For the next few weeks, Castlebourne was essentially being run as a police
state. It wasn’t as bad as it was depicted in movies. The Expatriate
Protection Bureau had no intention of holding onto power. They didn’t even
want it in the first place, because it stretched their resources thin. They
had a mandate, and they wanted to return to it exclusively. But restarting
the real government was taking time. Dreychan held at least one press
conference every day to remind the public of this, and to inform them of
their progress. He was walking a fine line, exuding the confidence that
everyone expected to see, but being clear that he never wanted any of this,
and didn’t have the experience for it. This was such a tricky little dance,
because while it was true that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, he
didn’t want to create any unrest or rebellion. Everyone just needed to be
real patient while they figured this out. He also needed to remember to
forgive himself for his deficits.
One thing he was unambiguous about was what his job entailed. As
Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent respectively, Dreychan and Yunil
were not in charge of the public. They were only responsible for finding and
securing the leaders who would be. They needed some help with this as none
of the ex-Exins had ever lived in any sort of democratic society until
recently, and even then, because of the way the council was structured, it
wasn’t all that democratic either. There were better ways, and people living
here who straddled both worlds could help them come up with them. Some of
the highest ranking members of Hrockas’ Executive Administrative Authority
had once lived on Earth; some of them centuries ago. Yunil and her little
faction of academics had studied Earthan sociopolitics, but these others had
experienced it first hand. They understood the nuances, and historical
shiftings, which the central archives could only describe in an objective
sense. They provided insights that the two of them were using to decide what
to do here and now.
In its current state, Earth and its nearest neighbors were what they called
a scalar representative council democracy. It was infinitely scalable, and
could go all the way down to a household of two people. A given independent
population would elect or select a representative. There were different ways
of going about this, but it had to be agreed upon. Anyone who felt it was
unfair could appeal to a higher class, and ask for help. With each higher
class of population range, one representative would act on their behalf,
with other leadership chosen to aid in the administration of policy. The
representatives in a given class also sat on a committee together. These
committees only met when they had to; when they needed something from other
communities, or couldn’t enact changes on their own. But being
self-sufficient and independent was the goal most of the time. There was no
need to get the whole planet involved when a single settlement could handle
their own business. It was a complicated array of committees and
subcommittees, banding together in temporary federations when required, and
disbanding when the work was over.
This was all well and good, but it only existed in the stellar neighborhood,
and the farther from the Core Worlds you went, the looser the structures
became. A colony forty-two light years from Earth did not typically ask for
aid from Earth because that aid would usually be at least forty-two
years away. However, it was certainly possible, especially in terms of
Teaguardians, which were always posted nearby. Castlebourne was a single
planet, with no meaningful light lag, and a relatively small planetary
population. The visitors did not count. They followed guest law. Only the
refugees needed representation. So perhaps the scalable representation model
would not really serve them here. Perhaps they needed to reach further back
in history, to the advisory-administrative model. That was what Dreychan
thought they had agreed upon.
Yunil had a different idea that she was only now suggesting. “Wait, why are
we only including the refugees? Why not the visitors?” she posed.
“That’s how it was before,” Dreychan answered. “The Council of Old Worlds
held no sway over the visitors.”
“That sounds arbitrary to me. This is the capital of Castlebourne, so let’s
have the new government lead the whole planet...of Castlebourne.”
“Well, visitors aren’t citizens,” he reasoned. “As soon as we stepped foot
on this rock, we became citizens of it. It was by default, because we had no
other real home. Visitors belong to wherever they hail from. They could stay
a hundred years, and they still wouldn’t be true citizens.”
“Why shouldn’t they be? Why shouldn’t we allow them to become citizens?”
It was clear to Dreychan that she was not asking him these questions because
she didn’t know the answers, but because she was preparing to explain how
those answers were inadequate, and the plan ought to be changed. He didn’t
want to make it easy on her. “Well...that’s not how Hrockas has it set up.
This is a tourist destination. He didn’t design it for us; he just accepted
us when we needed somewhere to go. We can’t change that without his
authorization.”
She wasn’t satisfied yet. “What are we getting as citizens,” Yunil
pressed with airquotes,” that visitors aren’t?”
“Um, erm...” he teased.
She didn’t think that he would ever get there this time, so she skipped to
her thesis. “I looked it up. It’s energy credits. We get a daily stipend of
credits, which when saved up enough, could theoretically allow us to go to
other planets. Except, it’s hardly anything. You would have to save
up for a thousand years to even travel to the next star system over. It’s
not like that in the stellar neighborhood. Their credits let them go places.
They often have to get a job to earn extra, but the two of us have jobs, and
neither of us has saved up enough. Not nearly enough.”
“What are you proposing, that we make them all citizens, and increase this
energy budget?”
“There are tens of thousands of domes here, which require an immense amount
of power to run. They obviously have the energy. Let’s incentivize people to
become full citizens, and participate in society. Right now, there’s no
reason for an Earthan to move here permanently. They still earn their
stellar neighborhood stipend. It’s not much, but it’s free money, and it
gives them the option to cast back to that region of the galaxy, and travel
somewhere else. Let’s start our own bank and give people a reason to
exchange their currency. We could call it Castlebank.”
“Wow. Did you come up with that just now off the top of your head?” he
joked.
“Shut up,” she said with a scoff.
Dreychan sighed. This was her M.O. She had her ideas, and she wanted them
heard, but she didn’t want to pitch them unprompted. She wanted the
conversation to end up in a place that made those ideas inevitable and
unavoidable. He was on to her little games, and rarely let her get there
like that anymore. He knew that she was always trying to steer him, and this
time, he knew where. Good thing she was so cute. “Enough tricks. Let’s see
your proposal. You always write one up, don’t deny it. If it makes sense, we
can submit it to Hrockas to see what he thinks. As of yet, we don’t have the
power to implement some sort of Civil Access Support Trust, or whatever we
might call it.”
Her eyes widened. “How did you...” She thought about it for another half
second. “Oh, you already read my proposal.”
“I did,” he admitted. “We both have full access to each other’s stuff. I
also looked a little back at your revision history. You came up with a lot
of names for it, but you clearly wanted the acronym to be C.A.S.T.”
“Well, it makes sense. This planet is called Castlebourne because the first
structure under the first dome was a castle, but also, the most common way
people travel here, by far—even accounting for the refugees who came via the
Vellani Ambassador—is quantum casting. I’m not sure who came up with the
name, or whether they realized the double-meaning, but it’s there. Let’s use
it.”
“You don’t have to sell me on it. I think it’s a fine idea. I just don’t
think Hrockas will go for it. He’s sort of a king. He may actually prefer
that most people remain visitors, because that way, he can institute
whatever rules he likes, and if the visitors don’t like it, they can
leave. If they become citizens, the expectation will be that they
will stay unless something changes. In order to prevent these changes, or
rather changes that they don’t care for, they will demand representation.
He’ll no longer be a unilateral voice. He may even lose his power altogether
if all the new citizens ultimately vote him out. I’m not calling him a
tyrant, but he’s clearly a control freak.”
“Well...” Yunil began, only trailing off for a matter of seconds. “Well,
let’s polish this up, and devise some counterarguments. He probably won’t
come out and say it’s because he’s a king, though, so we’ll have to be on
the lookout for the subtext.”
“Oh, you think this is about his power?” Hrockas was too busy, so the next
day, they requested to pitch their new idea to one of his staffers. Angelita
‘Lita’ Prieto was the Director of Transition for the Department for Cultural
Transition Assistance. She was the one who greeted all the refugees, and
helped them get acclimated to their new situation. She explained how
Castlebourne worked, but also how the free galaxy as a whole functioned. She
and her team were the ones who taught them to no longer fear the Oaksent’s
rule, and that they would be safe here. Most people loved her because of her
lessons, and because so far, she had not been proven wrong.
They had it all worked out; how the government was going to operate, and who
would fall under its purview. Visitors would have the opportunity to become
citizens, converting their current energy credits to a Castlebourne
equivalent at a ratio of 1:1.1. This 10% bonus was necessary, because at the
moment, the only happening place to be this far out in this direction
was Castlebourne. It would be a long time before the circumstances
changed. Once a citizen, they had voting rights and representational power,
meaning they would have to declare a home. They never had to spend
any particular amount of time in this home, but it helped determine who
represented them. And it couldn’t be any random dome. If you were a little
odd, you could lie down and sleep every night in The Wasteland, but it was
not officially categorized as Residential, so it didn’t count. They had some
ideas about how to manage votes from people who were spending extended
periods of time in character, like in the Spydome or Nordome networks, but
this was the gist of it.
“Sorry,” Dreychan said. “I didn’t mean to imply that he didn’t have the best
interests of your people at heart—”
“This is about the sun,” Lita said...weirdly.
“What about it?” Yunil asked.
“Well,” Lita began, “it needs to be moved, remember? We’ve not been able to
do that, because your government fell apart. We can only ethically return to
the possibility after you set up the new one, but if that new one gives
voting privileges to everyone on the planet, it’s going to take even longer,
or fall through entirely. What if the former visitors overwhelmingly don’t
want to move? They don’t understand the stakes. Do you know how many
warships we built that we literally never used because we stopped going to
war? This is before the Teaguardians, which are primarily defensive,
and while they are indeed manned, they hardly do anything either. The
visitors don’t know about the Exin Empire. They don’t know why you fled.
They don’t know how powerful The Oaksent is, or that magical time powers
exist. They don’t know anything. We’ve had to lie to them since they got
here, and that would have to stop. Are you prepared for the fallout?”
“That’s a good point,” Dreychan admitted. “I don’t want to exclude the
visitors, and I think it would be great if they became citizens, but they’re
too ignorant. That’s not on them, it’s on us, and even as Superintendent, I
certainly don’t feel like it’s my right to give them the whole truth.”
“What if we just delayed it?” Yunil asked. “Not the stellar engine, but
CAST.”
“You need some form of government now,” Lita argued. “Someone has to agree
to the move, and they have to do it in an orderly, structured fashion.”
“But it’s like we say in the plan, this model is scalable. We could start
out with a smaller scale—just the ex-Exins—and incentivize citizenship
enrollment later, when we’re already well on our way.”
“That...isn’t the worst idea,” Lita acknowledged. She looked up to consider
the proposal. “You certainly can’t get mad about a law that was passed
before you became a citizen. I mean, you could, but you would have no leg to
stand on.” There was a silence for a moment before she looked over at the
lawyer. “What say you?”
“No, no, no, you’re right,” Jericho replied. “You clearly know what you’re
talking about, I don’t know why you bothered inviting me to the planet, let
alone this meeting. The visitors have no legal recourse. It happened before
they became citizens. Of course, it’s not a problem that we were
contemplating the two transitions at the same time; the physical move, and
the citizenship naturalization process. We can certainly argue that they’re
not connected, and that the 10% bonus should not in any way be construed as
hush money, or some kind of preemptive out-of-court settlement, or anything
like that. Everyone would believe us, and it would all turn out totally
perfect and happy, and I have..no notes.” Jericho Hagen was a snarky little
shit sometimes. Everything he did seemed to be against his will. To be sure,
he was on Castlebourne of his own accord, but he harbored resentment
regarding some things that went down many years ago, which pulled him into
all this timey-wimey nonsense, and it seemed as though he still hadn’t
gotten over it. Dreychan and Yunil were not cognizant of the particulars.
“What would you propose?” Yunil pressed him.
“Decouple the decisions. Move the sun now, like we need. I don’t remember
how long that’s gonna take, but just go ahead and do it while you’re legally
in the clear. You don’t have to wait until we’ve reached our final
destination to open your little CAST program, but I recommend at least
twenty years, maybe more.”
“It will evidently take about sixteen or seventeen years to get there,” Lita
reminded him.
“Perfect,” Jericho decided, looking at Dreychan and Yunil. “That gives you a
full three years to have supposedly and reportedly come up with the
completely separate proposal to integrate the visitor population into the
community as full, legal voters.” He looked over at Lita. “I recommend we
scrub the meeting notes from the record. We never talked about this.”
“Is that legal?” Lita questioned.
“On Castlebourne, yeah,” Jericho promised. “The reason we’re in danger with
moving the planet and signing up new citizens, is because it involves the
rest of the galaxy. We are not fully beyond the laws of the core worlds. Our
charter forces us to have some liability, and places us under
some scrutiny. We have the latitude to make our own choices, though,
as long as it doesn’t impact anyone else.”
“Okay,” Lita said. “Draw up the revised proposal,” she suggested to the
ex-Exins, “removing all mentions of citizenship, and let me look over it
before we submit it to Hrockas together. We will establish the new
government, step one; move the sun, step two; and then begin CAST, step
three.” She and Jericho left.
Dreychan and Yunil buckled down, creating the proposal yet again, and really
getting all the wrinkles ironed out. It was a masterpiece, if they could be
so bold as to declare. Lita loved it, Jericho tolerated it, and Hrockas
accepted it. They spent several weeks advocating for the new governmental
plan to the people, and setting up a voting schedule. It was another couple
of months before the first candidates came out to campaign for themselves.
After nearly a year since the fall of the Council, the Castlebourne
scalar representative council democracy was officially implemented. Dreychan
and Yunil were able to step back, and let the gears turn smoothly without
them. The representatives’ first order of business was to hold a referendum
on the stellar engine plan. Instead of letting the Council and Hrockas alone
decide, they opened it up to everyone’s opinion. And that opinion was
overwhelming. The current citizens of Castlebourne did not support
moving the sun.
