Act 1:

Once upon a time…

The world’s most powerful man achieved total domination over all the humans on Earth. He dominated the Earth by inheriting a system which his ancestors created which harnesses all the best thinkers and scientists to achieve the goals the King’s ancestors wanted them to discover. Thus, over millennia, they built Plato’s ideal state: one highly efficient at achieving whatever the (“Philosopher”) King (at the time) deems to be the most important goals. 

Over thousands of years of intergenerational efforts by his ancestors, they built for him weapons to defend against meteors and to control the Earth’s weather and: earthquakes, tsunamis, and all the threats of disaster that nature has inundated mankind with for millennia. But more than just subduing threats from nature, King Bogia’s ancestors — and his living servants — had invented technologies to indirectly control, and/or subtly manipulate, any human on the planet, i.e., anyone the King chooses to target: be they malicious criminals, or rebellious individualists who don’t want anyone influencing the exercise of their volition – their ego. 

Besides dominating nature and men, the King also charged his servants with inventing and perfecting life extension technologies. Thus quantitatively, the King has had hundreds of years of life – but what about the quality of his life? 

Act 2: 

One day, the King and his lieutenants, courtiers, jesters, scientists, spies, et al, are busy doing what they do each day, i.e., dominate organisms of all varieties, plus reshaping inanimate matter to serve the King’s purposes; and a very strange woman comes up on the radar of one of the King’s top servants. This woman is astoundingly beautiful, but so have been many of the women the King has seen in his hundreds of years of life. This is not what causes her to show up on the radar. She comes up as the Quantum computers have been set to ferret out “Who is Public Enemy Number One.” The King’s servant sounds the alarm and a meeting is called for all the King’s top lieutenants (who are all related to him). 

They gather and submit their models and profiles of this woman: “Public Enemy Number One.” They seek to help the King determine the best way to deal with the threat to his person and his Kingdom that this woman represents. The King’s advisors, all except one, advise the King on ways to destroy the the woman. The King feels confident that any one of his advisor’s plans will crush his enemy. So, he sets off to deliberate and choose which method of extermination he wants to use on this difficult pest. Being a connoisseur of what he likes to think is justice, he calls for the entire profile of his enemy that has been amassed to date. 

In his war room, he studies her glamorous photos and reads of her background and history. He discovers that she is the progeny of another of his old enemies, yet another woman, one who he’d disposed of decades before. Her name was Alice and her knick-name was “Fluff” because she was so serious and so brilliant. Now seeing that the new enemy was a newer manifestation of “Fluff” he felt at ease with his ability to defeat her. 

He informed his lieutenants to get back to work and that the deserts he wants for this woman will wait. He and his servants went back to more important work, e.g., he was in the middle of strip-mining Jupiter and building some more rings around Saturn. 

One day the same advisor, who discovered “Public Enemy Number One,” discovered that she had made inroads that were not predicted by the King’s advisor’s modeling of her. Somehow, she had gotten herself tied in with, and influencing, some of the most valuable men in the Kingdom. These were men working on the state-of-the-art of domination technologies for the masses, otherwise known as metaethics, ethics, morality, dramatized morality, and psychology. So again, this advisor called her to the King’s attention. However, this time the King was busy with his favorite past-time: engaging in sexual activities with very young gorgeous girls (called “birds” in this Kingdom). The advisor knew not to disturb the King when a sign was lit in the war room that said “This bed is filled with baby birds.” 

So, together with his closest friend – another top lieutenant to the King – they decided to tag-team this woman into submission. They decided on the manner they’d deal with her and decided to pay her a visit. Knowing that the King was very appreciative of initiative, nonetheless, it was a somewhat risky strategy. But they felt it was necessary because the modeling of the enemy had already proved to be inadequate. 

Upon the first meeting, they were surprised to find that she was receptive, friendly, funny, and delightful to be around — truly “YAR.” But, despite their fondness for her, they decided to try to become trusted advisors to her and then steer her in a bad direction, a direction good according to the King’s value hierarchy. This was the normal, and very well used, method of neutralizing enemies throughout millennia. They were confident that they could use this time-tested method to subdue her. 

Many months, and then years went by. They felt progress was being made, but one day something happened which PROVED they were wrong. 

Despite relating very well and being very friendly with “FluffY” (the new nickname they gave her), and despite having given her some excellently bad advice which she has taken to her detriment, one day she stopped talking to them completely. She refused to meet them and refused to take their — high-tech — phone calls. Now, this was not totally surprising as they were in the throws of ramping up efforts to manipulate her. But they didn’t think that she noticed, nor that she would react by cutting off all communication, and thus cut their ties to influence her. Having again modeled “FluffY” incorrectly, the two advisors decided it was time to explain their failure to the King; who was still very engrossed in his projects to control the universe — plus his favorite pastime. Disheartened, the two advisors warn the King of her egoic escalation to do exactly what the King and his lieutenants feared she’d do: spread her methodology of ego-control to others. 

Act 3: 

Upon receiving his servant’s report, the King realized he had underestimated “FluffY.” Having an enemy who he could not easily defeat was a new phenomenon for the King. Although he was irritated, at the same time, he was fascinated by “FluffY’s” ability to defeat his ancient method of controlling the egos of others. It was said throughout the Kingdom that the King’s ancient and newer methods were: “the most wonderful method that has ever been devised to gain control over that unstable and willful thing, the soul of man.”

King Borgia decided to have a conference with his top lieutenants at an island retreat to brainstorm the best way to deal with the problem. Powerpoint presentations were made on the recurring theme that the King must resort to heavy handed tactics to gain the upper hand over “FluffY.” However, the two lieutenants who had already tried to subdue her, the ones closest to her and most aware of her strengths and weaknesses, disavowed this approach. A cloud of resignation and despair permeated the conference. The King and his advisors liked to think of themselves as “The Masters of The Universe,” and in many ways it was true. Yet, they had encountered a problem they didn’t have any means of dealing with — besides outright annihilation — which they were indeed the masters of. 

Strangely, for this bloodthirsty crew, none of them wanted to kill her, which was extremely unusual for this Kingdom was literally built on the casual and easy resorting to physical violence whenever anyone opposed the creation of, and perfecting of this Kingdom on Earth. 

What to do? 

The King decided to take matters into his own hands. He ended the conference and sent his lieutenants back to their posts to take up the daily maintenance and expansion of the Kingdom. The King’s servants on the Island set up his usual sexual faire with “Baby Birds,” but the King was uninterested and told his servants to send the girls back to wherever they came from. The King had a motto: “Impulsive by Nature; Deliberative by Choice” and he realized that “FluffY” was a serious problem to his Kingdom. If any person refused to serve and obey him – as she did – that set the worst precedent possible and would threaten to undermine his power. 

On the other hand, he noticed “FluffY’s” intransigence — even in the face of the subtle threats that had been made clear to her — and her ability to detect and outmaneuver his dominance made him feel alive for the first time in centuries. This was the strangest feeling the King had ever had. Affective elements of feeling invigorated, alive and hopeful were part of his emotional state, but he knew that there had never been a greater threat to his Kingdom. He knew his kingdom was built on the model of a ship where there is one captain and a strict hierarchy which is slavishly followed for the good of the voyage. 

The King brought to the forefront of his awareness the fact that there are many threats to ALL living organisms in their fight against entropy. In effect, his inherited Monarchical system was similar to a living organism and faced the same threats from entropy. He was the captain that was at the helm of steering this 4,000+ year old system to it’s climax of complete domination of Earth and then the rest of the Universe. Plato was right, he thought, there must be a MERIT SYSTEM for that system to endure. That means the person most qualified should lead — a fact that even “FluffY’s” mentor “Fluff” would acknowledge. He knew himself to be most qualified captain as the oldest, wisest, and most experienced in all things dealing with achieving human survival. In his contemplation he realized that his own physical survival was necessary, but what was the deeper meaning that he aimed his achievement of his pulse at. 

He knew he had his need for organismic COMPETENCE (Egoic-Work) met more thoroughly than any man who had ever lived; and that his need for organismic SOVEREIGNTY (Egoic-Maintenance) was met more fully as well. But, he wondered, what about his need for EGOIC-RELATEDNESS (Egoic-Reproduction)? He started to realize what his dilemma really was: What is the point of surviving well and for a very long time if for that long time one is not fully happy. Despite the fact that to allow any other person to have their egoic-autonomy and sovereignty threatened his system, he decided he should see if there was any way to keep his system flourishing, and at the same time, convince “FluffY” to join him. He wondered if he could change himself, his standards, his virtues, his values. Could he do the egoic REPAIR work needed to have a soul mate?

He knew that if the roles were reversed, he would react exactly as she did in response to Him and His system and that he felt she was his soul mate. He sat contemplating what to do, while looking at her photos on the screen on his wall. Given that he had already tried to destroy her sovereign ego he realized restitution was in order. Rightly, she was on guard and would block any remote or indirect attempts to influence her. It was a Mexican Stand-off.

The King decided to use his latest high-tech tool to read her mind, hoping maybe she had some notion of how to reach a detente between them. 

~*~*~

More coming when I think of a happy ending…

(1) Definition of YAR: Benevolent, charming, adventurous, kind, and fun.