Category: Farce

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

Across the table, the African leader was shown to a chair covered in some leather. He briefly saw the seat, a remarkably human-looking face stretched into an expression of shock and terror, before the African was seated, blocking the view. The arm rests were covered in arms, ending in all-too-realistic hands.

The speaker looked at the light, then touched below the front corner of the table when his movement took him there next. Had he deviated even slightly from his pattern to move there? The level of control of the meeting was astounding. The fact that a light bulb in the overhead had gone out seemed a phenomenal slip.
Why this seemingly minor loss of control should seem so significant can only be attributed to the madness being brought on by this endless meeting, stuck in a room with eleven remaining living victims, wondering how this possibly would end.
The squid in the fishbowl seemed to move its mantle in a tiny circular motion.
The door opened, and another functionary entered, as the speaker droned on about the topic of religion.

“Religion, for whatever reason, is among the oldest, most widespread, and ultimately challenging obstacles we face.
We do relish the challenge, however. Broadly, Oriental thought is significantly easier to work with. As long as the subject thinks the action is a karmic win, anything goes. Asian cultures, perhaps as a function of population density, seem to understand the need to succumb to our will more readily than others.
Occidental thought, not so much. These faiths that focus on indivduality and lack the refreshment of reincarnation seem to make people less mallable.
We have made much progress in modern times with high-yield explosives and through the use of literature that attacks the basic human instinct for self preservation.
Broadly, attacks on culture have been immensely successful.

In countries know as progressive and enlightened we have created a senseless, filthy, abominable literature.

That societal decay function, combined with our academic attacks, especially the social sciences, has been an effective wrecking ball for the Occidental spirit.”

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• Prev: XIII. Choke Chains
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by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The room was cold, with anemic fluorescent lighting. The sun was above the mountain, affording no heat through the window.

The meeting was a marathon of sorts. The speaker moved slowly, hypnotically back and forth. No sort of clock decorated the wall. The audience, shocked by the animation of the man they thought dead, and the ghoulish strangulation that followed, not to mention the squid in the fishbowl on the table looking at them with far, far too intelligent and malevolent eyes…
The calmness of the speakers words continued to grind down their sanity, as the growing storm of doom would grind down the world governments, and drive the world into the warm embrace of CTHULHU.
Some of the audience still seemed eager, thinking themselves to have much power in this new organization. I found myself casting my mind for a brief moment to those scoffed-at religious education classes, wondering whether a final answer would be known to me soon.
A fluorescent light bulb, like hope, wavered and died.

“We will offer continuous agitation: economic, military, legal, political, informational, social.
All of this agitation, like the noise and vibration of a long flight, will take its toll on our audience.
We can expect contingencies to arise, like rogue waves on the sea, nearly anywhere, anytime.
When that happens,

…immediately the press will distract the current thought towards new questions (have we not trained people always to be seeking something new?)

…

We are constantly making public declaration that we are guided in all our undertakings by the hope, joined to the conviction, that we are serving the common weal.

Other variations on this theme of claptrap include:
– Everything must support Progress!
– It’s the Right thing to do!
– Hope and Change!

Who will ever suspect then that all these peoples were stage-managed by us according to political plan which no one has so much as guessed at in the course of many centuries?

A conspiracy as vast as ours is unsustainable. Just ask us. We’ll cheerfully relate our failures to throw the opposition off track.”

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• Head: Intro
• Prev: XII. Re-engineering Freedom
• Next: XIV. Replacement Religion

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The third glance pulled it all together: a coffin, ringed by a dozen chairs, each its own horror story.

The door opened inward, but I could not see who was in the hallway. There was a man’s voice, but his mind sounded badly broken. “…glaciers…data…bastards…lost…hockey stick…” were some of the rantings.
The old man had made it near the door, and the voice retained at least one functioning eye, for there seemed to be recognition as the old body shambled forward, raising its arms to the gestures of the squid on the table.
“Mr. Buh-buh-buh-buh…thank god for a friendly face! Your sponsorship was so important, but you’ve got to save–wha-wha-NOOOOoooooo….” as the old man left the room, followed by the functionary, and the door shut.

“Freedom is the right to do that which the law allows.

Freedom of speech and press shall not in any wise exist in our novus ordo seculorum.

The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification. I beg you to note that among those making attacks on us will also be organs established by us, but they will attack exclusive points that we have pre-determined to alter.
Not a single announcement will reach the public without our control.

…

Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals.

The three ranks of media outlets shall be:

1. …organs of an official character
2. The media.
3. …our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the ery antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.

We, of course maintain our poker face.”

The room was nearly back to where it had begun, but the squid in the fishtank seemed larger still.

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• Next: XIII. Choke Chains

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The second glance revealed that it was not actually rectangular, but a hexagon, with vertices one third of the way along the surface, away from the wall screen marking the head. Also, it lacked legs, being full from top to floor.

The madness of the situation, of 11 live, 2 dead, 1 ambiguous person and a squid, in a cold cold room, listening to a lecture blending Machiavelli and Mephistopheles was nearly enough to snap my mind like dry tinder. Yet the only thing to do about it was write. Try to capture every insane detail.
The squid on the table, one tentacle looped over the lip, held two others out like arms. The bodies of the functionary and the old man slowly moved and pulled themselves up by the table with the most obscenely robotic movements.
The old man was clearly dead, the functionary still shrouded, and the speaker was going on about a global Constitution, while the two bodies shambled around the head of the table for the door, and the outside moanings got louder and more human.

“The general direction of all of the failures of the proletariat is upward.
As we have more global information, and more media control, we will increasingly flood the mob with information pointing to the fact that the world is falling apart, for all it really only has the narrowest deviation from historical mean, overall.
We exist to create apparent problems for which we are the most convenient solution. A natural analogue is a constrictor using every twitch from the prey to tighten the grip.
The local situation and government are a failure, so the State must fix it. The State is a failure, so the EU, Federal Government, regional hegemon, or the UN is the next stop. Above that level, of course, is us, shaking everything, at a medium pace, to keep power wafting up to us like so much smoke.
Each crisis makes some sliver of sovereignty a reasonable exchange,

…we shall keep promising them to give back all the liberties we have taken away as soon as we have quelled the enemies of peace and tamed all parties…

When? Three words: Real Soon Now. The Americans, I should note, may require a relatively more final solution than others.”

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• Prev: X. External Appearances
• Next: XII. Re-engineering Freedom

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

At first it appeared a table, that long, rectangular, gunmetal surface dominating the space.

The softness of the speaker’s voice was low enough that the breathing of three or four attendees, probably getting ready for medication of some sort, was noticeable.
Thus, a distant moaning from outside of the room, as of a beleaguered, cornered animal which knows it shan’t see another sunrise, but still unhappy about the pain separating it from final oblivion, started to interfere with the current topic.
The speaker was droning on about appearances, while the squid hooked a tentacle over the lip of the fishbowl to improve its vantage of the bodies on the floor.

“…bear in mind that governments and peoples are content in the political with outside appearnces.

Voting, and the political races leading up to the elections, shall be a crucial…

…in order to establish an absolute majority, which cannot be got from the educated propertied classes. In this way by inculcating in all a sense of self-importance, we shall destroy among the [proletariat] the importance of the family and its educational value and remove the possibility of individual mindes splitting off, for the mob, handled by us, will not let them come to the front nor even give them a hearing…

In order that our scheme may produce this result we shall arrange elections in favour of such presidents as have in their past some dark, undiscovered stain…then they will be trustworthy agents for the accomplishment of our plans out of fear of revelations and from the natural desire of everyone who has attained power, namely, the retention of the privileges, advantages and honour connected with the office of president.

You see why, for all the media must claim to serve truth, and schools must claim to be bias-free bastions of the free exchange of ideas, they must be anything but. The ignorance of the mob, both of history in general and of the backgrounds of leaders, is key to control.”

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by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

Retainers whisked the dozen to a long, narrow meeting room with a glass side facing Lake Totenkopf with a low table.

The squid in the fish bowl surveyed the room, making thoughtful rippling motions. No one wanted to pay attention to it, so they sat on their various torture chairs and paid even more attention to the speaker.
Having described the military, economic, and informational means by which the existing world governments would be ground down, the topic turned to the reeducation of humanity along improved lines.

“We have in our service persons of all opinions, of all doctrines, restorating monarchists, demagogues, socialists, communists, and utopian dreamers of every kind.

…

Division into fractional parties has given the into our hands, for, in order to carry on a contested struggle, one must have money, and the money is all in our hands.

…

We have got our hands into the administration of the law, into the conduct of elections, into the press, into the liberty of the person, but principally into education and training as being the corner stones of a free existence.
We have fooled, bemused and corrupted the youth of the [proletariat] by rearing them in principles and theories which are known to us to be false although it is by us that they have been inculcated.

Anthropogenic global warming, for example, has been a minor setback. That some twitch of conscience led to the disclosure, and some dying embers of leadership exist online is merely an annoyance.
The public figures whom we’ve lauded and awarded have lately been rendered more useless than usual, due to the weather. No matter. Our fell purpose both predated and shall survive them.”

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• Prev: VIII. Legal Ambiguity
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by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

So the figures, a dozen in all, silently entered Schloss Braunschlag, unsure of the protocol.

The door opened, and a functionary in a robe, face hidden in a deep hood, entered. The functionary carried a tray with a fishbowl, filled with water, and a glass, half full of water.
He walked around the head of the table and stood by the feet of the fallen man. The functionary placed the tray on the table, picked up the glass and knelt near the head of the old man. The man faced the table, eyes rolled up to stare at me at the far end of the table writing all of this, as he lay in death. Something odd in the man’s right nostril; a hint of motion. And the speaker continued.

“The legal system shall be among our premier tools.

We must search out in the very finest shades of expression and the knotty points of the lexicon of law justification for those cases where we shall have to pronounce judgements that might appear abnormally audacious and unjust, for it is important that these resolutions should seem to be the most exalted moral principles cast into legal form.

More will be elaborated later, but consider the son of an important political family. He is a wretched piece of human wreckage, moreso than most. He manages to kill a young girl. This is helpful news.
From a legal standpoint, we’ve an opportunity to demonstrate that equal protection before the law is a fine abstraction, at best. Those beholden to us will be more equal, every time.
Over the course of a career, he becomes a turd magnet. Each otherwise decent person whom we coerce into collaborating with our turd puppet becomes gradually dirtier.
In the end, even the most noble hater of capital punishment, contorted into a filthy knot supporting this wretch, shall find the homicide of the woman justifiable, for all he served us. We are moved in the direction of laughter.”

The functionary held the glass below the dead man’s nose, and a squid-like being pulled itself out, into the glass of water, with a ‘PLOP’!
The functionary then conveyed the little squid up to the fishbowl and quickly poured it into the larger vessel. As the functionary set the glass down on the tray, a bolt arced up from the surface of the water, and into the hood.
With an ionic ‘ZNIT’ sound, the functionary joined the old man in death. The squid in the fishbowl was visibly enlarged.

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by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The nature of the invitation to Schloss Braunschlag was such to rip the tongue out of a man’s head.

The fellow, seated across from me, near the front, with his back to the window overlooking Lake Totenkopf, started to come to his feet, beginning to raise his hand. His mouth opened, and he nearly uttered the first word in response to the reptilian tones of the speaker.
But all that came out of him was “Ugghh,” and he fell forward. There was a thump, oddly hollow in tone, as his forehead struck the apex of the table, where it deviated slightly from a pure rectangle to form a stretched hexagon.
No one moved to help the man as he lay there, head gashed dramatically, but oddly, without the sort of blood welling or flowing that should have occurred. The terror level in the audience intensified further. No one helped him. It was my job to write it all down. Why wasn’t anyone helping him?

“The intensification of armaments, the increase of police forces–are all essential for the completion of the aformentioned plans.

Our pen may be orders of magnitude more powerful than the sword, but, nevertheless, getting ventilated by a scimitar can slow even us.
When crises come, as needs they must, we shall not let them go to waste. They let us do things, with our inadvertent, sad purpose, you understand, that are otherwise impossible.
In particular, focus on crises as a means of identifying leadership, both on our side and theirs. Leave the blodletting to those below you; focus on the bigger, diabolical picture.
We hold the upper hand, but must not get cocky. Let the agitation of the moment cause the proletarian cream to rise to the top, that we may scrape it off.
More will be said later of the press, but understand that information is more important a lever of power than warheads on foreheads.
The what, where, when, why, and how, scope, public perception, and legal ramifications of brains decorating a wall are more significant for those remaining alive than the question of who just became famous.
Thus, our control of the media must remain absolute. All competing channels of information flow must be subverted or, if necessary, silenced.”

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