NationStates Jolt Archive

"You want to go where?" asked the calm voice of the LEADER over the loudspeakers.

"To Kalessin. One Dr. Comedy invited me. I decided that it would be an excellent fact-finding mission, as well as a fine introduction to a social body wholly different from our own," said Deliah, running a single pale hand through her short blue-white hair.

"Well, I suppose it'd be alright, but Kalessin is a long way from here. We'll be out of instant telepathic link."

"Why LEADER! Are you afraid that I'll become enamoured to another man?" said Deliah, teasingly.

"Don't be preposterous. Why would I worry about that? You can go and be enamoured to anyone you want-" this comment made Deliah's skin crawl at the thought-"I certainly don't much care about you, no matter how much I enjoy your company. Your personality has been copied and I can clone another Deliah body anytime it becomes neccessary.

"At any rate, I wish as much to see this Dr. Comedy and experience Kalessin as you do. I thought it would simply be easier for the both of us if we were in telepathic communications, rather than having to rely on satellite radios. You are my (and thus, the Peoples Anthill's) link to the outside world. I worry for your well-being."

"And I you, LEADER. Nevertheless, I shall be perfectly alright. Don't worry."

There was a cold chuckle over the loudspeaker and a cold chuckle came out of Deliah's mouth as the LEADER and she went over that ridiculous thought. Worrying for one another. Laughable!

Deliah wrote:

TO Kalessin,
The Ministry of Love,
Dr. Comedy

I would be honoured to come to Kalessin. We of the Anthill are extremely interested as to the functions and methods of your Ministries. I look forward to meeting you.

Sincerely yours,
Deliah,

Ambassador-Speaker Cell
The Peoples' Anthill

Oh lovely. I'm sure the two of you will get along simply swimmingly. :roll:

~Siri

In a small, dimly lit room somewhere in Kalessin, a wizened robed figure recieved a letter.

A few minutes later, a fairly small (as such beasts go) black Dragon appeared just above the Anthill.

What exactly are you talking about?

"Proximity alert. I believe your ride is here, Deliah," came the calm, cultured voice on the loudspeaker.

"Ahhh. Excellent! Well, I shall be off."

Deliah walked quickly to the location over which the dragon hovered, taking the lift up from the dark heart of the Anthill. As the machine ascended, the vaporous mist of neurochemical triggers like ghosts of sickly perfume wafting about her head. She took in a breath of the warm, humid, evil-smelling air of the Anthill. How familiar it was. She'd be glad to return to it. She passed by the ghoulish shadow-forms of worker and military cells scuttling about doing their labours. She'd be in a less familiar place. Perhaps a totally different place.

She eased the plastiglas of the helmet down and heard a steady gurgle as the clear blueish liquid filled it. She steadied her mind as the helmet filled up and took a breath. Thick perfluorocarbon fluid filled her lungs, and there was a short convulse in her diaphragm, which was suppressed by the gag-suspendor. Laced with nutrient compounds, complex amino acids, neurochemical triggers and the other chemicals that Deliah needed, it left a sickly-sweet and bitter metallic taste in her mouth.

She got off under the topmost level of the Anthill. Here were lonely halls, devoid of most cells. As a parting gesture, the LEADER piped the Blue Danube Waltz into her ears. It sounded slightly strange through the perfluorocarbon, which made everything seem several decibels lower, but cybernetics soon adjusted for it.

She touched a switch and the doors opened over a metal ladder, rusty and green from long disuse. The bright, horrid sunlight of the south pacific flooded in and she ascended to the top of the Anthill. It was a strange sight, the tall black smokestacks and the vast, industrial expanse of the Social Grid contrasting with the blue of the sky. The ocean was a reassuring shade of brown, and clots of industrial waste and grey toxic goo floated gently in the polluted water. The dragon was not far from her. She mounted it, according to the rider's instructions, and off they went.

The rider who silently helped Deliah atop the Dragon was clad from head to toe in black robes which completely concealed his features, although the Speaker-cell did feel substantial strength in his grip. He said nothing throughout the journey, and Deliah could sense no thoughts whatsoever from him or his mount.

They flew away from the Anthill for a few seconds with firm measured wingbeats, before plunging into a cold, black vaccum which chilled the very marrow of Deliah's bones. Then, the light returned, as they emerged from between high above a vast, barren wasteland. The earth was scorched and blackened, and no living things could be seen for miles around. The only sign that life had ever existed in this place was the occasional withered, stunted, burnt out tree. Rising up on the horizon was a truly gigantic city. The outer slums which formed most of its area were composed of millions of squalid wooden huts, and were dominated by four gigantic concrete edifices, each surrounded by hundreds of meters of barbed wire and other such defences. Towards the centre of the city, beyond an awe-inspiring wall which appeared to have been made in one piece from some strange black stone, thousands of towers, in as many colours as the mind can imagine, spired upwards towards, or even through, the clouds, some shining like miniature suns, others bathing the area around them in pastel warmth, and others glowering with eerie menace. In the very centre of the city, a great golden palace shone like a beacon, its central tower dwarfing all the buildings clustered around it. However, it was not to this palace that the Dragon flew, but to one of the four fortresses in the slums.

As they approached, Deliah saw a dozen large and surprisingly modern guns follow their descent, and felt the gentle brush of several minds against hers. Eventually however, the Dragon landed in the middle of a small concrete courtyard just in front of the building, which now towered up before Deliah, and a wizened figure, clad in ill-fitting black robes, shuffle forward, his face hidden in the depths of his cowl.

OOC:

Sorry to hijack, but Deliah and the LEADER used the personal pronoun. They have individual personalities, linked into a whole...don't the People's Anthill burn all free will out of their members? Or are a select few allowed to think out of the box (by PA standards)?

[ Not a select few, just Deliah and the LEADER. Together they form the entire will of the Anthill, and they are the ones most loyal to it ]

"Interesting. Primitive, but interesting," thought Deliah. "Some very fascinating architecture. They must have very advanced technology. Yet why did they choose a mere animal of all things, to transport me?"

As they whisked along through the Kelanis skyline Deliah saw the gigantic Ministry fortresses rising out of the slums.

"Now that seems familiar. Yet different. So very different from the Anthill. The regular efficiency of the Ministries clash with the ... squalour and the imperialist architecture. Perhaps symbolic of a clash between two governing entities. All I see, is evidence of great struggle which is bound to result in something being decided. Let us hope that it is the Ministries which win."

Deliah go off and greeted the wizened man.

"Greetings. I am Deliah, ambassador-speaker cell for the Peoples Anthill. I come upon business of a diplomatic visit."

The figure beckoned with a black-gloved hand, and moved back towards a pair of large steel gates, wide and high enough to accomodate a large truck, which swung open at his approach.

Deliah followed the figure through the yawning black maw of the megalithic gates.

The robed figure led Deliah down a long ramp which took them through the gateway, and into utter darkness, as the gargantuan slabs of solid metal which comprised the several foot thick gates creaked closed behind them. She could only see her guide by the faint glow of her equipment. Then, they stopped for a moment in front of what appeared to be an iron wall. She felt an array of strange sensations, both physical and mental, as if something was probing and exploring her body and mind, from the outermost layer of clothing, to the very centre of her conciousness.

Then a load clanking noise assaulted Deliah's ears, as the all in front of her slowly rose up into the ceiling. In front of her was a gigantic hall, filled with vehicles of all shapes and sizes, as well as men, women and children, many in cages or chains, being led about by robed Kalessini. The sound of screaming filled the room, and never ceased, or even noticeably decreased in volume, although it was occasionally interrupted by the hiss of a branding iron, the bubbling of boiling oil, the whirr of a drill, and the sounds of many other instruments of torture. Looking around for the cause, Deliah spotted large speakers placed just out of sight of any of the captives, most of whom were weeping, and too distraught even to scream, either gibbering in terror, or sitting silently, staring off into the distance, trapped amid the horrors of their own imaginations.

Deliah's guide however, instead of leading her to the main door at the other side of the room, shuffled towards a smaller door which slid noiselessly aside to allow access to what turned out to be a surprisingly modern lift. After a short downwards journey, the door opened again to reveal a long white corridor, the walls and floor of which were completely blank, without even the smallest smudge of dirt, and which was lined with doors of an identical colour. There was no visible light-source, but even so, the whole corridor was almost blindingly bright.

Deliah followed the figure, who now pulled his hood furthur down over his eyes, through a series of such corridors, all of which were perfectly straight, until they reached another lift. This one however seemed a little more aged, and it took them down quite a substantial distance. As the doors finally slid open again, Deliah heard music. But the music was not of any human composer, such as those which she and The Leader were accustomed to, nor was it in any way akin to any other music which has been heard among the countless races of the Young-Kingdoms. This music was strange, seeming somehow to affect all levels of conciousness, and with much that was well beyond the human range of hearing. It was sublimely beautiful, although it spoke also of terrible decadence and an utter lack of compassion. It was beautiful, yet unsettling, and it was altogether alien.

This music continued unabating as Deliah walked through a seemingly endless network of tunnels, which appeared to have been bored into the stone using only crude picks and chisels. They were lit by simple electric lights, attached to the walls, and throughout the network Deliah saw steel doors embededed into the rock. Eventually, her guide stopped at one of these doors, and knocked twice upon it.

It swung open, to reveal an almost bare chamber, furnished only by a large wooden desk, a small pallet in the corner, and two uncomfortable-looking chairs, in one of which sat a figure clad almost identically to Deliah's guide, although his robes seemed to fit a bit better. He rose as Deliah entered, and nodded slightly in the direction of the guide, who, maintaining the silence which he had kept throughout the journey, slipped away, closing the door behind him.

Such strange music, so fascinating, so different, thought Deliah. Harmonies assembled themselves perfectly in her mind, every chord coming out in notes of amazing beauty. The mathematical precision of it was ... extraordinary! She would have to get her memory analysed so that the LEADER could try making some compositions of his own. Haunting it was, and yet Deliah felt no more than pale stirrings where a normal human being would have been enthralled and moved.

This place so much resembles the Anthill. And yet... different. Quite like no place I have ever been. The Social Grid is eerily quiet, with only the pale scutterings of our Worker and Military Cells. Whereas this...

She entered the crude tunnel.

Such imperfection. It comes with working yourself into an environment, rather than creating your own. She thought about the Anthill again, its sublime grid of perfect rectangles within squares within rectangles and lines. The mark of a civilisation was its power to shape its environment or to create an entirely new one. Kalessin, above all, seemed to her as a nation of contrasts, rather than the perfect, mechanical uniformity of the Anthill, the Hive, the Social Grid. It would have horrified her if she wasn't so dulled by drugs, cybernetics, and long life in the rigidity of the Anthill.

She entered the room.

"Greetings," she said laconically, a small bubble escaping from her nose through the blueish PFC fluid. Her respirators wheezed quietly as she stood facing the figure, clad in her skintight, pale-grey life-support suit.

The figure, whose chair was facing away from Deliah so that she could only see the featureless black of his cowled robe, did not respond for a moment, but sat, evidently lost in his own thoughts.

Then, as Deliah began to think that he might not have heard her greeting,
he spoke, his voice flat and emotionless, barely audible over the hissing of her survival gear, which seemed somewhat loud in the absolute silence of the chamber.

"Feel free to take a seat."

Deliah sat

The figure turned slowly, its chair rotating underneath, until it was facing Deliah. Yet its features remained concealed in the depths of its hood, as it sat, its hidden eyes staring at her.

“So, you are Deliah. Speaker-cell for the infamous ‘Peoples Anthill’. What a fascinating array of equipment you wear. Have the bodies of your people degenerated so far that you require such to live outside your home? What an utter waste of resources. Surely it would have been cheaper to provide bodies that could survive unaided, rather than developing and constructing such a elaborate apparatus for survival.”

A long and graceful finger emerged from the right sleeve of the black robe to press a small button on the surface of the desk.

“Would you care for refreshment?”

Wasn't "A Grand Day Out" one of those Wallace and Gromit clay cartoons?

[ yes ]

“So, you are Deliah. Speaker-cell for the infamous ‘Peoples Anthill’. What a fascinating array of equipment you wear. Have the bodies of your people degenerated so far that you require such to live outside your home? What an utter waste of resources. Surely it would have been cheaper to provide bodies that could survive unaided, rather than developing and constructing such a elaborate apparatus for survival.”

"They are, in fact, a survival apparatus and a remote-control mechanism. My body has been accustomed to a certain chemical mixture present in the air of the Hive, as well as certain other trace elements, humidty, and pressure. The PFC fluid in my helmet provides these, as well as certain nutrients. If I do not recieve a constant intake of these chemicals and nutrients, I will suffer from withdrawl and neural atrophy takes place in a matter of minutes. It is all meant for the security and control of the Anthill - we cannot afford our cells to escape."

A long and graceful finger emerged from the right sleeve of the black robe to press a small button on the surface of the desk.

“Would you care for refreshment?”

"No, thank you. I do not need it."

A panel on the wall just behind the figure slid aside, to reveal a small opening. It turned to reach inside, and then closed the panel as it turned back, a mug of tea in its slender hand.

The other hand went to the hood, and drew it back, revealing a pair of lobeless, pointed ears, between which was a pale, aquiline face, lined and somewhat withered-looking, but what really drew Deliah's gaze were his eyes. They were black as the pit, and as deep as night. No emotion could be seen in those eyes, no pity, no love, no fear or compassion. In those eyes Deliah could see a memory that stretched back through millenia. Those eyes had seen the rise of countless civilisations, and the fall of entire worlds. They had unblinkingly witnessed pain and suffering beyond measure, and, as they gazed out from those hard, stark features, where the bones could be seen clearly under the figure's pale, thin skin, Deliah realised that to the being sitting in front of her, she mattered not at all. She wasn't even a true person to him, merely a scientific curiousity, to be studied, and then discarded.

He raised the tea to his thin lips, and took a small sip, before putting the mug down on the table before him.

"How fascinating. So your control over your people is so limited that you require such elaborate precautions to prevent escape?"

He paused briefly;

"My name, by the way, is Doctor Comedy."

"A pleasure, I'm sure."

"Do you think, being the expert in control that you are, that it is not prudent to have multiple layers of redundancy? We not only have the techniques of cybernetics, advanced biotechnology, and Pavlovian conditioning on our hands, but a number of countermeasures against subversion and escape. Surely you'd understand the need for so many levels of control and intermeshing webs of reinforcement and security."

“So none of your techniques are sufficient alone? We had hoped that your biotechnology and cybernetics, both of which are alien to us, might be of use to the Empire in cutting down the costs of maintaining control over the masses, while increasing productivity. We tend to find that most citizens will believe what they are told as children, and what they are told is that we are on their side, and that what we tell them to do is what is best for them. We restrict education, bar access to the outside world, and remove those that prove troublesome, and so most of the people believe that our Emperor is a benevolent one. With the complete lack of education or access to the outside world that your people get, we had rather assumed that you had no need for even more layers of redundancy, while as it seems, you sacrifice much productivity for the sake of control."

The Doctor sipped again from his mug as a tiny light inset in his desk flashed once.

Deliah leaned forward, obviously excited by the prospect of a debate.

"Are you familiar with the book known as Nineteen Eighty Four, by George Orwell?"

"No, I don't believe that I am. Why do you ask?"

"In it, the idea is promulgated by one of the members of the all-controlling Party, that power, meaning control and the ability to inflict pain upon another human being, is the thing that is most essential. It is the paramount goal of the all-controlling Party to become all-powerful and wholly omniscient - sacrificing efficiency, productivity, and many other social aspects in order to achieve complete control over not only the individual's body, but the individual's mind. You see, then, that in such a state, the individual becomes at once the most dangerous and the most essential thing to the state. Dangerous in that the individual is so highly oppressed that the time is fertile for social unrest, and essential in that the individual can also be the most easily manipulated part of the state.

"It is absolutely intolerable to the Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four that a single unorthodox thought should exist anywhere in the nation. We have taken the idea further - to completely eliminate not only the existence of dissent, but the very possibility of dissent - we make it our goal to destroy all thought - period. It is absolutely intolerable to us that a single thought at all should exist anywhere in the Anthill.

"What arises from this is that, despite the small amount of productive power wasted upon destroying the consciousness of the individual, collectively the entire society benefits from an increase in efficiency and productivity, while at the same time, becoming politically frozen - stable beyond any hope of chaos.

"Picture the society as a parabola, with the Y-axis being overall efficiency, and the X-axis being political freedom. As we go towards less and less political freedom (this parabola being bisected by the Y axis, the x-intercept being at 0,0), we find that society gets less and less efficient until at a certain point (this being the oligarchial dictatorship, lying at some negative number of x and 0 on the y axis) efficiency becomes null. Going further, we find that even less political freedom results in efficiency getting higher and higher, until the graph shoots sharply upwards into infinity.

"That is the collectivist state."

Deliah sat back, her arms crossed, apparently pleased at having made a particularly strong argument.

The Doctor smiled wryly;

“You seek stability and an end to political chaos? An admirable goal, but one that could never be declared openly in the Empire. We of the Ministries, you see, are saddled with an over-mighty nobility, which regards any form of permanent order as a threat. A threat not only to their own ambitions, for many of them seek change in their own favour, but also to their very way of life. Pleasure, you see, is the central goal of all living beings. Any who do not seek pleasure, are closer to mechanical automata than to those who truly live. The love of power over the individual, from which this ‘party’ of yours derives its driving force, is but another road to pleasure. One that has been explored by most nobles of Kalessin, for many of them are capable, given time, not only of influencing the beliefs and thoughts of a being, but of completely reforming its mind, shaping it into the form that is most pleasing. But after a time, the power loses its savour, as does every other sensation, and another road to pleasure must be trodden, and to avoid finding a point when there are no more roads, new ones must constantly be opened. There must be change, chaos if you will. As such, stability and order, of any kind, is anathema to our nobility.”

He paused briefly, and took another sip from his mug.

"If the Ministries are capable of controlling the mass of people, what is to keep them from destroying the Nobility and ending forevermore that cancerous embolism on society?"

“I, and all my colleagues in the ministries, seek power. But we do not seek power for ourselves. Nor do we merely seek power over individuals in our own nation. We seek power for the Empire. What we do is not for the ministries, still less for we who run them. What we do is Kalessin. The nobility are the most powerful weapon in our armoury. We cannot destroy them, for to do so would be counter to our aims. What we must do is control them, and tear the people away from their influence.”

"I see. I am interested in your processes - can you demonstrate to me how the ministries exact their power upon the masses and the nobility?"

Doctor Comedy smiled genially,

“Well, I can only speak of my own Ministry of Love with any accuracy. However, my fellow Ministers have expressed a desire to meet you.”

He stood, his ancient bones cracking, and shuffled slowly toward the door.