The Great Game 🔮 Baulis Prime
Rule 2.7
February 22, 2020
Between the terrifying pinnacles of the Great Temple of Baulis Prime, sextillions of parsecs from Earth, the fate of humans was once again being decided without their knowledge. The Select Committee of the High Council was presenting for approval a 3,000-page document titled Rule 2.7.
While the High Council was deciding the fate of Earth, the fate of the Baulian Empire was also being decided by the Great Assembly on the planet of Kollarum. The Assembly was itself being manipulated by the Vicinese Bright Council and the Fallarian Demon Priests. These were in turn being manipulated by five individuals: Talfar of Breen, the Demon Priest Knifestream, the Derelectan Dactalla, the Aatari spy Qayam, and the Fallarian ambassador Farenn de Caldemar. These individuals were, Fra Sole thought to himself as he shifted the Storminius Star Wall three degrees, among the two dozen Kraslikans who had a clue about what was going on.
Especially Farenn de Caldemar, who had contacts from Fallar Prime to Vincino Prossimo. These weren’t casual contacts, ones that might betray you were they to find a more convenient or lucrative contact. Rather, they were individuals Farenn had come to know, by chance or by design, but always in an authentic fashion. For Farenn the connection of friend-to-friend was more important than any mere contact could ever be. It should also be noted here that Farenn was also an intimate acquaintance of Rablanar the Mystic.
None of this however was known to the Baulian High Council members, who faced each other across the Sky Bridge between the peaks, a location they considered to be the physical and metaphorical pinnacle of known space.
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Over the last year the Select Committee had carefully considered the idea first articulated by Rablanar the Mystic. Rablanar was once Head of the Department of Mystical Fractology on Baulis Prime. Several dozen years ago however, he resigned from his post, muttering under his breath that the Department was full of visionless nerds. He then underwent the process of Baulomorphism so that he could get a deeper understanding of the planet Earth, and then spent three dozen years in the State of New York.
While the Select Committee was wary of Rablanar’s fractal theories, his ideas about Earth were not just intriguing, but offered an entirely new possibility for the Empire. In considering his 130-page argument, the Select Committee often stared deep into the violent and swirling depths of the Great Pink Sea which bordered the Great Temple on its northern side. Rablanar knew the symbolic power of the Pink Well, a power that was magnified since it wasn’t just an abstract concept, but was also a real living sea, one that lay at the feet of the Great Temple. The Pink Well was a constant reminder to the most powerful Baulians of where they came from. For this reason, Rablanar used the Well as the main metaphor of his argument, which he titled, Upcurrents of Pink.
After twelve months of working Rablanar’s plan every which way and that (drafting and discarding over fifty versions, all of which Rablanar thought were too wordy — one was 874,000 pages!), they finally agreed upon an abbreviated version of a final draft they called simply Rule 2.7.
As Rablanar stepped onto the titanium bridge between the two pinnacles, he knew that the congregated Baulians would vote Rule 2.7 into law. Whatever other virtues the Rule might have, the Baulians of the High Council would see it as a way to demonstrate to themselves the extent of their power.
Over the last two years the Baulians had completed their 17% Solution for Earth, along with the complete reorganization of the planet. The humans understood in no uncertain terms that there was no way they would ever be allowed to run their world again. And yet Rule 2.7 might add to this fait accompli an elegant twist, one that would give Baulians a sense of their own power, and would give humans the illusion of freedom.
Rablanar began his speech before the assembled gods of the Baulian pantheon: "Welcome Masters and Mystics of the Great Temple! We are here today to vote on the implementation of Rule 2.7. A full year has gone into the development of this Rule, which I am sure will give the Masters and Mystics an even greater authority and respect than they enjoy at present."
Rablanar's words were carefully chosen, and all the Mystics knew why. The Masters feared that the running of the Empire was so efficient that the Baulian citizens might start to take their technical expertise for granted, as if their industrial magic was an inherent quality in Baulian nature, and not the smooth work of subtle and powerful minds. By bringing up the notion that the Masters could be respected even more, Rablanar made them think that perhaps they weren't already respected enough.
Rablanar continued: "Having looked for inspiration in the Pink Well, the Select Committee found it in the chaos and violent struggle that made us the masters that we are."
Rablanar used the word "masters" advisedly, since he knew that the Masters held half the votes and were secretly anxious about their status as technicians. Although they were indispensable to the operations of the Baulian Empire, they couldn’t shake the feeling that the Mystics held some secret mystic power that their meters weren't able to measure, much less control.
The Masters had a classic superiority/inferiority complex: the more their accomplishments were lauded by the Mystics (who preferred to hide their brilliance and avoid all praise), the more they wondered what the Mystics really thought. They even wondered if their title, Masters, was in some way part of a game that the Mystics played at their expense.
The situation was exactly as Larry David portrayed it in Curb Your Enthusiasm, which was one of the few human television shows that made sense to the Masters. The civil authorities printed the names of the Masters in bold caps on The Wall of Success, just as in “The Anonymous Donor” episode the museum authorities put up Larry's name on the donor wall for all to see. Yet the Mystics had arranged it somehow so that instead of getting direct credit, their names on the Wall were replaced with "Anonymous." This was just what Ted Danson did in the TV episode, although the Mystics went one step further: they had the word “Anonymous” printed in small letters, in wobbly thin font that looked like it might topple over. The Mystics, like Ted Danson, had avoided overt praise while all the while garnering secret praise, implying all sorts of humble virtues, making sure that a select few blabbermouths would spread the truth about the anonymous donations.
It gave the Masters no small amount of angst to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, even though it was their favourite show. The reason for this is that Larry seldom triumphed. They couldn’t accept, yet couldn’t shake, the feeling that they were Larry, and that the Mystics were Ted. They couldn't watch the screen, yet nor could they look away from it. Slowly, and always with the best of intentions, making Larry look mean and selfish, Ted stole Larry's wife Cheryl from right under his nose.
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Rablanar continued: "By unleashing the same conditions that have allowed us to evolve into the most feared and respected power in the three universes, we hope through Rule 2.7 to reconnect with the source of our genius. We also hope to provide our joyous population with some first-class prime-time entertainment. Just as the Romans controlled their subjects with an elegant iron fist, so they also put on plays and games for the edification of the populace. We will do likewise with our own version of gladiator matches, watching human history play itself out on the floor of a planet-sized coliseum.
“In brief, we will allow the humans to go back to living the way they have always lived. Although they must not attempt to rebel against the Baulian Empire — nor defile the beauty of the planet or its wildlife — they will otherwise be free to do what they have always done: intrigue, build, fight, struggle, debate, love, kill, etc. They will have their precious political parties back and the weapons of press and army that they have used to manipulate and undermine each other for the last five thousand years.
“Our Baulian weapons are a thousand times more powerful than those of the humans, and a million times faster. So we needn’t worry about the situation getting out of our control. In any case, we are completely protected behind our pink electric fences, so even if they set off what they so dramatically call World War III, it will just seem like an extraordinary fireworks to us. We can even give back to the seven nations their nuclear arsenals, and allow other nations to build secret factories beneath the sand to threaten other nations with the new weapons they were juicing up to get revenge for the humiliation they had suffered at the hands of the pretentious so-called nuclear powers.
“Rule 2.7 will allow the humans to continue their lifestyles and their dirty little habits, which include holding their toy parliaments or electing their tinpot dictators to abuse their populations. All of the political and economic systems will be free to inflict whatever pain or pleasure they consider necessary, as long of course, that they don't interfere with the greater superstructure that allows the Baulians to control the overall show and to watch them like gladiators in a ring.
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Rablanar knew that his fellow Baulians wouldn't be able to resist the notion that they, by virtue of their own great generosity, might allow their subjects the illusion of controlling their own world. Every freedom the humans exercised would be proof of the benevolence and tolerance of their masters. The freedom they would allow the humans would also demonstrate the degree to which they could control even the most unruly and independent species.
On February 22, 2020 the High Council passed Rule 2.7 into law. The 27 billion Baulians on Earth were overjoyed. It would be infinitely amusing to watch the humans at it, like mad ants fighting for the dominion of a sand hill on a beach.
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Immediately upon the passing of Rule 2.7, the Americans reconstituted their unique system of government. The President once again wrestled with the Congress, who wrestled against the Senate, the members of which were so overjoyed that they had their jobs back that they immediately elected two senators from North Dakota and two senators from California. They then called a general election, in which an octogenarian president ran against a known criminal, with the aim of controlling a country whose Congress or Senate may well belong to either party.
Likewise, the Russians immediately exercised their version of democracy by extending the rule of their president for six more years. They called it the Special Parliamentary Operation, and in it Vladimir IV got 87% of the vote as well as the complete confidence of the Duma, which the American press sarcastically called the Mock Parliament. While the Americans were scheming against each other and making it impossible for the government to do anything, the Russians were busy taking over neighbouring countries and touting the efficiency of their Empire.
The Chinese, following the Russian model, voted in the same iron hand with unanimous approval, allowing the country to move swiftly as one megalithic power over any state or company that got in its way.
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The result of Rule 2.7 was a great sense of freedom and multicultural openness, for which the Baulians had recently taken a taste. How they loved to be called Benevolent Overlords, inclusive of those to whom they gave a stability beyond their dreams.
Yet beneath the surface the Baulian high strategists were turning Earth into a case study. Rule 2.7 showed, in vivid prime-time detail, why the Baulians ought to continue their expansion into the known universes. By giving agency to subjugated peoples, and by allowing them a sense of freedom, everything would go back to the animosity and chaos that existed prior to the Baulian intervention. At each stage of the decline into chaos, everyone in the three universes would be able to see what a mess species made of their so-called freedom. The high strategists were certain that they would soon plead the Overlords to take complete control and end the chaos of their own fractious world. The meaning of freedom itself would shift, away from chaos toward order.
So in the name of freedom, multiculturalism and tolerance the Baulians let the guerrillas back into the jungles and allowed the strongmen to once again twist the arms and crack the skulls of those who refused to submit.
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All the while the 27 billion Baulians on Earth had ringside seats. They could barely wait to get back home from work and see the advance of the jungle army toward Bogotá, to see if the Houthis managed to shower the passing boats with artillery shells, and to see if the American Congress gong show had managed to pass the recent military aid package.
And in distant universes, the Baulians and other alien races tuned in, often with admiration at the way the Baulian cinematographers and editors shape the narratives so that they were easy to follow yet intriguing and dense. Every evening they sat glued to their screens, watching as order nudged into chaos, chaos slipped back into order, and life itself balanced on the knife-edge of death.
Not least among these fans were the members of the Bright Council of the Golden Hill and the Demon Priests of the Black Horde.
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Next: ⭐️ The Crazy Diamond
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