"Excuse me, ma'am, would you happen to be Yue Just?" interrupted the civil servant, releasing his mule so he could go through his briefcase.
"I am going to eat the food in your pocket, and it up to you if I need to chew through your clothes to get it," said the mule. If Yue did not happen to speak mule she was going to get a lesson.
"Because if you are, I'm afraid to inform you that you may have been a victim of a fox crime," said the civil servant. His face was etched with every shape the weather knew how to inflict, shielded only by a large grey beard and a little twinkle in his eyes. "Here, I've got some pamphlets to bring you up to speed."
He held out a sheaf of brightly coloured pamphlets with titles like 'What is/was "Private Property" and why do foxgirls want it?', 'So Your Heart's Been Stolen: A Guide To Productively Channeling Your Vengeful Impulses', and 'Spankies: When, Why, And How Hard?'.
"Don't worry, if so you're not alone," said the civil servant, doing his best to try and get his mule back under control. "We're working on a fix."
*
You may be forgiven for thinking that the world of Sunshards was some sort of anarchist paradise - even a libertarian one. Aside from the battling Princesses and independent monastic orders there has been little sign of an organized society or government oversight. It may then surprise you to learn that this world is overseen by an all-powerful technocracy reigning from their Supreme Palace atop a mountain. There are no limits on their power, no constitution and no laws that bind them, and they wield this power constantly and tyrannically.
Let’s learn more.
The first prerequisite for a leadership position is to have held absolute power responsibly in the past. There are a range of possibilities for this - a forums administrator, for example, counts just as much as being a Princess, video game clan leader, Dungeon Master or ship captain. Often applicants who show promise within a limited area will be assigned another to see if their skills generalize: Yes you have successfully won the hearts and minds of a large crowd of unruly children and convinced them to play team sports, but can you effectively organize a group of senior academics? Leadership is considered its own independent skillset and path, and those who show the knack get moved around a lot between different areas to broaden their horizons.
The next requirement is to physically make it to the Supreme Palace. It is a solid day’s hike up a mountain, and everyone has to leave during New Years, so it’s a basic test of physical fitness that acts as a soft cap on the age of the Supreme Rulers. This is somewhat unfair to the physically disabled, but the mountain is the mountain.
The final requirement is to give up all material possessions. This is not a formal requirement as it is an imposition from the Department of Curses - see below. Hanfu are available at the check in.
After that - the Supreme Palace! It is surprisingly mid. A cluster of apartment buildings and squished townhouses, constant steep stone steps, indoor and outdoor forums, and clusters of vegetable gardens. There are beanbags and comfortable chairs, plenty of laptops and other electronic devices, and an admittedly fairly nice view. There is space for five thousand Supreme Rulers at a squish, though often it’s at half capacity or less. From the Palace you can see all of the civil service Departments surrounding the base of the mountain in beautiful, geometrically pleasing patterns - brutalist concrete and groves of rich green trees, far nicer than the quarters of the rulers themselves.
There are three large electronic billboards in the Grand Auditorium. The first is the chores rotation. There are no servants in the Supreme Palace, and nothing goes up or down the mountain if not carried by a Supreme Ruler, and so the masters of the world need to do everything themselves. The second billboard is a site map with various Issue Room locations marked. The final billboard is a big, updating display of the Forum.
The Forum is the true heart of the Supreme Palace; a creaking monument to pedantry and argument running on code written during the time of the dinosaurs. Throughout the various specialist threads the Supreme Rulers argue with each other ferociously but precisely, overseen by a specialist cadre of Moderators from the Department of Curses who punish poor argumentation with escalating probations and eventually, if necessary, bans. A ban is tantamount to exile, both the ultimate sanction and one that the Department is fearless about applying. It can be lifted, with effort and questing - or upgraded to a Permaban if sufficiently mishandled.
Much of the work of the Supreme Rulership occurs on the Forum. Constant argumentation in traditional forms drills down to parts of arguments where information is missing or reality is called upon to decide. When a gap in knowledge is identified, a group of at least three Supreme Rulers form an Investigative Group and depart the mountain. They collect however many civil servants as their fact finding mission requires and journey the land, investigating things in detail, before returning to the Supreme Palace with a vast trove of documents that serve as a foundation of objective truth. The debate may then continue with a basis in settled, evidentiary fact - and anyone attempting to engage in the debate required to educate themselves on the paperwork before contributing.
When it comes time to make a decision, it comes down to the Issue Rooms. Cramped cubicles with space for seven people and a table, the Issue Rooms are where final drafts of Edicts are drawn and examined. Then, as many Supreme Rulers as are so inclined either sign or dissent to the Edict. Only one signature is necessary - every Supreme Ruler has absolute authority to direct the civil service to do anything - but the weight of signatures vs dissents is used by the civil service to judge if a policy is to be pursued enthusiastically or guardedly. Surprisingly, there is almost no sign of political parties having developed - signing your name to something you do not personally understand is considered deeply risky.
So far, so normal. It could be argued that this was simply a reformed aristocracy as set down by Plato, as vulnerable to a slip towards oligarchic despotism as a thousand nations before it. The unique innovation to all of this, though, was the existence of the Department of Curses.
The Department of Curses is where the democratic element of governance comes in, the Yin to the Supreme Palace’s Yang. Not through voting, but through the expression of popular dissatisfaction. Any person can write in to the Department of Curses with a complaint - perhaps the water pipes in their city are old and poorly maintained, perhaps there is a plague of hateful ghosts, etc. The Department of Curses will investigate to see if the problem is a one-off or systemic - a single ghost they might be able to exorcise on sight and call the matter closed. But for a larger problem, the Department of Curses then turns its eye upon the Supreme Palace and fucks it up.
If roads are poorly maintained somewhere in the world then the Department of Curses will first issue notice to the Supreme Palace, and then if action is not taken they will destroy the Supreme Palace’s roads. If there is a plague of ghosts they will capture one such ghost and place it in the Supreme Palace. If an Edict has removed protections on private property then they will confiscate all private property from the Supreme Rulers and force them to subsist on communal property. Next to the Department of Curses is an artillery park, barrels constantly trained on the Supreme Palace. In the event that the rulers of the world decided a war was necessary the Department of Curses would immediately start shelling their building. Not so much that the work of government would be disrupted, but enough to give them a taste of what was happening at the front.
The Department of Curses also has a tendency to get extremely personal. They will often go after individual Supreme Rulers, and have license to continue to pursue Supreme Rulers into their retirement - which is the major factor preventing Supreme Rulers from forming political parties. If a majority is unnecessary for reform, and ineffective policy results in personal consequences, there's nothing more hazardous than putting your name on Edicts you do not entirely understand.
The Supreme Rulers then may act as they will. If resource constraints mean those ghosts must go un-banished, then they must endure the haunting wails along with the population. The Department of Curses cannot override the will of the rulers, but they can make them share in the irritations and miseries of the people. And so, the Supreme Palace cannot be grander than the lowest standard of the nation - and so, the Supreme Rulers work furiously to bring up the average because that will bring up the average of their accommodations as well. The fact that every Ruler has a roof over their head, all the food they need, is in good health and wears clean clothing is a point of pride.
Recruitment for the Department of Curses is unusual and mystical, but the basic requirement is that it is open to those who have hit rock bottom one way or another and rebuilt themselves. Recovered addicts, reformed jerks, evil Princesses (Princess Yin will be a shoe-in one day) - anyone who has ruined their life and subsequently built a new one can undergo the trials. Success gives them the task of tormenting the rulers of the world so they do not forget their place or the consequences of their actions.
Consider the overall effect to be Wikipedia pedants moderated by Tumblr freaks. Yin and yang, perfectly balanced.
Katherine!
Katana-wielding civil servants are rappelling down from the ceiling, justice in brown suits and ties. Amongst them, a Queen in golden armour surrounded by radiant mirror-images stands atop a piece of fallen masonry and gestures dramatically with her sword. It's a raid!
"Fox-daemons!" said the Queen. "You are under arrest for engaging in illegal market-based solutions! Seize them!"
A blue light blinked on nearby. A drone activated - that slimy voice, offset by a few seconds of communications lag. "Thank you officers. I can confirm that wide-scale money-laundering is taking place in order to try and wrest control of this critical piece of infrastructure."
"Oh?" said the Queen. "This is yours, is it?"
"Why yes!" said Adam, displaying a glittering array of share options. "As you can see, I and my subsidaries own a majority of stock outright, and I am furthermore acting as the chief executive officer."
"Oh, good show," said the Queen. "Thank you for your contribution."
"My contribution?"
"The space elevator," said the Queen. "It's ours now. Staff! Prepare the party!"
"What are you talking about? What party?"
A civil servant placed a large briefcase on the ground and opened it. Inside were party hats, shiny golden medals, and a really nice looking ice cream cake. "A party," said the Queen. "To thank you for your contributions to the world's prosperity."
"Oh? Thank you?"
There was one more tool in the box - a dread technomantic terminal carved from ruby and cinnabar, sheafed in protective plastic. A technician in a hazmat suit gingerly started typing into it.
And the holograms showing the shares started to glitch, melt, and disappear.
"You're welcome," said the Queen.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" shouted Adam's voice, amplified through a dozen loudspeakers.
"We are nationalizing this space elevator," said the Queen.
"You can't do that! On what grounds!?"
"On the grounds that it looks useful, and private ownership of useful infrastructure is illegal," said the Queen.
"But it's not yours! It's mine! I built it! What right do you have to take it away from me?"
"Did you?" said the Queen, surprised. "Build this?"
"My money paid for the contractors who built it!"
"Because I'm pretty sure this has been here for like five hundred years."
"I purchased the shares from the people who paid the contractors!"
"I'm confused," said the Queen. "So you didn't build it."
"The fact that someone like me might have bought it was an integral part in operating an economy that inspires risk-taking ventures of this scale and magnitude! You cannot build a space elevator without atemporal finance!"
"Oh, okay," said the Queen. Another sheaf of shares burned and evaporated into molten data.
"You will disincentivize future large scale infrastructure!" said Adam. "Your country will end up a basket case, caught in a middle income trap! Nobody will invest!"
"Got it," said the Queen. "So I'm getting the impression you don't want the cake, but do you want the medal...?"
"You are thieves!" roared the machine. "And worse than thieves, you are fools! Uneducated! Backwards! Burning your future! Destroying the future of civilization with your ridiculous little birthday party candles!"
"Sir," said the Queen. "I do not see any future for civilization if people like you are allowed to be in charge. Staff? Set the ticket price to zero, put it up on the noticeboard that there's a free space elevator for anyone who wants to use it, liquidate any technomantic assets and distribute them amongst the people, blow the party poppers and then let's blow this joint."
The lights of the space elevator blinked from blue to green. A new launch platform slid evenly into place.
PVG HEAVY ORBITAL ELEVATOR
LAUNCH FEE: NONE
RPM
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Phoe
Tatterdemalion
Mustang1907
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