectorate

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Now that the source mage children looked nearly twice as old as they really were, they decided it was time to assume full control over Springfield, and possibly Splitsville. The Adhocracy was nice while it lasted, but it had come to an end, and times needed to change. People had spent their whole lives since the Deathfall hoping that it would all lead them back to Earth, but the source mages knew this was not possible. The last time they were there was nearly thirteen years ago, and as the members of the Triumvirate had explained to them, no one there could even remember that they existed. Durus was their home now, and they needed to make sure everyone knew that. They weren’t just going to survive, and hope the monster never took them out eventually. They were going to make this place safe and prosperous, so that if the Earthans did learn of their existence, some might even want to move. They thought they had their plans all figured out, but when Orabela showed them they were capable of gifting other people with special temporal powers, nothing they first thought of made any sense. So they started over, and spent months working on a brand new system. They called it the Mage Protectorate. They would give other people powers, so they could shoulder the burden, and protect the towns collectively. With more people, what was formerly called the Baby Barrier would be able to grow, and give the Durune people more space. The only question then was how to choose who received these gifts, and who didn’t. They couldn’t just let anyone run around with powers, doing whatever they wanted. Sure, they could regulate them with laws, but what if insurgents banded together, and rose up against their leaders? No, it was too dangerous to make the job available to just anyone. This required some way of weeding out potential bad eggs. This sparked the idea of the Mage Games.

Anyone could apply to be a town mage, but that didn’t guarantee they would be selected. The new leaders called upon their best statistician, and other experts, to gauge how many people would want in on this, and how many winners they needed to keep things running smoothly. This was a very involved process, which demanded help from lots of other people. This was perfect, though, because by including non-source mages in the decision-making processes, they only made themselves look better. This was going to be a fair government, where everyone’s voice was heard. They were going to call it a protectorate, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t also be democratic. The initial assumption was that the Mage Games would be held every year. Maybe there would actually only be one winner each time, and that one person would go on to join the ranks of the many veterans before them. This didn’t sound so unreasonable, but it came with risks. First of all, the source mages didn’t really want to have to go through this every single year. And, if the competition was annual, they worried it would be too accessible, easily corrupted by inequality, and fraught with logistical issues. A vicennial competition, however, would make turnover slow, and hopefully discourage mages from trying to quit early. Plus, most people would end up too old to compete a second time if they failed once; though neither impossible, nor against their rules. This fostered a group composed of committed competitors, who were not taking this lightly. If they didn’t manage to get in, they might not get another chance, and if they did get in, trying to get out of it would put the whole population in danger, so it was important that they understood what it was they were signing up for, and what it would mean for their lives. This was not a car dealership, though. The standards were flexible, and sensible. If they determined, for instance, that every town mage had to be able to do a hundred pushups, and their strongest competitor could only do ninety-nine, then they would just end up with no mages, and that wasn’t helpful at all. They wanted everyone who was worthy, and if that meant everyone who applied was ultimately accepted, then so be it. The point was to prevent the wrong people from having too much power, but if those people didn’t exist, or didn’t even try—and there was enough offensive work to justify the numbers—then fine. Armed with this wisdom, it was finally time to decide what the Mage Games entailed.

Varkas Reflex: Identity (Part VII)

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First order of business as Superintendent of Varkas Reflex was to figure out what it meant to be the Superintendent of Varkas Reflex. Hokusai knew she needed help, and the best place to get it was from someone with experience. Even better than that one person with experience was an entire council of them. Several people had held the position on Earth, while each of the colony planets only had one, with the exception of Sujo. Its first superintendent couldn’t handle the responsibility, and fled into the void with a stolen interstellar vessel, never to be heard from again. Of course, that wasn’t much help, because Hokusai would not be able to communicate with him, which was sad, because understanding what went wrong could have resulted in invaluable advice. Not everyone agreed to become part of Hokusai’s council, which was fine. She wasn’t looking to run a survey about them with a large sample size, but gain insight and guidance. There were eleven of them, ready to help in any way they could.

Hokusai built quantum surrogate substrates for the visitors, so they could arrive much faster. The former superintendent of Teagarden was unable to use one, since she never installed the necessary transhumanistic upgrades to accomplish this, so she appeared as a hologram. Hokusai wasn’t sure what she was expecting out of these people. Were they going to be helpful and supportive, or balk at her inexperience and naivety. They had all dedicated their lives to public service, and were presently serving in other ways. She was just a scientist, living on a planet that elected her because she was cool, and there wasn’t anyone else. Would the council believe that was enough? As it turned out, some did, while others were not so convinced. They weren’t nasty or pretentious about it, though. They applauded her for having the wisdom to form the council in the first place, and recognized that Varkas was unlike any of the planets they had dealt with themselves. Their formal approach wasn’t going to work well in this case, and they would all have to tap into their creative side in order to make this work.

After months of discussions, they decided that they had come up with something reasonable, and appropriate for this world. Hokusai realized on her own that she was never the only superintendent at all. By forming the council, she had outsourced a lot of the decisions. It went swimmingly, and if it could work for this, it could work with the actual government. So there would be no congress, no delegators, no advisors, and no administrators. This world’s government was going to be a council democracy. Councils would be formed as needed, and disbanded when the problem they were trying to solve was over, which could potentially mean never. If the council wasn’t trying to solve anything, but was there to maintain harmony, then that council would simply continue on. The question then was how to form any given council in the first place.

Would they be elected? Selected? Earned? Completely open? Yes, all of those things. Hokusai decided that the people had the right to decide how any new council was formed—making the entire populace one gigantic council in its own right—and they didn’t have to do it in the same way previous councils were done. Some councils may require particular expertise, and would only be available to certain people, who exemplified certain criteria. Others could impact the entire population, and didn’t necessitate specific competencies, so anyone who wanted to could join. If this resulted in an unmanageably large council, then it could be broken apart into smaller subcouncils. This flexibility made things really complex, but it also prevented the system from getting bogged down by its own procedural regulations. The technocracy that the majority of the stellar neighborhood used was great. Everyone had a role, and the only people allowed to make decisions were those that knew what the hell they were talking about. But it was also a slow process—often slower than the highly bureaucratic democratic republics that dominated Earth in the 20th and 21st centuries. Councils got things done, and they did it efficiently, as long as they were supervised by someone who could make sure the councilors weren’t getting sidetracked, or wasting time. This was the problem that Hokusai needed to solve now, and Pribadium thought she had the solution.

“Here me out,” Pribadium said, “we upload your mind to multiple substrates.”

“Why would we do that?” Hokusai asked.

“You say these councils need leaders. In fact, you say that each council needs one leader. This crowdsourcing is good and all, but it won’t work if they spend so long discussing the possibilities, that they can’t ever come to a conclusion. Someone needs to protect them from themselves, and who better than you?”

“First of all,” Hokusai began, “lots of people. Secondly, why would we have to upload anyone’s mind to multiple bodies? All you’re asking for is a singular entity that oversees the proceedings.”

“Eh, no one has time to be in more than one place at once.”

“Right, but why can’t each council just have its own leader.”

“Because the profusion of leaders is just going to lead to the same problem. I’m not sure if you’ve thought this all the way through. You think councils can be fast-acting, but they could be slower than republics. At least the technocracy is efficient. Most consequences to any action are predicted at some point down the assembly line. With a council, everyone might have some great idea, but they won’t say anything, because no one else is, so they may think it’s actually not that good.”

“What are you saying, that this should be a monarchy?”

Pribadium knew that Hokusai didn’t actually think that’s what she was saying. “A real democracy is perfect when you have a few dozen people. It doesn’t work in the thousands, millions, or, God forbid, billions. That’s why most healthy governments operate under representation, to varying degrees of success and moral honesty. People hate to think about it, but power must be consolidated. That’s just the way it has to be. It’s your job to make sure that consolidation is fair and reasonable. A soviet democra—”

“Don’t call it that. It has negative historical connotations that predate your birth.”

“Very well. A council democracy is fair, but it is not reasonable. You’re gonna run into problems, and in order to fix them, you’re going to form more councils, and that’s just going to add to the problem, and it will never end. The councils need a single voice. And when I say single, I mean single; not one each.”

“So, you are kind of promoting a monarchy.”

“All monarchs are tyrants, so no. I was using you as an example of the voice, but perhaps that is how it should remain, as an example. This overseer can take any number of forms. It can be elected any way you want, and remain in control however long you want. You worried about checks and balances? They’re built right in. Let’s say the overseer poses some existential threat to the planet. No problem, form a council to get rid of them. The overseer doesn’t have to run every single meeting for every single council, but they have to have the potential to be involved in any council, except for ones that would come with a conflict of interest. That’s why I suggested you copy yourself—or rather, whoever we choose for this—so each one gradually loses identity. You see, what we need is a good leader with a good history, but that’s only necessary as a foundation. Once that’s established, the copies can go off and start living other lives, but at least they all came from the same place.”

Hokusai was shaking her head. “I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. Good governments are based on diversity. Each leader should be separate, and have always been separate. Then they can serve to check and balance each other.”

Loa stepped into the room, having been listening from the hallway for most of the conversation. “Why don’t you take the best of both worlds?”

“How so?” Pribadium asked.

“Mind-uploading, councils, single voice. Put them together, what do you have?”

Neither of them answered for a while, not sure if it was a rhetorical question, or a sincere inquiry.

“Amalgamated consciousness,” Loa answered herself.

“Where did you hear that term?” Hokusai asked her.

“My mind-brain,” Loa replied. “You want fast government, but you want the people to have a say. So. Upload their minds into a system, but don’t just keep them isolated, like we normally do. Merge them together. Create a new entity. This entity won’t have to discuss how to deal with the issue. They’ll immediately know what that council would have said about it. The answers will just be right there. That’s how a normal brain works. If I asked you how to keep this door from being opened, you’ll have an answer right away. You’ll say we should install a lock on it. If I asked Pribadium, she would say let’s drag a bookcase in front of it. Ask someone else, they’ll say we should murder everyone who might try to open it. But if we put these brains together, the council-entity would say we should install a lock, plus a deadbolt, and then ask everyone who might want to open it to not do so, so we don’t have to kill them.”

“Amalgamated consciousness,” Hokusai echoed, thinking it over. “That’s a pretty big departure from how we decided to do it.”

Loa brushed this away. “The superintendent council is not the superintendent of Varkas Reflex; you are. You don’t have to consult them. You were just using them for advice, never forget that. It is still your responsibility.”

Pribadium didn’t approve. “I’ve seen this show. This is The Borg. You will be assimilated.”

“Assimilators in fiction are evil. We won’t do this to anyone who does not wish for it, and we won’t be neurosponging them. These will be copies, which leave the original contributors both independent, and intact.”

“The only reason we would do this,” Hokusai began to explain, “would be to increase the speed of decision-making. It doesn’t actually help with proving the sensibility of the decisions themselves.”

Loa disagreed. “No, it’s like Pribadium said. People might be afraid to speak up. If we copy their perspective—which is really what we’re after; not people’s episodic memories—they won’t have to worry about sounding foolish. They will have good ideas.”

“There are a hell of a lot of ethical considerations no one thought they would have to make. If we were to do this, we would be the only government to do so. All eyes will be on us, and we will have to make sure we don’t screw it up. Like, what happens to the entity we create when we amalgamated the council? Is that a person in their own right? Do we dissolve this creature later? Do we keep them on retainer for later decisions? Do we let them run off to lead their own lives? Do we let them leave the planet?”

“Now you’re getting into science that you know I don’t understand,” Loa said. “And ethics isn’t my forte either. This is an idea, which I came up with after hearing your ideas. I can’t be expected to have it all figured out.”

She was right. This was just the start. They spent the next year working on the new plan. And then they instituted it.

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Microstory 1283: The Lion and the Turkey

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In the animal preserve, all the animals got along. The predators were given meat by the humans, so the prey no longer felt that they were in danger. A sort of society formed amongst just the animals. They didn’t have a democracy, per se, and they certainly didn’t know how to vote, but they did sort of agree to let the lion rule over them, to some degree. The truth was that there weren’t a whole lot of decisions that these animals needed to make, since the humans took care of pretty much everything, but they liked to feel that they were at least somewhat independent. After all, this was something they could not get in the wild. The lion would never rule over anything, as he would have naturally eaten half of everything in there, and the other half if times were tough. This was something special. One tradition they began was to have the lion walk across the courtyard in front of everyone at the beginning of every day. The humans were not yet awake, so they would not see how strange and out of character this was. It was a vain and pointless ceremony, but they did it, because again, there wasn’t much else. During one such of these walks, the turkey made a rude comment about him under his breath. He was tired of being ruled by the lion, and didn’t think it was fair. The lion heard what he had said, and turned to face his detractor. The prey close enough to hear it spread word to the others, and everyone guessed that the turkey would be eaten for his insolence. The predators snickered, for most of them guessed the lion wouldn’t even bother with the turkey. He was a silly little creature, and surely not worth the lion’s time. But they were all wrong. The lion stared at the turkey for what seemed like ages. Then he placed a paw on his shoulder, and ushered him away from the crowd. “Come, my friend,” the lion said. “We should discuss your grievances. What good am I as a leader if I do not listen to those I lead? If something should be changed, we will change it.”

This story was inspired by, and revised from, an Aesop Fable called The Lion and an Ass.

Microstory 1250: Enobarbus Agnelli

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The planet of Durus was named such that it could survive the harshest of conditions. The survivors of the Deathfall in 2016 fairly quickly realized that they were on a rogue planet, meaning that it was no longer in orbit around a parent star. Yet even without a blue sky, its atmosphere remained, and it was somehow perfectly suitable for humans to live. It wasn’t until later that they learned it was a series of temporal anomalies that allowed organic life to survive on the surface, but the name was already there, and it would come to mean many things over the years. Governments rose and fell, but the flame of humanity on Durus was never snuffed out. There were good times and bad, and depending on who you ask, one regime could be both at the same time, if only it retrospect. After the phallocracy fell, and democracy slowly began to come to the towns, most of the people who hated where things were headed preferred the way things were when men ruled, and women served. Also known as Barbwire, for his sharp attitude, Enobarbus Agnelli did not like what was happening to his world now, but not because of any nostalgia for his childhood. He never believed women were inferior—or that they couldn’t be trusted, which was the line used by the former leadership as a canned response regarding the matter. He didn’t really even believe in inferiority, or at least didn’t use such terminology to justify his stance. He just wanted to go back to the way things were a long, long time ago. He didn’t hate the regular humans; the ones who didn’t have any time powers, but he certainly considered himself separate from them, and he was sick of people using the term regular to mean normal. To him, paramounts should be the default. During the Mage Protectorate, people with powers were revered, and the honor of having them was coveted. True, back then, most people had to earn the right, but just because Enobarbus was born with abilities didn’t mean he didn’t deserve them. The mages brought order to a planet defined by chaos, and he believed the only reason Earth wasn’t ruled by them was because the Earthan equivalents were far outnumbered by people with no powers at all, and no hope of receiving them. So he started a movement. There would still be a democracy, but it would be led by paramounts, like him. He wasn’t looking to become a dictator, but he was the one with the vision, so for now, he should be first in line. He failed in his mission before it even got started, and ended up being banished, not just from the planet, but the entire universe. He unwillingly joined a group of warriors fighting against a multiversal threat that didn’t have much to do with his former life, or his old plans. This was where he belonged, though. All that nonsense about paramount dominance fell far behind him, and is a mere footnote in the story of his life.

Microstory 1222: Ludvig Portillion

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While the end of the phallocracy on Durus was suddenly brought about by a visitor from Earth who refused to accept the status quo, her arrival was not the only thing that brought the system down. Women had been living under oppression for over sixty-five years, and a lot had changed since the new rules were first implemented. For one, everyone responsible for the new world order was dead, leaving their descendants to decide for themselves whether they still agreed with their ways. For the most part, the system held up on its own. Anyone who disagreed with it feared retaliation for voicing their concerns, so they simply kept quiet. Active rebels were few and far between, but there were even more people who secretly supported them, and needed but a push to stand against the injustice. Ludvig Portillion was one of these people. He didn’t see women as inferior, but he also didn’t think he could do anything to help. He was born into a world that not only mistreated over half its population, but also into one that discouraged questioning the government, or coming to one’s own conclusions. It wasn’t tyrannical. Criticism—by men, at least—was usually met with dismissal, rather than explicit punishment, but it certainly wasn’t a democracy, and it wasn’t set up with sufficient change-making procedures. The truth was that Ludvig thought he was doing everything he could when he pursued a relationship with Loa Nielsen. Her father, Anchor was infamous for his understanding of the progressive Earthan culture, and thusly developed empathy for the female condition. Ludvig thought that, by courting a strong and independent woman, he was showing that he wasn’t afraid of female independence, nor would he attempt to take control over her. He also thought that being around both Loa and her father made him a better person. He never considered himself to be a bad guy, and the women who knew him didn’t either. It just took him too long to realize that, since he wasn’t really part of the solution, he was still technically part of the problem. He could have done more. Treating this one woman fairly, was the absolute bare minimum, and wasn’t nearly enough to demonstrate his goodness, let alone make the world a better place. Fortunately, he came to have an opportunity to contribute positively. After Hokusai Gimura came to the planet, and changed everything about it, Ludvig stepped up. He raised his voice, in support of progressive changes, and against any who would see society crumble back down to the way it was. And by his words, along with the words and actions of many others, the world did finally become its best self.

Microstory 1173: Isabeau Tribaldos

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As the mid-21st century approached, the world began to truly wake up. While the majority of Earthans recognized both that climate breakdown was real, and that humans were the cause of it, politics prevented the fight against it from starting. The people did not hold the power to elect their representatives. Instead, the few wealthiest individuals and companies were the only ones whose voices mattered, because they were the ones donating the most money to their selected campaigns. A few things fixed this problem, in no particular order. First, those wealthy people just straight up died. Second, their children tended to be more liberal. Third, legislation started passing that limited donor power. Fourth, politicians stopped being as concerned with pleasing their donors, and more concerned with supporting the electorate—and non-electorate, for that matter. Any major donors that had a problem with this were free to choose a different candidate, but would be faced with the fifth reason, which was that democracy was prevailing anyway, and their backwards ideals were no longer welcome by anyone. Now, politicians were free to express their concerns over the environment, and a plethora of other social issues; some related, others not as much. All of this combined to form a whole, and a whole new world. Materialism gave way to efficiency and technological progress. It’s stupid to own a giant house when you can jack into a virtual world of limitless scope. Your living unit really only needs to be big enough to fit your bed, your clothes, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Entire cities were totally demolished, and replaced by plantlife. Trillions of trees were planted, and the world turned green again. People started living vertically, hundreds of meters up in the air, ultimately taking up a fraction of a fraction of an unfathomably small fraction of the land originally used by civilization. The climate was slowly starting to recover. Everything became more compact in these arcologies, and humans were never happier. Politics changed more, to accommodate the new way people were living in these megastructures. A lot of problems that would arise yesterday were completely irrelevant now, so the government was able to streamline its bureaucracy. A representative will be responsible for a single floor in one of the towers, while a senator represents the whole tower. A group of thirty-six towers in one city will be led by a governor, and if there aren’t enough towers to reach that minimum, the senators fill this role in a council. A commissioner will be in charge of six of these arcities, while the Moderator, Facilitator, Mediator, and Assistant Mediator govern the world as a whole. Of course, this jurisdictional structure is modified when taking into account other ways of living, such as seasteads and primitivist communities, but everyone is still represented. Isabeau Tribaldos was elected the Governor-Councilor for the Panama Arcstate. The population of Panama was high enough to justify two separate arcities, but not large enough to justify a full county, and a leading commissioner. So she was in charge of an entire city of towers, and was ultimately responsible for over three million people. She was a great leader, and Panama was a prosperous region.