The Imaginary Revolution

Some 147 years after the first colonists arrived at Sirius 4 from Earth, a new commonwealth was formed, dedicated to the notion that free people living by a spirit of zero aggression could live in peace and prosperity with one another.

At the ceremony establishing the commonwealth, Raymond Douglas Kaliber proposed "a bold experiment in humanity based on these tenets: Love your neighbor as yourself. Interact with love, not force or violence. Give more than you receive."

But before the people of Sirius 4 were ready for commonwealth, they tried to overcome tyranny the old-fashioned way: by force. It turned out to be an imaginary revolution, replacing one violent regime with another. Kaliber suggested another way: Here is his story in his own words.
The Imaginary Revolution is available as an ebook or a hardcover print edition. A paperback edition and audiobook will be available early in 2013. I offer three options:

To buy the book for Kindle at Amazon for $4.99, click here.

To buy the handsome softcover print edition for your bookshelf – price an astonishing $5.95 – click here.

For more information, email me at warren@warrenbluhm.com. Let's have a conversation.

A preview of the finished product

Are you ready for a little revolution?

If you've been paying attention to the countdown in the righthand column of this blog, you know it's only a matter of days before the novel The Imaginary Revolution will be published. As my gift to you, I have prepared a sampling of chapters from the novel to whet your appetite for the real thing.

The story of how Sirius 4 threw off its shackles will be available for public consumption starting Dec. 15, 2012 – Bill of Rights Day – in both ebook form and a handsome, hardcover print edition. This is your opportunity to get a taste of it so you can decide whether to put it on your Christmas list.

The link below (click on the colorful green button with the blue whale) will lead you to a place where you can download a .zip file containing the Imaginary Revolution sampler in .pdf, .epub and .mobi forms. Enjoy! And consider coming back on Dec. 15.

Click here to download your free sampler of chapters from the novel The Imaginary Revolution, scheduled for release on Dec. 15, 2012. P.S. The Oronjo site is designed to ask you if you want to donate a little something in exchange for the gift. It's free – just click past that and enjoy!

The Tiny Dot

"A situation too weird for 99.999% of people to adequately explain."

For anyone who wonders if the principle of noncooperation in The Imaginary Revolution seems too "unrealistic."

Entry 89. The End – an editors' note

One planet’s journey to freedom has now been told via this blog, from the perspective of Ray Kaliber, who has received much of the credit for bringing about the Commonwealth of Sirius 4. The task that remains for us is to compile these sometimes rambling thoughts into a coherent narrative for you, the reader. Our goal is to make this available for your purchase and perusal on Dec. 15, 2012.

Why that date? This is a story of liberty, and on Dec. 15, 1791, a new nation on Earth ratified a Bill of Rights, intended to affirm the rights of the individual by prohibiting the new nation’s government from violating those rights. In the centuries since, that list of 10 tenets has been the subject of much discussion.

The nation had been forged a few years earlier by violent revolution against a far-off state that had routinely trampled on the rights on the list, as states are wont to do. The Bill of Rights was championed by people not so concerned about that far-off former threat as about making sure the newly formed state never behaved as tyrannically, ensuring that the revolution did not turn out to be an imaginary one.

To release the story of The Imaginary Revolution on Dec. 15, then, is a nod to the anniversary of that revolutionary document. The extent to which Ray Kaliber’s story is relevant to the ongoing discussion is entirely up to the reader.

Watch this blog and warrenbluhm.com for updates about how to obtain your copy of The Imaginary Revolution.

Entry 88. Unlikely brothers

I consider one of the greatest proofs of the Tenets of Common Wealth to be my friendship today with Fred Masterson. By trying to reason with him instead of cowering in fear, by settling for disarming him after he took the shot instead of returning kill force with kill force, I reached something inside him.

“I thought you were a dangerous lunatic,” Fred told me some time later, an ironic statement if I ever heard one. “A world with no government, sovereign individuals working out their differences without the force of law to compel them – it sounded like an false idea of a utopia just waiting for a strong dictator to swoop in and convince people otherwise. In fact, I was pretty sure you expected to become that dictator.”

“Me?” I said, and apologized immediately for laughing at him.

“Sure. Who better, if anarkhia didn’t work, to be the benevolent dictator who would step in and make it work? You were telling us and showing us how it could work anyway, so you knew we’d turn to you and beg you to become the leader and force us to behave. And if I was wrong, if you weren’t planning to set yourself up, someone else could come forward and say he was taking over because the commonwealth wasn’t working.”

“If I was dead, maybe the consensus would be that we need a government after all.”

“Exactly.”

“What changed your mind, my friend?”

“You called me your friend.”

“Of course, that’s what you are,” I said, confused.

“No. That’s what changed my mind: You took me as your friend, after I tried to kill you and put a hole in your shoulder. I saw no ambition for power in you. You really believe those tenets you talk about all the time.”

“I do,” I admitted. “And if I didn’t treat you with love, if I didn’t respond to your violence with love, if I didn’t give you more than you were willing to give me, we wouldn’t be friends, would we? I believe in those tenets because I’ve seen them work time and again.”

“As have I – now,” Fred Masterson said.

One night not long afterward, I walked the beach near sunset looking across the harbor at the oxygen-nitrogen generator and hearing the distant hum of its machinery, my arm around a beautiful red-haired woman, both her arms around me, and I felt a sudden throb where the slug had gone through my left shoulder. My cry of pain ended with a joyful peal of laughter, knowing I would always carry a reminder of my deep friendship with Fred Masterson – a friendship forged by an errant bullet.

Entry 87. The third time

“Oh! It’s you.”

If Fred Masterson had pulled the trigger at that moment, those would be remembered as my last words, and the historical conversation would be ablaze with speculation about what I meant. Did I know Fred before that moment? Was I aware that an assassin was afoot? Why didn’t I act more surprised? Conspiracy theorists would seize upon it as evidence I knew all about the plot and perhaps even faked my own death, choosing to live out my remaining days in peaceful obscurity.

But somehow, my lack of surprise and seeming acceptance of the moment made Fred Masterson pause, and those would not prove to be my final words.

If my calm kept me alive for a few seconds, I would strive to stay calm until we could get the barrel of the fun pointing somewhere other than the center of my chest.

“Here’s the thing, sir,” I said as cheerfully as I could – which was more cheery than I ever imagined I could be in those circumstances. “You can’t kill an idea. In fact, if you martyr a man who has an idea, you make the idea stronger. If you kill me here, the nonviolent revolution will continue. The commonwealth will go on.”

The assassin hesitated for only a moment. I saw his eyes glaze over with confusion, but they sharpened again almost at once.

“You may be right,” he said with conviction, “but they’ll have to go on without you.”

I had to admit, he had a point. I prepared to die.

Fortunately, John Hemlock and Buffalo Springsteen realized what his answer would be, and they had already sprung when he fired.

They barreled into his body together just as the weapon went off, knocking his aim aside so that instead of blasting a hole in my heart, he blasted a hole through my left shoulder. John Hemlock had saved my life for the third time, this time with the help of my beloved.

I had barely an instant to stare stupidly at the jumble of bodies in front of me, and then the pain receptors in my shoulder connected with my brain.

I have to say, I do not wish to be shot again. Ever.

Entry 86. The fall of the Sirian state

One of the basic principles of free enterprise is that the market determines the survival of a business. If you don’t deliver a quality product or service, if you don’t listen to your clients, if you abuse your clients, if you price yourself out of the market, your business will sputter and fail.

Governments through the ages have been immune to this principle – to a point. People endured products and services of questionable quality; governments ignored the wishes of its clients or even abused them; fees and taxes were increased without regard to the taxpayers’ ability to pay.

At some point in the decline of a business, the customers lose their trust in the product and stop buying it. Often they turn to a competitor, but sometimes they realize they no longer need the product. Centuries ago businesses and industries thrived around products that depended upon horse power; when horsepower became a unit of mechanized energy rather than a literal description, those businesses dwindled to nothing.

At some point in the decline of a government, the customers lose their trust and change the regime.

The most clever governments gave people the option to switch leaders on a regular basis through the voting process; that relieved the sense of hopelessness that comes when a leader seized control for life. It also reduced the violence with which governments were overthrown.

But when our violent revolution turned out to be illusory, when Silas Fredersen was replaced by Badiah Sinclair and almost nothing improved, and when 35 Sirians were killed by the forces of “free” Sirius 4, a different switch was thrown in people’s psyches.

Yes, our lives depend on choosing the right leader – but we came to understand that means leading our own lives, not handing the reins to someone else.

Yes, we need to work together and respect each other’s boundaries, but no one need dictate to a free people how that happens.

And so, in the aftermath of my trial that was not a trial, people realized that the power of government resided in their cooperation – what a wise man once called “the consent of the governed.” Simply put, we withdrew our consent en masse. Government began to sputter and fail without taxes, without support, without the people’s cooperation and participation.

Badiah Sinclair thought of doing what many a leader has done in the past – go after the dissenters with security forces to intimidate people into compliance. Two problems presented themselves when he called his generals together to discuss the options. First, there were too many dissenters; I was right in saying that if we work together, they can’t arrest us all. Second, as we saw at my trial, people refused to participate.

They were happy to help fight off an alien invasion from Earthians bent on subjugating the planet. They had no desire to threaten and kill people whose only motivation was to live their lives free.

As I said at the beginning, I always thought war was stupid. Finally, one day, the people of my planet agreed. Badiah Sinclair and the council resigned and disbanded the government, and life went on.

Entry 85. The Trial: Choices

The Sirius 4 courtroom was a carryover from Earthian customs and, specifically, the courts of the Europe and North American continents. Presided over by a judge in black robe, tables in front for the prosecutor and defense attorney, stern bailiffs by the door, clerical staff seated in front of – but below – the judge.

An area along the side held 14 comfortable-looking chairs for the 12-person jury and two alternates. At the end of the trial, two people who had listened to all of the testimony would be thanked for their efforts and dismissed. Or, if for some reason as many as two jurors were unable to continue, they had backup.

It appeared to me that almost no one in the room wanted to be there. As prospective jurors trickled into the gallery behind us, they spoke in hushed tones with one another and any laughter sounded to be of an ironic or grim humor. The bailiffs looked around the room with baleful eyes, and the clerks rarely looked up from their clerking.

I put on as friendly a face as I could muster, but none of the government workers made eye contact with me. The prospective jurors, on the other hand, looked me straight in the eye. Their expressions held mixed messages: encouragement, sadness, defiance, anger, embarrassment.

The murmuring undercurrent whispered into silence when the white-haired judge in his black robes appeared from behind a door no one had noticed near his high desk at the front of the room.

“All stand,” said the bailiff, and launched into a chant that has echoed down the centuries and across the stars: “Hear ye, hear ye, Public Court No. 17 is now in session, the Honorable Chandler Pearson presiding – silence is commanded.”

“Be seated,” muttered the Honorable Chandler Pearson. “This is the State of Sirius 4 versus Raymond Douglas Kaliber, case number 145-CF-389. The state is represented by Prosecuting Attorney Sandra Kim, and the defendant is present without legal counsel. Are we ready to proceed with the selection of the jury?”

“Yes, your honor,” Kim said.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, fully aware that the proper response was “Yes, your honor.” The judge scowled at my breach of the ancient chant protocol.

“I thought I asked for a jury pool of 100,” Pearson said, scanning the gallery. “I see about 50 people here, if that many.”

“Notices were sent; we received a number of – objections – but they don’t account for this turnout. A number of jurors are simply not here.

“Objections? What do you mean by objections?”

“I’ll send them to your screens,” Kim said.

I scrolled the messages from jurors refusing to appear for jury duty. I saw with grim delight that all of them contained the words, “I choose not to participate,” or some variation.

The judge did not change his expression, but I noticed a flush to his cheeks.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” Pearson said. “The bailiff will draw the first name.”

The bailiff punched his screen and a number appeared at random.

“Juror number 31,” he intoned.

An older woman, white-haired, a little stooped, rose near the front row, steadying herself with a cane.

“Step forward and be sworn,” the judge said.

“No, your honor,” she said loudly and deliberately, leaning forward with both hands on the cane. “I was going to send a note, but I decided I wanted to come here and tell you in person: I choose not to participate.”

And with that she stepped into the aisle and began to walk to the back of the room.

One step. Two steps. Three.

“Guard, that woman is in contempt of court. Please arrest her and remove her from the courtroom pending further action.”

The guard nearest to the woman looked at her, winked – winked! – and called to the judge, “No, your honor. I choose not to participate.”

The guard opened the door for the woman, and they walked out together.

“Hank, go after them,” Pearson said. “Arrest them both.”

But Hank said, “I’m sorry, your honor, but I’m not going to participate, either.” And he started out of the room.

“I refuse to participate!” This was a young man who stood in the gallery and began to make his way toward the aisle.

“I choose not to participate!” This was a middle-aged woman whose voice broke on the word “participate.”

From all over the room came the call: “I choose not to participate!” Respectful and orderly, they rose and started going toward the door.

Pearson slammed his gavel and called for the doors to be locked and the courtroom sealed. One by one, each of the bailiffs and guards and clerks turned to the judge and said, “I choose not to participate,” and left the room. Some of them helped escort older prospective jurors out the door.

The judge turned red in the face and banged his gavel repeatedly, calling on his interlink for more guards. But the only response he got was “I choose not to participate,” over and over from different voices and different places. The prosecutor turned pale. Buffalo Springsteen grinned and held my hand. John Hemlock giggled like a little boy.

At last the three of us, Sandra Kim and the Honorable Chandler Pearson were the only ones left in the courtroom.

“It appears,” said the judge, “that the jury has chosen to nullify the charges against you, Mr. Kaliber. You’re free to go.”

“Your Honor?!”

“You saw what happened, Ms. Kim. Every one of the jury pool and most of my staff refused to participate. A jury is not going to convict this man. Case dismissed.”

Entry 84. The Trial: Arrival at the gates

Finally, there was the matter of putting me on trial for 35 counts of incitement to riot resulting in death. In a lifetime a person tries to share thoughts and insights with those around them, but you never really understand how much influence you have had. Oh, perhaps you’ll hear something you said or wrote repeated in another way, in another form, but the opportunities are few to gauge the impact of your life. That is why I look back on my trial with such gratitude.

The day broke with bright sunshine, a dazzling orange and blue display of beauty. The air itself felt sweet; as I wrote before, yes, it was the great machines at work, but I imagined the sweet smell of freedom on that day when a trial was to begin to determine whether I would spend the next several decades in incarceration.

As always Buffalo and John Hemlock accompanied me into the courtroom, she with her beautiful scowl and he with his peaceful grin.

“It’s an absolute crime that you’re the one who’s standing trial,” Buffalo said, looking back at the empty gallery that would soon be filled with prospective jurors, journalists and the curious.

“There’s a reason why everything happens,” John replied. “All things work to the good for those who believe.” I have to admit his confident smile may have begun to wear on my nerves. I wanted to tell him he wasn’t the one who might end the week serving a life prison sentence.

But: “I sure hope you’re right, John,” is what I actually said.

In hindsight it wasn’t that he was right, but how he was right, that makes me laugh telling the story.

Entry 83. And afterward

Editor's note: As with all of these posts, this is from the upcoming publication The Imaginary Revolution: Memoirs of Raymond Douglas Kaliber, Founder of the Commonwealth of Sirius 4. This excerpt was chosen in observance of Election Day 2012. The book is scheduled for release Dec. 15, 2012.

With the toppling of Badiah Sinclair and the reigning council, the question – seemingly inevitably – became: What sort of government will we have now?

I hoped my grin did not look too mischievous as I answered the question with my own question.

“Why do we need a government at all?”

Entry 82. Backlash

Entry 82. Backlash

Badiah Sinclair was quick to attempt to mollify the public outrage. I was surprised at how unwilling people had become to trust the great hero of Sirius 4.

In his address to the planet, he made the same arguments he had been making all along.

“I had no choice.”

“Like hell!” people barked back at the screen.

“ImagCorp intended to defend its business, and we were forced to comply with their demands.”

“Like hell!” people scrawled on walls and pavement.

“We could no longer allow Imaginary Structures to continue operations without concessions to ImagCorp.

“Like hell!” people roared in the streets.

And another phrase began to work its way into the public consciousness.

People receiving tax bills began to respond not with payment but with, “I choose not to participate.”

Building inspectors who visited construction sites were met not with a properly filed building permit but with, “I choose not to participate.”

Even marriages were performed without a license. More than one officiant who asked, “Well, shall we sign the license now?” was greeted with, “We chose not to participate.”

None of the speeches I had given about nonviolent noncooperation was as effective in convincing people as Badiah Sinclair’s violent cooperation with ImagCorp. Others took to the streets, but with gentle words, not implements of destruction. Most remarkable to me as I reflected in my cell: No one at Imaginary Structures had met fire with fire. Of 6,500 people in that crowd, surely some of them had brought their personal weapons to the scene. None fired back at the security officers.

As word spread beyond Sirius 4 about the incident at Ganges Pass, so did the outrage, and it soon became apparent that Sirians were not the first to wonder why ImagCorp still needed to license its basic technology 200 years after developing it.

Because ImagCorp left Badi Sinclair twisting in the wind.

“Like the people of Sirius 4, we condemn violence,” read the official statement from ImagCorp. “If Sirius 4 and Imaginary Structures Inc. wanted exemptions to our licensing program, all they had to do was ask. Those exemptions are hereby granted.”

I am tempted to write, “It was that easy.” But there is nothing easy about the sacrifice of 35 souls.

Entry 81. The night before

(Editor's note: This entry fits between entries 76 and 77.)

Badiah Sinclair called me the night before the Ganges Pass demonstration.

“This thing they’re going to do, you have to help me talk them out of it, Ray. I need your help,” Badi said.

“It’s a little late for that, Badi, they have to do what they have to do,” I replied. “You don’t give people their hope back and then jerk it away again arbitrarily.”

“This isn’t arbitrary. You don’t understand – ImagCorp could destroy Sirius 4’s entire economy if it withdraws all of its licenses.”

“Why don’t we withdraw? What if we refuse to play by their rules anymore? Will they really risk losing an entire planet’s worth of business?”

“You say ‘an entire planet’ as if our population is equivalent to Earth’s, or even Barnard’s Star. The risk is on our side. I can’t allow people into that facility.”

In hindsight I should have listened less to what Badiah Sinclair said and more to the tremor in his voice and the anxiety in his eyes. But his words were defiant, and I matched him word for word.

“You can’t allow this to happen? It’s out of your hands. You’re going to have to arrest us all.”

“Ray, please, I’m begging you, don’t force the issue.”

“Sorry, old friend. The issue is forced. I couldn’t talk the workers out of doing this if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”

He still seemed to be trying to form the right words when I broke the connection.

Entry 80. Once a beautiful face

“Freeze it there.”

I didn’t really want to see it, but I wanted to freeze the recording there, an instant after the bullet struck Jaklyn Sanders in the bridge of her nose – just to confirm that it was a precision, carefully targeted shot.

The image was macabre. It was still clear that she was a beautiful woman – the bright and intelligent eyes, the high cheekbones, the carefully quaffed mane of hair – but those features were all out of place, like a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces broken apart but still close to each other. I couldn’t help but stare at her eyes, which still had a spark of light that was fading fast, one eye unnaturally an inch or two above the other and separated by a large, round, red hole with black around the edges.

One instant she was describing the sudden attack by government forces on unarmed protesters, and the next instant she was gone, simply gone.

“A shot like that, that’s a well-aimed shot,” I said. “Somebody took her out deliberately. This wasn’t random.” I sensed agreement around the room, but no one else spoke. They were all staring at the image, too, trying to make sense of the sight, their brains trying to re-assemble the face into its proper alignment.

The official story was that the officers had fired to defend themselves against an angry mob, that they just fired indiscriminately to drive off the rioters. I was charged with inciting the riot, never mind that it wasn’t an actual riot until the shots were fired.

But here was grisly but hard-to-dispute evidence that at least one shot wasn’t indiscriminate, and that particular shot happened to kill the reporter who was closest to the center of action, the reporter who could affirm to the world that the chaos and destruction was caused by the security force, not by the people who wanted nothing more than to go to work and to support the people who were reporting to their office.

My defense would depend on convincing a jury that my intentions were peaceful and nonviolent. At least, that was the strategy.

Entry 79. Fighting rage

The staccato firing of shots, the whine of lasers, and the smell of death.

John Hemlock holding himself just over us, palms down, arms on either side of me and Buffalo, head ducked.

Screams. Shouts. Someone shouting, “Cease fire! Cease fire!” from behind the lines. A thundering noise I believe was the sound of 5,000 people running in every direction. Moans of pain. Shrieks of agony. Higher-pitched screams as loved ones recognized the victims.

John holding his position as best as he could with dozens of people jostling past us. His body was bruised and scratched afterward, but he was committed to protecting us at any cost.

“Don’t worry about it,” he would say later when we gasped at his purple and blue arms and ribs. “Looked a lot worse after Super Bowl CCX.”

They knew we were unarmed; they knew we had pledged to take our stand without lifting a hand. They shot at us anyway, they wounded hundreds anway, they killed 35 of us anyway.

These were not cold-blooded killers, they were not Earthians shooting at strangers. They were our neighbors, and though I did not realize it at the time, that would make all the difference.

I did not hear about Washburne until much later, did not know that one of the shooters brushed a young woman’s brain matter off his uniform in horror, tossed down his weapon, and walked off.

“Washburne! Get back here and hold this line!” his commander barked.

“No, sir,” Washburne called over his shoulder. “I choose not to participate.”

I know now that at least a half-dozen other security officers followed Washburne off the field. At that moment, however, I had no idea. All I knew was that Badiah Sinclair had to have ordered this.

Thirty-five dead. Thirty-five lives. Thirty-five varied collections of hopes, dreams, triumphs, disappointments. Thirty-five stories. Countless grieving friends and family members.

And I understood the power of rage. Nearly my entire being wanted to find a weapon – any weapon, a stick or a rock would do fine – find my oldest and dearest friend, good old Badi, strike him in the head, again and again, keep striking until there was nothing left but a bloody, dead mass.

Somewhere, deep down, I knew that if I did that, 35 lives would be wasted and Badiah would die knowing that he had won.

My only choice was to forgive the unforgiveable, to fight through the rage and give more than I receive. Not give back more death than I received – give more of what I fight with than any purveyor of death can possibly resist.

The time when loving your neighbor is most important is when there is every reason not to love.

And so I held Buffalo in my arms, and John Hemlock shielded the two of us, until officers came and told me I was under arrest.

“I am under arrest?” I said. “I am under arrest? For what?”

“Inciting a riot,” said the commanding officer, reading from a document. Yes, they had prepared the arrest warrant before the riot. They killed 35 people and brought me into custody, and it was all part of a plan. Those who’d laid down their lives deserved better than the outrage that threatened to consume my heart.

So I swallowed my rage, took several deep breaths, and as lovingly as I could, I said, “All right. Take me where we’re going.”

Entry 80 - Once a beautiful face

Entry 78. Thirty-five lives

Lon Weston, 56, kissed his wife on the cheek as he left for work that morning. He had spent his entire adult life dreaming of starting and running a business; Imaginary Structures was a dream come true.

Randy Derringer, 32, did not kiss his wife as he left that morning; in fact he felt badly about the selfish way he had acted. He planned to apologize when he came home that evening.

Mai Vang, 27, was planning her wedding. Her best friend was refusing to divulge any details about the bachelorette party except that she was supposed to bring a towel.

Camille Harper, 20, was still chattering to her best friend about what a terrific family reunion she had attended a few days earlier, reconnecting with cousins she hadn’t seen in years.

Stan Aziz, 63, was concerned that his grandson didn’t seem to have a plan for his life. Kids nowadays seem so aimless and uncaring about where their lives are going, he thought.

Phyllis Henderson, 49, had been Lon Weston’s personal secretary for 23 years. She and her husband vacationed every year at Lake Ptolemy.

Maureen Fisher, 22, was concerned about her great-grandmother’s failing health. She was planning to meet with her that night to suggest she move in as a full-time caretaker. She expected resistance from her feisty, independent Great-grandmama.

Snooky Wong, 33, had owned the first and most popular bar in the Proximi Centauri 3 encampment, but she abandoned that dream to accompany her husband to Sirius 4. Rather than deal with the rigors of running another late-night establishment, she chose to put her talents to work in a day job at Imaginary Structures.

Pete Wong, 38, had worked in the logistics industry as an independent contractor. He and his partner had their ship hijacked during the imaginary bomb incident; after marrying, he decided to settle on Sirius 4 because of its independence.

Lian Wong, 1, had an entire life ahead of her. Her parents were sure it would be a happy one because of the way she laughed and smiled impishly all the time.

Seth Johnson, 23, was a hunter who astonished his friends with his skills as a wild game chef. He eschewed manufacturing meals out of ImagPro and liked to talk about how food was “meant” to be prepared.

Juniper Lapin, 31, saved Michael McWilliams’ life during an attack on their campsite during the Earthian occupation. I need not remind you of how important McWilliams’ medical research has been in recent years.

Benny Cardova, 94, was having a dispute with builders over where to locate the lakefront home where he planned to spend the last 20-30 years of his life. But he told friends if Sinclair were to get away with closing this business, it wouldn’t matter where he wanted the home built.

Shen Hu, 17, wished his friends understood how what happens to a factory in Ganges Pass could affect everyone on the planet.

Taja al Reshedi, 49, was one of the most respected physicians on Sirius 4.

Salman al Reshedi, 51, proudly lived in the shadow of his well-known wife and dabbled in sculpture.

Russell Perry, 71, had coached successful competitive swimmers for decades but confided in friends that in another 10 years he might be ready to retire.

Brenda Henderson, 33, was an architect who was pushing the envelope of using Imaginary Structures’ technology for bold design, but her friends said recently she was most excited about learning her third child was on the way.

Cliff Henderson, 32, had worried out loud that Imaginary Structures was making his building skills obsolete but also touted the value of maintaining those old skills for clients who wanted “the real thing.”

Jaklyn Sanders, 45, had produced some of the most insightful news features about Badiah Sinclair and took some of the dramatic footage of the Ganges Pass incident up to her death.

Marjorie Butler, 19, wrote a beautiful poem about freedom that was read at the memorial service for The Thirty-Five.

Victor Foster, 109, was known as “Poppy Po” to his great-great-grandchildren and often spoke to them about the important of standing up for their beliefs.

Milt Gray, 50, councilor, was one of Badi Sinclair’s early political allies but was not at all pleased with some of the president’s recent decisions.

Chester Washington, 25, Councilor Gray’s chief aide, was one of the brightest analysts of fiscal data at the capital.

Everett Brooks, 60, was renowned for his gardening abilities. Friends spoke of how serene he always seemed, especially after a full day working the soil.

Cora Patterson, 19, had entered the university that semester but was already telling friends and family it was a mistake. She was writing the plan for her new business and expected to finish her classes and launch the endeavor.

Leona Ross, 21, was also planning to leave the university but had no plan for her future. Her mother feared she lacked of direction, but her father spoke of his daughter’s remarkable compassion for animals and was confident something would have come of that.

Patrick Carroll, 54, entertained children for a living. His friends said he was a big kid himself and may have been the happiest man on Sirius 4.

Aidan Hughes, 42, came to Ganges Pass to meet John Hemlock and perhaps get his autograph. His passion for following Earthian football was the only thing that all of his friends mentioned.

Hanna Whyte, 98, inspired generations of her family to succeed, coaching, cajoling and chiding them not to settle for producing anything less than something others would love.

Philippe Losnedahl, 59, was one of the founders of a popular beverage company who gave more than half of his fortune to the arts and charities. The Losnedahl Foundation is a major contributor to the university’s music programs.

John Olhouser, 36, was an obstetrician-gynecologist from a well-placed family; his parents had made a fortune developing the Olhouser brewery; he was active in political causes and injected passion into everything he did.

Beverly Symanczyk, 43, lived for weekends at her retreat on Lake Ptolemy, a little cottage she had saved to purchase for the first decade of her career. A popular face at Imaginary Structures, she was a reliable worker whose heart and soul lived for that waterfront property.

Gavin Ndebele, 63, was a dedicated sales engineer who made time for fishing, hunting and working in the great outdoors. He would not hesitate to pick up his guitar and entertain visitors at the slightest hint of an invitation.

Trevor Rubio, 83, owned his own business in the energy industry. His children each laughed spontaneously recalling an incident involving their father, a rotten tomato and an unexpected gust of wind.

So often one hears that many people had died at one time and place but their individual lives become lost in the number. I met with each of The Thirty-five’s survivors to make sure they would be remembered.

Entry 79 - Fighting rage

Entry 77. Reporting for work

At the hour when the workday at Imaginary Structures Inc. usually began, three distinct and large groups were gathered near the front gate.

Forming a perimeter around the complex were hundreds of security officers, armed, wearing face masks and armor, and holding large shields. Facing them were 5,000 witnesses surrounding 1,500 company employees, who were dressed for an average workday.

At the front of the line was Lon Weston, president and founder of Imaginary Structures, with a big smile on his face. It seemed a little forced, as if he was trying as hard as he could to look serene but it wasn’t working so well.

I stood near Lon with Buffalo and John Hemlock. We witnesses were going to form a corridor through which the workers would walk. In an ideal world, the small army of security personnel would step aside, but they looked as though they were prepared to stand their ground.

The plan was for the workers to press forward until they were taken into custody; once in custody, they would respectfully decline to cooperate with authorities. Asked their name, they’d respond, “I choose not to participate.” Pressed for a contact number or address, they’d respond, “I choose not to participate.” Threatened with jail or prison, they’d respond, “I choose not to participate.”

With all 1,500 employees of Imaginary Structures Inc. being processed, the court system would have precious little time for real criminals.

Looking at his timepiece, Lon Weston proclaimed loudly, “All right folks, let’s go to work.” And he began to stride toward the line of shields. The company’s associates came forward behind him.

“This plant is closed. Do not come any farther or you will be trespassing,” an authoritative voice barked from somewhere behind the dark force.

Lon Weston and his team came forward.

“It’s such a beautiful day to work,” Weston called, spreading his arms to indicate the warm, bright sun.

“You are trespassing. Turn back now,” barked the disembodied voice.

Lon Weston and his team came forward. Except for the armed men with shields blocking their path, it could have been any other morning as people approached the factory entrance. Perhaps there was less of the everyday chattering of conversation.

“Halt. This is your final warning,” barked the voice.

“We choose not to participate,” someone called from behind Lon Weston, and a few people laughed nervously.

The crowd was three to five meters from the security force. “Here come the arrests,” I said to no one in particular.

And then, for the second time, John Hemlock saved my life.

He stepped in front of Buffalo and me, yelled “Get down!” and not waiting for us to react, tackled us flat and covered us with his massive body.

Not quite comprehending, as I fell backwards I caught a glimpse of dozens of security forces aiming their weapons.

Entry 78

Entry 76. Preparations

Lon Weston had taken Imaginary Structures from, well, a figment of his imagination to one of the larger businesses on Sirius 4 and certainly the economic engine of Ganges Pass. He was not an imposing man physically, but he had a quiet energy that simmered under the surface all the time and frequently bubbled over.

Usually that energy was expressed in enthusiasm and encouragement; now the best words seemed to be anger and frustration. He and his associates, 15 hundred strong, had decided to show up for work as usual the next morning, and now Weston had asked me to coach them on passive resistance.

“We’re scientists and programmers, not activists,” he said. “I need you to give us all a short course on how this works.”

As I had said so many times over the years, and especially to the thousands more who would back up the workers in the morning, I stressed the importance of nonviolence.

“Presuming there will be a security force there to turn you back, you should be firm in your resolve but not raise a hand to them,” I said. “One of the basics of civil disobedience is being willing to accept the consequences of your disobedience. I’m guessing they will either let you through the gates or arrest you; our goal is to fill the jail and clog up the system. But don’t resist arrest – try very hard to get in and don’t stop until they bring you into custody, but let them bring you into custody. There’s a component of raising public sympathy here, and believe me it’s all on your side, but that can shift if you slug a cop or do anything else to hurt them.”

“Why if they try to hurt us?” someone asked from the middle of the group. “Don’t we have a right to defend ourselves?”

I told them about Gandhi’s march to the sea, about how the protesters were urged not even to raise their hands to defend themselves if the police started beating them, about how wave after wave of people did just that, and how the result was a revulsion so universal that the British government agreed to relax its restrictions and, more important, never had the power it once had over the Indian people.

“Gandhi called it satyagraha – satya is a word meaning a truth that equals love, and graha means force. If you do this with a spirit of love, you will accomplish amazing things,” I said. “I don’t think they will try to hurt you, but if they do, if you don’t try to hurt them back, your power will increase exponentially.”

What smug assurance I had when I said, “I don’t think they will try to hurt you.”

Entry 77

Entry 75. Interact with love (The second tenet)

It is something I believe so strongly that I made it the second essential tenet of my world view: Interact with love, not force or violence.

You make no friends using force or violence; coercion can only silence your enemies, it will not convert them.

Through the years this has not stopped people who have set themselves above the rest of us from using force to impose their will. But while they may have changed the behavior of their subjects by using violence – or a very real threat of violence – they did not affect what was inside those beaten subjects.

All they created were dead enemies – or defeated enemies who avenged violence with violence at the first opportunity. And so the cycle has continued for centuries.

Only love can make a friend; it is that much more powerful than hate. Deploying love takes patience, forgiveness and a discipline that feels counterintuitive and defies human nature at times. But it is the only sure way to resolve a conflict. People respond in kind: Force your will on them, and they will eventually respond with force. Treat people with love and respect – even (or perhaps especially) those who wish you harm – and they will eventually respond with love and respect.

Early on I adopted what a long-ago philosopher called the Zero Aggression Principle – no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor should anyone advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.

I have always believed that a society based on that principle likely would not even need a government to keep the peace or secure liberty. I must confess I never expected I’d have the opportunity in my lifetime to test that theory.

Entry 76

Entry 74. Taking action

I believe the most beautiful place on Sirius 4 is the beach of Lake Ptolemy, but an argument can be made for the region around Ganges Pass. This was a lush forested land that settlers had cleared strategically to conserve the woods while making room for crops and homes. The great river that flowed through the region evoked the memory of a mighty Earthian waterway, and so those early adapters named their settlement after that memory.

When the occupying force first took up stations around the Imaginary Structures factory and blocked the path of anyone attempting to report to work, I called on people to report to work anyway.

“What are they going to do, murder 1,500 people for trying to make a living?” I said at the time.

A handful of people did make the attempt but were peacefully turned away, if being shoved to the ground or arrested for trespassing can be called “peaceful.” In comparison to what Badiah Sinclair’s forces ended up doing, it had been peaceful indeed.

Unrest across the land had already become a bit of a problem for the government. Councilors were getting a lot of questions why – if a healthy portion of our confiscated earnings were no longer being sent to prop up the Earthian government – they had not lowered taxes to reflect the flow of funds to Earth that was no longer flowing.

“Earth is no longer providing the services we received in return for those taxes; we have to do it ourselves,” the councilors would say. “Be patient, once we get everything established we should be able to lower the tax.”

Badiah Sinclair’s decision to enforce the ImagCorp ultimatum changed everything.

“We can’t live without the products and benefits of imaginary physics,” he pleaded with the citizenry. “Imaginary Structures Inc. is going to have to abide by the licensing process that all of these other producers are following.”

But “all of these other producers” were, at that time, on Earth. ISI was the only company on Sirius 4 using what ImagCorp described as its proprietary technology and what every licensed company using that technology had reverse-engineered and adapted more than a century earlier. They just went along with the licenses to save even higher legal costs.

Imaginary Structures didn’t see the need for the license, and for several years it had the Sirian government’s backing. Now Sinclair was yielding to ImagCorp’s extortion.

“Just go to work, all together,” I told the people who asked. “The state depends on the ‘voluntary’ cooperation of its subjects to survive. If you ignore it in unison, they may try to turn you away and even arrest all of you, but that would clog the courts – they would have to find a way to back down. Respectfully refuse to acknowledge their authority and they’re lost. That’s the essence of noncooperation.”

And so the 1,479 associates of Imaginary Structures Inc. showed up to work that morning, with more than 5,000 of us gathered near the gates in solidarity to cheer them as they entered. I never believed Badi Sinclair, whom I’d known all my life, was capable of what happened next.

Entry 75

Entry 73. Rendering with John Hemlock

After one of my talks about anarkhia and noncooperation, I turned to my friend and bodyguard.

“This must make you a little uncomfortable, when I say we don’t need a state to live our lives well, given what your Nazarene said about ‘render unto Caesar,’” I said.

John Hemlock looked puzzled, and then he burst out laughing. I have to say that John’s laugh is one of the most delightful sounds in the universe; he is one joyful man.

“Oh my man, you’ve been fooled by one of the all-time great misdirection plays,” he said, in what I believe was a football reference (I really should learn that game to understand my friend better). “‘Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what is God’s – Is that the quote you mean?”

“Yes,” I said. “He said pay your taxes and acknowledge the state’s authority.”

Another full-throated, full-body roar of laughter.

“Jesus said that when some political types were trying to trap him,” John said once he caught his breath. “They wanted to get him to say something subversive, so they asked him if it’s right for his followers to pay taxes. He knew they wanted to trip him up and catch him telling people to revolt. So he had them show him a coin, and sure enough Caesar’s picture was on it. And then he said – listen up now – ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.’”

Then he spread his arms wide with a huge grin, as if the punch line was obvious.

“Don’t you get it? This is the guy who said sell all your belongings and follow me – follow God,” he laughed. “Give to God what is God’s – Everything is God’s! Caesar is just a pretty, shiny picture.

“You just keep talking about your anarkhia, Ray. My Nazarene is smiling and thinking, ‘Finally, someone gets what I was saying.’”

Entry 74

Entry 72. The plant at Ganges Pass

The existence of the Imaginary Structures factory was a thorn in the side of ImagCorp, which had parceled out licenses for the use of its intellectual property for close to two centuries. When Badiah Sinclair and the council decreed that the plant could reopen, alarm bells must have sounded at corporate headquarters.

It was telling, for example, that one of the invading force’s first actions had been to shut down the plant at Ganges Pass. It was not so much that people’s ability to purchase a shed or a home or a business building erected with imaginary power  posed a threat to planetary security; it was the fact that this little company was using imaginary power without paying tribute to the barons of ImagCorp.

Whether an argument could be made that imaginary physics was now in the realm of public domain was irrelevant. One of the revenue streams to the company that pioneered imaginary physics was cut off. Long accustomed to having its licenses upheld and defended by the ruling government and its courts, ImagCorp exerted pressure on the independent state of Sirius 4.

When Sinclair said Imaginary Structures Inc. had a right to operate on his planet (“his” planet – another warning flag), ImagCorp responded by announcing that it would cease conducting business on Sirius 4. No new “legitimately licensed” product would be shipped here, and any license-holding entity that traded with Sirius 4 would be subject to losing its license.

To me the solution was self-evident: Encourage the freethinking entrepreneurs of Sirius 4 to fill in the market void, open facilities that manufactured meal machines and vehicles and all the other imaginary products upon which we had come to depend in our everyday lives.

To Badiah the solution was equally self-evident: “For our own protection,” he ordered that Imaginary Structures Inc. either negotiate an ImagCorp license or shut down its operation. To emphasize the point, he sent a contingent of troops to Ganges Pass.

The trickle of inquiries I was receiving about the nuts and bolts of noncooperation became a flood. Everything happened very quickly after that.

Entry 73

Entry 71. Getting there

Although a few people seemed to agree with me about the value of noncooperation versus violent revolution, and I was being heard by influential people, it wasn’t a popular opinion when there was an occupying force from Earth walking the streets. But when Badiah Sinclair began to act like Silas Fredersen, there were no calls for civil war. Perhaps some grumbling, and there definitely were more people who came to hear me speak.

Also giving me some assurance was the fact that of the two childhood friends, I was still the only one who had ever stared down the barrel of an assassin’s gun. Ironic, that – but men and women of peace do make the violent anxious.

Badiah Sinclair had been probably the most popular political figure Sirius 4 would ever see, and that made the disappointment that much greater when he began to run the government – and attempted to run our lives – just like pretty much everyone who had come before him. But few people wanted to do violence to him or to any of our neighbors who served on the security force. Again: The nature of Sirians is to leave our neighbors alone as long as our neighbors leave us free to live our own lives.

That’s why noncooperation could work on Sirius 4. I dare say it would work on any world where that core value is instilled, but our world was especially ripe for the effort.

Therefore it wasn’t long before the questions at my lectures became more specific and less about the general theory of passive resistance.

For instance: “What would a Jim Simmons do, if an armed force was sent to make sure his building was torn down?”

That was always a tough question.

“Find a way to stay alive,” I would reply. Simmons’ death played out exactly as successful passive resistance could, except perhaps that he displayed a rifle and the intention to use it. Because he was willing to die for the principle of using his own property as he saw fit, the government acted in an obviously foolish way, and the result was public outrage loud enough that the Earthian rulers withdrew, albeit temporarily. The idea was to do anything to block the tyrant’s progress, short of killing or maiming him.

There was one assuring thing – zoning administrators under Badi Sinclair weren’t going to bring in army units to back themselves up. A Jim Simmons could probably win his point by blocking the progress of any heavy equipment sent to raze his building, if it got to that.

The more everyday applications of noncooperation were a little less onerous. If the government bans the sale of alcohol, buy and sell alcohol anyway. If it taxes something for the sake of taxing it, don’t pay the tax. If called to jury duty against someone charged with a crime that shouldn’t be a crime, don’t show up. If the government bans the use of native salt, march to the sea and gather salt. Anything to throw a monkey wrench into the operation of an overreaching government.

Heads would always begin to nod in understanding and agreement.

Entry 70. Same as the old

President Badiah Sinclair addressed the planet and spoke about how the existing structure of the government remained in place, but now it belonged to us, not the Earthians. And that was comforting for the moment.

“We are a free world led by free people,” he said. If it seemed things were very much still the same, well, we still had that “free world, free people” image to fall back on. And in one mighty symbol of the difference, the Imaginary Structures plant at Ganges Pass was reopened.

Life without the tether to Earth was a bit of a challenge, especially for those whose role in life had been to pass wealth from Sirius 4 back to the old world and accept a fraction of the tribute back in return. But it wasn’t long before the treasury wasn’t paying all of the bills. To keep the new/old government running, Sinclair and his council implemented new regulations, some rationing and even curfews – so that some of the police force could have an occasional night off and still others could be laid off.

“Why do you still need all this bureaucracy, anyway?” I said during one of our increasingly rare lunches together. “Most of your government apparatus was created to facilitate the subjugation of Sirius 4 to Earth’s orbit. Not needed anymore.”

“Ray, I know it seems unnecessary,” the president said in a tone that was starting to sound like a parent lecturing a willful child. “Before you can obtain that ideal society based on liberty, there must be a period of transition to pave the way. We can’t just stop enforcing the law one day.”

“If it’s a bad or obsolete law, why not?”

My old friend laughed like my old friend, but also like someone who was getting tired of being patient. “Come on. What do you do with criminals? How do you enforce regulations?”

“You’re not hearing me, Badi. A lot of those regulations were designed to keep us in line. You’ve got a planet full of people who were tired of being told how to live their lives by someone who wasn’t here.”

“But now their leaders are here; the power is in Sirian hands.”

“The power to do what? Tell us how to live our lives? Remember the part where we were tired of that?”

“It’s only for a little while, until the people are ready for a little more autonomy,” Badi said, now approaching irritability. “You don’t just change everything overnight.”

“Well, actually, that’s the purpose of a revolution, isn’t it? When do you decide when it’s OK to loosen the chains?”

“That’s a little unfair, to talk about chains, Ray,” he said. “Really? Chains?”

“When is it OK to ‘give us a little more autonomy’?” I persisted.

“We’ll know when we’re there.”

About a year after the Earthians left, it was clear we weren’t going to get “there” anytime soon.

Entry 71

Entry 69. The first imaginary revolution

The words – but not necessarily the people who spoke them – are immortalized.

Unlike “Watson, come here, I need you,” or “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” you’d have to look it up to learn that it was Sara Wilde and David Shorting who made the mental breakthrough that led to the foundation of imaginary physics.

They were working in a lab at the company that became ImagCorp, struggling to find a way to move starships faster than light so that you wouldn’t need intergenerational space arks to travel from Earth to far-distant stars.

Ironically, the genius moment came when Shorting said, “I give up.”

Yes – “I give up,” David said. “I can’t imagine a practical way to travel faster than light.”

And then came the spark.

“That's it – we need imagination!” Sara Wilde said – although few people recognize Sara Wilde as the name of the person who said those famous words. Even I had to look it up.

Because – as people had been saying for centuries – the power of the imagination is unlimited. The key was developing an engine that tapped that power. Once that mental barrier was passed, it did not take very long for them to build that engine fueled by computers with imagination.

“The power of the imagination is unlimited” became the first and central tenet of imaginary physics. And unlimited it is. It’s not just the once-unimaginable reality of traveling between stars in a matter of hours (or days, at least) – imaginary power allows us to perform an incredible variety of operations.

But we can’t conjure something from nothing – meal machines, for example, need a wad of ImagPro protein supplement to create a meal. Hence the second tenet: Matter still can’t be created or destroyed.

And despite what Einstein said, time doesn’t accelerate or decelerate at faster-than-light speeds, and despite what a multitude of writers speculated, you can’t move forward or backward through time because all that really exists is this moment. Thus the third tenet of imaginary physics: What’s done is done.

Although it does indeed have those limitations at least, imaginary power is what enabled us to settle and develop Sirius 4 in a matter of decades. It’s what made this life, and this story, possible.

Entry 70

Entry 68. Nary a difference

Life in independent Sirius 4 was not unlike the way it was before. This seemed to jar some people, who thought they would be happier if the Earthian tyrants were gone. Certainly there was no more killing, no more men and women in dark uniforms patrolling the streets enforcing curfews, no more edicts from a military man charged with keeping the peace.

More than a few expected to be free from the notion that their earnings might be confiscated and used for purposes of “the general good,” or that someone else might decide on their behalf what constitutes the general good. They expected the control of their lives and property to be in their own hands at last.

But there were still taxes and regulations and laws. The mitigating factor was that now the taxes were going to “us” and not back to Earth to be laundered and some of it redistributed back to Sirius 4. The regulations were protecting “us” and “our” interests, not Earth’s. And the laws were for “our” benefit.

Still, the people started to wonder about it all.

Entry 69

Entry 67. Imaginary victory

But the war had to play itself out – there were not enough thinkers thinking like John, like Buffalo, like me.

And play itself out it did. Dozens of Earthians breathed their last each week, and their bodies were returned to their home planet. Dozens of Sirians also died defending their homeworld, and their ashes returned to the soil.

As is the case in war, the killings did not change minds. Earthians continued to believe they had a claim to Sirius 4, and the people of Sirius 4 were more convinced than ever that Earth had no such claim. But as is usually the case in war, those who lived in the disputed territory held the greatest resolve.

It was not a very long time – although it seemed forever to those who lost loved ones – before Earth requested a cease fire and negotiations were hastily resumed. not long after that, the peacekeepers were gathered up and prepared to be shipped back to Earth.

Lt. Joshua True and other dignitaries from Earth made a great showing of how Sirius 4 was now prepared to live on without peacekeepers, and President Badiah Sinclair – now recognized as such by the departing forces – was magnaminous enough to allow them to live the illusion that they were leaving because their job was done.

Badi told me later that as they made their final farewells, True gripped his hand as hard as he could – and he could grip mightily – and said, “This is your choice, Sinclair, but you know we’ll be ready when it all falls apart on you.”

Smiling as politically as he could and wincing in pain, Sinclair replied, “Thanks for the warning. We’ll stay ready to chase you away again.”

True’s eyes narrowed – true be told, he always kept his eyes narrowed – and he strode onto his ship without another word. Without a sound beyond their faint mosquito-like buzz, the imagination-powered ships rose into the sky and were gone, quietly and without fanfare.

They were accompanied by the roar of the crowd that had come to see them off. Badiah took the opportunity to make a speech – he was nothing if not a politician, after all.

It was quite a stirring speech, as you know, with as poignant turns of phrase as had ever been turned on Sirius 4. No longer simply a leader with dreams of a better tomorrow, Badi was now a great planetary hero who had delivered on the promise.

There is much talk about “us” in that speech – We turned back the invaders, and now we will move forward together, that sort of thing – and in all honesty there was only one moment when I winced and wondered if it may all be an illusion.

That was when the “we” turned singular: “Let me tell you about my vision for a free Sirius 4,” he said.

The words of that ancient song whispered through my mind – “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” – but were drowned out by the crowd’s approving roar.

Entry 68

Entry 66. A change of mind

She just reappeared at my door, still dressed in her guerilla apparel, still with the gun slung over her shoulder. There’s a steeliness about Buffalo Springsteen, a rock-solid something that stabilizes her even in her softness moments, so I should have known the change would not come with great heaving sobs. She just came home.

“I’m done,” she said, looking in my eyes after we finished the long, warm hug of greeting. “Done killing.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” A pause. “I just got to thinking.”

No, there were no close encounters with enemy combatants; a sniper’s nest, it seems, is a quiet and even lonely place – a place well suited for thinking.

We were right, her hunting skills served her well picking off the enemy from a distance. She was able to cut rather deeply into the ranks of the peacekeepers. But in between kills, she had plenty of time to think.

“I started to think about the lives I’d snuffed,” Buffalo said, keeping a steady gaze on my eyes, perhaps to make sure I was still with her. “I started to imagine them living normal lives. The family back home, the friends waiting for a reunion that’s not going to happen now, the big plans they had for their lives, maybe they were married, maybe they had kids who called them in their bunk every night. I thought about how you’d feel if they got me; I thought about how I felt when I heard about the guy with the gun, the guy Johnny tackled for you, the guy who wanted to take you out.

“And I started thinking you were right, that killing them wasn’t going to end it. So I quit.”

“You walked away from the sniper’s nest?”

Now she laughed. “Not that simple, but I let them know I was done, and soon as they could spare me I left. Didn’t need to kill anyone the last few days anyway.”

I held her close. I thought about saying she had taken a big step to stop the cycle of violence, but the moment didn’t call for theories and philosophical statements. At least I didn’t think so, until she took me by both arms.

“You’re right, Ray,” she said. “That’s how you beat them – not by killing as many as you can – just stop living their vision and start living yours. And our vision is about leaving each other alone to live out our natural lives.”

No, no heaving sobs, but a single tear did find its way down her cheek.

Entry 67

Entry 65. Homecoming

Entry 65. Homecoming

I guess I should have known that Buffalo and I would eventually be together again and that she would accept the path of non-violence. Well, if I must be precise, she accepted that killing is not the path to peace. I never have convinced her on the matter of what she calls a pre-emptive first strike when violence seems inevitable.

John Hemlock was right; we are too much alike not to come to similar conclusions about core values. Our coming together again, however, was not quite as I envisioned.

I expected drama. I even imagined how she would come to the conclusion that war is no solution. She would be caught in some kind of combat that ended with only two survivors, herself and a gravely wounded Earthian soldier. With the heat of battle raging around them, Buffalo would get to know her combatant more personally; perhaps they would save each other’s lives somehow and forge a tentative friendship. It’s easy to kill “an Earthian,” not as easy to kill a friend.

When the other person died, Buffalo would come to understand the toll of war, the stupidity of war, the uselessness of war. Tears would be shed in great quantities as the enormity of what she had done weighed on her conscience.

There was no drama and few tears. One day Buffalo simply ended her combat career and came back. The circumstances were dramatic in a different way than I’d imagined.

Entry 66

Entry 64. You can't kill an idea

Long before I found myself face to face with the barrels of guns, I knew that advocating nonaggression would attract aggression. I also knew that if I didn’t survive to see a society based on love, the idea would not die with me.

My five resisters, the men whose words and actions form the basis of my Tenets of Common Wealth, did not die quietly for the most part.

But their ideas live on, centuries later. You can’t kill an idea. And few ideas are so powerful than the notion that when we love one another, when we treat others as we wish to be treated, when we give more than we receive, we all prosper.

Violence on violence merely extends the cycle.

Violence cannot create a nonviolent world.

Non-peace cannot create peace.

Hate cannot create love.

Hate cannot create love? Oh, no.

I had reacted to True’s attempt to recruit me with anger. In that moment I hated him and all he stood for.

There was another way. It was the way I had been, for lack of a better word, preaching all along.

I had not convinced enough Sirians to turn my philosophical musings into practical action. If Earth was to be beaten back, it would be with violence. I didn’t endorse this; I simply accepted it.

But I knew with sad assurance that another opportunity would come. The cycle would be extended, and another revolution would be required to achieve freedom.

Entry 65

Entry 63. Attempt at appeasement

The war was not going well for either side. Remains were shipped back to Earth on a regular basis, and remains were processed routinely on Sirius 4 as well. Guns and grenades and lasers ended lives and damaged property, but they did little to convince anyone to change their minds about the wisdom of Sirian independence.

Even the bizarre violence of the imaginary grenade failed to extinguish the fire in our hearts. The things would simply cause their targets to collapse without an explosion, quietly and without fanfare.

Seeing them work was a chilling experience, but they did not end the revolution. Our engineers simply went to work figuring out how to replicate the program so we could have imaginary force of our own.

I was alone in my office when Lt. Joshua True sent his message. The fact that it came from True himself piqued my interest enough to enable video.

“Professor Kaliber, it’s an honor to speak with you,” the precise voice said in a military-precise tone. I was sorely tempted to reply, “I wish I could say the same,” but I didn’t want this encounter to descend into tawdry melodrama.

“The only honor you could do me is to leave this planet,” I said. I’d like to say I was angry and defiant, but the truth is I was more than a little nervous and that was the only response I could think to give.

“Heh. Well. It turns out that is the reason I’m calling,” he said, passing a hand over his short gray skullcap hair, as if the precisely cut bristles needed to be brushed into place. “I wanted to express my appreciation for the public statements you have been making, the call to nonviolence.”

This was rich.

“Do you mean the statements where I say you represent a tyrannical regime that deserves to be ignored, not obeyed?”

The precision smile tightened into a precise thin line, but still a smile.

“Heh. Well, I might have a quarrel with your terminology, but we all want a peaceful solution to this.”

“Do we.”

“Of course. No one seems to understand better than you what a waste of lives it is to resist authority this way,” True said. “I thought perhaps together we could convince our brothers and sisters to lay down their arms and reason together.”

“You mean surrender.”

“I mean resume the negotiations.”

“There are no negotiations to resume,” I replied. “You left. We are free.”

“Not so much, I would think,” True said. “We are here now. You need our authority to prevent chaos.”

“Let me make something clear, lieutenant, because you’re not in possession of your senses. Your authority is causing the chaos. There was no chaos here before your thugs landed their ships.”

“If you say so. You’re not seeing it from Earth’s perspective.”

“Earth’s perspective is that Sirius 4 belongs to Earth. One person does not own another. One planet of individuals does not possess another planet of individuals.”

“But individuals must work together.”

“Yes, sometimes they must to achieve common goals. Restoring Earth’s insane hold on the people of Sirius 4 is not a common goal. You’re laboring under a misunderstanding, True.”

“You advocate a nonviolent solution.”

“I advocate active noncooperation with your thuggery,” I shouted. It irritated me that I’d allowed my calm to break first. “Just because I don’t believe you deserve to die doesn’t mean I don’t believe you deserve to leave.” I paused to settle my emotions. “You’ll get no help from me, lieutenant. We won’t be interacting again until you’re off my planet.”

“Perhaps you’ll feel different about this inside a prison cell,” True said evenly.

I chuckled. “A wiser man than I once wrote, ‘the state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior strength.

“‘I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest,’” I said, pleased that a lifetime of studying Henry David Thoreau gave me the words to confront the precise thug.

Now it was Lt. True’s turn to let a long pause hang in the air. He did not give me the satisfaction of responding to my anger with an outburst of his own, but I did detect a twitch or two around the edges of his iron expression.

“Heh. Well. Thank you for your time, professor.” The screen went dark.

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Entry 62. Messengers of nonviolence

“Guy comes to me, his liver’s shot, his wife left him, he’s broke, I think his dog might have died, too,” John Hemlock said to general laughter. “He says, ‘Why would God do this to me?’ The thing is, I said, God didn’t do anything to you, son, he’s only honoring the choices you made over the years. Your life is the product of the choices you make, moment by moment. You can hang on tight, or you can relax and turn the controls over to Jesus.”

Now, everyone knew where Johnny would be coming from, so those who chose to think about the religious themes took them seriously, and those who were not so sure took what he had to say that they could apply to their lives and left the rest to simmer. That’s what I mean when I say maybe Sirians are a special breed where this could work – most of us learned early to live and let live. We have no special need to convert other people to our way of thinking, as long as they don’t try to convert us to theirs. And in that way, John Hemlock is the perfect preacher for our planet. He does his share of converting but he doesn’t fuss for the lost souls who choose to stay lost – or those who get themselves found by other means.

My half of the talking didn’t touch on the supernatural, although once I added John’s “Love your neighbor as yourself” verbiage I guess it did have that undercurrent. I was not trying to win souls as much as minds when I said it: It simply makes sense looking at human nature that the way you treat others is reflected in the way they treat you.

“When you overthrow a violent regime violently, you only replace one violence with another,” I’d say. “If you want fundamental change, you must make fundamental changes in the way you approach the problem. A government or a society that solves its problems by killing or maiming its adversaries is not going to change minds – and changing minds is the only way to achieve the real goal: ending tyranny.”

The audiences had been growing, but they dropped off again after armed soldiers began to patrol the streets. One thing that can be said about violence is that it’s quicker, although not at all effective in the long run as we learned. Ramsey Sardonicus proved in Colorado that you can take a regime down in a hurry by ignoring it, but the people of Sirius 4 wanted to try taking the tyrants on their own terms first. The only time I resented that approach was when Lt. Joshua True tried turning my resistance to violence on its head.

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Entry 61. Hot coals of forgiveness

John Hemlock, more perhaps than any other living soul, understood that removing violence as an option didn’t mean surrendering.

“I get that you’re angry, I get that you want to lash out,” Johnny would tell our audiences. “But you got to get past that, you have to forgive your enemies – that’s the one path to true peace. I don’t mean what they used to call a kumbya peace, a false peace, I mean when you don’t stay up at night with a tummy ache because you hate your enemies so much.”

“What if they’ve killed your brother?” the skeptical would ask, and before the question could even echo off the wall, John would bark back: “Every man is your brother. It’s a family dispute.”

But then that huge face would soften into a whimsical smile. “If you’re having trouble with the forgiveness part, think of this: If you return hate and violence with love and generosity, it’ll drive them nuts. It’ll make them crazy if they think they can’t make you angry. It’ll be as good as dumping hot coals on their head, their brains will explode.” That would usually get people laughing a little, and then he’d add: “The really sweet part is that if you do that often enough and long enough, there really will come a day when they can’t make you angry. It’ll be second nature for you to give love and generosity to everyone, even the people who think they’re your enemies. You’re not treating them with love because it drives them crazy, you’re treating them with love because you love them. At first forgiveness doesn’t change anything except what’s inside you – but if you can stick it out and forgive and forgive and respond with love every time, eventually no one will even want to be your enemy in the first place.”

We made a good one-two punch, John and I, if I may make an analogy that involves a fighting image. He would come on and talk about loving your neighbors in a practical but theoretical sense, and I would extend the theory to the realities of the present day. I knew if we could convince people that nonviolence is the core of a stable but dynamic way of life, we could change the world.

That was why Buffalo’s choice to wage the war in the old-fashioned way – killing Earthians – shook me to the core: Because nonviolence is my core. If I couldn’t convince the woman closest to me that my tenets of common wealth would lead us to a better place, literally a common wealth, how would I convince anyone? I knew the question was silly, I knew my ideas were catching on with people, but I wanted more than anything for her to embrace the concept.

“You’re the one who says we’re each and every one of us unique, and that means we’re not going to see everything the same,” John reminded me. “She’ll come around in her own way, her own time. You guys are soulmates. Half of a soul can’t go one way and the other half completely the other forever.”

“I’m talking about realizing that even Earthians are our neighbors, and she’s off to kill them. That’s pretty much opposite directions,” I said.

“She’ll come around,” he repeated. “You both have this passion for freedom. You’re both absolutely real and unique – like everyone else is, that’s what you say, right? The passion’s taking you different ways now, but you’re going to end up on the same page, I know that. You need to be together, there’s like an aura that surrounds the two of you when you’re together.”

“An aura.”

“Don’t you give me that look, Raymond, I’m telling you I see an aura. It lights you both up. You’re what you call ‘made for each other.’”

“That won’t help much if she gets herself killed,” I said ruefully.

“Hey, seems to me you’re both committed to dying for this cause if that’s what it takes,” John Hemlock said with a big smile. “Buffalo will take care of herself, and I’m here to take care of you.”

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Entry 60. Off to the war

“My father is descended from a famous singer around 400 years ago, near the middle of Earth’s 20th century,” Buffalo smiled at me over a glass of Beaujolais Ptolémée.

“I’ve heard of him,” I said. “Didn’t he write that old folk song, ‘If I Should Fall Behind’?”

“It’s possible. I probably should know more about him than I do, family ties and all, but I really don’t, it was so long ago,” she admitted. “And then my mother can trace her family back to another singer from around the same time, who once belonged to an ensemble called Buffalo Springfield.”

“What was his name?”

“You’d think I would remember. I’d have to ask Mom.”

“So your name is a 400-year-old musical pun,” I said, and she giggled shyly, which was completely out of character but made her adorable. “With a pedigree like that, I can see why you don’t want to shorten it.”

And that sort of chilled the moment. “No. I don’t want to shorten it.” As in, we’re not going to discuss that nickname any further.

“Have you ever heard any of the music your ancestors recorded?” I steered the conversation back on track.

“A little, not much,” she said. “It’s pretty dated, it’s quaint, but you know, it’s ancient music. And Earthian – hard to relate to.”

We finished the wine over laughter and more discussion of Earth music from centuries ago. And now, a few weeks later, she was standing at the door to my home with a rifle slung over her shoulder.

“I can leave it outside if you want,” she said awkwardly, indicating the gun.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” I said, ushering her in with a kiss on the cheek. “Just because I don’t use them on people personally doesn’t mean I object to their presence.”

She had been taking some training as a sniper, and it turned out she was a natural, a simple evolution from her hunting skills. She was anticipating that she would soon be sent out on the field to dispatch Earthians.

“I know you don’t approve,” she said slowly. “But I have to do this.”

I nodded. “You have to do what you think is the right thing, Buffalo. It’s not what I would do, but this is your choice, your life.”

“We’re still, well, we’re still what we are, aren’t we?”

My Lord, the confusion in my soul over this. Everything in my being screamed that we were designed to be two halves of a whole, but how could I make a life with someone who rejected my most deeply held core belief? It felt like a choice between tearing out my heart or cutting off my head.

After a few moments of trying to form something to say, I finally managed, “Let’s get this revolution out of the way, and then we’ll see where we stand.”

That was where we agreed to leave it. A few minutes later she went off to kill Earthians, and I retreated to the darkest loneliness I’ve ever known.

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Entry 59. Twelve dreams finished

Numbers dehumanize. It is one thing to talk about a dozen Earthian soldiers ambushed and killed; it is quite another to tell each man and woman’s individual story. For that is who died that day – not 12 soldiers but 12 ongoing dreams.

You want numbers? Those 12 people had spent a total of 281 years getting to that day. From the challenge of learning to walk to the joy and heartbreak of their first love, they each had accumulated at least two decades of life experience, working their way toward adulthood painstakingly. Some were married, three had known the joy of making new life but would not know the challenge of raising their children and watching them succeed and stumble.

All of them had ideas about where they wanted their lives to go; some had precise goals, some had a vague vision. Like most people, they wanted to make a difference, and they did make a difference – that was clear to all of the hundreds of people who were affected by their sudden and early deaths.

But they did not make the difference that Lt. Joshua True and his superiors intended. They did not convince the people of Sirius 4 to accept the rule of Earth. Nor did their deaths do anything to convince True that Sirius 4 should remain independent. That was the central disagreement, wasn’t it? Instead the taking of lives made True that much more intransigent, more eager to punish the people of Sirius 4 for daring to breathe free.

None of us has 281 years to live the life we desire. Divide that number by 12, and it’s not near enough time.

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Entry 58. Sides are chosen

And so it was war. True was not going to sit by and let the natives blow up his troops. Curfews were set and a force was sent after the people considered most likely to have set the bomb. But the force was met by a greater one, and Lt. True lost more personnel – and so did the natives.

The eye-for-an-eye escalated. and it was not long before we had a full-fledged series of battles on our hands, with men, women and children dying and property being destroyed.

By the time my class met for the next time, the idea of noncooperation was well on its way to dying of neglect. Somewhat painful was the identity of the student who led the argument against me.

“What option do we have?” Buffalo Springsteen said, her eyes flashing but her voice betraying an almost apologetic tone. “When the tyrant invades your home, you have to repel him, and people will be hurt.”

“People will die,” another student said – I should have noticed who, but I didn’t.

“Yep, people will die, maybe some of us, maybe even me,” she said. “But that’s the price of freedom. That’s been the price of freedom through the ages.”

I value the right of disagreement, and so I love it when students listen to me carefully and form their own opinions anyway. But the applause that greeted Buffalo stung a little.

“Dying for a cause is a noble thing,” I said. “And defending yourself against a violent attack often requires a return of force. But going so far as to take lives is a very serious proposition.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” cried Carson McGillicudy. “They started this thing.”

“And with every death their will to finish it becomes more secure,” I said. “You may convince them to leave eventually, but they die and they fly away more convinced than ever that Sirius 4 should be an Earthian possession. And we have maintained the precedent that killing for a noble cause is acceptable. When does the cycle of violence stop?”

“‘When it’s kill or be killed, there must be a third alternative,’” Buffalo quoted me. “You said the alternative would present itself when the time comes. Well, time’s up, they’re killing people, they’re coming for us – what’s the third way?”

“I’ve told you – noncooperation. They can’t force a whole planet of individuals to recognize their authority if we choose not to.”

“What, just ignore them?” Carson said. “What do you do when a soldier sticks the barrel of a gun in your face and tells you to obey?”

“You refuse. You push the barrel aside and tell him no. You defend yourself if you must, but you stop short of killing him,” I said. “If he dies, he dies believing you were wrong, and his survivors will believe the same even more, and they’ll be back to punish you, and then your survivors will punish them and on and on. The only way to stop the cycle is to make your case without killing.”

“You have a great theory and maybe someday humanity will be ready for it, but this is not that day,” Buffalo Springsteen said, and her eyes had softened. “There’s a time for theories, and there’s a time for taking up arms. I’m taking up arms.”

I presume there was another burst of applause and more conversation before the class broke up, but my memory of that day ends there for the most part. When the flames of war are rising, the Great Cause is seen as more important than the concerns of a young couple, but that rarely softens the pain of separation. And in this case, I didn’t see how she and I could ever be the same.

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Entry 57. Roots of modern Sirius, part two

Such people as settled Sirius 4 did not need someone from Earth telling them how to live their lives; in fact they came to resent that the Earthian lawmakers’ belief that they had any insight into how to conduct business or pleasure on a different planet in a different solar system.

Oh, it’s true that some came expecting to follow a leader or perhaps even to be a leader, the latter believing themselves to be somewhat wiser than the rest of us. But dropping yourself and perhaps your family into a remote corner of the galaxy takes some amount of self-confidence, no matter how fast the trip is. It quickly became apparent that galactic pioneers had no need – indeed, no practical use – for the help or machinations of a distant government.

Freedom being something internal that we are born understanding, the farther anyone got from the notion that we need a government to assure our freedom, the more absurd the idea seemed to be.

A world filled with sovereign individuals could get along just fine without organizing a sovereign collective, as we learned just as soon as we agreed to set the government out of our way.

Still, as humans seem wont to do, many tried the bloody path that had been tried so often before stumbling onto the alternative.

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Entry 56. Roots of modern Sirius, part one

The first humans to walk on Sirius 4 were Cassidy Aziz-Portis and Gabriel Portis. They zipped over to the Sirius system from Earth to do some basic research on the atmosphere and natural resources. A quick survey of the third through sixth planets confirmed what spectrometry had determined: Only Sirius 4 had atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen in sufficient quantities to sustain life as we know it; with a little tweaking people could be living without imported sources of oxygen within a decade or so after a few oxygen-nitrogen generators were constructed – and so they were.

The discovery of imaginary power changed everything, including the speed at which pioneers could put down roots in new territory. During the first three centuries of space exploration, decades might pass between the first humans to walk a path and the establishment of a settlement. Within a year after the Portises’ survey, the first generators were rearranging the air, the central core of Sirius 4 station has been erected, and people began choosing to make their lives here. That’s the power of the ImagDrive – when the length of your journey is measured in hours rather than years, it’s a little easier to get around. Nowadays I think people take it for granted, but in those days the galaxy seemed to be a distant and unreachable place.

Into that void came, for lack of a better word, a certain breed of person, who cheerfully cooperated with other people but understood that in the end, times would come when only they could be responsible for their very survival.

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Entry 55. Introduction

These 10 years later, I know for a fact the air is sweeter and cleaner. Intellectually, I also understand that is largely a function of the great oxygen-nitrogen generator on the shore of Lake Ptolemy, but I think as well that there is a taste of freedom in that air that no machine can manufacture.

Ten years have passed since there was a structure in place to confiscate people’s earnings under threat of force in order to fund what were described as necessary services. It was said we needed a government to do these things. And yet, 10 years later, the roads are still in good repair, refuse is still collected, the hungry are still fed, criminals are still punished, and people around Sirius 4 planet remain vigilant for signs of another Earthian attack, which to date has never come.

I have been asked to write down my recollections of those times to preserve them for history, while I still can. I am flattered and humbled that, it seems, many people believe I will go down in history for my contributions. More than just these 10 years of peace in our commonwealth will be needed to judge what whether that is justified. And as a historian myself, I know that I am already in the process of being reduced to a phrase: “Ray Kaliber said a few words that inspired the people of Sirius 4 to wage a nonviolent rebellion,” or “Ray Kaliber agitated the people of Sirius 4 to overthrow the sovereign government established after a hard-fought war to secure independence.”

Still, I also know that these superficial phrases – “Lincoln freed the slaves,” “Sardonicus established the Republic of Colorado” – only describe external actions, and history is about what happens inside the hearts of men and women. By writing a memoir, perhaps I can contribute to an understanding of the whys of Sirius 4 as well as the wherefores.

Who am I that anyone would care to read my recitation of those days? That’s a very good question, and I encourage your skepticism. Too often through the years we have attached disproportionate significance to one person or another, one source of information or another, when the truth is that each of us as individuals are as significant as any other. Don’t take my word for what happened; check out what others have to say. Read and listen to my old friend Badiah Sinclair; see what led my dear colleague Fred Masterson to act as he did, and how he changed his opinion.

I know, as well, that there is much curiosity about my beloved Buffalo. And that is another thing to remember about history: It was made by real men and women, who loved and struggled and had doubts about themselves and whether they were loving or being loved enough, and who also knew the comfort and joy of each other’s arms. And so I will tell the story of Ray Kaliber and Buffalo Springsteen to a point – the point at which we come to moments that belong only to her and to me. You are free to use your imagination, but I will not tell you whether you are imagining something that actually happened.

Freedom and the imagination have that in common: Their power is unlimited. When we tapped the power of the imagination to fuel starships and other machines that perform what once would be considered miracles, we advanced our freedom beyond the boundaries of Earth once and for all, just as centuries earlier, we found that exercising our inherent freedom breaks our imaginary shackles forever.

And so, here from my point of view is what happened to bring about the Commonwealth of Sirius 4.

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