On Democratizing Magic

On Democratizing Magic     

 

I propose ‘democratizing magic’ as a trope fit for several genres: superheroes, fantasy, science fiction. A story with this trope subverts and transforms its genre. A story democratizes magic this way:

1. There are magical superpowers, poorly understood, which a few wield to dominate the many. The superpowered fight among themselves, with collateral damage; more oppression for the normals.

2. A low-powered superhero, alienated by low rank, teams up with rich and/or smart normals to investigate the science of superpowers.

3. Montage sequence of labs, experiments, chalkboard scribblings, an ‘aha!’ moment, gizmos and tests. The team solves the superpower riddle through the power of technobabble.

4. They invent super-tech, which can give anybody superpowers. These superpowers include strength, invulnerability, shields, flight, levitation, telekinesis, telepathy, super-senses, and healing touch.

5. They finance mass-production of super-tech. It sells well. When the superheros and supervillains hear about this, they don’t like it. Only they, the elite, should have superpowers, for if everyone has superpowers, then they aren’t “super”. They stop their endless internal quarrels to focus on their real enemies: the People.

6. Conflict! Pow! Zap! At first the People lose ground, then they master their new powers, and push back.

7. Victory for the good guys! Superpower to the People!

8. A supervillain darkly hints that now that everyone has the powers, their troubles have just begun... cue the sequel teaser trailer!

          An example of a story democratizing magic is “The Psychohistorical Crisis”, a science-fiction novel by Donald Kingsbury. It is a tribute to Asimov’s “Foundation” trilogy. In the Foundation galaxy, the scientist Hari Seldon writes down the equations of “psychohistory”, a deterministic science of historical prediction. These equations have a flaw: Seldon’s Paradox, which states that any psychohistorical prediction, if known by the population being predicted, sets into motion psychohistorical forces that negate the prediction. The psychohistorians solve Seldon’s paradox by making psychohistory a cult secret.

          In Kingsbury’s tribute novel, the psychohistorians have long been in charge. This makes psychohistory itself the source of power; so inevitably forces arose, seeking to discover psychohistory’s secret equations. The outcast rebel psychohistorian Eron Osa finds a mentor, under whose protection he reformulates psychohistory as a probabilistic science of negotiation, knowable to all, and beneficial to all who know it. Seldon’s equations leak, galactic order starts to unravel, and Eron Osa challenges the psychohistorical old guard to a prediction contest. In the contest, the old methods predict inevitable galactic catastrophe. The book hints that the new methods will predict a galactic Golden Age for all who use its methods. There the book ends, on the cusp of psychohistory getting democratized.

          I would like to read many more stories democratizing magic. I think that the times call for such stories.

          For instance, if J.K.Rowling wanted to democratize Hogwarts magic, Hermoine’s the Witch to do it.

          Or in the Star Wars universe; I propose “Force of the People”. In it, midichlorians do indeed give you Force powers. A Jedi trainee runaway falls in with group of outcasts. They clone vats full of his midichlorians, and sell Force shots. The Jedi and the Sith hear of this, and don’t like it. Their Force troops advance at first, but then are pushed off-planet by the Force of the People. A Death Star shoots at the planet, whose collectively-raised Force Shield catches the blast and bounces it back at the Death Star, vaporizing it.

          Or in any superhero universe. Use your own characters. I envision a comic; its rebel low-rank superhero is Working Joe; he teams up with supervillain Dr. Diablo and tycoon Big Boss. Their respective superpowers are, respectively, super-productivity, evil-genius smarts, and tons of money. They invent and market the Adeledicnander Transmodulator, which gives its wearer Working Joe’s civilian superpowers. Their motives are varied. Big Boss is in it for the money; Dr. Diablo wants revenge on both superheros and supervillains; and Working Joe is in it because it’s the right thing to do. Each of them thinks the other two’s motivations are crazy, but none the less they cooperate enough to found the Transmodulator Corporation.

All of these formulas leave room for sequels. What happens to a world when everyone has superpowers? Law, politics, money, and customs; all must change. Any sequel exploring these will be a metaphor for our own struggles with technological change.

So the sequel world will not be in the same genre. No longer will a lone vigilante save the day: instead it will be a super-policier, with super-cops taking down super-crooks; then the super-judge must make a super-ruling setting a super-precedent.

Or it can be a super-worker’s stuggle. He can fly to work, then fly to the store, but the work doesn’t pay enough for what he wants from the store. So he joins a super-union, they have a super-strike, and after super-struggle, they get a super-raise. 

Or it can be a super-rom-com. Super-he gets super-klutzy courting super-she. After super-hijinks, the lovers reach super-bliss.

There are many other possibilities. The power to lift weights or fly or heal by touch won’t solve life’s problems; it’ll just raise the stakes.

         

 

 

Forbidden Documents, 4 of 4: Epilog: "Pieing the Veep"

      Epilog: “Pieing the Veep”

 

          Part 1. The Conspiracy

          “Vice‑President Torgesson must be pied!”

          The members of the Board nodded and all spoke at once, in a hubbub. The Chairman of the board glared around the room, then pounded his gavel. “Ladies and gentlemen, order please!” The members of the Select Adhocracy for Assassinations settled down. “Now you all know it as well as I do; the Vice is out of control, and needs to be stopped!”

          “Defcon alerts, states of emergency, classified information, covert actions, executive degrees...” the General grumbled. “That’s Presidential behavior!”

          “But ‑  assassination?” said Madame Senator. “Won’t that be... expensive?”

          The chairman nodded at the Banker, who said, “No problem. This operation has full corporate sponsorship.”

          “The media will get its cut, too,” said the chairman. “You’ll need to co‑ordinate with them through Ms. Armstrong here.” The banker and the anchorwoman nodded politely at each other.

          The General added, “We will attend to security matters. But we’ll need a diversionary force ‑ and also a witness crew to accompany my strike team.”

          The chairman said, “For the first, co‑ordinate with the peace demonstrators. Ms. Berkeley here will be your liason.” Another nod. “For the second, contact Armstrong.”

          Madame Senator commented, “Assassination is certainly a crime; and any crime requires motive, method, and opportunity. Torgesson’s record constitutes our motive. Now we have funding, coverage, muscle, and eyes. That constitutes method. Now all we need is an opportunity.”

          “Well put, Senator,” the chairman said.

          He pushed a button, then said into a grill, “Send him in.”

          The door to the room opened, letting in bright light. The members of the Select Adhocracy turned; squinting, they saw the silhouette of a man smoking a pipe.

          The chairman said, “Come in, Mr. Dobbs, come in. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. We have a little job for you...”

 

 

          Part 2. The Betrayal

 

          Vice President Torgesson stood in the Oval Office of the Black House. He stood straight and tense, hands gripping each other behind his back. He stood at the window of the Oval Office, staring out the window of the Oval Office, glaring out the Black House window at the raucous and chaotic demonstration booming outside the Black House gates.

          He asked, “Bob, why are they doing this to me?” He waved his hand at the demo. “Don’t they know all that I’ve done for them?”

          Mr. Dobbs approached. “They don’t, of course,” he soothed. “How could they?”

          “I suppose not. But still... look at that mob! How can they make so much noise, Bob?”

          “I think I see a rock band playing over there... and isn’t that a big‑screen TV?”

          “Bah! They treat it like a game, a party! But this is Government! We have serious work to do here, Bob!”

          “Just so,” said the Veep’s closest advisor. “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. There’s something they want you to know.”

          Torgesson turned and asked, “Who do you mean? And what?”

          “I mean Them,” said Bob Dobbs. “And as for what I mean...You’ve read the Unconstitution? Of course you have. You remember how it ends? ‘Throughout the long and painful history of humankind, it has been the invariable custom for politicians to resort to assassination during their corrupt power struggles...’ ”

          “Yes, I remember that part,” the Veep said, looking thoughtful.

          “ ‘...therefore, in the interest of civilization, let us acknowledge this custom, the better to administrate it in a humane and orderly fashion, with minimal loss of life.’ ”

          “Interesting,” said the Vice President. “Whom should we take out?”

          “You don’t understand,” said Bob. “This isn’t about them. It’s about you.”

          “What?!”

          “ ‘Since the state is a symbol based upon murder, let this state of anarchy be based upon symbolic murder’,” Bob continued.

          “They’re planning to assassinate me?”

          Bob nodded. “ ‘Therefore let it be customary, in this anarchy, that if any government officer were to be struck gently, firmly, and directly upon the face by a custard pie, before witnesses, then that officer shall be deemed officially assassinated.’ ”

          “A Custard Pie Assassination? For ME??!”

          “Yup,” said Bob.

          “This is an outrage! It’s... low farce!”

          “Better than high tragedy. ‘Other soft or liquid foods may substitute for the custard pie, provided that their impact be harmless and humiliating.’ ”

          “Why?!”

          “ ‘Officially assassinated persons shall be deemed dead in the eyes of the law. They shall be expelled from all offices in perpetuity; nor shall their official power, official finances, nor any other official roles be acknowledged by any serious persons in positions of authority.’ ”

          “A coup, is it!” Torgesson roared. He rushed to a window, looked out, and said, “They’re opening the gate!”

          “The guards have been bribed,” said Bob.

          The Veep rushed to the Oval Office desk, and yelled into a mike, “Security!”

          “Even the elite guards have been bribed,” said Bob, “or else detained.”

          “We’ve got to get away! We have a few minutes, maybe they won’t find us!”

          Bob shook his head, slowly. Then (slowly) he opened his jacket and removed a small electronic device. Its red light was blinking. “Radio locator device. It’s been running all this time. The pieman knows we’re right here.”

          Sudden pounding at the Oval Office door.

          “That should be him now,” said Bob.

          “You betrayed me!”

          “Yes. I too was bribed.”

          “How?!”

          “ ‘And let it also be customary that the assassinated officer be permitted by the people to escape from the assassination scene with life and limb intact.’ ”

          The Oval Office door burst open, and the strike team rushed in.

 

 

          Part Three. The Act.

 

          Torgesson attempted to flee, but was quickly caught and pinioned by four beefy linebackers. Cameramen and photographers closed in as he struggled to escape, in vain. Then, bringing up the rear, the Pieman came.

          The Pieman wore the traditional gorilla suit and bore the traditional custard pie. The newsmen parted before him. Some saluted.

          “How traditional! No cutting corners on this assassination!” Bob thought to himself as he turned his back and thoughtfully puffed on his pipe. Outside the 50‑foot TV was showing a live shot of the action. “Live network coverage!” Bob mused.

          From behind him Bob heard the splat of pie hitting face.

          The crowd roared.

 

 

 

 

Forbidden Documents, 3 of 4: the Declaration of Wrongs

          The Declaration of Wrongs

 

          Every government is a spectacle; that is, an organized sham, a system of false metaphors displacing reality, a lie justifying the crimes of power elites. Thus it is a revolutionary act to shout "Theater!" in the middle of a crowded fire.

          The state's biggest lie is its threat of using limitless force to impose its will; but the people, in their natural liberty, possess certain inalienable rights which no state has the power to successfully abrogate.

          The most fundamental right of the people is the right to be wrong. The people have the absolute, infinite, unlimited, and inalienable right to err, sin, blunder, goof, and fuck up.

          And as a direct consequence, the people have the right:

                   to believe the wrong religions.

to speak the wrong words.
to print the wrong publications.
to communicate the wrong ideas.
to think the wrong thoughts.
to feel the wrong emotions.
to enjoy the wrong pleasures.
to take the wrong drugs.
to play the wrong music.
to visit the wrong places.
to love the wrong people.
to love them the wrong way.

          And in general, the people have the absolute and unmitigated right to experience the wrong experiences.

          The people even have the right to read this very document wrong! For in truth this Declaration is not intended to justify falsehood or wickedness in any way, shape, or form; rather instead its firmest intent is to uphold truth and justice by solidly grounding them in a foundation of liberty. Let it indeed be known that the right to be wrong implies both the right to be right, and the responsibility to be responsible!

          But it is an ineluctable tragedy of the human condition that liberty can never be fully separated from license; and therefore this limited anarchy may indeed, upon tragic occasion, become just such a chaotic catastrophe as it is depicted by its prudish detractors and its lunatic enthusiasts.

          Nonetheless such misunderstandings of this document's intent would all be entirely possible expressions of the people's natural rights.

          The people have the right to political error; which implies that the people have the absolute, infinite, unlimited, and inalienable right to revolution.

Therefore, the people have the right:

          to create money.
          to create militias.
          to create institutions.
          to create folkways.
          to create amenities.
          to create communities.

          In short, the people have the natural right to create alternative cultures and societies, designed to displace the old ways.

          Prudence, indeed, dictates this; for no sensible, free, and life-loving people will dare allow its posterity's liberty and happiness to remain at the mercy of the corruptible forms of any particular established culture.

 

          In addition to the above-mentioned rights is this:

          The people have the absolute and unmitigated right to commit any type of scandalous outrage, without fear of punishment, provided that they are not caught.

          In other words, we the people have the natural right to get away scot-free with mischief, whenever possible.

          For let it be known to all:

          This Declaration is not a dispensation of privileges by a victorious prince to a grateful peasantry; it is instead a defiant proclamation to a criminal gang (tactfully called a ‘‘government') of its utter impotence in the face of an assembly of free citizens superior to it in numbers, in powers, and in intellect.

         

 

 

Forbidden Documents, 1 of 4: The Bill of Particulars

           The Bill of Particulars


         When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve political bands which have restricted them, a decent respect for the opinions of humankind requires that they declare the causes which impel such a dissolution.

          We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all human beings are created equal; that we are endowed by nature with certain inalienable rights; that among these are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among the people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, founding it on such principles and organizing it in such form, as they deem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

          We the people have the right to revolution.

          Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that people are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

          But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce us to slavery under absolute despotism, it is our right, indeed it is our duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for our future security.

          Such has been the patient sufferance of this people; and such is now the necessity which constrains us to alter our former systems of government. The history of the Presidency of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having as direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the American people. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. Here is the bill of particulars:

Presidents have refused assent to laws most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

Presidents have erected a multitude of new offices, and sent forth swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out our substance.

Presidents have imposed onerous debts upon us, and enforced their repayment by inequitable taxation.
Presidents have systematically abrogated individual liberty in the name of national security.

Presidents have instituted a secret government whose funds, deeds, and hirelings are unchecked by custom, law, or ethics. In their arrogance they hold reason itself in contempt.

Presidents have authorized agents and tribunals with arbitrary powers.

Presidents have sold dangerous drugs to the people, while hypocritically enforcing draconian penalties against their use, in order to increase profits and expand authority.

Presidents have obstructed the administration of justice, by classifying information, by subjecting judicial appointees to political tests, and by silencing witnesses.

Presidents have rendered the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

Presidents have conspired with foreign tyrants to fabricate deceptions injurious to us.

Presidents have abolished habeas corpus, and with it, the rule of law.

Presidents have lied to Congress to start wars of aggression; they have tortured; they have massacred; they have committed war crimes without number.

Presidents have waged wars and contracted alliances repugnant to the people, thereby founding an American empire unparalleled in its arrogance, brutality and stupidity.

Presidents have quartered among us in time of peace large standing armies, and protected their officers, by mock trial, from punishment for any crimes which they may commit.

Presidents have excited domestic and foreign insurgencies against us, and have endeavored to bring on the merciless fundamentalists, whose known rule of warfare is the indiscriminate destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

Presidents have systematically protected the rich from the poor, the strong from the weak, and the guilty from the innocent.

Presidents have usurped the Congressional power to declare war, by means of blitzkriegs, blank checks, quagmires, mission creep, permanent emergencies, and unilateral aggression.

Presidents have usurped the Congressional power of the purse, by means of black budget items.

Presidents have usurped the Congressional power to levy taxes, by means of covert, stand-alone, off-the-shelf criminal enterprises.

Presidents have stolen elections, violated rights, looted the treasury, and stained the national honor.

Presidents have committed bribery, burglary, theft, fraud, perjury, extortion, sabotage, torture, murder, treason, and many other high crimes and misdemeanors, without fear of impeachment.

Presidents have enforced religious laws; silenced free speech; censored the press; violently dispersed peaceful popular assemblies; suppressed petitions for redress of grievances; authorized arbitrary searches and seizures; imposed double jeopardy; compelled self-incrimination; taken life, liberty and property without due process of law; indicted secret accusations; exacted excessive fines; inflicted cruel and unusual punishments; usurped powers not delegated to them by the Constitution; and otherwise abridged the people's constitutional rights.

Presidents have accumulated vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, thereby imperiling the entire human race.

          At every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. An officer, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

          Nor have we been wanting in our attention to our ruling brethren. We have warned their legislatures from time to time of attempts to extend unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our Immigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

          They have proven to be deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which requires our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of humankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

          THEREFORE WE, the PEOPLE of AMERICA, do solemnly declare that we Americans are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT PEOPLE; that we are absolved from all allegiance to the office of the Presidency, and that all political connection between us and the secret government is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as a free and independent people we have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which INDEPENDENT people may of right do. AND for the support of this Declaration, we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

         

 

 

Discorporation, A Modest Proposal

      Discorporation

          A Modest Proposal

 

          WHEREAS:

          Under United States Federal Law, a Corporation is called a Person,

          AND WHEREAS:

          Under United States Federal Law, Persons found guilty of committing certain heinous crimes may incur the penalty of death,

          THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

          That under United States Federal Law, Corporations found guilty of committing certain heinous crimes may incur the penalty of death.

 

 

          Definition of Discorporation

 

          In Discorporation, the officers of the state force a Corporation to stop functioning. No human Person is to be harmed in any way, except in being deprived of a functioning relationship with the legally-deceased Corporation.

          In a Discorporation, the State shall:

          Repudiate the condemned Corporation’s franchise,

          Deny it all standing in any court of Law,

          Seize its assets, records and property,

          Halt its commercial activities,

          Close its production facilities,

          Dismiss its employees and managers,

Destroy, in public ceremony, a copy of the condemned Corporation’s identifying logo or symbol,

And declare the Corporation Legally Dead.

 

 

          First Dibs

 

          Discorporation is targeted at the criminal Corporation, not at those amongst its human servitors who are innocent of its crimes. Nonetheless, loss of corporate economic support can cause human hardship. To soften the blow, be it resolved that the first claimants to an executed Corporation’s assets shall be its innocent human servitors; each of whom shall receive one year’s worth of the Corporation’s median salary; or if that be impossible within the limits of the assets seized, all shall receive equal shares.

 

 

          Just Cause

 

          Corporations, being legal Persons, may be put to death for the same high crimes for which human Persons may be executed. These crimes include:

          Arson

          Kidnapping

          Murder

          Genocide

          Espionage

          and Treason.

 

 

          Critique of this Law

 

          A Discorporation is the fictional death of a fictional Person at the hands of the State; with violence, pretense and power thus woven into the very fabric of this instrument, it is clear that great evils may result from its misuse. Beware!

          The fundamental flaw of this law is that it may be applied to the wrong Corporations. In this imperfect world, such errors can and do often happen; and the death penalty, by nature, cannot be rescinded once imposed. Therefore this law, if accepted, will on occasion mean tragic and irremediable miscarriages of corporate justice; just like the death penalty for humans.

          Therefore doubt this law!

 

 

          Logical Conclusion

 

          BE IT HEREBY KNOWN

          that if

          Discorporation is not acceptable in the eyes of the law

          and if

          all persons are equal in the eyes of the law

          then either

          Coporations are not Persons in the eyes of the law

          or else

          the law does not accept death as a valid penalty.