- Merlyn
The Magician - Willpower, Manifestation, Illusions & Delusions
Folliet Bard is painfully bewildered.
Her head is pounding as she exits the Analytics Submarine. Mostly because of her hangover, but Ansley’s threat assessment didn’t help either.
“Did you understand any of that?” she asks Lunar.
“Apparently our strengths are also our weaknesses.” says Lunar. “He mentioned that a couple times. Or did he say our weaknesses are strengths? Does that mean Age of Sloth is powerfully lazy? No. To answer your question, I did not understand what Ansley was talking about.”
“Thank god. I thought it was a me problem. When is the stupid meeting?”
“Do you mean our strategy meeting about The Regime’s imminent loss of power?”
“Yeah, the stupid meeting.”
“It kicks off at midnight.”
“Excellent. I gotta find someplace to sleep. Or I will die.”
Bard heads to Operations. There are some very opulent sleeping quarters at the Plain Wrapper Building. The lads in OP will set her up in style. Unless she runs into their manager, Bronwyn. Then she’ll be caught listening to interminable tales of her twins, Kimothy and Timberly.
She gingerly stealths into the Operations Bridge. It’s very futuristic and faintly nautical. Neon, chrome, and rope. Ovals everywhere. Scores of nerds hammering away at huge, fancy computers. Moving assets. Or playing video games. Bard neither knows nor cares.
Some Phobics are building a huge hanging sculpture out of wire wrapped in lengths of raw linen. It’s not immediately obvious what it will be and Bard’s hangover forbids closer inspection. She’ll figure it out later. Or maybe it will be gone, because the Decorating Committee feels a maniacal drive to be useful, so art installations are often replaced as soon as they’re complete.
“I guess you’ve heard about the trouble at Boeing.” says a voice from behind her. “It’s so unfair how they are blaming it on my Timberly.”
Bard sags in defeat as Bronwyn starts defending her precious nepo-baby from accusations of corporate malfeasance. She’s older, with a librarian vibe that she undercuts by never shutting the fuck up. How did she manage to sneak up on Bard? And why? If she needs to vent, surely a therapist would be less likely to blow her away? The Plain Wrapper Building is half mental hospital. There’s like fifty therapists in the damn complex.
Bronwyn tortures Bard with oblivious social abrasion. The Machiavellians in operations watch with gleeful anticipation. Will Bronwyn’s acidic entitlement finally wear through Bard’s brittle self control? Bard sneers at their joy. Damn vultures. Smart tho. If the obvious solution wasn’t so loud, her hangover would demand death.
She tries to pierce the monologue. “That’s crazy. Can I get a room?”
“... and the news won’t shut up about it! Planes crash all the time! Why’s it such a big deal now? So I said…”
“Honestly, I don’t care if every plane crashes. Can I get a fucking room?”
“...and then Timberly went on the news and they made him cry! My little baby…”
“Isn’t he like forty seven? Can you hear me?”
“...and if that wasn’t enough, the damn door fell off…”
“So no luck on the room? Could I get something from the armory? Maybe a silencer?” Bard has never managed to find the armory in the sprawl of nonsense rooms.
We must find the armory.
Lunar barges into Operations. “Bronwyn, baby! I heard about the trouble at Boeing! How is Timberley? Tell me everything!”
The Machs groan as Lunar jumps into Bronwyn’s clutches. She can’t hurt him, he’s actually interested in other people. There’s a few boos. Bard ignores them and addresses the crowd.
“How many people do I need to kill to get a room?”
“Uhh…” the Machs look around. “...just Gary?”
“What!” Gary snaps to his feet. “Letmetakeyoutoaroomitwillbefasterthankillingme!”
“Nice. Lead on.”
Eight hours later, Bard wakes in the pyrex sex dungeon with a reasonable hangover. Pain level ambient. Nice. She sighs contentedly and takes in her surroundings. Were people watching her sleep? Has she abused their trust with her time wasting nap? She resolves to come back sometime with a date. Not Jake.
She suits up and returns to the Operations Bridge. It now sports a huge linen dragon, glowering malevolent from the ceiling. Also, has the entire Bridge moved? Changed shape? Or just opened? It now overlooks Mentor’s ultraviolet wasterland, like an imperial UFO hunched over a post-apocalyptic arena filled with flabby, sunburnt, accountants.
The stylized mimicry of a gladiatorial contest is so strong that Bard wonders if the naked analysts are going to fight. Then she sees that two squads of Operations Machs are hunting each other through the ruins of monolithic servers and their obsessive servants. Suits and pistols, but no blood. Are they shooting each other with tranquilizers? Paralytics? No. It’s gotta be some kind of pain serum. Bard sees a Mach get pegged. He jolts like he’s been electrocuted, then runs like he’s on fire. Round and round until he trips over a naked analyst.
The rest of the OP Machs are getting divided into squads by submarine officers, armed by Bronwyn, and lectured by Ansley. They’re sweating, suited, vibrating with nervous ecstasy. When one of their compatriots goes down writhing in agony they cheer and chant - plympy-gympy. Plympy-Gympy! PLYMPY-GYMPY!!
Merlyn cheers too. She’s kitted out in a toga miniskirt with electrum bracers, greaves, and circlet. Swilling wine like a late stage space emperor. Surely that’s not the real Lycurgus Cup.
The arena is a hothouse of emotion. PLYMPY-GYMPY!! Lunar pours Bard a goblet of wine. “What are they shooting at each other?”
“Plympy-Gympy. It’s an endreadener. Causes an intense feeling of impending doom. Apparently quite distressing,” explains Lunar. “Will you be competing today?”
The Machs get very quiet. They ignore Bard intensely. She swirls her wine in thought. She has no interest in performative violence, but feels a strong pull towards the endreadener.
We should drink it.
The Machs are getting increasingly agitated by her silence and trying desperately to hide it. Bard notices and rolls her eyes. Drinks. Wanders off to question Merlyn.
“I thought we were meeting to choose stupid ideas. Looks like we’ve already started.”
There’s anguished screams as two Machs heroically shoot each other.
“This is just an appetizer. A bit of stupid for the table. The big stupid is still cooking.” Merlyn smiles dementedly, gestures to the carnage with the Lycurgus Cup and a slosh of wine. “It’s all part of the process. The Regime's imminent loss of power is a Red Queen event. Puts the players on the clock. Realistically, they’re down to their last move before the entire situation changes. What you’re seeing here is a simulation of their options.”
“Really?”
“Kinda. Analytics calculate what options are available to the Wilders and the Normies. The options are then assigned to a team of Machs, whose numbers and ammunition represent the attractiveness and effectiveness of those options. Then they fight it out to see what options win. Get it?”
“I get that you’re using Machs as a random number generator. Is there not an easier way to do that?”
“Sure, but look at the fun they’re having!” She waves at the pain filled mayhem. “Some dogs must hunt.”
Perhaps so. The girls amuse themselves watching duels in the techno-wasterland. The fights are satisfying, but the results frustrate Bard. Apparently she’s not good at picking winners.
The Wilders represent the loosely allied, pan-continental group of billionaires and cronies who make up the Regime. Their goal is to seize all power and hold it forever. They’re all psychopaths, Machiavellians, or narcissists. Kinda like Merk, except instead of being anonymous and disciplined, they are overt and completely chaotic.
Their main opposition, the Normies, represent… society? Or something like it? Pretty much everyone who isn’t in power. They themselves aren’t normal - actually quite traumatized and weird - but they want normal things. Like food, shelter, freedom, love, and not being constantly fucked over by psychopaths.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Analytics simulates the Wilders with a small group of Merks with tons of ammo. The Normies are simulated by a much larger group of Merks with one or two shots each. So, the Normies end up with more manpower AND more ammo in total (though it’s spread over more people). Logically, they should win every fight.
Actually, they get slaughtered. Everytime.
Through the simulation, Bard watches the Wilders ignore every law so they can:
- Control, cancel, or invalidate the upcoming election.
- Cow the masses with a rogue army of ICE agents.
- Disappear their political opponents into warehouse concentration camps.
These strategies let them seize power forever.
And they work every time, because the Normies always try to counter by:
- Waiting for an election that isn't going to happen.
- Waiting for judges to enforce the law with armed forces they don't have.
- Waiting for somebody else to do something.
The simulations continue and another group of Normies gets mowed down waiting for help that isn’t coming.
“Well, this is hard to watch,” says Lunar. “Why are they just standing around until they get shot?”
“Great question.” Merlyn smiles. “Would anyone like to hazard a guess?”
“They’re not organized.” says Ansley.
“Are they scared?” asks Lunar.
“In a crisis,” says Bard. “What most people do is nothing.”
“Ding ding.” Merlyn points at Bard. “Full points for the pretty lady. It’s a training issue. No one has ever trained them to recognize and resist a fascist takeover, so they do nothing. I blame our schools. And the media, I guess. Society in general. We’ve actually trained the Normies to ignore problems and do nothing.
“Now admittedly, there are some obvious advantages to keeping your head down and letting others do your fighting for you. And it’s difficult to get a movement organized when fascist corporations control mainstream media. But that doesn’t excuse the current inertia, because:
- There’s still plenty of media screaming about what’s happening.
- There’s no one else fighting for the Normies.
“Also, you don’t need a mass movement or direct violence to topple The Regime. I could do it anonymously with, like, ten guys. It’s super frustrating that no one else sees that.”
“Really? How?”
“By poking pinholes in high pressure pipes. Let me set it up with the boys.” She waves to Ansley. “Giver for Operation Flute.”
Ansley chooses three Machs at random and loads them down with ammo. Then he gives the rest single syringes of plympy-gympy without pistols. Knives to a gun fight. Maybe overwhelming numbers will help?
As Ansley sets up the turkey shoot, Merlyn explains the metaphor to Bard.
“Civilization is a rungless ladder. We can always climb the ladder, to higher levels of complexity. But the rungs disappear behind us, so the only way down is to fall. ‘Cause we can’t go back to how we lived a hundred years ago. The horses are all gone and buggies can’t ship tonnage. Nobody remembers how to run a cotton gin. Can you whip up a megaton of chemical fertilizer? Because 7 billion humans can’t eat without it. Society collapses every thousand years or so, and it usually slides all the way back to the Stone Age. Google the Dark Ages or the Bronze Age Collapse.
“So if you want to destroy a country, you don’t have to wreck every rung of progress, you just have to crack the one we are currently standing on.”
Ansley blows a whistle and the Knife Machs mill around, waiting for someone to start the rush. The Gun Machs calmly gun them down until the mob scatters into the ruins. The altercation ends with three bemused gunmen surrounded by a couple dozen writhing bodies. They wait a beat, then shoot their squealing victims again. A waste of ammo, but true to their nature.
Bard turns back to Merlyn. “Alright. Which rung are we standing on?”
“Oil. We have many rungs above it, and could climb higher, but we definitely haven’t yet. All our farm equipment runs on it. And our entire transportation system. If we run out of diesel, we run out of food a week later.
“It’s also the lifeblood of our military. The US Armed Forces is the world’s biggest consumer of oil. They are completely useless without it. Planes no go. Which is ironic, because they get their oil through a ratsnest of 2.6 million miles of completely undefended pipelines.
“Destroying the US is as simple as poking small holes in these pipelines. Do it a half mile from large aquifers and important rivers - the ones that provide water to major cities. Because even a small amount of oil makes water undrinkable. You’ll shit out more than you take in.
“That’s why you can’t make the leaks too close to drinking water. People will notice and fix the leak. Maybe investigate and find your ass. It’s better to saturate miles of land next to the water. By the time they taste it, that water is fucked for years. If half the country loses its drinking water, nobody’s investigating anything ever again.”
The Gunmen are now sweeping the ruins, while the Knife Machs hustle from cover to cover, trying to stay ahead of them. One Knife Guy makes the tactically oblique move of stabbing his own teammate in the back. His screams agitate the rest of Knife Team and they all attack each other. Gun Team finally catches up to everyone already writhing on the ground. They shrug and start shooting each other.
Bard shakes her head. Other people and their emotions. She’s equally dismissive of Merlyn’s plan. “That won’t work. There must be some leak detection system. They’d notice a drop in pressure, or flow, or something.”
“Sure, but then what? If it’s one leak you can turn off the pipe and find it. What if every major pipeline is leaking? Will they turn off the military and the food supply so they can search a million mile pipe sprawl for the fuck knows how long? Absolutely not. What most people do in a crisis is nothing. And that’s what they’ll do as a hundred leaky pipes slowly destroy every major city. Don’t even get me started on what I could do with smallpox.”
Bard is thinking hard, then she shakes her head. “This is crazy. The Normies want to destroy the Regime that’s eating them. Not the cities they live in.”
“Well, destroying the US would authoritatively stop the Regime, but I see your point.” says Merlyn. “We’ll keep Operation Flute as an option for anyone threatened by the US. Maybe Greenland. I guess the Normies could wreck the pipelines, then move to Greenland.”
“You said you could do this anytime?” asks Lunar. “Do you have a big red button that blows oil pipelines?”
“Well, it’s more like a big red button that unleashes mentally unstable contractors with ten foot drills, but yes it would be fairly easy.”
Bard shakes her head. “Is this the kind of stuff you learned from The Secret Fraternity of Anonymous Like Minded Psychopaths?”
“Oh no, the Fraternity only destroys countries by accident. Usually by trying to extract more wealth than it actually has. Otherwise the group is very pro-civilization. They actually created the concept of society as a way to industrialize crime.
“The fraternity isn't about destruction, but control. Not through simple force, but with a hierarchy of obligation and reward where the victims are recruited to be their own oppressors.
“See, there are no supermen. No mighty warriors that can bend the masses to their will. Power is a game of numbers, organization, and goals. And that’s how you steal it too.
“The trick is to use proxy goals to create a cobweb of uneven trades where people are obligated to help you now, in return for a promised reward that never comes.
“That sounds more complicated than it is. Basically you keep throwing secondary goals in front of people until they forget what they wanted in the first place. Eventually they end up thinking they need another unpaid promotion before they're worthy of love.”
“And then you take over the world?” Bard is drunk.
“Kinda. Basically.” Merlyn is drunk too.
The gunmen have finally pegged each other. Ansley sends in the analysts to clear the area, but it’s a challenge. Some sort of doom threshold has been breached, and many of the Machs are back on their feet, stabbing at random with empty syringes. Screaming, laughing, weeping, and panting. High as fuck, no idea where they are. The Analysts try to shuffle them along with long handled brooms.
Bard shakes her head. “I don’t understand this Fraternity stuff. You gotta explain it again.”
“Sure. Okay. Speed recap.” Merlyn takes a deep breath. Waves to the Analysts. “All this math is just busywork. Because the game is unknowable. There are too many possible strategies to divine an outcome. Like your Snap game. That’s why it’s important to know what you want, and act accordingly, rather than just trying to win. You can achieve more by losing to plan, than by abandoning your goals to win.
“The Normies have the most numbers - hence the most power - but they’ve given it away for empty promises, because they’ve lost track of what they actually want.
“They could easily:
- Tax the rich,
- Build affordable housing,
- Work less and from home
- Demand better wages
- Throw all the criminal billionaires in jail
“But they won’t because that stuff requires communal decisions, and the meritocracy has taught them that community doesn’t exist and neoliberalism tells them that money can make better decisions than people. All reinforced by a political media class that presents this as our only option.
“So instead they:
- Chase any dollar they can, so they can buy their way out of the rut they’re stuck in.
- Collectively and compulsively suck everything dry for quick cash, inevitably making all of us poorer and more desperate.
“And thus we feast upon ourselves. Following the path laid out by The Secret Fraternity of Like Minded Anonymous Psychopaths. No longer do we whip our slaves, but teach them to exploit themselves. For a chance to be free, they ignore freedom to oppress themselves, bound by shackles of hope, fear, and greed. Ah, greed. Was there ever a better flaw in the human psyche? You are the sin that makes this all possible.”
Merlyn slams back the rest of her wine. Apparently that’s the end of her recap. Bard is still confused. ”But I want a simple life full of love too.”
“And you have it, with us.” Merlyn waves drunkenly at the opulent setting full of screaming sadists. “Okay, this isn’t a perfect example of simple love, but you tend to rip shit up, and that scares the Normies. At least here, you can be yourself.”
True.
Bard sighs and drinks.
Ansley stops blowing his whistle, giving up in disgust. The Machs are left tripping balls in the ruins. The naked analysts creep sheepishly among them, still focused on adding to Mentor. The meeting appears to be over. Ansley ambles over to the girls.
Bards turns back to Merlyn. “Alright. If control is the Fraternity's goal, to what end? What do we even want?”
“Drones for Blackwater.”
“Interesting goal.” says Ansley. “Glad something came out at this meeting. Did you figure out how they’ll try to stop us?”
“Who’s trying to stop us? The Normies and the Regime are both making money off us, or they think they are. And they don’t know who we are. Also, is there even a counter strategy to greed? Minimalism? Only taking what you need? But that’s, like, a virtue. And they can’t out perform a sin. It’s a systemic thing. Sins speak to a deeper part of the reward system.“
“What if there’s a competing sin?” Ansley waves a Tarot Card - Age of Sloth.
Merlyn snatches it out of his hand. Frowns as she reads it.
“Shit. This is a problem.”
Everyone Who Opposes MAGA Has Pinned Their Hopes On A Midterm Election That Is Not Going To Happen
Hi! How's it going? My name’s Zero, and I thought maybe we should have a little chat.
In real life I work on climate change solutions. Which sounds smarter than it is - I really just try to get buildings off natural gas and onto heat pumps. Nothing too fancy.
After 20 years of trying (and mostly failing) to curb carbon emissions, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on how well people can ignore oncoming catastrophes. I was wrong. They are way better at it than I thought. For instance:
There is ample evidence that The MAGA Regime is going to ignore the results of the Midterm elections so they can loot the country, terrorize its citizens, and stay in power forever.
The mechanics of how this will happen are still forming - you can check the news for today’s developments - but how it will end is crystal clear:
- Trump will not accept his loss in the Midterms.
- The DOJ will charge the actual winners with “crimes”.
- ICE will stuff those winners in never to be seen again.
- MAGA will loot the country for anything of value, and if anyone complains, they will also get stuffed in a concentration camp.
- Forever and ever. The end.
So! Big statement. Let’s break it down a little. Explore what it means through the following questions:
- Can this happen?
- Is it inevitable?
- What do we do now?
- Is Zero delusional?
Can this happen?
Absolutely. Small groups of violent people looting entire countries is the most common form of government. That’s how the royals did it. How the colonial powers did it. How the fascists did it. And how the US does it.
The US has been involved in . A few were to remove right bastards (like the Nazis), but most were to install dictators, so US corporations could steal everything from the natives.
Now we have the same operatives, doing the same playbook, only here at home. There is nothing special about it. There’s a bunch of Americans, who are very good at overthrowing democracies, and they do it often. The only difference is this time they’re playing at home rather than away.
Is it inevitable?
If we all sit around waiting on help that isn’t coming, then yes. The Midterms will accomplish absolutely fuck all. If that’s the big plan to save freedom, we are fucked.
Otherwise, we have options. There’s still only 30,000 ICE agents. Against a country of 300 million, mostly armed, lunatics. Mathematically, this coup should not work. Unfortunately, we have been trained to do nothing while the government does bad things, so it probably will.
In a crisis, what most people do is nothing.
What do we do now?
I’ve had enough of doing fucking nothing. Watching this slow ass catastrophe has become physically painful. I can’t stand this shit anymore.
We have 8 months till shit gets really bad. Maybe less, but no more. So we have 8 months to train the public to resist a dictatorship. A public that hates learning. And a dictatorship that’s already illegally deploying the most powerful army in human history.
Fantastic. Let’s get started.
We have 3 possible resistance options, depending on how many people get trained:
General Strike:
Our tax dollars are literally paying for the concentration camps we will die in and the bullets that will shoot us. The easiest, safest path of resistance is to stop going to work. Stock up on food, water, ammo, and don’t leave the house for any reason but fucking and fucking things up. Don’t pay rent, mortgage, taxes, car payments, bills, or anything. Don’t provide any work, for anybody, for any reason. Let the whole fucking country stop, until they throw the pedofiles in their own camps. They can’t make us all work at gunpoint - we have all the guns.
Obviously, this works best if lots of us join in. Striking by yourself is just moving into your mom’s basement. Still do that, because the alternative is helping fascists, but let’s try to get some numbers behind this plan.
Safe Haven:
Tell your state government to stop paying federal taxes, take control of the national guard, and make compacts with other like-minded states. Tell them to make plans for American refugees from other states. Ask what they’ll do if MAGA abducts their governor. Tell them to secede.
Ask Canada what it will do with millions of American refugees. Tell them they need a plan, cause they’re coming. Ask what they’ll do if MAGA abducts their Prime Minister. Tell them to buy some nukes of France. Tell them not to end up like Ukraine. Have the same conversation with Mexico. Get the neighbors ready for company.
The heart of this plan is an email campaign. We just need a couple thousand dollars, and a few dozen mailchimp accounts, to repeatedly blast every state, Canadian, and Mexican politician, as well as every journalist and anybody with a big social media following. Brute force viral marketing. Drag these questions into the light and make those fuckers answer.
Don’t Let ICE Take You:
If nobody else gets trained, and it’s just you against the fascists, fucking run. Grab the kids and the clothes you’re in and head to the fucking border. Don’t die waiting for help that ain’t coming. There’s 42 million refugees in the world, figure out how they did it, and don’t wait until half your family is dead.
Is Zero delusional?
Man, I wish. Here’s some supporting documentation:
If any part of this is delusional, it’s the part where I hide an anti-fascist training manual in a Royal Road novel. But you build with the tools you have, even if they’re rubber hammers. Royal Road is the only place where anyone reads my stuff. And it actually isn’t a bad place to reach people. The site has 46 million visitors a month, half of them American, and I’m only 10 to 15 good reviews away from hitting the front page. If you could help with that, that would be great, but not necessary. I’m gonna get there the shameful way by review swapping. 15 lucky LitRPG’s are about to get a lovely review from Doc Zero. Maybe some Otomes if I can swing it.
Otherwise, I’m gonna stop drinking, take some time off work, and finish this fucking book. Gotta add a side plot to make it long enough - something, something gangsters - may phone that part in.
During this, I’ll get a mailchimp account, so I can ask hard questions to hapless politicians, journalists, and (sigh) political influencers. I’ll post what I send in the author’s notes.
I’ve lost my fucking mind. See you on the other side.
Zero