And in the time of spring came the children, running through the streets as if possessed by warm swirling demons of light.
You would think after all we’d be through, they would sing an anthem of some sort – “We are the future, we are your tomorrow. Love your sons and daughters and protect us.”
But no, they just wanted to play, running and jumping and tussling as children have always done when the warmth returns to the world. They were barely aware – if they were aware at all – of the sea change that had occurred among the grownups.
They were the wisest of us all. I wanted to run and jump and tussle myself. Perhaps after the wound heals, I said. And I did, too.
Entry 31
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Entry 29. Change the question
Talking out how the Commonwealth of Sirius 4 could operate was a very interesting exercise – although not as interesting as living it out has proven to be.
We changed the question. No longer did we debate “Is this a proper function of government?” It became “Do you even need to establish a government to perform that function?” The more we talked, the more it became clear that in every case, every function, the answer was no.
With a general agreement in the Zero Aggression Principle, even keeping the peace did not require hiring a security force. Nor did it entail wild shootouts and what used to be called “lawlessness.” Informed and educated adults, it seems, have the ability to police themselves – a concept that defenders of the concept of government found astonishing.
One of the deepest and longest conversations we had was about having a “transition period.” Several respected senators argued that before you can reach the ideal of a society based on liberty and mutual respect, there must be a period of transformation where we are slowly weaned from the coercive government state to a condition of freedom.
“The inequitable advantage the haves gained over the have-nots through the years by the use of government force requires an in-between time where justice is done to these economic criminals,” Senator Gaylord McBride said, and with many eloquent words and arguments.
On the other side there was the matter of the tenets that I proposed we use as a supplement to the concept of zero aggression, starting with “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There was much resistance to the thought that our neighbors include our one-time enemies and oppressors. How can we forgive these people? I made a breakthrough when I pointed out that forgiveness carries no obligation to continue to do business with these people. No one is forced to buy their products or services anymore – the coercion is lifted.
In the end there was mutual agreement – we could not have proceeded without mutual agreement, of course, that was the whole idea – that the “haves” who gamed the coercive system had already received justice through the violent, imaginary revolution and the actual revolution that followed, and the “haves” who earned what they had by selling quality products and services to the rest of us had received justice by becoming wealthy.
This turned out to be an incentive for quite a number of people, who once manipulated the laws for their own purposes, to start making an honest living.
The “transition period” lasted a matter of days, if that. I was able to use the circumstances of my arrest and trial as a perfect example of what I was advocating.
My editors have intervened at this point. They have been patient as I jump back and forth in time writing this memoir, but they argue that expanding on my point about the trial would constitute a “spoiler,” giving away an essential detail about my life before the reader knows many other essential foundational and background details. I have argued that no one will be interested in reading my memoir who is not already familiar with my life, but I yield to their concern.
Entry 30. After winter
We changed the question. No longer did we debate “Is this a proper function of government?” It became “Do you even need to establish a government to perform that function?” The more we talked, the more it became clear that in every case, every function, the answer was no.
With a general agreement in the Zero Aggression Principle, even keeping the peace did not require hiring a security force. Nor did it entail wild shootouts and what used to be called “lawlessness.” Informed and educated adults, it seems, have the ability to police themselves – a concept that defenders of the concept of government found astonishing.
One of the deepest and longest conversations we had was about having a “transition period.” Several respected senators argued that before you can reach the ideal of a society based on liberty and mutual respect, there must be a period of transformation where we are slowly weaned from the coercive government state to a condition of freedom.
“The inequitable advantage the haves gained over the have-nots through the years by the use of government force requires an in-between time where justice is done to these economic criminals,” Senator Gaylord McBride said, and with many eloquent words and arguments.
On the other side there was the matter of the tenets that I proposed we use as a supplement to the concept of zero aggression, starting with “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There was much resistance to the thought that our neighbors include our one-time enemies and oppressors. How can we forgive these people? I made a breakthrough when I pointed out that forgiveness carries no obligation to continue to do business with these people. No one is forced to buy their products or services anymore – the coercion is lifted.
In the end there was mutual agreement – we could not have proceeded without mutual agreement, of course, that was the whole idea – that the “haves” who gamed the coercive system had already received justice through the violent, imaginary revolution and the actual revolution that followed, and the “haves” who earned what they had by selling quality products and services to the rest of us had received justice by becoming wealthy.
This turned out to be an incentive for quite a number of people, who once manipulated the laws for their own purposes, to start making an honest living.
The “transition period” lasted a matter of days, if that. I was able to use the circumstances of my arrest and trial as a perfect example of what I was advocating.
My editors have intervened at this point. They have been patient as I jump back and forth in time writing this memoir, but they argue that expanding on my point about the trial would constitute a “spoiler,” giving away an essential detail about my life before the reader knows many other essential foundational and background details. I have argued that no one will be interested in reading my memoir who is not already familiar with my life, but I yield to their concern.
Entry 30. After winter
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Entry 28. Licenses and fees
Ah yes, ImagCorp.
There are two ways to make a living, and one of them is the honest way: Make something or do something that benefits others to the level where they’re willing to pay you for it.
You can also force others to buy your product or service by convincing a government either to buy or to require citizens to buy. Or you can create an artifical shortage with government’s help – perhaps by taxing your product, or by making it illegal to perform your service without a government-issued license, for example.
ImagCorp’s leaders were geniuses at this. Once their researchers began to unlock the secrets of imaginary power – developing spaceships that traveled far faster than light, creating machines that could transform a cube of protein into a delicious meal – they worked hard to protect the technology from pesky entrepreneurs who might improve on their work and compete with them.
Hand in hand with the Earthian government, they manufactured reasons – usually for the sake of planetary security – why imaginary technology could not be shared with just anyone. If you wanted to make something or perform a service powered by the imagination, first you needed a license from the company, and then you needed a permit from the government – perhaps several licenses and permits the more complicated your project.
This ensured that the first beneficiaries of your labors were ImagCorp and the government, and it discouraged the most promising potential competitors by making it prohibitively expensive to develop their goods – all in the name of planetary security, of course.
When Imaginary Structures Inc. made plans to open a research, development and manufacturing facility in a small city called Ganges Pass, the Earthian government imposed the usual permits and ImagCorp sought the usual licenses. Because these expenses ate up fully two-thirds of the initial investment, Imaginary Structures could not build a structure, let alone open its doors. Oh, it had plenty of capital to get started – if only it didn’t have to pay the exhorbitant fees for the “right” to get started.
Shortly after Sirius 4 declared its independence, President Badiah Sinclair made a fateful decision.
“After more than a century and a half, imaginary technology is public knowledge and belongs in the public domain,” Sinclair declared. His government would not demand the onerous and expensive permits, and ImagCorp had no right to charge a fee for common technology. Not on free Sirius 4.
Imaginary Structures was making product within a month. In hindsight it’s probably surprising that Earth waited another 19 months to send an occupational force. No doubt ImagCorp was agitating for the invasion all that time.
Lt. Joshua True’s second act, after first securing the offices of Sirian government, was to lock down the Imaginary Structures complex. Ganges Pass was fated to become a symbol of both of our revolutions.
Entry 29. Change the question
There are two ways to make a living, and one of them is the honest way: Make something or do something that benefits others to the level where they’re willing to pay you for it.
You can also force others to buy your product or service by convincing a government either to buy or to require citizens to buy. Or you can create an artifical shortage with government’s help – perhaps by taxing your product, or by making it illegal to perform your service without a government-issued license, for example.
ImagCorp’s leaders were geniuses at this. Once their researchers began to unlock the secrets of imaginary power – developing spaceships that traveled far faster than light, creating machines that could transform a cube of protein into a delicious meal – they worked hard to protect the technology from pesky entrepreneurs who might improve on their work and compete with them.
Hand in hand with the Earthian government, they manufactured reasons – usually for the sake of planetary security – why imaginary technology could not be shared with just anyone. If you wanted to make something or perform a service powered by the imagination, first you needed a license from the company, and then you needed a permit from the government – perhaps several licenses and permits the more complicated your project.
This ensured that the first beneficiaries of your labors were ImagCorp and the government, and it discouraged the most promising potential competitors by making it prohibitively expensive to develop their goods – all in the name of planetary security, of course.
When Imaginary Structures Inc. made plans to open a research, development and manufacturing facility in a small city called Ganges Pass, the Earthian government imposed the usual permits and ImagCorp sought the usual licenses. Because these expenses ate up fully two-thirds of the initial investment, Imaginary Structures could not build a structure, let alone open its doors. Oh, it had plenty of capital to get started – if only it didn’t have to pay the exhorbitant fees for the “right” to get started.
Shortly after Sirius 4 declared its independence, President Badiah Sinclair made a fateful decision.
“After more than a century and a half, imaginary technology is public knowledge and belongs in the public domain,” Sinclair declared. His government would not demand the onerous and expensive permits, and ImagCorp had no right to charge a fee for common technology. Not on free Sirius 4.
Imaginary Structures was making product within a month. In hindsight it’s probably surprising that Earth waited another 19 months to send an occupational force. No doubt ImagCorp was agitating for the invasion all that time.
Lt. Joshua True’s second act, after first securing the offices of Sirian government, was to lock down the Imaginary Structures complex. Ganges Pass was fated to become a symbol of both of our revolutions.
Entry 29. Change the question
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Special entry: Independence Day
EDITOR’S NOTE: On this anniversary of an important Earthian event involving liberty, we present Ray Kaliber’s most famous speech, delivered in S4Y 147 on the occasion of the formal dissolution of the Sirian government and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Sirius 4. Kaliber’s memoirs, presented in the order in which he wrote them, will resume Thursday.
It is customary on giving a speech to open by listing all of the titles in the audience. You know, “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” or “members of Congress, senators, Supreme Court justices, distinguished guests and last but not least, citizens of this great nation.” Or some such.
And so let me begin with the only title that makes sense in this new commonwealth adventure that we embark upon today:
Friends.
Our planet has been through a few changes since it was first colonized these 147 years ago. The encampment became a settlement, and the settlement became an important base of operations for humanity’s exploration of the stars.
With the importance of the colony came a certain desire to control the colonists. But colonists by nature contain a certain will and independence, and we strained at the bit of governance. Just shy of a decade ago, long after the control became a tyranny too much to bear, the free and independent state of Sirius IV was declared, and we were forced into a revolution of blood to secure that freedom. My lifelong friend Badiah Sinclair was the leader of that revolution, and he was the natural choice to lead our new civilization.
However. A wise and ancient song about revolution concludes with the ominous words, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” As glorious and welcome as our newfound freedom was, the truth about violence is that it can only beget violence. Badi Sinclair led our new government the only way he understood how to govern: by force. An all-too-familiar pattern emerged: For the greater good, liberty had to be restrained. Somehow the fruits of those who rule for the greater good are not always, well, very good.
It was an imaginary revolution. All we had succeeded in doing was to install a new boss who was, in too many ways, the same as the old boss. We soon needed a new revolution, a revolution befitting the reality of Sirius IV: We are 8.6 light years away from the governments that rule Earth, and we need to be light years away from the violent tyrannies that have dominated over the centuries 8.6 light years away.
We had a chance to re-establish the ways that human beings interact, reflecting the independent and pioneering spirit that brought us here. We depend upon each other, but we respect and trust each other, too. The creed that I suggested has served us well so far — it led us to this moment, today — although I must concede that we have only just begun.
But let us embark on 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.
Love your neighbor. A simple concept that somehow remains revolutionary millenia after it was first said. Perhaps it’s because of the first corrolary of that concept: The person you consider your enemy is also your neighbor.
Way back on planet Earth, in the year 1886, a very wise man named Benjamin Tucker put it this way: “It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are, in Liberty’s hands, weapons more deadly to tyranny than any others that I uphold them, and it is because brute force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and authority are companions; peace and liberty are companions. The methods and necessities of war involve arbitrary discipline and dictatorship. So-called ‘war measures’ are almost always violations of rights. Even war for liberty is sure to breed the spirit of authority, with aftereffects unforeseen and incalculable.” And we saw that barely a year after our imaginary revolution was won.
So I suggest, in our new world, we throw off the shackles of war and authority over our neighbors. I propose we offer each other only love, peace and the liberty to be different from one another — making this offer even to our adversaries, even to those we have considered or may still consider to be our enemies.
If returning hatred with kindness still makes you uneasy even after the victory we won with our nonviolent revolution, think of what an ancient writer suggested: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals [of shame] on his head.” Your love will pain him more than your hatred ever would.
Don’t waste time rewarding hate with hate. If someone wants to hate you, well, fine, you have no control over that anyway — but you do have control over how you react to that hate. If you choose love, you shame your enemy and perhaps, perhaps, you turn an enemy into a friend someday.
Interact with love, not force or violence. You make no friends by force or violence; coercion can only silence your enemies, it will not convert them. A dead enemy, or a vanquished enemy staring at you with pure hatred and waiting for a chance to return violence with violence, is still an enemy. Only love can make a friend; it is that much more powerful than hate.
Give more than you receive. Bakers have always understood this. When someone asks for a dozen, the baker gives 13. When someone asks you for a favor, give two. The more you give, the more you will receive back, because it’s basic to our nature to want to return a kindness. But don’t give more because you expect something back; give more than you receive because you love your neighbor.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Interact with love, not force or violence. Give more than you receive.
I’m not telling you to do this. If I force you to abide by these tenets but you don’t believe them, it is just another imaginary revolution. I propose no new government to enforce these principles, because government is an instrument of force (the word is “enforce,” after all, isn’t it?)
Let’s build a world on these principles. I firmly believe this is the best and most proper way to ensure our common wealth in this incredible place where our great-grandparents sought to start a new corner of civilization in the universe.
This is the place where the great political orators would say something like “History will say this is the day when the Commonwealth of Sirius 4 took its first great step forward.” But although I am a historian by profession, I’m not terribly interested in history except not repeat its worst mistakes. I know I can’t control what future historians will say about this day, although I do hope they take note that it was a beautiful day filled with sunshine.
All that I can control are my own actions right here, and right now. And right here and now, I pledge that I will continue to live by these tenets. As sure as the three tenets of imaginary physics enabled us to travel vast distances faster than we ever believed possible, I think these three tenets will enable us to live and thrive more quickly than we imagined.
So I pledge I will love my neighbor as myself. I will interact with love. And I will give more than I receive. Let’s make that the foundation of our commonwealth.
Entry 28. Licenses and fees
It is customary on giving a speech to open by listing all of the titles in the audience. You know, “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” or “members of Congress, senators, Supreme Court justices, distinguished guests and last but not least, citizens of this great nation.” Or some such.
And so let me begin with the only title that makes sense in this new commonwealth adventure that we embark upon today:
Friends.
Our planet has been through a few changes since it was first colonized these 147 years ago. The encampment became a settlement, and the settlement became an important base of operations for humanity’s exploration of the stars.
With the importance of the colony came a certain desire to control the colonists. But colonists by nature contain a certain will and independence, and we strained at the bit of governance. Just shy of a decade ago, long after the control became a tyranny too much to bear, the free and independent state of Sirius IV was declared, and we were forced into a revolution of blood to secure that freedom. My lifelong friend Badiah Sinclair was the leader of that revolution, and he was the natural choice to lead our new civilization.
However. A wise and ancient song about revolution concludes with the ominous words, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” As glorious and welcome as our newfound freedom was, the truth about violence is that it can only beget violence. Badi Sinclair led our new government the only way he understood how to govern: by force. An all-too-familiar pattern emerged: For the greater good, liberty had to be restrained. Somehow the fruits of those who rule for the greater good are not always, well, very good.
It was an imaginary revolution. All we had succeeded in doing was to install a new boss who was, in too many ways, the same as the old boss. We soon needed a new revolution, a revolution befitting the reality of Sirius IV: We are 8.6 light years away from the governments that rule Earth, and we need to be light years away from the violent tyrannies that have dominated over the centuries 8.6 light years away.
We had a chance to re-establish the ways that human beings interact, reflecting the independent and pioneering spirit that brought us here. We depend upon each other, but we respect and trust each other, too. The creed that I suggested has served us well so far — it led us to this moment, today — although I must concede that we have only just begun.
But let us embark on 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.
Love your neighbor. A simple concept that somehow remains revolutionary millenia after it was first said. Perhaps it’s because of the first corrolary of that concept: The person you consider your enemy is also your neighbor.
Way back on planet Earth, in the year 1886, a very wise man named Benjamin Tucker put it this way: “It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are, in Liberty’s hands, weapons more deadly to tyranny than any others that I uphold them, and it is because brute force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and authority are companions; peace and liberty are companions. The methods and necessities of war involve arbitrary discipline and dictatorship. So-called ‘war measures’ are almost always violations of rights. Even war for liberty is sure to breed the spirit of authority, with aftereffects unforeseen and incalculable.” And we saw that barely a year after our imaginary revolution was won.
So I suggest, in our new world, we throw off the shackles of war and authority over our neighbors. I propose we offer each other only love, peace and the liberty to be different from one another — making this offer even to our adversaries, even to those we have considered or may still consider to be our enemies.
If returning hatred with kindness still makes you uneasy even after the victory we won with our nonviolent revolution, think of what an ancient writer suggested: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals [of shame] on his head.” Your love will pain him more than your hatred ever would.
Don’t waste time rewarding hate with hate. If someone wants to hate you, well, fine, you have no control over that anyway — but you do have control over how you react to that hate. If you choose love, you shame your enemy and perhaps, perhaps, you turn an enemy into a friend someday.
Interact with love, not force or violence. You make no friends by force or violence; coercion can only silence your enemies, it will not convert them. A dead enemy, or a vanquished enemy staring at you with pure hatred and waiting for a chance to return violence with violence, is still an enemy. Only love can make a friend; it is that much more powerful than hate.
Give more than you receive. Bakers have always understood this. When someone asks for a dozen, the baker gives 13. When someone asks you for a favor, give two. The more you give, the more you will receive back, because it’s basic to our nature to want to return a kindness. But don’t give more because you expect something back; give more than you receive because you love your neighbor.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Interact with love, not force or violence. Give more than you receive.
I’m not telling you to do this. If I force you to abide by these tenets but you don’t believe them, it is just another imaginary revolution. I propose no new government to enforce these principles, because government is an instrument of force (the word is “enforce,” after all, isn’t it?)
Let’s build a world on these principles. I firmly believe this is the best and most proper way to ensure our common wealth in this incredible place where our great-grandparents sought to start a new corner of civilization in the universe.
This is the place where the great political orators would say something like “History will say this is the day when the Commonwealth of Sirius 4 took its first great step forward.” But although I am a historian by profession, I’m not terribly interested in history except not repeat its worst mistakes. I know I can’t control what future historians will say about this day, although I do hope they take note that it was a beautiful day filled with sunshine.
All that I can control are my own actions right here, and right now. And right here and now, I pledge that I will continue to live by these tenets. As sure as the three tenets of imaginary physics enabled us to travel vast distances faster than we ever believed possible, I think these three tenets will enable us to live and thrive more quickly than we imagined.
So I pledge I will love my neighbor as myself. I will interact with love. And I will give more than I receive. Let’s make that the foundation of our commonwealth.
Entry 28. Licenses and fees
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Entry 27. Buffalo on the beach
I wrote two days ago of walking along the beach where Buffalo and I first kissed and spent many wonderful days together. I am aware that I haven’t yet recorded the circumstances of that first kiss.
It’s an odd tradition, this writing of memoirs. My public actions comprise the reason why anyone might care that I tell my life story, and yet the reader feels cheated if the memoir doesn’t delve into my private life.
Not that I don’t understand or acknowledge the connection. We are not compartmentalized machines; we are unique and whole individuals. The face we present in public is the same face that stares us in the mirror in the privacy of our homes; our soul does not change between public arena and private quarters.
I, Raymond Douglas Kaliber, would not be “The” Raymond Douglas Kaliber without the remarkable human being named Buffalo Springsteen, her insights and encouragement – as well as the many ways she touched my heart that will always remain private, obligation to the reader be damned, thank you.
But there came a time when the need to kiss those beautiful lips could no longer remain unfulfilled, and I love to share this part of our story, so:
A few weeks had gone by since the day she first said, “I’d love to,” before I’d had a chance to invite her out. Our times together had been stimulating and fun and challenging. This was not even the first time we had walked along that beach, but something felt different this day – different, and yet as familiar as my very life.
I often feel a special sense of peace along that beach near the oxygen generator. A vast machine designed to create just the right mix of oxygen and nitrogen to sustain human life, the imagination-fueled generator can have an intoxicating effect if you wander too close. Perhaps that is the biochemical explanation why I felt an inordinate joy walking next to this woman: The additional jolt of oxygen simply made me more receptive to the pheromones she was discharging in my direction.
Or perhaps it was the visual clues of the spark in her eyes or the glint of the red shining sun off her scarlet-tinged hair. Or the way she laughed at my feeble attempts at humor. Or the part of her lips.
Oh, we had kissed before – a little peck at the end of a day or evening together. But this moment, we wanted to drink of that wine more deeply. Something in the moment, the look in her eyes, what we had been saying to each other, just said, “Now.”
I’d love to tell you exactly what clever things we had been saying to each other that made the moment right. I’d love to explain how the tilt of her head gave me permission to let my lips linger and press harder against hers. Truth be told, the only thing I remember about the moment is the sense of certainty that this was the time when we were to become something other than teacher and student, something other than friends or colleagues, something more like one soul, one flesh.
And so it was. Everything changed in that moment, and yet everything had always been this way. I have no memory of living apart from Buffalo Springsteen, and yet I have plenty of memories from a time before that moment. It’s just I can no longer imagine a time when I was not a part of her, and she a part of me.
I never again needed to imagine what freedom feels like.
Special entry: Independence Day
It’s an odd tradition, this writing of memoirs. My public actions comprise the reason why anyone might care that I tell my life story, and yet the reader feels cheated if the memoir doesn’t delve into my private life.
Not that I don’t understand or acknowledge the connection. We are not compartmentalized machines; we are unique and whole individuals. The face we present in public is the same face that stares us in the mirror in the privacy of our homes; our soul does not change between public arena and private quarters.
I, Raymond Douglas Kaliber, would not be “The” Raymond Douglas Kaliber without the remarkable human being named Buffalo Springsteen, her insights and encouragement – as well as the many ways she touched my heart that will always remain private, obligation to the reader be damned, thank you.
But there came a time when the need to kiss those beautiful lips could no longer remain unfulfilled, and I love to share this part of our story, so:
A few weeks had gone by since the day she first said, “I’d love to,” before I’d had a chance to invite her out. Our times together had been stimulating and fun and challenging. This was not even the first time we had walked along that beach, but something felt different this day – different, and yet as familiar as my very life.
I often feel a special sense of peace along that beach near the oxygen generator. A vast machine designed to create just the right mix of oxygen and nitrogen to sustain human life, the imagination-fueled generator can have an intoxicating effect if you wander too close. Perhaps that is the biochemical explanation why I felt an inordinate joy walking next to this woman: The additional jolt of oxygen simply made me more receptive to the pheromones she was discharging in my direction.
Or perhaps it was the visual clues of the spark in her eyes or the glint of the red shining sun off her scarlet-tinged hair. Or the way she laughed at my feeble attempts at humor. Or the part of her lips.
Oh, we had kissed before – a little peck at the end of a day or evening together. But this moment, we wanted to drink of that wine more deeply. Something in the moment, the look in her eyes, what we had been saying to each other, just said, “Now.”
I’d love to tell you exactly what clever things we had been saying to each other that made the moment right. I’d love to explain how the tilt of her head gave me permission to let my lips linger and press harder against hers. Truth be told, the only thing I remember about the moment is the sense of certainty that this was the time when we were to become something other than teacher and student, something other than friends or colleagues, something more like one soul, one flesh.
And so it was. Everything changed in that moment, and yet everything had always been this way. I have no memory of living apart from Buffalo Springsteen, and yet I have plenty of memories from a time before that moment. It’s just I can no longer imagine a time when I was not a part of her, and she a part of me.
I never again needed to imagine what freedom feels like.
Special entry: Independence Day
Monday, July 2, 2012
Entry 26. The peacekeepers settle in
The ImagDrive enabled the colonization of Sirius 4 by making the voyage last not much longer than a summer day trip. You load up the kids and the car, drive for a few hours, and it seems like you’re in a whole different world. Same concept, only literally true.
Unfortunately, it also proved very convenient for sending an occupational force: Pack up the troops, the guns and enough ImagPro to manufacture a few meals, and you’ll be on Sirius 4 before the least patient soldier starts wondering, “Are we there yet?” From a tactical point of view, it’s the closest thing you can get to an element of surprise in this era of instant communication.
The people of Sirius 4 were caught completely off guard by the arrival of peacekeepers from Earth. I’m told President Badiah Sinclair stood proud and defiant as the command ship eased into its landing bay at the Sirius 4 airport.
And he stood in the way of the tall, compactly built soldier with steel-colored hair who was first to emerge from the ship.
“What is the meaning of this?” Badiah said with all of the outrage he could muster – and my old friend could muster quite a lot of outrage. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“Lt. Joshua True,” the tall, compactly built soldier said by way of introduction. His eyes pierced Sinclair’s matching intensity with intensity. “We are here to keep the peace. And I am here, specifically, to place you under arrest, Senator Sinclair.”
“His title is President Sinclair,” an aide blustered behind Badiah.
“There are no presidents here; the president of Sirius 4 is safe on Earth,” True snapped. “Your little game of independence is at an end.”
The steely voice matched the silver hair. True had been a cruelly efficient but anonymous Special Forces lieutenant who got the job done quietly and without fanfare. Now he was the well-known leader of the squad that had failed to stop the terrorists in time to save the moon from being dissolved.
That experience had made the man even more ruthless. At first we wondered why someone who had failed so spectacularly would immediately be put to work leading the occupation. We did not wonder long.
Lt. True would address the planet later that evening. Earth wished it had other alternatives than to send a military presence, but people were just not being reasonable these days. Light years away from Earth, from the roots of civilization, human beings needed a link to the traditional authority on which we depended to maintain order. The alternative was anarchy and chaos. This was not the American Wild West of Earth history; this was an outpost of humanity.
And from that moment on, Sirius 4 would resume its place as a proud outpost of the Earthian government.
At least, that was the plan.
Entry 27. Buffalo on the beach
Unfortunately, it also proved very convenient for sending an occupational force: Pack up the troops, the guns and enough ImagPro to manufacture a few meals, and you’ll be on Sirius 4 before the least patient soldier starts wondering, “Are we there yet?” From a tactical point of view, it’s the closest thing you can get to an element of surprise in this era of instant communication.
The people of Sirius 4 were caught completely off guard by the arrival of peacekeepers from Earth. I’m told President Badiah Sinclair stood proud and defiant as the command ship eased into its landing bay at the Sirius 4 airport.
And he stood in the way of the tall, compactly built soldier with steel-colored hair who was first to emerge from the ship.
“What is the meaning of this?” Badiah said with all of the outrage he could muster – and my old friend could muster quite a lot of outrage. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“Lt. Joshua True,” the tall, compactly built soldier said by way of introduction. His eyes pierced Sinclair’s matching intensity with intensity. “We are here to keep the peace. And I am here, specifically, to place you under arrest, Senator Sinclair.”
“His title is President Sinclair,” an aide blustered behind Badiah.
“There are no presidents here; the president of Sirius 4 is safe on Earth,” True snapped. “Your little game of independence is at an end.”
The steely voice matched the silver hair. True had been a cruelly efficient but anonymous Special Forces lieutenant who got the job done quietly and without fanfare. Now he was the well-known leader of the squad that had failed to stop the terrorists in time to save the moon from being dissolved.
That experience had made the man even more ruthless. At first we wondered why someone who had failed so spectacularly would immediately be put to work leading the occupation. We did not wonder long.
Lt. True would address the planet later that evening. Earth wished it had other alternatives than to send a military presence, but people were just not being reasonable these days. Light years away from Earth, from the roots of civilization, human beings needed a link to the traditional authority on which we depended to maintain order. The alternative was anarchy and chaos. This was not the American Wild West of Earth history; this was an outpost of humanity.
And from that moment on, Sirius 4 would resume its place as a proud outpost of the Earthian government.
At least, that was the plan.
Entry 27. Buffalo on the beach
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Entry 25. The day of the I-bomb
[EDITOR'S NOTE: To purchase a fictionalized account of the events told in this entry, click here.]
Earth’s moon, I’m told, just dissolved, quietly and without fanfare. It wasn’t the sudden burst of energy we have always associated with a bomb exploding; it just dismantled itself into dust. Then gravity and centrifugal force took over and Earth became the fifth planet in its solar system with rings.
We’ve often speculated what the official explanation would have been in the absence of the direct warning from the “terrorist” who set off the imaginary bomb. And we’ve often shuddered when we reflect on the original purpose the bomb was expected to serve.
We happened to be watching an ancient film on a feed from Earth that day when the stream was interrupted.
Instead of the conclusion to a 300-year-old movie, we saw an earnest-looking young man, later identified as Walter Ellis, walking down a corridor backwards and talking to us about, well, something unimaginable.
“We regret this interruption, but there is something the Earth must know,” he said, slowly but urgently. “Our governments, in cooperation with ImagCorp, have perfected the technology to create an imaginary bomb. This device is capable of more destruction than any weapon in our history. We who love peace have been unable to stop the development of this bomb by conventional means, so we’re forced to take desperate measures.
“Look to the moon, and let no one cover up the truth about what is about to happen,” he said. “Watch the moon, and when this is over, turn to peace from this day forward.”
And a short time later, the moon dissolved. We were told Ellis was a terrorist, killed in the process of setting off the imaginary bomb, and at least one of his accomplices had been arrested.
It came out sometime later that the original target was not the moon, that Ellis had stolen the ignition disk for the bomb from the government, and that the authorities intended to test the bomb on Sirius 5 as a warning to those of us who had declared independence.
The warning would be more terrifying than any terrorist could imagine: “We have the power to destroy your so-called independent world. Abandon your quixotic endeavor, or feel the power of the imaginary bomb.” Would the government and ImagCorp really take the next step of dissolving our home world, quietly and without fanfare? It seemed unthinkable.
But we had little time to think. Two days after the news of the Sirius 5 plot surfaced, the peacekeepers’ ships arrived.
I was walking with Buffalo on the same beach where I had formed the response to her challenge about my nonviolent creed, the same beach where we first kissed, the beach where the venerable old oxygen generator loomed in the distance. Until that moment it had always been a place of peaceful contemplation.
We noticed an odd and growing whine from the sky. Buffalo saw them first, and her face shaped itself into an expression that mingled surprise, anger, disgust and a few other emotions that weren’t immediately clear.
As if on cue, a huge space ship buzzed overhead, emblazoned with the insignia of the Earth government. And then another passed over, and another and another and another.
All we could do is stare grimly at the several dozen military interstellar transport vessels with their oddly inappropriate mosquito-like whines. As the last one passed overhead, I looked down and spat out the only word my mind could find.
“Bastards!”
Entry 26. The peacekeepers settle in
Earth’s moon, I’m told, just dissolved, quietly and without fanfare. It wasn’t the sudden burst of energy we have always associated with a bomb exploding; it just dismantled itself into dust. Then gravity and centrifugal force took over and Earth became the fifth planet in its solar system with rings.
We happened to be watching an ancient film on a feed from Earth that day when the stream was interrupted.
Instead of the conclusion to a 300-year-old movie, we saw an earnest-looking young man, later identified as Walter Ellis, walking down a corridor backwards and talking to us about, well, something unimaginable.
“We regret this interruption, but there is something the Earth must know,” he said, slowly but urgently. “Our governments, in cooperation with ImagCorp, have perfected the technology to create an imaginary bomb. This device is capable of more destruction than any weapon in our history. We who love peace have been unable to stop the development of this bomb by conventional means, so we’re forced to take desperate measures.
“Look to the moon, and let no one cover up the truth about what is about to happen,” he said. “Watch the moon, and when this is over, turn to peace from this day forward.”
And a short time later, the moon dissolved. We were told Ellis was a terrorist, killed in the process of setting off the imaginary bomb, and at least one of his accomplices had been arrested.
It came out sometime later that the original target was not the moon, that Ellis had stolen the ignition disk for the bomb from the government, and that the authorities intended to test the bomb on Sirius 5 as a warning to those of us who had declared independence.
The warning would be more terrifying than any terrorist could imagine: “We have the power to destroy your so-called independent world. Abandon your quixotic endeavor, or feel the power of the imaginary bomb.” Would the government and ImagCorp really take the next step of dissolving our home world, quietly and without fanfare? It seemed unthinkable.
But we had little time to think. Two days after the news of the Sirius 5 plot surfaced, the peacekeepers’ ships arrived.
I was walking with Buffalo on the same beach where I had formed the response to her challenge about my nonviolent creed, the same beach where we first kissed, the beach where the venerable old oxygen generator loomed in the distance. Until that moment it had always been a place of peaceful contemplation.
We noticed an odd and growing whine from the sky. Buffalo saw them first, and her face shaped itself into an expression that mingled surprise, anger, disgust and a few other emotions that weren’t immediately clear.
As if on cue, a huge space ship buzzed overhead, emblazoned with the insignia of the Earth government. And then another passed over, and another and another and another.
All we could do is stare grimly at the several dozen military interstellar transport vessels with their oddly inappropriate mosquito-like whines. As the last one passed overhead, I looked down and spat out the only word my mind could find.
“Bastards!”
Entry 26. The peacekeepers settle in
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