"I Like the Name" A Political Sci Fi Vignette.
I must admit, ladies and gentleman, I did not think it was
possible. After all, there were only five of us; Jaybee, Emem, the two brothers
and myself. We were sent to an alien planet, tasked with terraforming and
readying it for habitation by our people. Now, most things I can do with half my brain
tied behind my back, but this place was totally unsuitable for life. It was too
cold, had unbreathable air and was teeming with life-forms incompatible with
our needs. Worst of all, a sentient life form had evolved and taken over the
place! They were not primitive either, bristling with weapons, highly
aggressive and maybe even capable of reaching and destroying our planet!
Luckily, they were too divided, self-centered and violent to have even bothered
to look around this part of the galaxy and were completely unaware of our
overcrowded world and our need for new home.
Our imperfect but functional disguises worked pretty well.
The Brothers’ roles kept them out of public view, so other than rare occasions,
only head-shot photographs of them were seen. Jaybee and Emem had it the worst,
with much in-person contact with the locals. Despite one having a bit of a
coloring problem and the other’s look getting close to a lower order of
amphibian around the face, they were never suspected. I managed to mostly keep
my exposure to my voice, (and a lot of exposure it was) so my somewhat blobby
costume rarely came under scrutiny.
Job one, finance, belonged to The Brothers. Not
surprisingly, greed is the lever with which one can lift worlds. The Brothers
found an enormously wealthy but terminally ill man, whose ailment was one that
could be cured by our slightly more advanced technology, and struck a deal to
become his heirs in exchange for extending his life by a few decades. Using his
nest egg and significant leverage supplied by Jaybee and Emem, upon which I
will expound shortly, they embarked on a campaign of strategic
acquisition.
The Brothers had a unique bargaining advantage, while all
their competition maneuvered each transaction with the sole motivation of
profit, the Brothers only long term goal was control. If you structure a
business deal in such a way as the other side makes a lot of profit, you can
have any other consideration you desire and the other side does not even
notice. By the time our plans started to come to fruition, the brothers owned
or controlled nearly every important industry on the planet.
We found a fuel source whose consumption would result in a
slow, subtle warming of the hideously cold planet, and arranged for it to be
the least expensive energy source. Once again, greed was our true friend. When alternative energies were invented or
touted, the Brothers bought them, let the companies run for a little while and
then close them, proclaiming the methods to be impractical.
Many forms of vegetation existed that would be toxic to our
people or exuded gasses and chemicals that made the air nearly unbreathable to
us. A solution was needed, guess who was
our friend once again? That dear child named greed. Our companies bought food
production facilities and farms. We manipulated the food plants to create more
yield and so more profit for the farmers. Make the deal so they can have lots
of profit and anything else you want is no problem. We made the plants in such
a way that any seeds they produced were sterile, the farmers had to buy seeds
every year and could not produce their own seed, but they made lots of profit
so nary a peep of complaint was heard. Land had to be cleared and weeds removed
to grow food, which was a lot of work, so we fixed that. The crops were
designed so they were not effected by herbicides that killed all other plants,
farmers soaked all the land with the very reasonably priced herbicides we sold
them, so they could cover all the ground with crops and nothing else grew. Profits increased even more, the farmers
loved and praised Brothers and the companies they owned.
Eventually, some of the locals, (namely the ones that did
not greatly benefit from inexpensive plants and energy or get rich off it)
started to catch on. Governments proposed
laws that got in the way of our plans. We had anticipated this, so, using The
Brothers money, Jaybee and Emem got to work insinuating themselves into
powerful positions in the most powerful government around. Whenever laws were
proposed counter to our goals, those two
arranged for the legislators to receive large sums of money from The Brothers.
Not only did the legislators block any regulations that got in our way, but
they jumped right on the band wagon and continually passed laws that
facilitated our plans, and thease lawmakers were not even that expensive to
buy!
Of course, It is impossible to have infinite growth in a
finite system, so not everyone could be bribed with actual riches. That is where
I came in. My compatriots will have to admit, they could have never pulled it
off without yours truly. I seduced nearly all of the rest of the planet with
the PROMISE of wealth. My conniving voice assured them that they would be the
ones who would benefit from our movement. I convinced the people that our
naysayers wanted to take away their toys and vices, and told them the toys and
vices were their freedoms!
They Bought it! Hook, line and sinker, they manically
repeated my supposed truisms, chanted my catch phrases, adopted my slanderous
pet names for the brightest and most honest of their politicians and worshiped
our toadies as well as Jaybe and Emem, exactly the way I told them to. While
the masses starved, struggled and slaved, they simultaneously sympathized,
shouted and supported every aspect of our plan. Each one wholeheartedly
attending my voice, believing my words, embracing my assurances that they would
reap the benefits, they would be the ones on the top of the pyramid and soon
have the riches and luxury their greed told them they could not live without.
It really did not take long at all. Conspicuous consumption
of the cheap energy sources filled the atmosphere with carbon and the
temperature rose. The greedy farmers killed every plant except our patented,
certified, modified crops. Oxygen levels dropped and air filled with delicious
methane, nitrous oxide ozone and carbon dioxide. Since the government had been
convinced there was no need to label or regulate the food crops, the
inhabitants of this soon-to-be-our world had been eating poison filled food and
burning dirty fuels for decades. Soon they all had, diabetes, COPD and cancer,
but, the medicine was all owned by The Brothers corporations who told the world
the medicines were no longer effective or available. Then the supply of seeds
for food crops became suddenly unavailable too, and the current crops seeds
were all sterile. Every one of those dangerous, parasitic humans died before
their ( I mean our) planet made one more
trip around the sun.
And there you have it, perfect atmosphere, perfect
temperature and climate and no competition, our race could move right in and
enjoy the new Earth. We did it, The Brothers Charles and David, Senator
Mich (Emem), Speaker John (Jaybee) and
my self. I still think my role was the most important, even though the others
made fun of me because I could not come up with an Earth-normal sounding pseudonym
for myself, but I disagree, I LIKE the name Rush!
Chuck Hinton, 09/17/14
