Microstory 1675: Boss Level

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Even before it was named after the woman who populated it, Fort Underhill was designed to become a new universe for those who had died in Salmonverse. They had been living in a simulated reality up until that point, but the creators wanted them to have a place to go where they couldn’t make up whatever rules they wanted, or have literally anything given to them simply by request. They weren’t being mean—the idea was originally conceived to be a choice—they just thought people might eventually get tired of having everything handed to them. For better or worse, while their consciousnesses remained intact, they were not alive, and they knew that people would want to have resurrection as an option. They were all transitioned there all at once, against their will, because there was no time to ask them. The simulation was being shut down by a group of people who essentially boil down as the landlords. They had to get out, and they had to get out fast, or they would all meet the true death. Despite the fact that it was necessary to do this without warning, it has been reported to me that it caused some unrest. As I’ve said, Fort Underhill is impenetrable to me. The membrane is too thick to allow information to be passed back and forth, so I’m getting all of this second hand from people who have been inside. According to what they saw and experienced, a lot of the newly resurrected were grateful for the gift. It was a lofty goal that the original creator of the simulation had always hung over their heads, just out of their reach. He built levels into the social hierarchy, with the lowest level being true death, and the highest level being new life. So a lot of them were always trying to attain it, and they never thought they would, because it was incredibly rare. They were glad to have finally achieved the final level, but not everyone felt the same way about it.

Some didn’t care either way, because they figured they could always enter a new virtual construct now. They were immortal, and time meant nothing to them now, so who cares how long that took, or how much earlier work they lost? Others were less patient. They worked very hard to build their afterlives, and to have it all ripped from them was a travesty in their minds. As far as I can tell, they didn’t go into war, or anything, but it was a complicated situation. Because of how efficient the level system was, they didn’t have any preexisting form of government. Because of how long the simulation had run, there were people from the entire history of civilization, which meant for every form of government Earth ever had, someone was around who had experienced it prior to their death. Which one would they choose? There was plenty of space for them to spread out, but did that mean each planet ran itself? Would the creators of the universe have any say, or would they expect the people to elect new leaders? What would they do with the levels, now that everyone was apparently on the same playing field? Was there some way to return to the hierarchy, and was that fair? Honestly, the main purpose of levels was to keep the afterlife interesting. If everyone always had everything handed to them, which was technically feasible, would people grow bored, and kill themselves for good? Still there were those who wanted to return to the old ways, especially when it came to the prisoners. Throughout most of history, everyone died, including bad people, so did they deserve to have all their sentences suddenly commuted? There were a lot of complex social questions to try to answer now, and the creators would not have it easy.

Microstory 1479: Social Harmony

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In the late 2170s, the first generation of Durune born post-Deathspring was coming of age. Many of these adults-in-training were paramounts, with some of them even having no lineage that could be traced back to the mages. It would seem that time powers were becoming less hereditary than they once were, and a lot of people attributed this shift to the Deathspring, or rather to the fact that Durus was no longer on a collision course towards Earth. They were finally becoming their own civilization, free from many of the horrors and burdens of the time before. A sort of religious movement was forming, founded upon the idea that the paramounts were part of some grand design. They didn’t claim to know what this presumably conscious entity would be, or where it was, but they could see patterns. There were paramounts who were helping build the outposts, and ones who were securing society through law enforcement. Some were making transportation faster and more convenient, while others were designing therapeutic pocket dimensions, or treating patients using psychic connections. The seers were protecting the future, while the retrocognitives were teaching students about their past. Some were born with the rare ability to alter the aging process, which would ultimately create a population boom, because death was no longer such an inescapable certainty. Everyone had a place, and it sometimes felt like they were placed there on purpose. They weren’t religious zealots yet, but they did have their spiritual beliefs, and for some, it kept them going. There were those who were concerned that this could lead to class warfare. They wanted to make sure that the paramounts weren’t treated as gods, and that they weren’t raised to believe they were superior. In order for this to go smoothly, they had to work together, and everyone had to believe that everyone else mattered, because they did.

In the early 2180s, this generation was starting to take ownership over the future of Durus. They were born without their ancestors’ prejudices, and bad blood. They could see that they had to become a single population, with the goal of doing what was best for the world, even if they disagreed about what that meant. Being a paramount became a huge responsibility, and while it opened up certain career opportunities, it also closed some off. It might seem like this would discourage feelings of equality, but there were other issues to consider. Sometimes a paramount’s powers gave them an unfair advantage in the workplace. If one could read minds, for instance, they would always be one step ahead of the competition, or they could otherwise violate people’s privacy. Their potential for job promotion was hazy and difficult, but if no one kept them in check, then their influence over others could grow out of control. If a mindreader were to be a therapist, it would make it harder for a patient to reveal their secrets on their own time, and could make them feel uncomfortable, or prejudged. On the other side, some of the more dangerous jobs were being left to the paramounts, who were often better equipped to protect themselves. When one could teleport off of a cliff at a moment’s notice, it seemed a little irrational to make anyone else go up there. This would stop being a problem in the future, with developing technologies, but for now, this was the way things were. And it was pretty good, considering how problematic things had been before. They called it the social harmony, and even though the Durune had more tribulations ahead of them, they would at least be mostly taking them on together. Not everyone wanted that, but their time would come later, and they would get what they deserved.

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 1465: Deathspring Forward

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Millions, or perhaps billions, of years ago, when an ancient Durus was ejected from its star system, it started flying through interstellar space. Though it initially moved in a fairly straight line, it was consistently being impacted by gravitational perturbations from other systems. This made its journey relatively unpredictable, even if people back then could track its progress throughout the galaxy. In more recent times, the rogue world’s course was adjusted so much that started heading directly towards Sol. Some even claimed that it would one day crash into Earth, but there was no proof of that, because no one possessed the necessary data, or equipment, to study their hypotheses. One of the reasons Earth was so suitable for evolved life was the presence of the gas giants; most notably, Jupiter. It served as the inner planets’ sweeper. Any wayward celestial body that threatened to damage the less massive worlds had more of a chance of being pulled in by Jupiter before they could get there. Of course, it didn’t have every single time—in fact, Earth wouldn’t have a moon if it did—but it happened enough to protect it long enough to promote extended periods of peace. Durus threatened all of that, because no one was sure when exactly it would arrive in the system, or whether the other planets would have enough of an affect on it to keep Earth safe. It was for these reasons that the Aljabaran Republican government denied that there was any danger, even though that didn’t make any sense. While there was a strong chance that Earth would be safe, there was an even stronger chance that there was nothing to keep Durus safe. It was probably going to collide with something, be it Earth, or anything else, and even a small impact from a comet could destroy civilization. Something had to be done about this, which was where Hokusai Gimura came in. She used time technology to steer Durus through the solar system, and avoid impacts from everything in its path, including Earth. Unfortunately, in some ways, it was too little too late, because even though everyone survived, two terrestrial planets brushing up against each other had consequences.

They called it the Deathspring, modeled upon the event that brought the first major population of humans here. But it was not just a seasonal play on words. The Deathfall did happen in autumn, and the Deathspring did happen in spring, but it was more than that. Survivors of the Deathfall reported vertigo, and a feeling of falling into the portal, while the Deathspring survivors were actually flung up into the air, and onto the corresponding world. Earth and Durus exchanged people, objects, buildings, and even some lingering monsters. People with time powers or patterns seemed especially susceptible to this exchange, though no one was safe, and who it happened to proved to ultimately be rather random. Aside from this, there was a lot of other devastation. The event caused quakes on all planets involved—which was all of them, since it happened during a particular celestial event called Syzygy, where all planets were aligned—fires, and other disruptions. Still, despite some backlash from the Republicans, who were trying desperately to hold onto what power they had left, people recognized that Hokusai Gimura just saved billions of lives, including theirs. Now, any normal civilization would have worshiped her as a hero, but done nothing to change whatever system they had in place, or perhaps only done little. But Aljabara had a fixation on gender. Everything they experienced was tinted in either misogyny, or some kind inexplicable example of why women could indeed be trusted. They didn’t do much without considering the ramifications of gender. So when Hokusai, a woman, showed up, and saved two planets with her bare hands, they felt the need to change everything about their way of life. They quickly dismantled the Republic, and prepared to replace it with something else. They didn’t know exactly what that would be, but they knew it needed to be democratic, and inclusive. But first, they formed the provisional government, in order to preserve continuity, and move forward.

Microstory 1464: Hot Take

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In the year 2017, a woman named Hokusai Gimura finally finished building herself a little spaceship. It was decades more advanced than anything the world had at the time, and that was because she had a little help from the world of salmon and choosing ones. She integrated temporal powers into the ship’s systems, which allowed her to travel beyond the reaches of the solar system, and land on Durus. She was looking for her daughter, Hilde, who was in Springfield when the Deathfall transported the entire town to the rogue world. Hokusai knew that her daughter would be long dead by the time she arrived, but she was unable to procure technology that would get her there faster, and she hoped someone at her destination would have the ability to travel backwards in time. She quickly discovered that this was not the case. While the mage remnants did possess extraordinary abilities, none of them was strong enough to get her back to 2016, or even anywhere close to it. She was stuck in 2161, but even though she might never see her daughter again, that didn’t mean there wasn’t work to be done here. As soon as she arrived, the authorities took her in for questioning. Had she come just a few years earlier, she would have been very poorly treated, but since Amrit Bax took over as leader, she was just treated not super great. They didn’t celebrate her like a hero, but they didn’t lock her in a cage, and make her drink her own urine either. Bax and his friends had changed a lot about how the government was run, but they hadn’t fixed everything, and she was still considered an untrustworthy person. The fact that she was smart enough to build a spaceship, and travel here all the way from Earth was something most could not believe. She must have stolen it, and set it to autopilot.

Hokusai started making waves when she showed up, but not because of anything she said. She was kept pretty well hidden from the public, or at least her words were. She knew she was in a different culture, and even if she didn’t agree with it at all, she couldn’t just go around trying to kick up a stink. Her first priority was surviving, and then maybe she could join the revolution, or something. Even so, news of the visitor spread across the city as fast as lightning, and soon people were attributing thoughts and ideas to her for which she couldn’t take credit. Of course, people had already been trying to move the planet towards a state of true equality, but sometimes hearing the same thing from a different source can change how it’s received. Nevertheless, her arrival alone would not be enough. They needed more. They needed her to actually do something. Well, that wouldn’t be easy, but she wouldn’t have much of a choice anyway. Hokusai, and the rest of the world, would soon learn that Durus was hurtling towards Earth, and would collide with it unless something could be done about it. Certain scientists and other experts had been trying to come up with a solution since they found out about this, but the government’s official stance was that it was not happening, and that one day, it would all go away, like a miracle. Hokusai’s ship was vital to a plan that a small group of time travelers had come up with. And Hokusai herself was the one to pilot it. She literally steered Durus through space using time technology, and saved both planets from complete annihilation. This prompted a companion event to the Deathfall, which would later be called the Deathspring, but had she done nothing, they would have all been doomed. Now they owed her, but all she asked was that they change everything about how they did everything.

Microstory 1463: Switcheroo

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The last Remanoir in Durune history was Marley Allen, who was a member of the super secret organization that never bothered coming up with a name for themselves. They were friends who all believed that the system should change, and include women as equals. They did not meet each other by accident. They were brought together by a man named Anchor Nielsen who had the mage remnant power to witness events remotely by opening time windows. These windows could only transmit light in one direction, so he couldn’t use it to communicate with others, or share any other information, but he could spy on others. He used this ability to find men he knew wanted the same thing. He was no leader, though. His life was under too much scrutiny to let himself be too involved with their efforts. In fact, the rest of the people in the group never even knew who he was. He sent them messages to meet at a single location, where a single note was waiting for them, letting them know that they were safe to discuss their feelings about the government together. It was the few men here who started working on the plans to make changes, and Nielsen never had anything else to do with it ever again. Neifion Summerfield, Eskandar Aljabari, Marley Allen, and Amrit Bax weren’t the only members, but they were the only ones who ultimately became the primary leaders of government. It was an impressive feat, to say the least. Each candidate won their respective race, and two of them were joined by a second-in-command who was also a member. In the Republic, primaries and secondaries ran separately, and winners will often have opposing viewpoints. If the primary leader has radical ideas about how to run the city, then the second leader usually balances them with some moderate thoughts. They executed their lies about as perfectly as they could, knowing that they would not simply be free to take over the world, and run it however they liked. They were prepared for the backlash, and were not surprised when Allen was assassinated before he had even been in office for a year. It was time for his second, Amrit to take the reins.

Amrit Bax didn’t know what was going to happen to him, but after his predecessor’s death, security was tightened. The assassins, and their co-conspirators, were quickly found by a couple of mage remnant detectives, and locked up. Though law enforcement and the military didn’t agree with Allen’s policies, killing the primary leader was illegal, so they had no choice but to take action, and to let Bax take over for him. Bax was just as progressively radical, and he wasn’t about to let power slip through his fingers in the same way it had for all his friends before him. This was pretty much the last chance they would get to destroy the phallocracy, so if he didn’t throw down the gauntlet, no one would, unless whomever brought them all together managed to do it again with a new group. As soon as he secured loyalty from the security team, which he hand-picked himself, he went hard. He started passing executive order after executive order, changing everything about how the Republic was run. He ceased all operations against the Thicket, he reopened employment opportunities for women, and for the love of God, he let mothers take care of their own damn children while their husbands were away. People were pissed, but he wasn’t going to let anybody get in his way. They would have to kill him too if they wanted to replace him with someone else, and even though his security team wasn’t comprised of the most progressive men in the world, they stuck to their posts, and showed that they would not let anyone take their leader down. Now it really felt like a conspiracy, which was what the small group wanted at this point. They had to seem so large and daunting that there was nothing the old guard could do to stop progress. If this many men trusted women, had they lost the war already? Essentially, they had. There was still one more absolutely vital step in finally ending the Republic’s misogynistic ways, and no one saw it coming, not even Bax and his friends.

Microstory 1462: Sic Semper Honestus

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Marley Allen was next in line out of the small and secret group of friends who were interested in making the world more like it was before the misogynistic Republic took over. People were not happy with the progressive decisions that Remanoir Aljabari made during his relatively short time as the main leader of the planet. It wasn’t enough to get him kicked out of office, but it was certainly too much to let him be reëlected. That was not only okay, but completely part of the plan. Aljabari never intended to campaign again, but would step aside so that Allen could take over for him. It was his responsibility to give the people a taste of what the world could be like if they let go of their prejudices, and returned to a system of equality. Now it was time for the next step. When Marley Allen replaced him, he believed he would have to lay low for a while, to backpedal on a few of his predecessor’s policies, and make himself out to be the loyal Republican everyone thought he was. It seemed he didn’t have to do that, however, and it was all thanks to Aljabari’s wife, Ceri. Ceri Aljabari was a mage remnant, who had the ability to manipulate other people’s emotions. Very few people were aware of her power, however, as they thought it was Eskandar Aljabari himself who possessed such talent. They didn’t believe that a woman could be so powerful, which gave them leverage, and even plausible deniability. During Eskandar’s administration, he urged congress to agree with the changes he wanted to make, and they didn’t push back as much as one would think. Ceri altered their state of mind, so they would be more open to new ideas. She simultaneously worked on the city residents as a whole, though to a far lower degree, because her ability was only so strong, and it wasn’t like she could create a planet of obedient zombies. By the time Remanoir Allen took his seat at the top, most citizens of Aljabara were willing to consider the possibility that women were perhaps not quite as wholly devious and dishonest as the Republicans had made them out to be for the last six decades.

Unfortunately, most does not ever account for all, and there were more than enough people who never wanted to see the system be replaced. Even if an individual didn’t personally feel any animosity towards women, the phallocratic government was beneficial to them. Women’s rights weren’t just limited, but men’s rights were raised. It was good to be a man on Durus during the first half of the 22nd century, and some weren’t willing to give that up, even if it was better for the planet as a whole. A few of these people got together, and they started plotting. They decided there was something fishy going on with their elections. Summerfield, Aljabari, Allen. Three out of the last four leaders were progressive, even though they claimed not to be. They had lied about themselves the entire time, and there was no reason to believe another election wouldn’t make the same thing happen again. When Summerfield was recalled, Poppet Drumpf took over, but when Drumpf stepped down himself, his entire administration was drained from the proverbial swamp. So what could these people do to fix this? They didn’t want Allen’s second-in-command to take over, because that caused problems before, but a special election was also a travesty in their eyes. They kind of had to pick the lesser of two evils, and hope that Allen’s second, the Prime Minister wouldn’t turn out to be quite as bad as Drumpf. Unlike with Summerfield, however, they did not have the people’s support. If they wanted to get rid of Remanoir Marley Allen, they would have to take care of it themselves. They would have to assassinate him. Fortunately for them, they were radicals, so they didn’t have any problem with killing. The mission was successful, and the Prime Minister took over primary leadership duties, but he would turn out to be just as progressive as his secret friends.

Microstory 1457: Extremist in Command

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Sekundas Poppet Drumpf was, in no uncertain terms, an extremist. A lot of people were happy with their little misogynistic society, because they didn’t know of a better way, but he was into it. He was super into it. He hated women, and thought that they were only good for making babies. There were many tasks that men didn’t want to have to do, like laundry, and keeping the household clean, but Poppet wasn’t like that. Men did everything better, and he was willing to do the dirty work if it meant a woman wasn’t involved. If he had it his way, every woman would be locked in a little room with the bare minimum: a bed, sink, shower, and toilet. They would gestate the babies, birth them, and then go back to their bed to start the whole process over again. There weren’t a whole lot of people on Durus who agreed with him to this degree. Sure, women couldn’t be trusted, but they shouldn’t be locked up, and not because that was inhumane, but because at the very least, they were useful as slaves. Still, he was popular, because just like President Summerfield’s lies, he was loud and unrelenting, and people absolutely loved that in a leader. The only reason Summerfield allowed him to run for the second-in-command position was because the insanity would hopefully distract from Summerfield’s attempts at pushing the world towards progress. When he was removed from office, his whole plan backfired, for once Poppet found himself in the number one spot, there was no stopping him. He decided to not take the position of President. Earth had a lot of presidents, and they also had a lot of women in power. He didn’t want any part of that, so he decided to keep his old title, even though it obviously indicated he was meant to be second, and not first. He then proceeded to win the election four years later, and became the only two-term primary leader the Republic had ever seen. He wouldn’t stop there, but that is a story for another day. Until then, he wanted to make some changes in Aljabara, whether the people wanted him to or not.

The biggest changes he made were to the education system. He decided that women weren’t the issue, but the way they were raised as girls. They weren’t taught to be independent, but they weren’t taught to be submissive either. He deemed this too problematic. He knew no one would go for his crazy locked half-room idea, but education was the easiest avenue towards getting close to his goals. People cared deeply about education, but they also easily conceded to the fact that they didn’t know what the hell to do with it. If someone in power told them schools should be run a certain way, well, then they just sort of trusted that, as long as that person said other things that they liked. So he knew he would be able to get away with preventing girls from being educated the right way. He didn’t stop them from learning at all, but he only let them learn the things he felt weren’t important, or useful. Language was an acceptable subject, because it was irrelevant to their everyday lives. Understanding grammar wasn’t going to help them rise up, and demand equality. Maybe they could conduct impactful speeches, but without any understanding of politics, their words would be empty, and people would recognize that. Likewise, they could make all the art and music they wanted, but it wasn’t going to make them any less inferior to men. Education wasn’t the only thing that Drumpf went after in his first few years, but it was the most significant. He did all these terrible things, and he still got reëlected. He was unstoppable.

Microstory 1456: Eleventh and Final

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The forming of the Thicket rebellion did a lot more for the women’s rights movements than the government realized. It started further back then that, though, when Ladytown was first conceived. These developments inspired a lot of people in Aljabara, and made them question the roles they played in the world. If these women were strong enough to fight for their rights, were they strong enough to fight for everyone’s? That’s what one candidate to be the eleventh, and ultimately final, president had in mind. They were a republic, and there was nothing inherent about that which prevented them from being completely equal. He didn’t even have to look at Earthan history to understand that women should be treated fairly. The world had become ridiculous, and he felt that it was his duty to correct it; to make things better for the whole world, including members of the Thicket. He knew he needed to be smart about it, though. Moderates had been running for president since the beginning, and not one of them had ever won. The louder and more absurd the candidate’s platform, the more votes they received. Even in the early days, people were crying for change. It didn’t matter to them whether the promised change was good for them or not; things just had to be different than they were before. That was why no president had lasted more than a single term so far. Presidential candidate Summerfield knew that he wasn’t going to get a second term, because of the plans he had for his tenure, but he assumed it would at least last for the whole five years. Unfortunately, he came on too strong. During his campaign, he was louder than his opponent by far, and often didn’t even let him speak during debates. People liked that about him, that he wasn’t willing to even listen to the other side of an argument. Even those who were in favor of the things that his opponent claimed liked to hear Summerfield blather on. He was interesting, and exciting, and most importantly, he was new. So that won him the seat, but he wasn’t able to hold on to it, because the people quickly learned that he had been lying the whole time.

He began to pass executive order after executive order, changing the way people lived their lives. At first, this was okay. He was overruling everything that the representative congress was trying to do, and people still appreciated this behavior. Once people were used to his tactics, he started trying to slip in other things under the radar. He gave permission for a wife to travel to the store alone, as long as she made it quick, and her husband would be waiting for her when she returned. He increased the maximum age a young woman was allowed to be before her father had to hand her off to a husband. He even tried to let mothers raise their own children without constant male supervision, but people were not happy with this. This was the last straw, and they recalled him for it. He was the shortest-lasting president in history, having only been in office for a few months. He went down in history as the planet’s first and only execution. Though an awful place, they at least had a law against capital punishment, which they only waived for this one exception. People weren’t happy about this either, but there was nothing they could do about it. Sekundas Poppet Drumpf was President Summerfield’s second-in-command, and instead of pushing for a new election, or a promotion, he just declared himself the new leader. Sekundas was now simply the highest ranking official in the government. That was when the world turned to shit.

Microstory 1447: First Elections

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When the Republic first gained traction, the leader of the movement declared himself the first president. He did this with the promise that he would step down, and make way for a replacement in a few years, after the first elections decided on the first official regime. That was exactly what he did in the year 2100. He didn’t even run for reëlection, or allow loyalists to start a write-in campaign. He firmly believed in the government they were building, and didn’t want anyone to be in power who did not deserve it, and did not prove to the people that he did. The system was staunchly misogynistic, but within its own parameters, a fair meritocracy; well...maybe not quite at first. Anyone who wanted to run for a particular position was free to do so, as long as he fit the initial criteria, number one being that he had a penis. Every candidate was given equal opportunity to announce their platform, and raise awareness. Seeing as money was a new thing on this world, they weren’t quite sure how they were going to prevent the wealthiest from having an unfair advantage, but they knew they wanted to protect the elections from it. They didn’t want it to be like it was on Earth. It was the preliminary administration’s responsibility to figure this out. There were technically around twenty thousand eligible voters living in Aljabara at the time of the election. When it came to voting itself, there was a secret rule about who was eligible, and who wasn’t. Bear in mind that formal misogyny was only beginning to take hold, and the Republicans feared that a rebellion would rise up once more if they did not at least pretend to make things fair. Everyone over the age of fifteen was allowed to vote, but that didn’t mean every vote was going to be counted. The voting committee left themselves under no obligation to reveal the final tally of the votes. All they were required to do was announce who won which race. Voters did not place their ballots in the box themselves. They handed it to one of the poll workers, who dropped it into the box in front of their eyes. This gave the appearance of equality, but there was something else they were doing at the same time. Each worker wore a special stamp ring on his finger, which he used to mark the corner of each ballot he received from a woman. Every ballot bearing one of these markings was simply thrown into the recycling bin at the time of counting. The counters didn’t even bother looking at who the woman voted for, because to them, it no longer mattered. Their opinion stopped being valid six years ago. The first official administration would go on to make voting illegal for women, and this was always the plan, but the Republicans didn’t want anyone to know that. There was actually a lot they had planned for the future that they realized they couldn’t introduce all at once. Had they wanted to do that, they would have needed a monarch, and if there was one thing all monarchs from history had in common, it was that they were always—be it sooner or later—overthrown. While things had been bad for years now, this was the day freedom truly died on Durus.

Microstory 1445: Four Witches Stand

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By the time the Mage Protectorate fell, there were three women who were largely responsible for saving the human race on Durus. Hogarth Pudeyonavic sent the Springfielders through the Deathfall portal in the first place; this much was common knowledge. It wasn’t until later that people learned that, had she not expedited the process with her machine, the portal still would have pulled them through, but it would have chewed them up, rather than swallowing them whole. She was also instrumental in protecting the town following the thankful disappearance of its first leader, Smith. Councilwoman Hardt was a true leader, and continued to protect the people, even after all the terrible things they put her through. Jayde Kovac was a young girl with immense powers, who ended the war with the time monsters, and rescued the entire current population of Durus in 2092 when all of the oxygen disappeared for thirty seconds. Other women were involved in helping make sure humanity survived, including Hilde Unger, but these three were the most famous. Well, not everyone saw it this way. Councilwoman Hardt was a carryover from the old world, she always went against Smith’s decisions, and she didn’t let men push her around. Some didn’t appreciate that. Though the truth about Hogarth’s actions eventually came to light, she would always be associated with the Deathfall, and would always be blamed for it. It didn’t matter what good she did, people could only remember the bad, because that was what certain voices screamed about all the time. Jayde was in the same boat, because winning the war came at a great cost. Experts could try to explain that things would have been much worse for them had they lost that war, but again, it didn’t matter. In The Republic, none of this would matter, because reason didn’t matter, because truth didn’t matter, because women didn’t matter. Kovac, Hardt, and Pudeyonavic were later collectively called The Witches of Durus, and they were destined to be joined by a fourth historical figure. They didn’t know who this fourth woman would turn out to be, but they were told she would one day spell the downfall of the Republic—which was true. They used people’s fear of this in order to justify their decision to forge the Republic in the first place.

The Witches, along with other women, had done—or will do—so much to hurt the world that a small group of men decided they could no longer be trusted with authority, or responsibility. They had to be controlled—nay, managed. It wasn’t that they didn’t have the right to be safe, happy, and free, but they needed to be told what to do, and they weren’t allowed to tell anyone else what to do. Even a mother could not be left alone with a child, for she may instill them with values such as equality, social harmony, or good trouble. Like, literally. If the man needed to leave the house, the children had to go with him, or the mother did, but she could not supervise without being supervised herself at the same time. Some husbands didn’t let their wives out of earshot, even if they didn’t have children, but that kind of thing didn’t happen until later. For now, the new system was just beginning. It started as a vision amongst a very select few, but they whispered their warped ideas to anyone who got too close to them, like a viral load to an unmasked person less than two meters away. It would have stopped here, but the republicans, as they liked to be called, had something major on their side. They were in charge of Watershed, and its dam. They controlled the water, and the moderate amounts of electricity that Aljabara had, and that was enough to give them the influence they needed to pretty much just dictate whatever they wanted. Their ideas would evolve over time, just like it did for any governmental body, but the basic tenets were clear: women can’t be trusted, and...well, I guess that’s mostly it. Under the new laws, you could do anything you wanted, save killing, stealing, being antisocially dishonest, or having a vagina. This was the way things were in The Republic, and they didn’t change for over sixty-five years.

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.