Rediscovering Politics on New Euro
3rd month, 27th day, 3025 Christian Era.
“This job would be just fine if it weren’t for the fact that people are so darn hard to work with!” exclaimed Halo Jusol, Prime Minister of New Euro.
“People are people,” explained Hyacinth Indigo, his confidential secretary and advisor.
“Exactly,” replied Halo.
Halo Jusol, the 77th Prime minister of New Euro had been on the job exactly 15 days. Before that, he was the head of the Ministry of Engineering, the most important ministry on the planet. Before that he had been an engineer in the Ministry of Engineering, and before that, he had been an engineer in the private firm of Jusol and Jusol, his uncle and his father. He was a better engineer than either of his ancestors. He had managed to figure out how to make a stable form of ceramic “steel” suitable for use as a structural support. For the first time in the history of this planet without trees, without concrete, and without enough metal to make steel girders, buildings taller than three stories could be built. At 47, Jusol was something of a hero on the planet.
Hyacinth Indigo, a pretty fine inorganic chemist in her own right, had linked her career to Jusol’s while the two were working at the Jusol family firm. She was 15 years his senior, married to a civil engineer with three grown children. She was never interested in Jusol’s body, only his potential to fulfill her ambition for political power.
Indigo reminded
Jusol that they really did have to make appointments to the Ministries of
Agriculture and Building Inspections within the week. Further, six cousins and four nephews were
clamoring for an interview, presumably seeking a government appointment. The acting Secretary of Public Works, Harla
Yorgens, was still skeptical about the longevity of Jusol’s cerasteel girders
and was lobbying with the opposition to block appropriations for a new bridge
over the widest part of the
“Do I have to call Yorgens and make nice?” asked Jusol.
“Yes, you do,” replied Indigo.
“She’s a fool and a poor engineer. All she wants to do is to make political points. She really isn’t capable of doing the engineering to question the longevity of my cerasteel. She probably can’t find the first derivative of X2.”
“Careful, sir. That is a very impolitic thing to say.”
“Yes, yes, yes – I know,” sighed Jusol. “It just seems to me that the only real obstacle to bridging that river, and building proper office structures, is silly politics. I’ve run the simulations. It’ll last a lifetime.”
“So will your political opposition. Come now, let’s meet with your nephew Harlan Jusol and see what we can do to place him in some job in which he can do little harm,” cajoled Indigo.
“Yes, I can do that. Why don’t you get me the files on the short listed candidates for Agriculture to take back to my quarters tonight while I talk to the nimrod. Where were we thinking of putting him?”
“Personnel,” replied Indigo.
“Ah yes, this must be the nephew who used to squirt milk out of his nose at the dinner table. Send him in.”
* * *
Long after the
endless series of interviews, photo ops, and paperwork for the day was done,
Halo Jusol sat back in his overstuffed office chair and wondered about his
place in the universe. Here he was, at
the relatively young age of 47, in charge of a planet. Admittedly, it was a planet with no trees or
usable organic building materials at all.
When the first 200 colonists had arrived from
The first wooden houses had rotted within weeks of being built. It turned out that there was a very diverse and active micro fauna able to digest organic material of any kind. The inorganic chemists and the civil engineers among the colonists understood that they could not live in the ship forever and they got to work. They organized the 200 into work groups. Some were sent out to explore for minerals. Some were put to work in makeshift labs. Eventually, workable solutions to the problems of how to use native building materials were found. The government of the planet was started along the lines of how a lab in a university was managed.
A meritocracy was founded, with the prime minister being the best engineer on the planet. Jusol’s breakthrough in making a viable structural support member out of ceramics made him famous. Few prime ministers before him had built their career on this kind of society altering achievement. Of course, like many prime ministers before him, he was easily frustrated by the measurement error inherent in human behavior.
“It’s time to go home and go to sleep,” he thought. Like many professionals on the planet of New Euro he allowed himself little in the way of entertainment or luxuries. Working until late a night and then going home to go to sleep and rising early to start the cycle all over again was the norm. Halo Jusol was even more “normal” than most. He didn’t drink alcohol at all, did not use stimulating drinks – there was no coffee or tea or anything with caffeine in it on the planet, but synthetics were readily available – and ate only sparingly. He weighed no more than 75 kilos, despite standing over 190 centimeters tall. His only indulgence was choclat – a synthetic candy made from an indigenous root that tasted vaguely like chocolate. Even that he doled out to himself but sparingly.
* * *
3rd month, 28th day, 3025 Christian Era
Harla Yorgens was 75 and mad as hell that she was not chosen Prime Minister. She had risen to power 40 years ago on the basis of her work on the fixing of nuclear waste in ceramic blocks for storage. She had hit upon the idea of storing the cubes of waste in salt domes, created as a byproduct of the mining process. It was cheap and elegant all at the same time. During her stint in the Ministry of Engineering in her late 20s, she had developed the salt dome idea and shepherded the project through the parliament. There were now 20 Yorgens domes along the far coast of the continent, enough storage capacity to handle the planet’s radioactive waste for another 200 years.
She sat in the ergonomically
correct, hard chair in her office and grumbled aloud to herself, “I will not
let that idiot Jusol ruin this country.
We don’t need skyscrapers and we don’t need another bridge over the
“Talking to yourself, again,” interrupted her administrative assistant, Fabio Horvas, who had entered the room without Yorgens realizing it.
“Yes, all the best and brightest people do that,” replied Yorgens.
“I don’t,” said Horvas.
“Yes, darling, but I didn’t hire you for your brains.”
“Ouch.”
“It’s okay sweetie. Come here and help me figure out how to stop Jusol. If I am prime minister, you will also rise in status.”
Horvas came over to the desk and looked at the spread sheet on the screen. It contained a listing of the members of the parliament and their voting positions on the budget. He made sure he didn’t get to close to the old lady. Her appetites were all too familiar, and he was not in the mood today.
“Look, there are
100 seats and 38 of them are Conservatives who have been voting against
expanding the public works budget over the last two years. 21 are new.
35 are spendthrifts from Jusol’s Progressive Party, and 6 are Spiritualists
who only vote for statutes and churches.
Of the 21 newbies, 10 are from my Party and owe me for their
election. I only need to turn 3 more
votes in my favor to stop the bridge over the
“But, you can’t count on all 38 returning members of the conservatives. Three, Youta, Hrel, and Smidgall, have publicly said they will back Jusol on this one. They say the new PM deserves respect for his mandate,” replied Yorgens.
“Youta, Hrel, and Smidgall understand the situation well. If we can just delay a bit, they can be won over.”
“How?” asked Yorgens.
“Youta wants a new desalination plant in her district. Hrel still owes you favors from the time that you prevented the public from learning that he failed calculus in college on his first try, and Smidgall’s re-election campaign account is very low on funds.”
“I see. And how did you learn of these things?”
“I have my ways.”
“Most likely you had sex with people from their office staff to gain that information.”
“You are always perceptive, my boss,” smiled Horvas. “But, there is better news.”
“What news?”
“The Spiritualists want a cerasteel monument for their new church.”
“And Jusol plans to give it to them?” asked Yorgens with raised eyebrows.
“Jusol will do just about anything to publicize his breakthrough, including making a deal with the spiritualists.”
* * *
3rd month, 29th day, 3025 Christian Era
Indeed it was
true. Jusol was talking with the
despised Spiritualists delegation from the deep interior of the continent. Despite the near 700 year schism between the
engineers and the theists, Jusol was willing to talk to these 6 folks. He needed their votes to make sure that he
got his proposal to build the bridge over the
The Siritualists usually abstained in most votes in parliament, unless their votes were crucial to breaking a tie between the conservatives and the progressive wings of the government. They always exacted a price for their votes.
Prime ministers usually avoided contact with them, because to negotiate with them was a sign of political weakness. It was especially rare for a newly selected PM to resort to such a practice. To say the least, it was politically risky.
Together with his trusted advisor Indigo, Jusol sat at a cerasteel table with the 6 members of the Spiritualist delegation to parliament.
“Would you take wine?” Jusol asked.
“Yes, please. A little alcohol soothes the soul and freshens the mind for work,” answered Immanual Schmidt, the spokesperson for the group.
Indigo poured wine for all and stood behind her boss, waiting and listening.
“I am a blunt
man,” began Jusol. “You all know of my
desire to build a new and remarkable bridge across the
“Yes, we are aware of the disquiet in your soul over the future of cerasteel and we understand how it is linked to your political future,” replied Schmidt. There were knowing nods from around the table.
“Can we deal?” asked Jusol.
“We will submit plans for the new church and monument in New Chicago to your staff. After that, we will meet again,” replied Schmidt.
* * *
Later that evening, Jusol sat at his desk and mulled over the plans that had come through his link just an n hour before. He wondered how he would mange to keep all 46 of the members of his Party in line on this one. He knew that his 46 plus the six spiritualists would mean a majority with a very small margin to spare in the 100 seat parliament. He also knew that Youta, Hrel, and Smidgall from the conservatives would vote for him, if he could keep them away from Yorgens. He also knew that some of the members of his part were ardent secularists and hated the very idea of spending even one dime of public money on religion. If he could keep Youta, Hrel, and Smidgall, and not lose more than more than 5 of his own, he would win. If the vote was 50-50, he would cast the tie breaking vote, but that would be a sign of weakness. Coupled with his negotiations with the Spiritualists, which could not be hidden once the first vote was taken, it might cripple his rule and lead to calls for his ouster. If only people weren’t so damned difficult.
* * *
3rd month, 30th day, 3025 Christian Era
Jusol had barely risen and gotten dressed when his communicator summoned him. It was Indigo.
“I do not know how Yorgens did it, but he did it.” Indigo exclaimed.
“Did what?”
“Trumped you with a news story – a made up lying sack of shit news story!” Indigo was cleared mad.
“What does it say? Speak up and quit babbling and cursing.”
“It says, ‘Jusol Prays that Cerasteel Will Work,’” said Indigo.
“What?”
“Read it and call me back.”
Jusol called up the morning news sheet on his personal device. Surely enough, there was the headline. The story itself accused him of getting religion and relying on his faith in the Universal Spirit in building with cerasteel. It as much as accused him of not even doing the engineering. An unnamed government source was quoted as saying that Jusol had confided that the idea of cerasteel came to him in a dream. This was bad, very bad. No prime minister had ever been impeached, but it could happen to him. No prime minister had even been a Spiritualist, and outside of a group of communities in the interior that had been settled by Americans 300 years ago, no Spiritualist was ever elected to office.
It got worse. On the editorial page the next day was a five paragraph piece asking if he had lost his rationality. “If Jusol is a Spiritualist,” the writer had asked, “to whom will he answer in making the tough decisions, the god of science or the god of the Universal Spirit?”
Jusol and Indigo huddled together with their supporters to try to mount a counter attack, but they simply had no answer. The news media blitz continued unabated. Increasingly Yorgens of the Ministry of Interior was quoted as the voice of reason. Jusol and Indigo realized too late that she was somehow behind all of this. Jusol demanded her resignation, and she gave it, but under the Constitution, she was to serve until he made a replacement. She was only a holdover from the previous administration anyway and this earned him no traction with the public. He and Indigo simply did not understand what was being done to them.
The days passed as
Jusol was increasingly unable to get anything of his agenda accomplished. The members of his own Party sometimes voted
against him. Of course, there was no
budget allocation for the bridge over the
* * *
4th month, 17th day, 3025 Christian Era
Indigo let in the five members of the parliament. They were all from the capital and all loyal members of the Progressive Party. The most senior of them, Alberto Gonzeis, spoke for the all.
“It has come to this – there will be a vote of no confidence this very day. You will be forced out of the government. For the good of the Party, you must resign.”
“I will not,” replied Jusol.
“You will resign or you will be forced out of office in disgrace.”
“I am not a goddamned Spiritualist!” asserted Jusol.
“I know, old friend, but most of the planet does not think so,” interjected Juric Johannsen, a longtime ally of the Jusol family.
“I am not some fool that can be cast aside. I have a mandate.”
“Yorgens has done something called a scientific poll – based on a sampling process that seems quite orderly,” said Gonzeis. “It says that you are not trusted by most of the people on the planet.”
“No prime minister has ever been removed from office against their will. I will not be the first.”
“You will, I’m afraid,” answered Johannsen, softly.
“Is there no one who knows how to fight this? Indigo, surely there is a way.”
“I’m sorry, but if there is, no one here can see it.”
* * *
On the other side of town, in the offices of the Ministry of Public Works, Harla Yorgens sat down with Immanuel Schmidt just at the same time that Jusol was learning that his own political party had abandoned him.
“I sense great pride in you at this point in time,” Schmidt said. “Do not gloat. You have unleashed Pandora’s Box.”
“I am not familiar with that reference.”
“It is an old fable, a folk tale, a fairy tale.”
“Still, you make no sense,” replied Yorgens,
“I will explain, but it will take a minute. On old Earth, there is a legend some 3000 years old. While it is no longer believed to be true, it circulates still among the literate. The story is that a young woman knew that there was something wonderful and powerful in a box, but she was told never to open it because it would bring great power and great despair all at once. Being human and young, she could not resist and once opened, the box contained human misery that could not be contained. The old order could never be restored.
“The tools we have given you are very much like the powers of Pandora‘s box. They are intoxicating and tempting, and they have helped you, but they can be used against you and your party in the future. Never again will politics on New Euro be the same.”
“Where did you learn of these tools?” asked Yorgens. “We never knew of such things.”
“They were
commonly known and used in
“Tell me again how this all worked since we are to be joined together in one government. I do not wish to be the next victim and therefore must learn all I can in the short time I have left to rule as prime minister.”
“You are not yet PM, but you will be. We know how to mount an effective campaign and none of your opponents will know what we are doing. It will be easy, this time, but much harder in two years or so.”
“Tell me your reasoning that I gambled on so heavily, but only because my age makes it imperative that I be prime minister now, and not after a young Jusol rules for 30 or more years.”
“It is simple,
really. Jusol was weak because he was
new. He had not had time to learn how to
coerce without coercion. He had not yet
filled the government with his allies.
He thought, foolishly it seems now, that his engineering accomplishments
would be enough. Had he built that
bridge over the
“To keep his first efforts from succeeding, we relied on an old Italian named Machiavelli.”
“Who”
“Machiavelli, author of a sixteenth century book called The Prince. The basic concept is that deceit in the pursuit of power is acceptable. We conspired with and against him at the same time. We made it seem as though his bridge would get funded, but in the process, we made it possible for the beginnings of a media campaign to discredit him in the eyes of his own supporters.”
“And where did you learn about media campaigns?”
“From an early 21st
century American by the name of Karl Rove, who served his president much the
same as Hyacinth Indigo serves our Jusol.
Rove understood that perception is reality, and we simply created the
perception that Jusol was a Spiritualist.
Fear of religion that is not your own is easy to exploit. We learned that from the history of several
political campaigns on old Earth in 20th century
“And this thing you call a public opinion poll?” asked Yorgens.
“Ah, an engineer should never have forgotten that one. It is a simple matter of using a sampling procedure to gather data which can then be extrapolated to a larger population. It is much like sampling a large number of pieces of metal to get an idea of how quickly metal fatigue occurs.”
“Yes, I know how to do sampling, but who would have thought to apply that to people – the measurement error is so large and the opinion changes so much that such measurements are futile.”
“I did not say that the measurements had to be accurate. Remember, Machiavelli understood that perception is reality in politics,” concluded Schmidt.
“So, how long before the Progressives learn what happened to Jusol and how to use it against us.”
“Jusol is smart. He will figure it out within a few months. Consolidate your power quickly. You might even want to give him the task, in a year or so, of designing and building our new church and monument, after you have had the time make some meaningless alteration to his design so it is as much your idea as his. But remember, what you have done to Jusol will be remembered and will be done to you, and to every prime minister who comes after. Pandora’s Box is open and our society is forever changed. Some might say for the worse, but the Universal Spirit cares little for the affairs of our pitiful species.”
“Then why did you do this?” asked Yorgens.
“It pleased me to craft a great monument to the Universal Spirit. I will be remembered as the architect of it. Our interests coincided, nothing more.”
“The engineering accomplishment of Jusol mattered nothing to you?” asked Yorgens.
“Perhaps you missed my point. Perception is reality in politics. Comparing engineering with politics is mixing apples and oranges. I have given you tools to use to both of our benefits. Do so and do not worry so.
“Jusol also has his role to play and 100 years from now the engineering of today will not matter. 10 years from now, the Universal Spirit will be better able to work its will in the new political system that evolves out of all of this, and that does matter.”
“10 years from now, I will likely be dead,” replied Yorgens.
“That too, is determined by the Universal Spirit,” answered Schmidt.
The end