Rainbow's Fury

Women in Politics

2009-07-24T21:29:18Z

Chloe Smith MP (she is an MP even though Parliament has yet to return from recess, see here):

So, yes, bit worried about my reaction to this bit of news.

Politician becomes US President, world overreacts

2009-01-21T14:03:28Z

Seriously, people. Barack Obama was a fairly good choice for President of the United States. He wouldn't have been my first pick or indeed my second, and I'd actually have preferred the man who is his Vice-President. He gives a pretty good speech, though I didn't think the inaugural was a particularly good one - a bit too stark for the occasion.

He's not some kind of messianic figure, and he's certainly not the liberal icon some ill-informed people in Europe are promoting him as.

He promised to filibuster the FISA amendment bill to allow warrantless wiretapping during the democratic primaries. After securing the nomination he not only voted in favour of cloture but actually voted for the bill itself.

He opposes investigating members of the previous administration for war crimes, despite the fact that there is near-irrefutable evidence such crimes took place, and despite clear treaty requirements that the US do so. In fact, he's still considering allowing evidence gained through torture to be used in prosecutions and had to be shamed into not appointing a pro-torture CIA director.

He claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons despite the fact declassified US National Intelligence Estimates and the IAEA both say that they're not.

He backtracked from a position of supporting gay marriage because, y'know, it's not politically a very smart thing to support in the US.

He threatened to veto any attempt to block or delay the release of $350bn into the Wall Street bailout, despite the fact that Congress is extremely unhappy with the lack of oversight and the Treasury hasn't even spent all the first wodge of cash yet (though it has earmarked it all).

And he naturally parrots the predictably entirely pro-Israel line of the US establishment during any major middle east crisis.

Yes, he's an improvement on Bush and he might even manage to be better than Clinton, but don't look for a radical new direction from the United States or a return to pre-2001 values, because one doesn't appear to be forthcoming. Obama is a politician - one who played the Chicago machine well enough to rise to the national level, and he thinks and acts like one. Every indication would be that this first term will be a study in the art of the possible.

Whilst waiting for returns...

2008-11-05T03:39:18Z

As the curtain slowly falls on another Presidential term, now may be a good time to look back on the previous eight years, charting the course of the American ship of state as it has tried to lead the free world, frequently in somewhat less than line astern, through the rather turbulent waters of the early 21st century.

President Gore is unlikely to ever be much loved by historians, but to be fair, the man never really had much of a chance. Many Presidents have had to deal with an opposed Congress, but most at least have a supply of political capital to employ in browbeating them into enacting at least some of their program. Gore did not. Republicans railed that the Florida Supreme Court disregarded its own rules in mandating the manual recount which eventually overturned Gov. Bush's razor-thin initial majority, and that Gore's election was illegitimate. Chief Justice Rehnquist's high-handed dismissal of the Republican appeal to the Supreme Court (on grounds that the State of Florida was entitled to determine how it selected its own electors) didn't help matters, enraging right-wingers already prone to seeing the world against them.

Gore, then, was stuck before he'd even begun. He had some advantages - the budgetary surplus bequeathed by the Clinton administration allowed Gore to achieve his goal of paying down the US national debt, a decision which seems much more prescient now. This allowed the US to ride out the dot-com "correction" without more than a few bumps - though of course much of the credit must be given to Congress, who have as much responsibility for Gore's budgets as he does. Gore's healthcare and environmental initiatives were repeatedly frustrated by a Republican congress - to the extent that Gore almost abandoned the legislative route after the midterm elections of 2002, taking his arguments to the individual states, using the Presidential bully pulpit to get Democratic legislatures to follow his green agenda. There is now a growing perception that Gore was ahead of his time, and mainstream opinion is coming around to his views, four years too late. In foreign policy, Gore could hardly be distinguished from Clinton - policy mostly based on broad consensus-building with the occasional airstrike. Congress quite wisely kept America out of any heavier involvement in Afghanistan, despite that country's harboring of anti-American terrorists, judging that airpower, intelligence and Pakistani and Russian interests would be sufficient to keep Gore's bogeyman of international terrorism under wraps - citing the FBI's breakup of a terrorist plot to attack New York and Washington in 2001 as evidence in favour. In years to come I think Gore will be regarded as a post-script to the Clinton years in the way that President Bush was an adjunct to Reagan - he tried, but he couldn't really distinguish himself from his predecessor.

In the end it didn't surprise anyone when Gore lost in 2004. After 12 years of Gore-Clinton policies, Americans were ready for a change. Gore could go back to his environmental crusade safe in the knowledge that at very least he'd not made anything worse, and Americans could look for a President who was more inspiring. The man they chose was Senator John McCain, the "maverick" from Arizona whose biography and whose willingness to support Gore and Clinton when he thought it was right had marked him as a leader and a uniter. The first Senator to be elected to the Presidency since Kennedy inherited almost a blank slate, with the Federal budget in reasonable shape and a working majority in Congress. McCain had supported Gore's hawkish foreign policy, and under McCain it became somewhat more unilateral, with American raids into hostile territory becoming more commonplace. McCain's domestic policy was more predictably conservative, squabbling with Congressional Democrats over privatising social security, but having more success with introducing a healthcare plan based along similar lines. Analysts continue to argue about the results - time will tell in the end, I suppose. Some say that McCain overreacted when a category 5 hurricane hit New Orleans in 2004, redirecting federal aid some of which remains unspent to this day and sending an excess of troops to the area, some of whom ended up kicking their heels. Likewise, the erratic Republican reconstruction plan has attracted few plaudits and many complaints. And when the crash of 2008 struck, it was fairly apparent that McCain didn't really know what to do about it and was completely reliant on his Treasury officials - which will, it seems, be the death knell for his re-election chances, as Hillary Clinton rides the Clinton/Gore reputation for sound economic management to the fourth Democratic win out of five. McCain, I think, will get a "could do better" from historians. He never seemed entirely sure of his program, veering from initiative to initiative in response to events, and so didn't accomplish as much as a more focussed politician might have done.

adarisa @ 2008-10-10T16:27:00

2008-10-10T16:32:04Z

It is easy, in the chaos of the 24-hour news cycle and probably the greatest financial collapse since 1929, to read and react but not think. Doubtless this applies as much if not more so to the speculators and politicians as it does to the onlookers. Add national pride and 'stolen' money to the mix, and we have a situation where nobody is really responding with much beyond emotion.

The Iceland crisis, then, does not appear to be a time for sober reflection. The basic facts are simple enough - Iceland's banking sector ran up a debt several times greater than the country's GDP (the reasons for which are complicated, but Iceland's growing wealth as a banking centre lead to diversification of much of its money outside the country, so when the American and European markets crashed they took the Icelanders down with them) and as a result the Icelandic government took over several banks. When it did so it conspicuously failed to guarantee that accounts held by British customers would remain intact.

The British government screamed blue murder, seized over £7bn Icelandic assets (using anti-terrorism legislation, unsurprisingly without a terrorist threat in sight) - almost two-thirds of the country's GDP - in the UK and threatened to sue the government to get its money back. The response of the markets was predictable. The Icelandic Krona, already in trouble, lost almost half its value overnight before trading was suspended. It is true that Iceland was in severe financial difficulties prior to Britain's intervention; but when you encounter a man in difficulty on a precipice, do you push him over the edge?

It gets worse. Iceland, not being notably temperate, depends on food imports as a country and the crash of its currency will make these increasingly expensive, driving the price of food up and doubtless sending sections of its population into poverty. Iceland was a friendly country, a NATO ally. The British Government has just contributed, in no small way, to its ruin.

Why has this been wrought in our name?

Musings on the Windflower law...

2008-09-26T21:36:24Z

For those of you who haven't played the RPG Nobilis, a brief explanation is in order. The players take on the role of one of the Nobles, semi-divine incarnations and defenders of a concept. They are charged with protecting their concept (known as an Estate in game terms) from all harm and promoting the will of their Imperator (a godlike being who made them into a Noble in the first place).

There are, however, certain rules these beings are expected to follow. One of these is the Windflower Law, which in its simplest terms says "Thou Shalt Not Love Another". So I thought "Well, um, what about the Power of Love?".

And the following is my answer - a rather disputative Domina of Love, the chaotic and irrepressible Iolanthe (yes, the Gilbert&Sullivan character...), predictably sticking her oar in...

Amicus Curiae brief filed by the Lady Iolanthe, Dominus of Love, in Council v. Violet, Curiam Locusta, 3E 2311

The terms of the law which the defendant stands accused by are stark and unforgiving:

Thou Shalt Not Love Another

Love is a lie – it claims to be beauty, but there are no lovers in Heaven.

Love is a weakness; it gives the Excrucians a possible hold on a power’s soul.

Eternal Love will outlive Creation – but nothing can or will.

Ephemeral Love is not Love at all.

Therefore Love is a lie, a weakness, and a contradiction

Rarely in the history of the Valde Bellum has an Ymera launched such an assault on an Estate of another. Not only does the Lord of Scorn, Desecration and Destruction presume to know my Estate better than I or my Lord, he proceeds to launch an attack breathtaking in scope and unprecedented in force. At the words of an Ymera the Ash itself shakes; and the voice of the President of the Council is louder than most, especially over an Estate which manifests most strongly on Earth.

The damage to my Estate caused by this pronouncement and the law which grew out of it has been great. It is fortunate, then, that this ruling is baseless in its every aspect, else the Estate may have become lost entirely. I provide this document such that the Court may achieve a deeper understanding of this prejudice against my Estate and the damage incurred to the Valde Bellum on Earth as a result of these unjust actions.

Love is a lie – it claims to be beauty, but there are no lovers in Heaven.

To the best of my knowledge, the Darkest Lord has never ventured through the gates of the Bright Realm, so I find his knowledge mystifying. Even supposing, however, that it was true – which I do not, since the Angels contend that Beauty can be found in all things – it would be irrelevant. The essence of the Bright Realm is change; as only in change can beauty be perpetuated. It follows that if Love was once a principle on which the Bright Realm was built, it could be no longer present there; equally, if Love is currently not present, in time it is likely to appear. In such a manner these wonders are allowed to pass into Earth and the other indeterminate Realms, required reinforcements in the Valde Bellum.

Even if it were true that Love were not a product of the Great Work, that would be no reason to exclude it. Many viable and valued estates were created as a result of absorbing the energy of a Breakthrough and channelling it into a new Estate. Love, the Court should note, does not claim to be beauty any more than destruction claims to be desecration. Love is beautiful, but that is not the same thing. Desecration is generally destructive.

I can only assume that the Darkest Lord and his Powers have never loved. This may give them sufficient standing to enforce their laws, but it scarcely places them in a position to stand in judgement on my Estate. Love cannot be perceived, much less judged, by an impartial observer. If love is to be a crime, a lover cannot receive a fair trial from one who has not loved.

It may be beyond even the formidable powers of the Marchessa of Debate to explain to the Court why this is so. I do not have my near-namesake’s eloquence, but I must try nonetheless. Love changes perceptions. Humanity has a phrase which, to the Angels must seem the purest blasphemy – beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would not presume to know Beauty better than the Heavenly Host, but the wider meaning is clear. The Court may tell me that they are better placed to judge with their perceptions untainted; but who can possibly effectively judge a crime they do not comprehend?

Love is a Weakness; it gives the Excrucians a possible hold on a Power’s soul.

I am confused by the Court’s argument. A Power’s soul is both Imperial – in which case nothing the Excrucians contrived at could possibly cage it; and human – in which case no Law could prevent a Power from loving. Even allowing their contention, however, this belief is misguided. The Excrucians have many tactics, many approaches. I do not know the Power who would betray their Estate for Love – the Love that each Power holds for their Estate is itself overpowering. Each day, a Power wakes up with an overriding sense of joy at their Estate; the tiny minutiae, the grand schemes of it…the little struggles and the triumphs. The scar across my own Estate left by the Windflower law is heartbreaking. Surely Ymerae can successfully find Nobles who are devoted above all? Even if not, is the crime to Love, or to collude with the Excrucians? Love is not an enemy of Cneph’s masterpiece, and none of his creation will gain from any attempt to make it so.

Love is a strength! And what a strength it is – it was Love for the Power of Weavers that allowed the men of Troy to overthrow an Imperator, it is Love that bonds humans to their world and Anchors to their tasks; it is Love – the unconditional devotion achieved in no other way – that gives the Powers the will to face down the horrors of unbeing to defend their Estates. Love is a weapon! Turn it upon our enemy, do not cage or fetter it. Love has shattered the illusions of Decievers and withstood the touch of Strategists. Was it just to fall at the hands of our own?

Eternal Love will outlive Creation – but nothing can or will.

A baseless speculation. We do not know what is to come beyond the end of Creation, but is that any reason to dismiss Love so cavalierly? We do know that the mere death of lovers is not enough to cause their love to cease, so why should the loss of the universe be any different? There are things beyond Creation and these are not limited to Excruciation; is it too much to hope that somewhere beyond the Weirding Wall, Love stirs in the heart of another?

Ephemeral Love is not Love at all.

If Ephemera are not real, why does not the Power of Instants fade away? Change is the key to the Great Work of heaven - and in the face of Change, we all are Ephemera, yet we all are.

Let us see to it that we remain.

Iolanthe, Domina Amorae, filed this day of the Third Age.

Um, this might kind of be a year late...

2007-12-25T00:35:14Z

So, I said I was going to write this for enismirdal's Christmas present last year, only I kind of wrote myself into a corner and...um...I got distracted, and, yes, it's kind of a year late. Ah well. Still Christmas, innit.

As ever, if other people want to write anything using this setting they should feel free. I even have a page of author's notes somewhere if you're really interested.

Title: Ex Astris, Ultio: The Tales of the Dread Pirate Eni
Part: Chapter One, The Dragon's Lair (2/?)
Length: 4,945 words
Copyright: Copyright is owned by Stuart Fraser. You are granted the right to copy this for personal use only, and may not distribute it in either electronic or printed form without my permission. This is a work of original fiction. Well, about as original as Sci-Fi gets nowadays anyway.
Other: See above, also please feel free to tell me how useless I am. Or even be nice about my writing ability, if you're that way inclined.

Eleven light-hours from the Red Phoenix shipyards, the cruiser Electra hung motionless, her running lights flickering against the background of interstellar space.

“Operational Alcubierre drive test successful, Captain. Attempting to establish a precise navigational fix now.”

Maritz grinned. He’d actually forgotten that this ship had never engaged the FTL drive before. All kinds of interesting things could have happened, though it didn’t seem that any of the more immediately terrifying had done so. The simulations people were obviously getting better. There were, however, other concerns with his ship. He flicked the intercom switch built into his command chair.

“Engineering, damage report.”

“Nothing too bad, sir,” the disembodied voice of the chief engineer replied. “A few blown conduits which we’ve got plenty of replacements for, and some of the armour sections need a bit of recasting, but nothing urgent. Everything on the reactor is still in the green. No damage from the 10X failure other than in the immediate area.”

“Weapons?”

“I don’t know how damaged it is without going to look, because the plasma release fricasseed the diagnostics. Everything else is apparently working though.” Sarah was moderately aware that her report wasn’t quite phrased in precise military verbiage, but she thought she could probably get away with that for now and decided not to care about it.

“I’ve got the astrogational fix, Captain”, Lt. Cmdr. Moray reported from his sensor station. His features were briefly creased by a frown as he manipulated the controls again. “Um, I think. Yes, confirming now. We’re about half a light-year from our intended position, spinwise, below the plane, and a bit further out. Feeding that to navigation now.” Another grimace. Maritz nodded; Moray had complained many times during fitting-out about the general impracticability of managing to correctly feed and process all of the ship’s sensor data, in part due to the ship’s test-bed nature, and he suspected that his genial but irascible second lieutenant was being frustrated by another peccadillo of the ship’s distributed computer banks.

The navigational officer, whose name Sarah still couldn’t remember, spoke up after a brief pause. “Fuel consumption about thirteen percent above the advertised value, though still six percent below the equivalent figure for the previous generation of drive.”

Sarah was dimly aware that everything seemed to be more or less well with the ship, and that there were greater crises to face outside the hull, but for now it was more comforting to allow her brain to remain distracted by relative minutiae, and the navigator’s statement had made her curious. “Is everything on this ship new?” she asked.

Maritz laughed grimly. “Not quite, your Highness, but many things are. Electra is a name-ship, the first of her class, so the designers naturally take the opportunity to build in all of the most recent technical developments, and then revise the design to remove the ones that don’t work prior to the launching of the next vessel. In our case, the primary weapons, the Alcubierre drives, and most of the reactor except for the reaction chamber itself are new versions.”

Moray, with a put-upon look, interjected “As well as almost all of the systems-control software, the implications of which ought to be clear enough.”

Maritz continued “By the time a ship gets as far as launching, we’ve generally come across all the most grievous problems using simulations, which is not to say that she holds no more surprises. Anyway, that’s a side-issue. More importantly, we have to work out precisely what’s going on and then work out what we can do about it. Comms, can we pick up the newsgrid broadcasts from here?”

“Kind of faint, sir, we’re not on a broadcast path here. I think I can clear things up a bit, though…here we are.”

“RNN on-screen, then. We can try the non-public channels later”.

The viewscreen, previously showing the empty blankness of deep space, whirled into a holographic representation of the remains of St. Catherine’s Palace once again, and suddenly Sarah found herself fighting back tears. Over her own grief she could hear the newscaster confirming what she’d suspected:

“It is confirmed that no members of the Royal Family survived the terrorist attack on the Palace this morning. The only member of the immediate Royal Family who was not present during the time of the attack was Princess Sarah, who was to oversee the launch of the Navy’s newest warship, HMS Electra, this morning. In an attack believed to have been synchronised with the destruction of the Palace, dissident elements of the Rilmani Navy kidnapped Princess Sarah and stole the Electra prior to the launching ceremony. The warship is now believed to be in the hands of terrorists, and therefore a state of emergency has been declared throughout the confederation. There have been no communications from the Electra since the attack, during which the terrorists destroyed one Rilmani cruiser, damaged another, and severely damaged the shipyards, killing over two hundred people. Their goals and demands, if any, remain unknown. We can only speculate as to Princess Sarah’s safety at this point.”

“That’s enough. More than enough” Maritz sliced his hand across his neck in the universal “end transmission” gesture. “Are you all right, your Royal Highness?”

Sarah hated that she was crying openly, but her body didn’t seem to be willing to stop. “It’s fairly obvious that I could have had it worse.” she replied, bitterly, and inwardly wondered if that was true, if she wouldn’t have been better off lying dead in her bedroom in the palace. Certainly one of her navally inclined uncles and cousins would have been better suited to her current situation. “I know, I’m not dealing with things very well and I should probably go somewhere and lie down. But this is important. I’ve been through too much today already, so a little more won’t make any difference, and perhaps it might all make some more sense afterwards.” Sarah’s internal version of that statement had included several expletives, but fortunately it seemed that her internalised princessifying filter had survived the day’s events. Through sheer force of will and not a little rage directed at whoever the enemy was, she managed to stifle the tears.

Sarah’s bodyguard spoke up. Having been exhaustively trained in the possible motivations and causes for assassinations, with the aim of being able to be better able to prevent them, he was probably the closest the Electra had to an expert on the matter. “I think it’s fairly obvious, Captain, that we’re dealing with a military coup d’etat, possibly with some supporters in the civilian government. The fact that palace security – and shipyard security – was easily penetrated suggests that the military has to be involved. The fact that none of us had heard of anything beforehand suggests that it cannot be particularly widespread, and thus that there must be significant naval forces opposed to the coup, who we might hope to rally around the princess if we can work out who they are and get our story out fast enough.”

Maritz considered this. “For that, we’d need a communications relay, though one suspects that this proposed coup’s planners know at least as much about the matter as you do, Agent, and may well have them guarded. Mr. Moray, can you tap into the ITAS network from here?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind people noticing us and assuming nobody’s thought to deactivate Electra’s access codes yet. I can probably get around either of those problems, but it’ll take too long to be useful right now.”

The Rilmani Navy’s Integrated Tactical Awareness System was a heavily guarded secret; an information sharing network by which any ship or installation could view the sensor output of any other, provided it was not trying to run silently. Electra could certainly use the system, until the news of her being “stolen” percolated through high command to the Intelligence officers who operated the central systems, but there was a risk. Communication with ITAS was two-way, and if anybody was looking, this could be used to establish Electra’s current position at the same time she examined the space around the local communications relays.

“I wasn’t planning to remain here for very long, so being noticed shouldn’t be a problem. Carry on, Commander.”

“Very well. Accessing ITAS now.”

Sarah wondered why both Maritz and Moray seemed to be missing the obvious “Um, if we can communicate with the relays from here, why can’t we just transmit our signal without going to all the bother of finding one?”

A voice she hadn’t heard before replied from the starboard crew stations “We don’t have permission.” Turning, she saw that the owner of this voice was a young-looking man with dark hair, tanned skin and an almost painfully embarrassed expression, turning away from the leftmost of the three stations along the wall to talk to her. He continued “Ah, sorry ma’am. Sublieutenant Corleone, Communications.” He paused again and looked away. “Er, because we’re not part of any of the Fleets yet, Electra hasn’t been supplied with the emergency clearance codes to make fleet-wide broadcasts. Well, except the automated mayday which isn’t really what we’re looking for here.”

“But, “ interjected the navigational officer, a broad grin etched into her tan face and amusement clearly showing behind her deep brown eyes, “the communications relays naturally have privileges to address the entire fleet. So we just need to convince the relay that we are, in fact, part of it. Which is easy enough to do…you just have to be there.”

Corleone, Sarah noted, looked horrified. She could almost see his internal struggle as he wrestled with whether or not to say something. Eventually he managed to screw up enough courage to speak to Maritz “Sir, this course of action is strictly prohibited…”
“Lieutenant, I think the opposition threw the rulebook out of the airlock some time ago. We may consider this analogous to the situation following an unsuccessful deep strike, and in such a circumstance it is the Electra’s duty to locate and link up with friendly forces by whatever means possible. Besides, your commander-in-chief is standing just there at the weapons station, and she hasn’t complained yet.” Sarah had got partway through wondering where her father was before she realised that Maritz had been referring to her. Struggling not to cry again, she decided to take refuge behind formalities. “Strictly, Captain, the oath of loyalty is sworn at the coronation ceremony, so I couldn’t possibly be regarded as commander-in-chief at the moment.”

The awkward silence that followed her objection was broken by a ping from Moray’s console and his subsequent announcement “ITAS feed acquired, sir. Patching the display from the three nearest relays to the main viewscreen now.” All thirteen pairs of eyes on Electra’s bridge turned to the front of the bridge, where the viewer performed the function achieved in times past by windows, the Navy having learned from the loss of several promising officers to explosive decompression not to place the ship’s bridge in an exposed area. The images it currently showed were not, however, of the starfield outside the ship but a symbolic representation of the space around three communications relays. Nobody on the bridge looked happy with what it showed.

“What the…battleships?”

Sarah didn’t recognise that voice, and its owner wasn’t saying anything further, doubtless shushed by a glare from a superior officer. Nonetheless, it was an accurate summation of the situation. Next to each of the three relays lay one of the Fleet’s Resolution-class warships. The modular design, created to use mass-produced components for speed of manufacture during the Second Asani war, was highly unpopular with their crews, who regarded them as cramped, unreliable, underpowered, undergunned and prone to falling apart under combat stress. Nonetheless, they remained a formidable foe in a combat situation – and were certainly more than a match for a light cruiser-class vessel like the Electra.

“Mr. Moray, do you have an ID on those battlewagons?”

“Revenge, Righteous and Royalist, sir. All Second Fleet ships, who are supposed to be patrolling the Asani frontier. I think that makes Admiral Blackwell our prime candidate for the mastermind behind this coup.”

Maritz, it seemed, disagreed “I don’t understand this. Blackwell couldn’t have expected Electra to escape with the Princess, so why this blockade of the comm relays?”

Agent Holtzmann smiled at the captain’s confusion “Because, Captain, he knows that both the people and the Fleet will accept the coup if he can present things as a necessary military response to an emergency, which requires him to control the flow of information. I’d bet he’s got loyal personnel stationed at the civilian relays or in the RNN offices, too. Any opposition he has remaining on Rilma can be eliminated in further “terrorist outrages”, with the threat of the Electra dangled to still any protest. This must have been some years in the planning and orchestrating, given the number of contingencies he’s got covered.”

As Sarah listened to her bodyguard’s dispassionate outlining of how Admiral Blackwell had overthrown the centuries-old government of Rilma in an afternoon, she found grief slowly giving way to rage inside her. She’d met Blackwell several times, at various receptions and Memorial Day events of the sort which an Admiral and a war hero like him had to be invited. He always looked slightly uncomfortable in the dress uniform, she recalled. She could remember discussing diplomatic nothings with him, laughing slightly too hard at one of his jokes…remembered how his crystal blue eyes sparkled as he told stories of the Asani war or the continuing anti-piracy operations his ships conducted on the frontiers. She hated him. She was going to kill him, no matter how long it took. He’d killed…no. She wasn’t going to think about all the people he’d killed.

She became aware that most of the people on the bridge were looking at her. She rather fervently hoped that she hadn’t absent-mindedly fired a plasma beam at nothing in particular, which could be hard to live down. She decided not to ask – it wasn’t important, anyway. “We’ve got to rally the Fleet to stop Blackwell – and we can only do that by getting the truth out. If he’s taking out the relays, then we are the message. If we assume the Second has basically defected as a group, then that leaves the First and Third fleets as forces that might oppose him. Recommend we head for the fleet HQs and talk to the commanders.”

Maritz nodded “Sensible enough, but First Fleet HQ is in Rilma orbit. We have to assume he’s neutralised their ability to compromise his ambitions since we’ve seen no reports of sustained heavy weapons fire there. Third Fleet headquarters it is. Lieutenant Shimazaka, set your course for the Capstan system. Engineering, full power to the Alcubierre drives; engage. Princess, you and I have a message for Admiral Schultz to record, since we’ll need to be at our stations when the Electra arrives at Capstan. The ‘renegade’ Electra will no doubt have been the subject of a critical-priority all-fleet communication, so it isn’t impossible that somebody might try to blast us before we can get our signal off. Mr. Moray, you have the bridge. See if you can beat Blackwell’s signal to Capstan.”

Sarah wondered about the possibility of that as she followed Maritz off the bridge. Massless information could be sent much faster through space than a ship could travel – she didn’t quite understand the theories, but that wasn’t going to make them not work. However, the odds were that Blackwell would need some time to react to Electra’s unexpected escape – and they were much closer to Capstan than the traitorous Admiral was likely to be. So, there was a chance, but everything was in his hands. Electra would have to make her best speed and hope.

Five hours later, as the ship came up on the gas giant whose seventh moon served as the Third Fleet’s HQ (because, if she believed the cynics who repeated naval rumour at royal garden parties, it was as far out of the way as the government that had built it could send a political embarrassment of a flag-officer), that logic seemed equally irrefutable but a lot more worrying to Sarah now that the people who might try to blast them were almost within weapons range. Which brought up an interesting question itself, of course:

“Captain, if the Third Fleet’s ships do try to kill us when we appear in the Capstan system, do we shoot back?”

“Not unless we’re left with no alternative. In my experience, I’ve never been terribly willing to take the word of somebody who was shooting at me at the time, and in any case I’ve already killed more men and women who share my uniform than I ever wanted to.”

Nobody had any answer to that, so tense silence reigned until the Electra reached the Capstan system, at which point the staccato of military order-and-report dialogue returned.

“Coming up on Capstan IV now, sir. Dissipating Alcubierre wave.”
“Confirm wave dissipation normal. Acquiring navigational fix.”
“Fix acquired. Looks like we’re more or less where we thought we were this time, sir.”
“Excellent. Head towards Fleet HQ, but not directly at it. Shields to standby, begin transmission.”

Sarah keyed the necessary buttons to bring everything but the shield projectors on-line as the Electra began to transmit the messages she and Maritz had recorded earlier. She hoped she sounded convincing. If the Third Fleet’s commanders couldn’t be convinced to throw their warships against Blackwell, it would be a lifetime’s work to remove the usurper. Even if they could, the counterinsurgency would not be exactly straightforward – the Third was the weakest of the three battle fleets and was primarily engaged in exploration and internal policing.

Sublieutenant Corleone’s perpetually nervous voice interrupted her strategic considerations. “We’re being hailed, sir.”

“Better than being shot at, Lieutenant. On left screen, Mr. Moray; keep the main screen updated with the sensor output.”

The Electra’s side viewscreen formed itself into an image of Admiral Schultz, looking grey, weatherbeaten and careworn as, Sarah thought, a man whose job it was to tell people to sail ships into almost entirely uncharted areas of the coreward sectors probably ought.

“This is Admiral Schultz addressing the officers and crew of the Electra…”

“Admiral, this is Captain Maritz commanding. This is an emergency…” Seeing the Admiral make no attempt to acknowledge his presence, Maritz broke off and turned to his communications station. “It’s one-way, isn’t it? Don’t answer that, Lieutenant.”

As it turned out, he didn’t need to. “…assuming that any remain alive. Due to the Asani virus aboard your ship, I cannot receive any incoming transmissions from your ship, and I cannot therefore ascertain your status. Given the events at the Red Phoenix shipyards, I must assume that you are hostile. Therefore, the ship will be destroyed if it enters weapons range of any friendly vessel. If any of the ship’s crew can hear this message, I advise them to abandon ship in order to allow attempts to be made to safely disable and salvage your vessel.”

Sarah felt she could hear the communal swearword that every bridge officer seemed to be repressing. “Do we, then?”
Maritz snorted “No. Mainly because I don’t trust anybody in the Fleet right now, and so I’m not risking that somebody in Blackwell’s pay isn’t going to fire on Electra or our escape pods if we abandoned. In addition, it’ll probably take weeks to refit the Electra’s escape pods after they’ve all been used, and we’d need her right away. I’m not taking a ship with no escape pods into battle.”

Sarah was puzzled “Why would it take so long?”

Moray, his face making the most resigned smile Sarah could remember seeing, answered: “Because the seals on the pod ejection system aren’t designed to be multiple-use, and replacing them is generally a drydock operation. Nobody really considered a situation in which you might want to go back to a ship you’d abandoned. Evacuating isn’t generally something you do from serviceable warships.”

“We do have four shuttlecraft, sir.” That was the navigation officer. She seemed to be the only person on the bridge still smiling, and Sarah wondered if the lieutenant ever frowned.

“That’s true, Lieutenant, but they’re still unshielded and there’s the issue of not being blasted on our way in. However, I think a shuttlecraft is our best chance to get a message across. They still won’t accept a transmission, but a one-man shuttlecraft would only be a small risk and could carry our message.”

Sublieutenant Corleone, it seemed, was still worried. Sarah idly thought that in different circumstances he’d have made a wonderfully entertaining equerry to tease. “Sir, if they’re this paranoid they’re also unlikely to play any message chip you send.”

Maritz smiled grimly. “Why no, I daresay they wouldn’t. Nonetheless,” he continued, standing up, “I believe I have a way to communicate with Admiral Schultz.”

The import of Maritz’s movement took a while to penetrate the fog of grief in Sarah’s brain, such that she had only begun to grasp what he intended when Moray stirred from his post in the operations center. “Umm, Captain, that’s…”

“Dangerous? Well, yes, it is. On the other hand, we have an usurper to defeat and a kingdom to restore, and a single light cruiser isn’t going to do much towards that. We need the Third Fleet’s support, and we’re not going to get that by sitting here and looming at them. The Admiral is unlikely to be convinced by anybody other than me or Princess Sarah, and whilst I’m new to this, I suspect if you’re trying to restore a monarchy it’s a bad idea to get the heir to the throne needlessly killed. A ship’s captain is pretty expendable on that scale.”

Sarah gave Maritz a long look. She’d met this man barely five hours ago, and now he was preparing to risk his life for her. Intellectually, she knew the Captain’s loyalty was to the wider government that Blackwell had usurped and that he’d probably have done the same thing if she hadn’t been sitting at his weapons station. Emotionally, though, with Maritz standing in front of her, dispassionately outlining why he had to run the gauntlet of the Third Fleet’s guns in an unshielded shuttlecraft, it was much harder. It was rather cowardly to allow Maritz to proceed without even a protest, but she was too exhausted to make more than a token attempt and she’d be overruled by Agent Holtzmann anyway. Besides, the cold stare in the captain’s blue eyes didn’t suggest he was likely to listen to arguments anyway.

As Maritz stalked off the bridge, pausing only to send an order to the hangar, Sarah dialled up the gain on the tactical sensors and wondered if the threat detection system had been improved at all for the Electra-class, or if it was still the old model which could just about tell you if another ship’s weapons were charged provided it was flying in close formation with you. Either way, the tac-grid reported that everybody within sensor range seemed to have shields powered, but no active sensors were pointed Electra’s way and nobody was running detectable amounts of power to their weapons, so she might yet see the young captain again.

The ship shook slightly as Maritz’s shuttle launched, and all eyes on the bridge turned to the main display, which showed its agonisingly slow flight past the eclectic mix of warships that made up the Third’s base security squadron. Sarah tried to watch the tactical sensors for signs of weapons being brought to bear, then decided that knowing her captain was about to be vaporised slightly before it happened wasn’t of much use to her and shut them off, muttering that shuttle flights never seemed to last this long when she was doing them.

Moray seemed to have heard. “Quite a long shuttle flight, this, since we’re trying to stay out of weapons range of everybody else he's much further away than you'd usually shuttle from. It’s unlikely anybody will shoot the shuttle down, though – rather hard to explain your ship opening fire on a single unarmed shuttlecraft to the Admiral.”

Sarah wasn’t sure of that. “Wouldn’t it be easier than having to explain away what he’s going to tell them, though?”

“Yes, but it’s a lot easier to have him meet with an unfortunate accident once he’s landed and fewer people are looking. If I was running this operation, I’d have rigged the base’s main hangar with something explosive and hard to trace.”

Fortunately, it seemed that Lieutenant Commander Moray was not running Blackwell’s operation, since no explosion occurred upon the Captain’s shuttle disappearing into the hangar. “What now?” Sarah asked.

“Well, we could try to rig the ship’s navigational beacon to send messages in Morse code, but absent improbable backup communicative schemes I think we just wait.” That was the smiling navigational officer, again. Sarah tried to recall the name from Maritz’s introductions. Mariko…somebody. Ah well. One of the advantages of the military was that one could always address somebody by rank, and they showed you what that was on the uniform. She was a lieutenant, which was roughly normal for a bridge officer of a light cruiser.

She was also right about the Electra’s next action. It was over half an hour before anything happened, and in that time Sarah wondered what they’d do if the Captain didn’t come back – and what they’d do if he did. Even with Admiral Schultz and the Third Fleet’s wholehearted support it was unlikely that a direct assault on the capital would succeed…even if it did hundreds of lives and tens of ships would be lost; and in any case the Third was widely dispersed, mostly on deep exploration missions from which it would be very difficult to recall ships, making it difficult to organise such an assault. Electra alone – well, she was an ace card, faster than anything that could fight her and much better gunned than anything that could keep up, but she was only one such card. Maybe somebody aboard was an expert in guerrilla warfare. Sublieutenant Corleone's voice intruded on her considerations.

“Incoming signal from the fleet base.”

“Putting it up”

The tactical symbols on the main screen dissolved and were replaced by an image of Captain Maritz and Admiral Schultz. Sarah was surprised at how much of a weight left her when she saw the Captain still alive – especially given how many people weren’t, her brain added bleakly. It was the Admiral who was speaking, though.

“Hailing Electra. Your version of events in Rilma orbit is both supported by your sensor and comm. logs, and extremely disturbing, especially given what ITAS says – and doesn’t say – about the dispositions of the Second Fleet. I agree with Agent Holtzmann’s analysis of a military coup. Attempting to restore the government will be difficult, not to mention extremely dangerous. Open warfare would be ruinous, and probably unsuccessful. So we must cut off Blackwell’s support at the knees.

“Our campaign will have two prongs. Captain Maritz will lead the first, supported by elements of my intelligence staff. We will covertly transfer the Captain to First Fleet’s headquarters, where he will work to spread awareness of the situation covertly and bring as much of the First over to the royalist side as possible. In order to facilitate the covert buildup of overwhelming loyalist forces in the capital sector, Electra will be our gadfly. The ship is to transit to the area of space patrolled by Second Fleet, where it will fulfill two objectives. Proximately your goal is to determine why and with what support Blackwell launched his coup – the man’s ambitious, but not in this way, or so I’d thought. He also seems to have succeeded entirely too easily, meaning that either the security services have all been itching to overthrow the government for years or there was some outside force assisting. Secondarily, you’ll make as much of a target of yourselves as is commensurate with the safety of your command, drawing Blackwell’s forces away from Rilma. I would imagine these objectives will dovetail nicely. The major difficulty will be a lack of friendly bases in the region”

Sarah smiled for the first time since Electra had gone to battle-stations. “Ah, but there is such a base, Admiral. The Royal Family and it’s protectors have long believed in planning for all possible contingencies, and so…”

Schultz nearly smiled back. “Sanctuary? I’ve heard the name and some rumours, but…”

“It lies roughly two-thirds of the way from Rilma to the Asani border; nicely inside Electra’s new area of operations. The people who know its location are the King, the Heir Apparent, and the heads of their protective details. In other words, the only living people who know the location are myself and Agent Holtzmann. It’s intended to hold the ministerial government in case of catastrophe too, but nobody seems to trust them enough to tell them this. Probably because they turn over faster than princes. I imagine the idea was intended to be that we’d probably be in the same place as the PM and could give directions.”

“Very well. Good luck. Third Fleet out.”

Sarah walked over to the navigation console and keyed in a button sequence she’d been forced to remember when she was five. She’d never seen the point in it for so long…ah well. The computer beeped an acknowledgment and set a course for Sanctuary Station.

“OK, course laid in. Matching shields to engines. Ready when you are, navigation.”

“Warping in 3..2..1” Space twisted around the Electra as she headed for deep space, taking the first step in reclaiming a lost kingdom.

Things I don't talk about

2007-06-10T23:30:37Z

The Master would not discourse on mystery, force, rebellion and deity
- Analects 7.20
When Ji-lu asked how to serve the spirits and gods, the Master said: "You cannot serve men yet; how can you serve the spirits?"
"May I venture to ask what death is?"
The Master said: "You do not understand life yet; how can you understand death?"
- Analects 11.12

Some debate topics recur with all the inevitability of death and taxes. Perhaps in Benjamin Franklin's day people were more original in their topics of conversation, or maybe Franklin had a greater boredom threshold (or a defective memory). Maybe he just had a good ear for a proverb and decided to stop his list while he was ahead. In any case, topics of religion and philosophy are discussed with remarkable regularity in the circles in which I move (ie, you lot).

People who know me are probably aware that I rarely hold back from expressing an opinion. Yet I rarely (I'm not going to say never as then I'm sure somebody will manage to find a counterexample from a time I was more bored than wise) make any comment on these matters. I suppose it is about time I explained why not.

Part of the answer lies in the Confucian teachings quoted. I broadly agreed with Master Kong on topics in Lun Yu on which I had preconceived notions when I read it; consequently I am significantly more receptive to the remainder of his ideas. In the broader sense, I have come to accept the existence not only of questions which are unanswerable, but also of questions which are unimportant.

The former class can readily be formulated in mathematics and computer science, and so thanks to Alan Turing and others I am spared the burden of proving this. The second category will I fear (and hope, since anybody who writes a post like this and claims not to want people to comment is lying) prove more controversial. I think to illustrate what I mean by unimportant I'll stay in the general area of logic, and drag something out of an old IM conversation with Senji:

adarisa: I suppose if it's undecidable as to whether or not it is undecidable it is, in fact, undecidable.
senji: No, because that would make the decidableness decidable.
adarisa: Only in a logical sense. This is the RealWorld
adarisa: Because practically if it isn't decidable whether or not it's decidable obviously you can't decide about it.
senji: Because otherwise you could decide the decidability by deciding.

I am sure that to logicians and philosophers this is a symptom of a terribly limited and terrestrial mind, but I'm an applied physicist. Perhaps it's my way of getting back at them for misunderstandings of quantum mechanics. Most metaphysical issues are of similar importance. I am aware that it is questionable as to whether or not this is actually real, but it doesn't matter because I have no way of experiencing "reality" if this is not it, so what's to stop me from calling this "reality"?. Likewise, the question as to whether or not I have free will is irrelevant to my ability to experience the sensation of it, and the difference between two indistinguishable sensations is surely unimportant.

Entities are defined by how they interact with the world; entities that do not interact with the world may exist, but as they have no effect on anything I have done, am doing or intend to do, they are abstractions I don't need to consider. Is this a particularly unusual position to take? Nobody else seems to be saying it...

Albatross, Session 2

2006-11-20T23:24:42Z

Resplendent Albatross, at anchor in an island in the Bordermarches north of The Neck,
16th Descending Fire, RY 765

My dearest Falcon,

Well, that was certainly eventful. Today I have learned never to let a Full Moon Lunar handle negotiations, and that whatever else the Solars of the Late First Age might have done, they knew how to construct a fortification, although perhaps not as much about maintenance as one might have hoped. For it turns out that this Manse, tucked into an island in the Sea in both the physical and metaphysical senses, is indeed a fortress. I've not seen the defensive controls myself, they being high in a tower which there isn't any easy access to unless you know how to fly (or have figured out how to operate a first-age device which makes you capable of flight, as Ocean seems to have done - that's a truly impressive artifact. It seems to operate based on some form of transformation - she spreads golden wings, glowing bright with Solar Essence, and flies on tracks of light and flickers of stardust. It is a hard kind of beauty - not your softness of expression and form - but it is beauty nontheless. In many ways I might liken it to the styling of the Albatross herself.) but it seems that they operate a well-placed set of Essence cannon. Unfortunately it seems that some of these have caused large parts of the island to melt and recool over what was once probably a perfectly good naval base or trade waypoint.

Doubly unfortunately, it was around this point in time that the Dragon woke up. We'd been warned there was a Dragon dematerialised at the base of the manse, but obviously I couldn't see it, so I was slightly suprised when it materialised next to Teeth and demanded to know who it was disturbing his slumber. Unfortunately, Teeth doesn't speak Old Realm, so introduction and conversation was rather short and ended in Dragon's Suspire and the production of Moonsilver daiklaves. The resulting fight was intense but short - Moment and Teeth sparred with the Dragon in close combat whilst Blizzard and I took our bows to the creature. We found ourselves at an advantage - I was out of his easy striking range, having been sketching a map of the sea surrounding the island, whilst Blizzard had the cover of the Manse building's defenses. Blizzard took advantage of his cover to spear the Dragon with essence-powered arrows, which clearly hurt, since it responded with a seemingly endless flurry of attacks which ended with Moment batted a considerable distance across the island, having managed to interpose a club between most of the claws and teeth and him; Blizzard sheltering behind the Manse's pillars from the Dragon's fiery breath, and Teeth buried underneath the Dragon's body and fending off claw attacks. It ignored me, presumably because I was furthest away. As best as I could tell from bowshot range, Teeth seemed to have some difficulty with the Dragon's attack, but before anybody could react he clawed and chewed (I guess the shark teeth help there) his way up through the body of the Dragon atop him, emerging glowing bright silver from the remnants of the spirit, having almost ripped it to shreds.

According to Ocean he also ate the manse's hearthstone, which the spirit had been carrying with him, but his constitution, at least in siaka-man form, seemed hardy enough to handle a fire-stone whilst it dissolved and reformed in the manse. Ocean, Blizzard and Moment then went off to explore the Manse, whilst Teeth, Raven and I explored the remainder of the island for any more unpleasant suprises (there weren't any). At some point the Solars managed to activate the Manse's defense system, which seems to contain a malfunctioning Essence cannon which has melted large sections of the island - according to Moment, though, Ocean didn't seem to have a problem with the lava lake preventing access to the lower levels of the Manse. Unfortunately, this cannon seems to have melted some of the foundational rock, since the tower lists slightly now it has been activated. This and there being no obvious way in meant I contented myself to exploring the outside of the Manse and sleeping aboard the Albatross, though Ocean and Moment did stay in the Manse. Possibly in Moment's case because he wasn't anxious to climb down the side of a building that may have been falling over. Tomorrow we plan to take the Albatross out into open sea to test her capabilities.

All my love,

Flame

Albatross, Session 1

2006-11-08T16:12:45Z

So I decided I'd write some of these, in-character as Flame, since nobody else seemed to be writing session reports for The Albatross. I do not believe anybody is likely to know about this. The journal is written in Flame's native Old Realm, probably. We (that's senji and I) assume that Skullstone's children are taught to speak in Old Realm by ghostly tutors, since this seems to fit with the archipelago's general intermixing of life and death.

The writing style is scattergun because Flame tends to write as he thinks, not as would make sense. Flame has excellent personal presence but rather worse writing ability.

Resplendent Albatross, in the Bordermarches North of the Neck
15th Descending Fire, 765

My dearest Falcon,

So much has happened! I trust you recieved my warning about the Silver Prince. I have left his service, though I will still defend the people of Skullstone as best I can. I still believe that he is right about the way to lead a nation in the West, but his actions are not, as you would have it, honourable. My journeys have carried me far south of your lands, to the area of the Neck itself. There I ended up signing on to recover a supposed first age warship that a captain had discovered drifting into a Wyld zone - too interesting a sight to turn down the chance to see, even if the ship did have a Dragon-Blooded first officer (why wasn't she captain? I still don't know - she doesn't answer many questions, though like me, she asks a lot. She calls herself "Raven", which is itself a question. But I digress).

The captain brought a token from the ship, to prove his claims - a seven foot chamber of clear first age construction. As we sailed towards the Wyld zone he claimed this vessel lay in, the chamber opened, revealing what I can only describe as a monster. Six feet tall, or perhaps long, with a hardened exoskeleton (I think the orichalcum trim was some kind of armour), beclawed and winged, and heavily enough muscled to be easily capable of flight. Apparently, it claims to be a Pterok, a philosopher of the Dragon Kings, an ancient race created by the Primordials. Have you ever heard of them? Its name is Psiri, and it is by no means the only flying object which travelled to the Wyld aboard this ship. In the crow's nest is perched a Metagalapan riding hawk. Its owner is a former Haslanti diplomat called Endless Blizzard, who is quite possibly the worst sailor I have ever seen. He probably isn't mortal, and there are others who may not be - especially, of course, the one who pulled a Moonsilver short daiklave out when the Pterok made its presence known. He introduced himself as Thousand Deadly Teeth, of the Full Moon - have you met him? Uncomplicated, powerfully built and a good sailor, Teeth meets with my approval.

Shortly after entering the Wyld, the ship became becalmed, and the Captain went to consult his log for navigational advice. He returned wrestling with a squid, which wasn't quite what I'd expected. A closer look showed that the squid had the word "LOG" carefully stencilled into it. At this point, Teeth dropped the log into a bucket of seawater. His excuse was that it looked like it was drying out, which I thought was rather a good state for a log to be in. Eventually the ship's "thaumaturge" and Blizzard went below decks and managed to coax some information out of the log, revealing themselves as Twilight and Eclipse Caste Solar Exalted in the process. It seems that many of the Chosen were attracted by the promise of a first age warship. It turned out there was one more Solar aboard - a loudmouthed repairman named Long Green Moment, who I feel Ocean, the other Twilight, wants to disown or excommunicate or something.

After various shenanigans with regards to navigating the bordermarches, the lookouts sighted a ship, that Psiri identified as the Resplendent Albatross, a late first age battlecruiser design. She rides high in the water, with her long and narrow main hull flanked by two slightly shorter outriggers. She leans forwards, possibly as a result of the asymmetric arrangement of her five sails - I say sails for they are of gossamer-thin blue jade, which supports itself with no masts to speak of. Perhaps there was once a sixth, for the sails are to be found three to port and two to starboard. The ship remains in good repair, and her wards against chaos are intact. The hull, a mixture of enchanted wood and black jade plating, glints in the water but it is outshone by the orichalcum plating of the bow, which somehow catches the sunlight even when the ship is turned away from the sun.

The ship is functionally, rather than heavily armed, and only lightly armoured considering the weaponary it used to sport. There were once eight firelances in all-aspect mounts, though now only three remain. Once there were three lightning ballistae or similar secondary weapons, plus two heavy point-defense weapons - only the one lightning ballista remains. The ship's main armament is more of an enigma - it seems to be a solid block of orichalcum that must cost more than half of Onyx. So far, it has remained inert, and the Twilights believe it will stay that way until fed with a hearthstone. There was something of a crew of spirits aboard, some of whom seem to man (and power) the weapons. They're a bit trigger-happy, mind - it took us a while to work out how to get aboard without being shot at by firelances. The ship's least God has a sense of duty and knows her job, but she's worryingly naíf - seven centuries and she hasn't realised yet that she was abandoned to her fate by her former commander as a decoy.

Anyway, whilst most of us were learning about the ship from Albie, as the least God is generally called, Moment managed to find and activate the ship's Essence drive. After some initial tomfoolery, we managed to rig a tow for the vessel we'd arrived on, and get the ship out of the Wyld, where we now lie at anchor on a small island which - well, it clearly isn't a natural harbour, it's been made into a harbour by some long-dead Twilight, probably at least as old as the ship is. The currently-alive Twilights say that the buildings atop the cliffs are a Manse, and there's certainly power here. We will sleep aboard the Albatross tonight and explore the island tomorrow.

All my love,

Flame

Alignments...

2006-10-08T01:07:10Z

The Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil axes are in many respects a lousy system to base a roleplaying mechanic off, but they are a nice way to talk about a character's styles of thought in a very brief manner provided you accept the obvious limitations of reducing a complex decision-making calculus to two words.

Any way, enismirdal and I were arguing about the relative merits of various alignments for protagnoist characters. I complained that in my experience Chaotic Neutral types were normally a product of lazy writing, and I couldn't recall such a character I'd actually identified with. So then I got wondering, who had I actually identified with? Are they just me-aligned characters? (I generally claim to be painfully LG)

In no particular order:
Lyra Silvertongue, from His Dark Materials (Phillip Pulman): Chaotic Good
Stephen Maturin, from Master and Commander and subsequent books (Patrick O'Brian): Neutral Good
Giad Pelleaon, from Heir to the Empire and subsequent books (Timothy Zahn): Lawful Neutral
Wedge Antilles, from Rogue Squadron and subsequent books (Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, Aaron Allston): Lawful Good
Vorian Atreidies, from Legends of Dune (Herbert/Anderson): Chaotic Good
Iblis Ginjo, from Legends of Dune (Herbert/Anderson): Chaotic Evil*
Ko-Ko, from The Mikado (Gilbert): True Neutral

Of course, if I'm going to talk about characters I identified with, I ought to mention:
Sesus Adarisa, from The Enemy of my Enemy (Mine): ??? Adarisa tried to be LG, but I don't know that she managed it except maybe by the standards of her own world.

So there seems to be some tending towards either L or G, I suppose. My objection to CN and TN is that such characters generally lack a believable motivation, short of them needing to save the world because it's where they keep all their stuff. There is an exception in terms of "Envoy of Balance" characters, but I've yet to actually read any fiction in which such a character exists. Of course, in reality...Prince Klemens von Metternich of Austria might count as such a type, and I liked him.

In conclusion, I'm not entirely sure if I have a point or not, and I should probably shut up. But somebody might be able to garner something from all of this.

*Um, arguably

The tales of the dread pirate Eni

2005-12-25T23:40:35Z

So, I was thinking, what does one get an enismirdal for Christmas? There are material answers - but these are either boring (chocolate, port) or somewhat impractical (a colony of bees). Most of the things she wants are immaterial. The only thing she's ever directly stated to me that she wants is:

tentrevir: I have a sekrit desire to be a Mary Sue

Well, OK, but how does one do that, beyond writing a story? What type of Mary Sue is she? Fortunately, this problem was solved by senji's subconscious, and his decision to tell us about it here. Consequently, I present to you the tale of the origins of the Dread Space Pirate Eni.

This story was originally planned as the prologue to Ex Astris, Ultio: The Tales of the Dread Pirate Eni, but I'm never going to have the time to tell all of them, when my verbosity is sufficient that this one ran to almost five thousand words and is probably only a thirtieth of what I'd originally planned. So, I'm throwing it open to all of you - tell the Tales of the Dread Pirate Eni, leading on from this, or striking out somewhere else (there may, after all, have been more than one). The only things I ask are that you post a link to any tale you write here, or that you email me (isfraser21@ google's mail service) with a link to where your story is posted. If lots are written I might even collect them and comment on my favourites. If nobody else writes anything I'll just add a few more stories of my own occasionally.

Without too much further ado:

Title: Ex Astris, Ultio: The Tales of the Dread Pirate Eni
Part: Prologue, A Dragon's Flight (1/?)
Length: 4,740 words
Copyright: Copyright is owned by Stuart Fraser. You are granted the right to copy this for personal use only, and may not distribute it in either electronic or printed form without my permission. This is a work of original fiction. Well, about as original as Sci-Fi gets nowadays anyway.
Other: See above, also please feel free to tell me how useless I am. Or even be nice about my writing ability, if you're that way inclined.

To enismirdal - Merry Christmas!

Other acknowledgements should probably go to: Timothy Zahn, and Michael Stackpole, for teaching me how to write space battle scences; and Stephen Ratliff and MST3K, for showing me all about bad SF suefic with a female protagonist. I hope Princess Sarah is a little more believable than Marissa Picard. Anyway, on with the show...

“Your Royal Highness?”
“Princess?”
“Princess Sarah?”
“Do you have anything for us, Princess?”
“What do you say about the article on the front page of the Herald, Princess?”
“Your Royal…”

The scrum of reporters – she hardly thought to honour them with the term journalists – fell silent as Princess Sarah Nimir and her minders continued to ignore them and walked from her airshuttle into the Red Phoenix assembly yard. She ignored them partly because it was the early morning, and the Princess was thus in a bad mood at being forced to get up at such an hour, and partly because it was never a good idea to give the press too much attention, if one wanted to keep anything private at all. As uniformed guards opened the doors before her, the Princess strode across the open floor of the Phoenix yard’s lobby, trying her best to keep her gait even and her posture regal, which wasn’t, she thought, as easy as it seemed this early in the morning.

Greeting her was a tall, middle-aged man, whose wiry build barely seemed to fill out his stiff-looking white-on-blue Royal Rilmani Navy uniform. He stood rigidly upright, and offered a formal bow before unbending and saying,
“Greetings, your Royal Highness. I’m Captain Pullman, overseer of the naval sections of this shipyard. If you will permit me to introduce my senior staff…” Sarah had nodded her assent before she’d even realised this was expected. “This is Commander Dubro, my executive officer, and…” The captain’s monologue continued, but her attention had wandered. It was, she thought, unconscionably early in the morning – with the navy’s newest ship due to be launched at noon, New London time, and with the necessary formalities to conduct beforehand, the time was eight a.m., and she’d been up since six; an hour of the day she was more used to approaching from the other direction. She idly wondered why, with a cousin and two uncles who’d had naval careers, she was the one standing here and attempting to refrain from too blatantly ogling the cuter-looking officers, at least some of whom looked positively dashing in the full dress uniform that was, needless to say, de rigueur at such an event. She forced her attention back to the Captain, who was indicating a man unremarkable in height and build, but possessed of a charming smile and impressive flowing blond hair that reached down to his lower neck; no longer in defiance of naval regulations, she knew, but certainly in defiance of naval custom. “…commanding officer of the Electra.”

Half-asleep she may have been, but the Princess was not entirely clueless, and the name Electra immediately brought her back to full consciousness. She was aware that she was expected to say something at this point, and opted for a relatively innocuous question: “Ah, so the crew of the Electra is mostly already aboard ship, then?”

The last of the officers Captain Pullman had named leaned forward to answer her question. He was shorter and looked much younger than the shipyard’s captain, with the subtly different gold trim and decoration which indicated he was part of the deep space navy. “Most of those who are coming with us on the first voyage are, yes. Since it is just a shakedown cruise, we aren’t running a full complement of crew, and a couple of the officers and one of the chiefs are transferring from other vessels and haven’t arrived yet. It ought to be a fairly routine affair. So far as anything in the RRN ever is, of course.”

Sarah flashed what she hoped was a dazzling smile by way of reply to his final comment. “Naturally. So, Captain Pullman, where is this fine vessel which I am to launch?”

“She’s in the outer spacedock, running pre-launch trials and waiting for us to arrive to conduct the ceremonies and launch her. This way.” So saying, the Captain took off towards the rightmost of three possible exits from the wide entranceway, with Princess Sarah alongside, and their respective entourages falling in on either side as was the custom. “It’s quite a walk, but I’m told that your security people decided against using the rail to get there directly.”

“Yes. I think they’re worried about my weight or something. Anyway, it is only a mile and a half, though I admit the view could do with improving”, Sarah said, gesturing at the expanse of featureless aluminium bulkhead to illustrate her reply.

The Captain smiled “Windows on the space side are considered somewhat…unwise, ma’am, due to the risk of micrometeorite impact. And on the other side, since the light from laser welding torches is so bright, we’d have to darken the windows so much you’d not be able to see anything through them anyway.”

“And presumably the naval accounting office frowns upon you spending thousands of pounds to have a nice mural or similar painted on the walls. A pity, really.”

There were a few polite chuckles amongst the assembled naval officers, before Pullman continued his commentary “We’re walking past the inner assembly yards. Some ship systems have to be part assembled before they can be integrated into ship hulls, and not all of them arrive here that way.”

Princess Sarah nodded, becoming more awake as the conversation moved onto a topic about which she was not entirely uninformed “Oh, like the beam arrays, you mean?” Sensing the several surprised looks around her, she added, smiling “It’s called taking an interest, I think. With a good third of your family in or retired from the Navy it can somewhat dominate conversations, and…well, I got curious. So I probably know more about photon cascade inverters than might be considered entirely sensible. I don’t believe the gossip columnists ever did learn why I did applied physics at university.”

Electra’s captain almost giggled at her last comment, replying “Maybe you could fill in for my weapons officer, then, Your Highness; he’s not due to join me for another two weeks yet, when he finishes his rotation on the old Resolve.”

“I did actually want to join the Navy, but this is, apparently, not allowed for the heir apparent, who is expected to train in the arts of being a head of state. Which is why I shall be launching your ship rather than worrying about the torpedo guidance systems. I have been told that it is much more efficient to be polite to foreign heads of state than to blow their ships up, but then none of the people who tell me this have ever actually had to put up with diplomatic functions for six hours on end and still look like they are enjoying themselves at the end of it.”

As they continued to walk down the passageways towards the outer docks containing the Electra, the activity aboard the station became more obvious. The sounds of welding torches and of repulsor fields being used to arrange heavy plates into the correct positions became more apparent through the left-hand bulkheads, and Captain Pullman explained that in the inner airdock the second ship of the Electra class, provisionally named Megaera, was beginning to take shape. Meanwhile, the party reached the outer docks where the name-ship for that class awaited them. As the open doors to the airdock hove into sight the atmosphere became more and more one of expectation – some for the Princess’ visit, for those who were used to the Electra were eager to see what Her Royal Highness would make of it, and some for the crew of the Electra, eager to see their new ship make its way into the void.

Captain Pullman initially lead the party to the outer observation deck, with two purposes in mind. Firstly, the observation deck was where the launching ceremony would be conducted, and he wanted to make sure that the attendant media were safely ensconced there before the dignitaries were taken on a tour of the new starship, and secondly, he wanted Princess Sarah’s first sight of the soon-to-be HMS Electra to be a memorable one. To him, the ship remained a thing of beauty even through the years it had been with him; he would be sorry to see it leave, as he had been every other ship launched from this yards over the past five years. Even so, Electra felt special. From the hard angular “V” formed by the drive system at the rear her lines gradually softened as they swept forwards into the “wings” of the ships superstructure, the ventral and dorsal hulls curving as a scimitar to meet at their foremost points on each side, and the port and starboard sides of the ship arcing inwards in a concave parabola. The designer had likened the fore to a bird landing on the aft section, its perch, and whilst his imagery seemed slightly strained to the naval captain of forty years experience, he could see what was meant.

“She looks….dangerous.”

Her commanding officer grinned at the complement to his vessel, “We rather hope she’ll live up to that expectation, Your Highness, although hopefully only to our enemies. If you would care for a tour?”

“I would be delighted, Captain.” Sarah replied, inwardly cursing herself for having paid insufficient attention when this man was introduced to be able to remember his name now.

Perhaps the more senior captain sensed her dilemma, for he immediately resolved it “Captain Maritz, the launching ceremony begins in an hour and a half. Dismissed.”

Maritz saluted and then lead the way, followed by Princess Sarah and her security detachment, out of the observation lounge and through the docking struts which connected the lowest deck on the newly built starship with the orbital facility which had built her, and would do until they were retracted for launching. The princess paused briefly as she reached the threshold of the ship to ask Maritz permission to board, which he granted.

“Traditionally, Your Highness, I should introduce a visitor as high in status as you to the ship’s officers at this point. However, they are, in the most part, on the bridge, and a sensibly arranged tour starting from here would begin in engineering. Since these two locations are essentially the length of the ship distant, I hope you will forgive this minor breach of protocol.”

Sarah smiled indulgently. “Of course, Captain Maritz. Especially if it saves me having to walk from here to the bridge and back again to get to engineering.”

Maritz returned both the Princess’ smile and her lighthearted comment. “Fortunately, we got the lifts working properly about three weeks ago. You’d be amazed how much that did for morale.” As the pair, with security officers trailing, reached the main engineering complex, the large double doors sliding open in front of them to reveal the twin fusion reactors which powered the ship’s systems, the Captain’s explanation of the sights was rudely interrupted by the keening of a siren and the female computer voice announcing “Captain Maritz to the bridge.”

Maritz stopped almost dead on his feet, muttering under his breath as he headed in the direction of the nearest lift, “We’ve not even launched yet, how can we be at yellow alert?” Remembering his guest, he added, rather louder, “You’d best come with me, your Highness. I don’t know what’s happening, but it won’t be anything good. Your people, too.” Barely stopping to wave at the attendant security detail, he set off at an extremely brisk walk.

By the time they reached the lifts, the tense atmosphere throughout the vessel was palpable. Yellow alert in spacedock, the veterans knew, was almost a sure sign of a fleetwide alert, which meant a crisis was in the offing. Their unease spread to the newly enlisted men aboard, and what had been only moments previously routine pre-launch trials now took on a very different hue.

“Bridge,” Captain Maritz told the lift as soon as they entered, and Sarah felt her weight almost double as they were accelerated towards the top deck of the ship. From main engineering to Electra’s bridge was a good three hundred and fifty metres; over half the length of the ship, and thus it was a good half-minute before they reached the bridge. Sarah’s skin was almost crawling by the end of the ride; she wondered how Ramirez could appear so outwardly calm. She fought the urge to fidget or bounce on the spot to relieve some nervous energy, not wishing to look like a flustered civilian and a mere hindrance in a crisis.

Maritz strode confidently out onto the bridge, with Sarah again trailing in his wake. “Report”, he ordered.

A tall, dark-haired man wearing both a beard and Lieutenant Commander’s stripes spoke up from his seat at the sensor console. “Long-range sensors detected an explosion followed by weapons fire from Rilma. We’ve not been able to raise the Admiralty – Dal is on the far side of the planet at the moment, so maybe one of the satellites is out. We’ve been monitoring civilian news traffic, though, and…” he faltered, his gaze seeming, to Sarah, to come to rest on her. She began to open her mouth, but Captain Maritz was faster.

“On screen, Commander.”

“Aye, sir.” The Bridge’s twin viewscreens lit up with the familiar logos of RNN and RBC, the system’s two major news networks, and rapidly resolved into subtly different aerial images of the centre of Dal. Instinctively, Sarah’s eyes were drawn towards St. Catherine’s Palace; and she realised, weak-kneed, why the sensor officer’s voice had faltered. The rational, scientific part of her mind which had served her well at university insisted on peforming a rough analysis of the plume of smoke and the debris surrounding what had previously been her home, compared it with what she knew of her family’s routine, and informed her that it was highly unlikely any of them would have survived what had to have been a bombing, before joining the rest of her in shutting down in numbed shock. She first staggered and then slumped forwards, knowing that she’d hate herself for collapsing like this but unable to cope with what she had seen and remain standing upright.

Her weakness saved her life. As she fell to the deck, a man who had previously stood over the weapons console drew his personal sidearm and thrust it towards her, the triggered particle beam scything through the space her body had occupied just moments before. The weapons officer had no time to correct for her collapse; the agents of Princess Sarah’s detail, training overriding their shock, acted almost as one – the principal agent throwing his body between the weapons officer and his charge, the other two drawing their own weapons and firing. Half a second later, the would-be assassin lay dead next to what had been his duty station.

“Red al…” Maritz began to order
“Not in spacedock, captain.”, the bearded officer at the sensor console spoke up quickly. Maritz frowned, briefly confused, then his features set into the look of forced calm exhibited previously – a trained professional facing a crisis.
“Wha…oh, of course. Raising shields in atmosphere would not be a career-enhancing decision. Very well. Seal off the bridge. Security to maximum alert. Nothing and nobody are to enter or leave the ship without mine or Lieutenant Commander Moray’s direct permission. Comms, get me Pullman.”

“On-line, sir.”
“This is Captain Pullman. Sensors showed weapons fire on your ship, Maritz…is there a problem?”

“I’d say that’s an affirmative, Captain. Lieutenant Ramirez just tried to assassinate the Princess. Are you aware of the position on Rilma?”

“Yes. I’d say we’re dealing with a conspiracy, and given that we can’t raise the Admiralty, a possible military coup against the government. What? From where? –Maritz, sensors are showing incoming Alcubierre wave signatures from the direction of the Asani frontier. Confirm?”

“Moray?”

“Confirmed, sir. Signatures show as friendly, for what that’s worth.”

Pullman grimaced. “Not much, I suspect.”, he replied. “Captain Maritz. Under the circumstances, I am bringing forward the launch of your ship. Is your crew aboard?”

Maritz straightened. “Yes, sir. Commander Moray, are pre-launch trials complete?”

“All systems show green, Captain. But….with Ramirez dead, sir, warfare division hasn’t got any officers. Unless there’s somebody we can borrow from Captain Pullman.”

“I’m afraid not, Commander; it’s been a long time since warfare branch has been so well-staffed as to be able to afford reserve officers aboard stations well inside our borders. And I think I’m about to need our primary weapons officer. Standby for launch sequence.”

Captain Maritz wanted to say something like ‘Wonderful. The shooting is quite possibly about to start, I’ve got the last member of the Royal family aboard my ship, and nobody aboard the ship is qualified to co-ordinate the defensive systems. Or even understands how they work…’, but, aware that naval discipline frowned on such frankness, contented himself with “Standing by. Engineering, activate reaction compensators.”

“Reaction compensators on-line.”

With a wry expression on her face, Sarah stood up. She had, after all, come here to launch this vessel, and she wasn’t about to let the fact that she was aboard it prevent this. “As the representative of His Beloved Majesty King William, I christen this vessel His Majesty’s Starship Electra. May God bless her and all who sail in her.” After a brief pause, she added “I thought we ought to do it properly, or as close as possible under the circumstances.” She saw that a few smiles had returned to the bridge following her pronouncement, although Captain Maritz just looked thoughtful. She still didn’t feel much like smiling herself, and sat back down again. Captains Maritz and Pullman continued their formal dialogue.

“Electra, releasing docking clamps.”

“Phoenix Yard, Electra confirms docking clamps released. Helm, thrusters to station keeping”

“Venting atmosphere through emergency ducts. I’ve got bigger worries that my air supply to worry about now.”

“Electra confirms atmosphere venting. Sensors indicate vacuum achieved in fifteen seconds.”

There was a brief pause, with the silence broken only by the sounds of metal acquiring new stresses as the atmosphere fled the airdock chamber.

“Vacuum achieved. Airdock doors opening.”

“Helm, take us out. Fire all forward thrusters.”

The helmsman acknowledged the order “All forward aye. The Electra has cleared the docking bay. Repeat, Electra is clear.”

“Electra clear confirmed, closing the bay doors. Good luck, captain. Now, time to see what our newcomers want. Pullman out”

Both captains, standing in the centre of their bridges, simultaneously pressed the largest button on their personal comm relays and spoke the same phrase. “Red Alert. All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.” What Pullman did not then do, but Maritz did, was to turn to his guest and say

“Princess Sarah. I originally meant this as a joke…but, can you operate the weapons systems? I know, it is rather irregular, and you’re not exactly in the best state of mind…but you said earlier you understood how the systems work.”

Shaking her head to clear it, Sarah got to her feet. “I think so, Captain. I worked with Professor Albertson on the Type 10X program as a research assistant for five months of my final year, and I’ve operated tactical simulators before. I’m not RN/4085-qualified, though, if that’s what you mean.”

“Lacking other options, I’ll take it, Your Highness. Bring point-defence railguns online, please, forward shields to maximum as soon as you can. Standby on the 10Xes.” Sarah got up and strode purposefully to the weapons console. In the confusion, nobody had yet removed the body of her would-have-been assassin from the station, and she had to fight off another wave of nausea and shock to remain standing. With something to focus on, though, this was much easier than the previous one. As she took her seat and activated the systems, her bodyguard removed the deceased officer’s corpse. It was mostly as she’d remembered; the only controls she didn’t immediately understand were some of the esoterica relating to the ionisation and beam cross-sectional controls for the 10Xes. She rather fervently hoped she wouldn’t be required to fire them. Finding the required settings, she powered the Meissner fields that levitated the railguns, allowing them to spin on their axes to track any incoming missiles, and the railguns themselves. She then checked the local shield sensors, and redirected the available energy in the defensive matrix to the forward shielding. “Point-defense guns active. Forward shields at 137% and climbing. Standing by Type 10X plasma beams.”

Next to her, Agent Holtzman, her bodyguard, whispered, “What does the X stand for?” Through clenched teeth, she replied “Experimental. That’s why this could be very interesting. Electra is the trial ship for the new design.”

“Incoming hail from the Phoenix yard, sir. Captain Pullman.”

“Left viewscreen, Comms. Sensors, Weapons, keep updating the targeting on the three interlopers.”

“I’d say it’s a definite on the conspiracy, Maritz. They seemed surprised to see the Electra launched, and told me they were here to escort the Princess’ shuttle back to Rilma. When I asked on whose orders, they claimed Admiral Blackwell. Last I’d heard, he wasn’t responsible for this sector; that hasn’t changed, has it?”

“No, A/C sector one is still Fitzpatrick.”

“In addition to that,” Agent Holtzman added, “Protocol for events following an assassination would most emphatically not be to return one of the few survivors to what appears to be the most dangerous area right now.”

Pullman nodded “Exactly. I refused to alter my schedules without a direct order from the Admiral. At that point, they warned me that they had been authorised to use force to “protect” the Princess. I paused the transmission.”

Moray spoke up, lines of concern etched into his face. “They’re powering weapons, Captain. Looks like we’ll have to fight. Wait…sir, I’m detecting weapons fire in Rilma orbit. They’re firing on the shipyard, sir.”

Martiz frowned. “Pullman doesn’t have a chance. Phoenix’s defences are antiquated, except for the shields. He’s trying to buy us time to get away from here. Unfortunately, if we abandon him now, his outer shields will never last long enough for all the construction workers to evacuate. We’ve got to buy him time, too. Plasma beams to full power. Helm, ion drive ahead full, come about to cross the yards at 45 degrees to the main hangars. Target the lead cruiser and get their attention.”

Electra swooped away from the shipyards, then corkscrewed around to face the attacking Venture-class ships. The Ventures were old warhorses now; the design that was due to be replaced by Electra and her sisters, but they were still three hundred metres of well-armed starship, and there were three of them. The first of the three Ventures either didn’t notice the Electra coming, or was pinned in place by several of the assembly yard’s many tractor beams, because she barely evaded at all. The pair of forward-facing 10X plasma beams lanced out from the prongs of Electra’s bow, striking at the most vulnerable section of any Rilmani cruiser; the link between the Alcubierre engines and the main hull of the starship. The enemy shielding held, then buckled, the superheated plasma beams penetrating to scorch first the paintwork and then begin boiling away armour; then the shields reformed, as the cruiser’s weapons officer desperately shunted energy to her aft ray shield projectors. On her sensor panel, the top of the target shield sphere flashed; that shield had been depleted to reinforce the stressed aft shield. The Electra moved over the Venture-class warship, climbing to bring the ventral guns to bear on the weakened shielding. Concentrating fiercely, Sarah rotated the shields to focus the plasma beams on the same weak spot she’d hit before, and triggered the ventral beams.

Two white-hot beams of ionised fire lanced from Electra’s belly to what would anatomically have been her foe’s spine. The shields glowed blue with the energy they absorbed, then shattered, and the beams drilled deep into the elderly cruiser they targeted. The Alcubierre engines first flickered, then died altogether, and the ship’s weapons ceased firing.

Meanwhile, Electra had her own problems. The portside ventral plasma beam was losing power to the magnetic containment/condenser lens field. Hurriedly, Sarah shut off power and plasma access to the beam and vented what of the ammunition remained. Before she could report the problem, Commander Moray spoke up “Sensors indicate no power to weapons, shields, or drives. Primary target disabled and probably trying to prevent reactor meltdown. Secondary and Tertiary targets coming about to engage us. I’d say the first field trial of the Type 10X plasma beams was a success, Captain.”

“A qualified success, unfortunately. Primary containment failing in portside ventral accelerators. Venting plasma; beam weapon offline. All other weapons charged and ready.”

At that, the Engineering officer spoke up “Minor fire damage to Deck 14, sir. No casualties, but that’s probably a week’s work to repair, maybe two in deep space.”
“Very well. Helm, come about on a heading for deep space, Alcubierre Drives to standby. Weapons, reinforce aft shields, power aft weapons. Time to lead them a dance.”

Moray looked worried. “Sir, we might be a newer vessel, but we can’t win a two-on-one fight. Especially not that way.”

“But we don’t have to, Commander. Remember, they think that the Princess is aboard the station, otherwise they’d have hailed me, not Pullman. Our new weapons officer is their primary target, and they can’t afford to chase me halfway across the galaxy and let her escape. Especially since they don’t know what’s going on in Rilma orbit. Nor do I, but I’m choosing to ignore it; they don’t have that luxury.”

Electra dove, to place her birthplace between the chasing cruisers and herself, the reinforced aft shields deflecting a glancing blow from the plasma pulse beams aboard the pursuers. The ship shook briefly as the blast hit, and began to streak away; now clear of all obstacles, she was accelerating to her maximum velocity of almost a quarter of the speed of light. “Damage Report.”, Maritz ordered.

“Aft shields at 168% and regenerating, sir.”
“Enemy cruisers have cleared the shipyard. They’re firing!”

Electra rocked again, much harder, as two blasts hit the fleeing cruiser. “Shields down to 45%. Returning fire on the lead ship.” The black space between the cruisers was lit up by beams of ultra-hot matter, as Electra, outgunned but with each individual shot packing more punch, drew the enemy away from the shipyards.

“Helm, go evasive. Try to keep the lead ship between the far one and us. Weapons, see if you can knock out a thruster or two on that leading Venture, make his job easier.”

Six blue-white beams erupted into space again; four from the boxy Venture-class vessels, two from the aft of the more sleek Electra. Sarah slewed the beams across where she anticipated the pursuit course of the Venture would take it; she was rewarded by seeing a minor secondary explosion, but had no idea if it was anything important. Electra shuddered hard as her own shields buckled and the thick plating over the Alcubierre drives was hit; frantically, Sarah shut off the forward shield projectors and reinforced the energy to the aft ones, and blessedly, the shuddering ceased.

“Shipyard is launching two pairs of shuttlecraft, sir. All scan positive for four life forms. Lead cruiser breaking off to intercept. Aft cruiser still on our tail.”

“Helm, Engage Alcubierre drives. We’ve done all we can here.”

“Aye sir. Alcubierre drive online. Warping space in five…four…three…two…one”

“Shields synchronised to drive signature. Firing a final reminder at the aft cruiser.”

“Engaging.”

The Electra’s aft weapons spoke one more time; striking at the forward weapons array on the chasing cruiser. Again, the powerful weapons of the Rilman Navy’s newest ship were briefly able to punch through the older vessel’s shields before they were strengthened, puncturing the hull adjacent to her own plasma beams. The quick reactions of her weapons officer in reshaping the containment fields saved at least fifty lives aboard the ship; but at the cost of gutting the plasma beam. She attempted to retaliate with her remaining forward-facing weapon, but as the beam burned across space towards her fleeing quarry, the space around Electra bent, collapsing ahead of her and lengthening vastly, impossibly, behind her, leaving the plasma beam far behind as the newest ship in the fleet made her first jump to warpspeed.

adarisa @ 2005-10-24T23:29:00

2005-10-24T22:29:47Z

There are two orders of magnitude more Google page returns for [Defra competent] (85,000) than [Defra incompetent] (543).

I feel that this is a great and unfair imbalance and should be corrected somehow.

Repeat offenders and greed, a two-part special! (Part 1)

2005-09-28T16:28:42Z

In one of his recent sports columns, salon.com columnist King Kaufmann writes:

But what I really want to know is: Why is it always three strikes and you're out? Why isn't it ever two or four? Does it really make sense to base a whole law-enforcement philosophy on the rules of an athletic contest?

In 1887 baseball experimented with requiring four strikes for a strikeout. What if that had stuck? First of all, that song would be harder to sing -- "for it's one, two-three, four strikes you're out ..."

But more important, would law-and-order types be a third more lenient toward repeat offenders? Would our national sense of the proper blend of punishment and second chances be governed by the saying "four strikes and you're out"?

What if track were the national pastime? Would states be passing "two false starts and you're disqualified" laws that locked up second offenders for life? Or if football had developed earlier and become the American game a century before it did, would legislatures have debated "four downs and you're punted" bills?

This is a rather serious question asked in a silly way. It does appear that the decision for a formula dealing with repeat offenders has, to a greater or lesser extent, been abdicated to the rulemakers of baseball. Or maybe not; Ian Fleming amongst others formulated rules where three instances is the magic number. It is possible American lawmakers merely picked up on a handy peg to put a law on.

I think that in general there is such a thing as a career criminal, and that society does need protecting from these people. Prior to reading this, I was quite happy with the concept of the "three strikes and your out" rule. But, why three? No, seriously. I mean, it seems like a reasonable number to me, as well, but I can't actually explain it. I mean, a career criminal will look at it as a system to be played, whereas somebody who just makes chronically bad decisions isn't notably more likely to get it right given second and third chances. Obviously, we don't have a black box which we can plug convicts into and have it flash up instant accurate personality diagnoses, but surely modern criminology can do better than "how many times have they been caught?" as a litmus test?

You can never be too careful...

2005-09-22T13:38:30Z

...Apparently.

I feel I should share with you the chilling warning of the US Department of Homeland Security's Red Cell on Terrorist Use of Pressure Cookers.

Amongst the highlights of the report:

"There are few fundamental differences among pressure cookers as they all work on the same basic principle."

"Note: Any Pressure Cooker weighing more than expected may be suspect"

This is illustrated with a couple of men in combat fatigues standing over a bunch of kitchen apparatus (most of which appear to be saucepans) captioned "Confiscated Maylaysian (sic) pressure cookers"

Apparently terrorist groups do use pressure cookers as containers for bombs, or "Improvised Explosive Devices" as the DHS would have it. This information, I believe, could have been communicated in a single sentence rather involving than the above silliness.

The DHS, and the many British organisations with the same job, are, I believe, almost institutionally incapable of dealing with the terrorist threat. Other than their monumental uselessness in actually combatting terrorism (the way forward in law enforcement, apparently, is to arrest people wearing rucksacks and also making the police judge, jury and executioner), they have proven hidebound to thinking of global struggles as conflicts between governments. The media have not helped; by creating the bogeyman of "Al-Qa'eda" where none exists. Al-Qa'eda is a nothing, a front, a name - but a name it suits many almost entirely independent cells to go by, since for as long as they do, the West will react to them as one when they are many and diverse. All that these organisations share is an ideology (usually) and a goal (mostly; the stated aim is the withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East), and perhaps limited resources and planning intelligence. One might note that, then, the only difference between the terrorists and the governments opposing them is that in the former case it is intentional that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Intelligence agencies, alas, being themselves large in scale, think big. Terrorist organisations, having learned better than to try and fight on that scale, will stay small.

Not good PR for PR

2005-09-20T19:12:52Z

Berlin, as Sellar and Yeatman might have remarked, is rather a mess. The provisional election results for the Bundestag (Eng: Federal Parliament) are:

Christian Democrats/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU): 225
Social Democrats (SPD): 222
Free Democrats (FDP): 61
Left Party: 54
Greens: 51

Of course, if you're Gerhard Schroeder, then the results should be amended to read:

Social Democrats (SPD): 222
Christian Democrats (CDU): 179
Free Democrats (FDP): 61
Left Party: 54
Greens: 51
Christian Social Union (CSU): 46

Through this particular piece of chicanery the leaders of both German major parties claim the right to form a government. Neither has said they will work with the other party in a coalition unless their leader gets to be chancellor. No two smaller parties are willing to work with any one large party. In other words, every option which could produce a workable goverment has been ruled out by someone - the only alternative would be fresh elections.

I am not, in general, in favour of a representative body turning around to its populace and saying "no, that was the wrong answer, try again". On the other hand, it appears that the results of this election are unpopular with a majority of Germans, so perhaps there is a mandate for fresh elections. In addition, if no party can form a government, I don't really see that there is any choice. The German economy is in something approaching crisis - somebody needs to do something about it, which means they probably need a majority. Whether or not fresh elections would be expected to produce a different result is another matter. I regard the fault for this as lying squarely at Gerhard Schroeder's feet. He abandoned any principles he might have had to run an entirely negative scare campaign attacking any reform proposed by Angela Merkel's CDU, and, indeed, at least one reform they hadn't proposed at all. He is now using the above piece of chicanery to deny that the CDU/CSU is the largest party in the Bundestag. Nowhere other than in the official results can I see the CSU listed as a separate party to the CDU - they're just the CDU in Bavaria. I wonder at a man to whom political power is so important he will wreck his own country and his international reputation to hold on to it.

It amuses me greatly that Chris Patten chose today to argue that the Conservatives should campaign for a PR-based system of electing the lower house. His salient point - that the Conservative party needs something like a 10% advantage in the popular vote in order to achieve a majority in the Commons - is correct, although that could be addressed by redistricting (mind you, prior to the previous redistricting, I think Labour needed something like a 5% edge to gain a majority of seats, so it appears getting this right is harder than it looks). It does not, however, take a genius to point out the traditional counterargument to proportional representation systems right now. Of course, the split in the German vote is accurately represented by the Bundestag. But as a result of this, Germany is effectively ungovernable.

People who have read my writings or discussed politics with me before will know that I am not a huge opponent of gridlocked legislative chambers, since this prevents most frivolous and ill-thought-out legislation. In fact, in the United States I might find myself applauding such a result (in the United States, it can't happen, but aaaanyway). The problem here is only apparently one with the voting system. The problem is more with the German constitution (and also the British one, since we share the same quirk).

The problem is that the head of the executive branch is determined by the legislature. This leads to two branches of government being utterly paralysed when the legislature is unable to agree on the head of the executive, and furthermore gives the executive far, far too much power, removing any need for a consensus about the sort of legislation which should be passed and essentially allowing for a tyranny of the majority, or in some cases, of a well-organised and well-distributed minority. It is of course true that a directly elected President and a directly elected legislature does not prevent this from occuring, but it makes it much harder, and requires the governing party to sustain a high level of support over a significant period of time. Ultimately in all democracies the people will get the government they deserve.

The Base for Holy War

2005-07-09T01:49:36Z

After some thought, I decided to write a reaction comment to the attacks on the London Underground system. The title of this post is a translation of Al Qa'eda al-Jihad, the full name of the world's most infamous illegal organisation, and the presumed masterminds, or at least inspirations behind, the attack; although it is also a more direct reference to the content of the post.

I should probably declare a human interest in the attacks; two of my dance teachers, Crystal Main and Bruce Lait, were injured in the attacks. I'd last seen Crystal a week and a day before the attacks; she missed the Dancesport A class the day before and her mother (this seems to run in the family...) gave it instead. Crystal is apparently more or less OK now and has been released from hospital, Bruce is still recovering following surgery. For balance, I also ought to admit that other than this, I think I was more affected by the English victory in the first Natwest Challenge One-Day International. A tragedy, but it is highly likely that more people died on America's roads than in the underground on 07/07/05.

That aside, the reaction of London and people has been impressive. For those who lived through the IRA campaigns (I count myself amongst these - I knew of the IRA and what they did by the time I was six or so, in 1990) I suppose there is little new here other than the co-ordinated nature of the attack. The IRA generally gave warning unless attacking what it considered to be military targets, it is true, and this decreased the overall number of casualties, but overall the effect is much the same. London has shrugged the events off as a minor irritation, and even the stock exchange has regained its losses. A cup of tea has been suggested as a remedy, which clearly shows that the British are still British.

The media, though, has been disconcertingly shrill. The Daily Star's headline was the most manic, but the pitch of even the broadsheets was annoyingly high. Pursue the perpetrators, consider re-evaluating the security for the capital and for the 2012 Olympics, mourn the dead and be thankful for the survival of the living. Do not, however, do so whilst throwing a hissy fit in the general direction of anyone and everyone you can think of. The frequent calls of "We musn't let it change our way of life" greatly remind me of Corporal Jones in Dad's Army, whose shouts of "Don't Panic, Don't Panic!" were about the most alarm-inducing sound one could imagine.

"We musn't let them change our way of life" has become a catchphrase, something which has substituted for the need for considered thought about such an incident. I am not in any way an expert on security, the Middle East, or radical Islam, but I do read the thoughts of some people who are. Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history, has written a very erudite analysis published on Salon with which I agree, or at least accede to his greater knowledge, in many points. Ultimately, people attack things they feel in some way threatened by, and the cultural, economic and military hegemony of the United States and its allies - of which we are the proximate - is clearly threatening to many people.

It is long overdue that this was addressed. Not merely the simply callous imperialism of acts like the attack on Iraq - a strategic blunder fueled by a thirst for revenge - but the more pernicious, creeping imperialism against which the cleric rails and the average Westerner fails to see. McDonald's, perhaps the ultimate symbol of American capitalism, is to these people a threat, of subjection and cultural extinction. Combine this with an American President with all the sensitivity of a two-by-four and all the confidence in Divine Right of Louis XIV, and those in the Islamic world who fear annihilation seem a little less irrational. To them, this is a total war in which there can be no surrender - just as it is for Israel, there is victory or nonexistence, and nothing in between. With this pernicious worldview gaining ground, there will be no peace in our time. It is not insignificant that the London statement referred to "Crusader armies".

Here, unfortunately, is where I get vague. I have not read the Qu'ran, although I think it just vaulted to the top of my reading list. What I do know is that once Islam lead the world in culture and tolerance, that the Muslim cities of Seville and Cordoba were once Europe's grandest, and that there is no reason that Islamic and post-Enlightenment western culture cannot coexist, if the latter will tone down its predations.

So, should we let the terrorists change our way of life? My answer is yes. Much as I disagree with their means of expression, they have a grievance which, valid or not, will not go away and needs to be addressed. As individuals and collectively, we have a duty to assuage the fears of the Islamic world. There are obvious points at which we should start both at governmental level - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs some form of two-state resolution; the increasing demands to open up to Western businesses should be toned down, and statesmen should adopt less of a commanding tone, whilst maintaining a resolute defence of human rights in the region. American politicians are used to supporting their arguments from the Bible when they campaign in the States; there is no reason not to turn to the Qu'ran when in the Middle East. On a more personal level, this is a time for open-mindedness and contemplation, not adversarial thought. Our enemies are fear and despair; ultimately, I agree with the Prime Minister:

"There is no hope in terrorism, nor any future in it worth living. And it is hope that is the alternative to this hatred." - Tony Blair, Gleneagles, 8th July 2005

thwaps USSC

2005-06-10T19:51:52Z

It will probably have escaped the attention of everybody likely to read this journal that, in their opinion on the case Raich vs. Gonzales, the United States supreme court ruled, in a 6-3 decision, that the Commerce clause of the constitution (empowering Congress "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, amongst the several states, and with the Indian tribes") gave the Federal government authority to destroy cannabis plants grown for personal use legally under Californian state law.

This is, perhaps, one of the more stupid opinions this august body has held recently. Clarence Thomas is not a man I have much respect for, but his dissent here strikes the proverbial nail on the head:

"By holding that Congress may regulate activity that is neither interstate nor commerce under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the Court abandons any attempt to enforce the Constitution’s limits on federal power."

The principal dissent, written by the "Swing Justice" Sandra Day O'Connor, is scarcely less scathing:

"The Court’s definition of economic activity is breathtaking. It defines as economic any activity involving the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities. And it appears to reason that when an interstate market for a commodity exists, regulating the intrastate manufacture or possession of that commodity is constitutional either because that intrastate activity is itself economic, or because regulating it is a rational part of regulating its market."

The justification for this halfbrained decision was the precedent of Wickard vs. Filburn, wherein the Court decreed that the Secretary for Agriculture was allowed to penalise a farmer for growing in excess of his quota, despite the farmer's claim he intended the excess for personal use, on the grounds that this affected his contribution to the demand for his product, and thus had an affect on interstate commerce. O'Connor is suitably dismissive:

"It will not do to say that Congress may regulate noncommercial activity simply because it may have an effect on the demand for commercial goods, or because the noncommercial endeavor can, in some sense, substitute for commercial activity. Most commercial goods or services have some sort of privately producible analogue. Home care substitutes for daycare. Charades games substitute for movie tickets. Backyard or windowsill gardening substitutes for going to the supermarket. To draw the line wherever private activity affects the demand for market goods is to draw no line at all, and to declare everything economic."

Possibly the scariest implication offered so far is that since marital sex is a fairly obvious analogue for (illegal in most states, but still commercial) prostitution, Congress has just been granted the power to regulate anything it wants that happens between two consenting adults in their own bedrooms. Eep.

However, and despite O'Connor's detailed distinguishing of this case from Wickard, this to me points to a major problem with the English common law system - namely, that if an emiment judge asserts 2+2=5, then it necessarily becomes incorrect to argue in future cases that 2+2=4. Precedent is all very well, but judicial decisions really ought to be considered with reference to facts other than a mountain of case law. Precedents, at least, should have a lifetime of thirty years, after which time the issues should be recosidered in the light of changes in society. The sight of the odious Dred Scott decision becoming controlling over debates on same-sex marriage recognition is evidence enough, surely.

I don't expect many of you will share my opinion of the importance of this case. It's a federalist thing - individual states of a union should be allowed to police themselves, and in general all authority should be devolved as far as is possible. The man in charge does not know best, and being elected by more people does not make you cleverer. The people best qualified to represent their citizens are those who represent fewest of them.

I am aware this post is disorganised, but that's because it was written over four hours whilst reading the opinion. I go dancing now.

----
There are the traditional bits of USSC sarcasm in judicial opinions - I wonder if there is a "dry humour" test before you become a judge? - which provide at least amusement if not compensation:

"We generally assume States enforce their laws, and have no reason to think otherwise here."

"Moreover, even a Court interested more in the modern than the original understanding of the Constitution ought to resolve cases based on the meaning of words that are actually in the document."

Election analysis

2005-05-07T00:18:12Z

Well, I'm not starting revision this late, so analysis it is. This requires less science thought, and I'm far better at political thought at this time of the evening. So, what did Election 2005 have to tell the interested observer?

Firstly, in terms of nationwide trends this was almost exactly as expected. The swing of 5% against a sitting government is almost entirely business as usual, so we can state that this election wasn't really a triumph or breakthrough for any of the political parties, all of whom did roughly as would have been expected. The people have spoken, and they said "Meh." However, descending from the realms of grand strategy to the more tactical regional and constituency arenas, the picture becomes considerably more interesting. Andrew Marr was the first to pick up on - indeed he'd been predicting it the entire campaign - the major increase in regional variation in election results this year. Essentially, the more South-Easterly you get, the better the Conservatives did, with the minor exception that they did even better in London than Kent. This means they took seats like Putney, Wimbledon and Enfield Southgate despite failing to take my home constituency of Brigg and Goole which needed less of a swing than either of them.

The nature of the anti-Labour swing was interesting. When either of the opposition parties were in direct opposition to Labour, they gained votes at the expense of Labour, with the other opposition party remaining more or less static, and when the Conservatives went head-to-head with the Liberal Democrats, they tended to win, except in the few seats which the Lib Dems targeted (and even there, the decapitation strategy went one-for-four). This implies an upsurge in anti-Labour tactical voting, with many Conservative supporters voting for Liberal Democrats, and some Lib Dems voting for Conservative candidates. Not as many, I think - in general there was an Lab-to-LD swing in constituencies which were Con gain from Lab as well as a Lab-to-Con one. These people were possibly Iraq war voters, although I am skeptical as to the extent of the effect of Iraq on the election. The other part of the Labour vote went to the minor parties - the BNP, National Front, UKIP and Veritas were somewhat splitting each others' vote, but between them they generally piled up enough to just about retain a deposit. I imagine that having the Conservative party campaign on one of their major issues helped them somewhat. My comments about this campaign are not complimentary and will not be repeated. Suffisit to say it was not a strategy that could have won the election.

The "none of the above" vote has, I feel, been exaggerated. The majority of fourth-party candidates still lost their deposits, and the nationalist parties saw their share of the vote decrease (except in Northern Ireland, which is a special case) - Plaid Cymru in particular had a horrible night. People point to Bethnal Green and Bow, Blaenau Gwent (for those of you wondering, "Blaenau" means "point" or "end" in Welsh), and Wyre Forest, where three essentially independent MPs won seats. However, a closer examination will reveal that Blaenau Gwent was a constituency-wide fit of pique against the national Labour party interfering with the selection of a candidate, something which is a well-known and has had many precedents throughout electoral history - indeed in East and West Chris Patten cites it as his reason to accept the offer of the governorship of Hong Kong instead of trying to return to the Commons via a by-election in 1992. On the matter of Bethnal Green and Bow I will defer to Tony Banks, whose anti-Galloway polemic (spoken live on the BBC after the seat declared, along the lines of Paxman's interrogative but far, far nastier) was truly surprising given Banks' own opposition to the Iraq war, and whose knowledge of the area is rather better than mine. There is no doubt that racial and religious tensions made this seat remarkably hard for Labour to hold, and the Muslim vote is the one area I think the Iraqi war did affect strongly; there are quite a lot of religious strictures about not supporting an enemy of the faith, and, especially in the case of the rhetoric emanating from America, the word "Crusade" has been batted around. I think it is safe to list this as an exception. Wyre Forest was of course an Ind Hold, and there was a substantial swing away from Dr Taylor - this makes it disingenuous to argue that there has been strong support for an independent candidate here. I do not think there has been a major upsurge in support for minor-party candidates. Some, possibly, but many mountains are being constructed from molehills.

The reason for this? It's the economy, stupid. It's always the economy. Ultimately the first duty of a government is to take care of its citizens' wellbeing, and if the citizens feel well-off, which is predominantly an economic matter, they will tend to return it. If the government is doing well in other areas there will be an enthusiastic return; if they are doing poorly it will be an apathetic return. There is much in common between the current political climate and that of the Liberal-dominated era 1846-68. The economy is good, people are relatively well off and thus happy, and in general think little about politics and return the government. Those who do consider politics tend to be those with strong views on a few issues, leading to the fragmentation of the vote that has to some extent been observed. The economy explains most facets of the overall picture as well. The slight downturn in Labour's fortunes this time runs parallel with an economy going off the boil; the expected downturn has already begun to be felt in London (especially) and the South-East which is economically ahead (cyclically) of the rest of the country; whilst the North is still riding the crest of the wave they have begun to drop off. Bread-and-butter issues like house prices are, I suspect, what is driving the majority of the extra 3% swing in London, rather than Iraq, tuition fees, immigration (although I concede that doubtless Michael Howard's exceptionally strong performance in Folkestone might have something to do with that) or any of the supposed cause celebres of the opposition. Inflation and both consumer and public debt are the major challenges facing Labour in their third term, no matter what the journalists think, and these are the worries which have already cost them heavily in London.

The overall effect of this election may be to move Labour further to the left - a natural consequence of their reduced majority - and away from America. Europe will be an interesting issue, although I expect the French to get Blair off the hook by voting down the European constitution themselves at the end of this month, and I cannot imaging the French taking kindly to being told that that was the wrong answer and would they like to try voting again until they get it right, which is the traditional EU response to a "No". I await the ensuing chaos with interest. A constitution which the French reject as too right-wing and the British reject as too left-wing does rather illustrate something of the problem the EU currently has. The Conservatives will, I expect, continue to muddle on, although much depends on the leader they elect. I am hoping for David Davies; they have an excellent shot at forming a government next time in any case. The Liberal Democrats need to work out whether they are a left wing or centre party, and commit resources to the North or the South West accordingly. If they do not choose they run the risk of losing both, or, more likely, becoming left-wing by default as the Conservative gains in the South this time around continue. All of these are, of course, things I could have said before the election - which is a fitting epitaph for this most perfunctory of exercises in democracy.

As everyone else is at it....

2005-05-05T12:07:48Z

Actually I voted several days ago via post (yes, some people have actually recieved forms), but anyway the point stands.

I am really rather depressed about this election since I can't conceive of any outcome which I think will be good for the country. I am expecting a rather similar election to the last one - minor Conservative gains, Lib Dems picking up a few seats here and there that they targeted (Cambridge might be one; as Chesterfield was last time, but it is unlikely). I may be suprised.

I have called the Conservative manifesto "the longest handwritten suicide note in history" and would quite like to see Micheal Howard's head on a pike outside Central Office. Running an election campaign that alienates half of your core vote whilst galvanising the opposition supporters and stabilising their crumbling base is really quite an impressive achievement. I am not aware of any election post-World War I in which the governing party was returned with an increased majority, I fear that this one may be the first.

A question...

2005-04-27T23:32:20Z

Should I highlight pieces of news and, more often, opinion that I've encountered on the Internet that I consider to be interesting and instructive? This is, after all, somewhat a political blog, a form of communication which does rather like linking to everywhere and everything. Answers on a postcard^W comment.

In that tone, I was going to mention Al Gore likening the Republican Party to the Inquisition and will do so because you can't stop me so nyerrr.

Gore is attempting to stand up and claim that the Emperor has no clothes - or, less metaphorically - that religion has no part to play in American political life. This would probably be electoral suicide, which is why it's only a man with no political ambitions left who has dared to say it. Gore would regard that as the minor point of his speech, though, and he's probably right.

Most of what he's talking about is how a democracy protects its minorities. The context he's speaking in is the attempts by the Republicans - lead by the Senate Majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to remove the filibuster as an obstacle to the confirmation of judicial nominees. Gore argues that the protection of minorities is achieved through the rule of law, which is founded upon the judiciary - and thus that removing a block on the power of the majority to affect the judiciary is rather dangerous.

There is a broader case here, and it is the question of to what extent a minority ought to be able - if it feels strongly enough on the issue - to prevent a majority from enacting a law or effecting some other form of change. Gore recounts the tale of a Republican Senator who found the Iraqi Kurds counting on their own filibuster to keep the Shiites in check. The filibuster is a rule which has an explicit rider of "be sensible" on it, which some people see as a problem. It has, however, worked in the American system for some time now, and if a two-thirds majority of Senators regard the other third as being silly they can end it with a cloture motion.

Ultimately the greatest protection for a minority comes in the form of the judiciary, but one branch of government cannot hold off the other two. Thus a minority - one which in general will be represented in the legislature - should have some method of influencing its more objectionable decisions. The ability to derail the passage of legislation in the manner of a filibuster is depressing as it not only halts the passage of the objectionable law, but also anything that is to follow it. It does, however, seem necessary.

The nightmare possibility of a strong and intransigent minority being able to derail the entire proceedings of a legislative assembly is of course something to be considered on such an issue; but under such circumstances the correct course of action - over a matter about which feelings ran so high - would surely be to ask the people via the medium of a General Election, so even this is not as bad a scenario as it first appears. If, following the election, the situation is not resolved, the nation-state in question is probably not viable.

That's all well and good, but...

2005-04-26T17:42:51Z

So, how does the modern liberal (or libertarian, if you insist) go about nailing his colours to any of the proffered political masts, with an election in the offing.

Firstly, the utalitarian streak which is almost an integral component of the libertarian philosophy mitigates against casting a vote for a minor party, in that one's actions should always be calculated to have the greatest effect. Politics is the art of the possible, and a general election is the wrong time to begin tilting and windmills. The same principle also condones the usage of tactical voting. So the choices of the libertarian are cut from many to the three main parties, except in the rare cases where another candidate has a significant chance. However, I don't live in Scotland, Wales or Wyre Forest, so it's down to the big three.

A look at the party philosophies and records in government almost immeaditely reduces the choices to two. Labour believes in centralisation, that the correct order can be imposed from the top, and has embarked on a frankly terrifying assault on civil liberties in the name of the "War on Terrorism." New Labour remains a creation of socialism, despite the necessary distance it has put between it and the original aims of that movement in order to make itself an electable entity. So we are left with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

This is not, in my mind, a decision which has a right answer. Libertarians are split roughly evenly between the parties. The country's most libertarian newspapers, the Telegraph and the Independent lean one in each direction, although one suspects that the more strongly libertarian voices in the Telegraph are not as firm in their support of the Conservative party as the authoritarian ones. In terms of the party front benches, the liberal standard is carried by Oliver Letwin and (to a lesser extent) David Davis for the Conservatives, and Simon Hughes for the Liberal Democrats. Neither group seem to be noticeably winning the argument - the Conservative party by and large supported ID card proposals and have run a campaign not on their libertarian economic and public service policies but on the authoritarian issues of immigration and crime, the Liberal Democrat manifesto supports increased taxation and makes even less of a comittment to decentralisation than the timid steps introduced by the Major and Blair governments. Ideally we might hope for a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, but this is an even less likely prospect than a Liberal Democrat government.

There is a question of realities to consider. My vote is registered in Brigg and Goole, a seat with a Labour majority of just over 3,000 and which would fall to the Conservatives on a 4.5% swing. It is a seat the Conservatives will expect to win, and if they do not another Labour majority of 100 or more will be returned. Under such circumstances the decision is obvious - with little to choose between the ecnomically illiberal LibDems and the socially dubious Conservatives, but in a constituency where a Conservative vote should be efficacious and a Liberal Democrat one would be of little relevant, it is the former box that should be crossed.

The question as to what would happen after the election is, of course, to be considered. A Conservative victory, given the nature of their campaign, would be almost as disastrous as a Labour landslide - either one would be taken (correctly) by the illiberal leaders of each party as a vindication of their own policies, and give them the freedom of movement to remove what threat the liberal wings of each party posed to them. Fortunately, both of these outcomes appear unlikely, although the latter is not impossible.

Micheal Howard has indicated his desire to stay on as Conservative leader even if he loses the election, but his position will be greatly weakened and the authoritarian wing, having fought and lost an election on their ground, should be substantially damaged. Unfortunately, Letwin, the most able liberal within the Tory ranks, has no desire to be either party leader of Prime Minister, so the direction of that party would still be open.

A massive reduction in the Labour majority would likely see Tony Blair's resignation as Prime Minister and replacement with Gordon Brown sooner rather than later. Brown is as much, nay more, a believer in central control as Blair, although he might lose some of the more objectionable Labour policies (for example ID cards) on grounds of inefficiency. Brown as Prime Minister will mean that he would not be Chancellor, but since whoever he appointed to the Exchequer would clearly be in his mold, Labour's risky (but so far successful) economic policies would probably continue. The Brown/Kennedy possibility, in the case of a Hung Parliament, would lead to a Liberal block on many of Labour's policies but would probably result in a profoundly more left-wing set of economic policies, the likelihood of excessive adoptation of European social policies (which are primarily responsible for the high unemployment and slow growth on the continent - it costs too much to hire workers across the channel), and the dropping of British opposition to European integration without European reform. Still, one of the characteristics of such a coalition administration is the difficulty of passing legislation (it would also be likely to have a thin majority), which probably makes it the best of all likely outcomes - not because of the personnel, who are far too left-wing and rather too authoritarian for my tastes - but because of the difficulty they'd have in doing anything.

After all - the libertarian is happy with the ends if he can't get the means, and if the enlargement of government is checked because the bills which would expand it can't get through the Commons, that'll do for a start. Retrenchment, Gladstone's old watchword, will have to wait until someone with the political courage to pick up his liberal torch is cast in a leading role on the political stage.

Ultimately, I'm voting Conservative not because I agree with them on most issues - although I suspect I do agree with more of their ideas than anyone else's, I was distinctly underwhelmed by their lack of political courage to fight the election campaign on their ideas for public service reform rather than on immigration which really is a relatively minor issue, but because the election in my seat is a straight choice between Labour (who I don't agree with at all) and the Conservatives (who I agree with quite often); and because I do not believe the Conservatives can win the election and the country will be best served by the thinnest Labour majority possible.

By popular demand....

2005-04-26T14:19:26Z

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

The creed of the modern liberal has developed both extensively and not at all from its first codification by Mill back in 1859, as society has been driven both through the advance of technology and the advent of mass education to ever more stratospheric levels of complexity and refinement. Mill's warning of the tyranny of public opinion seems terribly prescient in the face of the Daily Mail - but his central thesis, his "one simple principle" quoted above, has been all but abandoned by large swathes of the "liberal" movement.

The concept that one can force people to be "nice" (for the chosen and approved values of "nice" belonging to those with the power to define them) through either the overt coercion of the state or the subtle coercion of public opinion is, or should have been, manifestly disproved by a century of popular protest and outright civil disobedience in the name of civil rights and political independence, and - in the countries of Western Europe and North America which reined in the state and allowed society to come to the fore in suppressing dissent - the flowering of one counterculture after another which reveled in the disapproval of the great and the good. James Dean's leather jacket is in many ways as symbolic of the impossibility of forcing conformity through societal pressure as the Berlin wall is of the equivalent failure of physical force.

When one cannot open a door, the natural human instinct is to push harder, in the hope the hinges will eventually yield to the increased pressure that can be brought about. We see this in the current response of the ruling elite to the challenges facing the unprecendently free societies of the twentieth century. Despite the failure of the coercion in the past half-century, they resolve to apply them with yet greater force, preaching of the advances in technology or strategy which will allow them to succeed where their predecessors failed. So we see "zero tolerance" policing, or increased prison sentences and tariffs, or "Anti-Social Behaviour Orders" amongst a myriad other policies in law-enforcement. The failure of law-enforcement solutions to social problems is both obvious and inevitable; no government throughout history has yet succeeded in suppressing such difficulties without introducing reform to remove the basis of the difficulties.

Yet these reforms are made less likely by the self-same tendencies. There is, it seems, a natural instinct to try and legislate for good - to force humans to behave in the manner the social model under which your government operates assumed they would, rather than the irritatingly independent manner in which they are remarkably prone to assume. Thus it is that socialism, the most pernicious of liberal fallacies, was born and lives. Socialism is ultimately predicated on the notion that the society will eventually triumph over the recalcitrant individual; a notion that brings us back to Mill's initial statement and his historical vindications. The concept of creating an ideal society from the top-down is appealing but impossible; the evolutionary imperatives that drive mankind are competitive, not co-operative, other than in exceedingly small groups. We are not insects, and no ruler can make it that way.

Furthermore, the inefficiency of the centralised socialist model hardly needs to be stated. Since mankind is an ornery, independent creature, for each order that is given from the centre, not only is a man needed to carry it out, but a man is also needed to see that it has been carried out the way it was intended. In its extreme form socialism was discredited with the fall of the Communist states of Eastern Europe, but nonetheless it lives on in more moderate - but ultimately no less futile - guises. The profusion of targets within the Labour government 1997- was perhaps unconsciously reminiscent of one of Stalin's Five Year plans - but the ideology that drove both was that of centralist socialism; and even its proponents have been lead to concede that it doesn't work.

The alternative to the centralised model is to turn the free market loose, and use Mill's dictum to rationalise when the government must excerise its powers - only to prevent the market doing harm to its citizens. In so doing one rapidly piles regulations one atop another and ends up back in the Socialist mess we started up with; there seems to be no solution.

And, indeed, there isn't. Ultimately, short of massive use of mind-alterants, no government can so regulate its citizens in order to eliminate human misery. The logical manner in which to proceed is to use the Benthamite calculus - the greatest happiness for the greatest number - and regulate accordingly. To do so we must harden our hearts to the plight of individuals and accept that hard cases make for bad law. Just as single crimes, no matter how horrifying, do not in and of themselves justify a change in the law, nor to the experiences of individuals enforce further regulation upon the economy. To say that a rising tide lifts all boats is an overworked truism, and is also an inaccurate one. A rising tide does not lift the boats tethered to the sea bed, or those with holes bored in their hull - and here the state must play the role of mariner. But a mariner is not an angler, and it should be careful not to catch those in its safety net who would have broached the surface unaided - and faster, too.

The result of such a government would seem unacceptable to many, as it condemns many to suffer their own problems with only minimal aid. Unfortunately, there is no practical alternative. The state has neither the time nor the energy to entirely rehabilitate the irredeemable - it is not and should never try to be a Messiah. All that can be done in such circumstances is to remove and redeem the harm done on those around them to the fullest extent that can be managed. The prisons of such a state are places of rehabilitation inasmuch as they can be - for those who can be returned productively to society should never be left to rot; and for the remainder intended to protect the public from those who remain a threat. Vengeance has no place in the calculus of a responsible government.

I could go on much longer, but I think I've covered the philosophical basis for how I think on politics, and I do have work to do, so the thousand words above will have to suffice. Next entry - application to modern politics.

OK, so there are actually going to be quite a few entries of less than a thousand words...

2005-04-24T14:02:31Z

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2005/04/24/satrapi/index.html

Read this, people. You have to click through an ad to get to it, but it's worth it - there's a couple of extremely obvious insights in here that are extremely obvious only after you've read them.

Notably the "thinking about security makes us more conservative" and "freedom is about taking risks" argument. Now that I remember it, the Conservative shadow chanceller Oliver Letwin said something quite similar not so long ago.

Anyone else find this interesting enough to discuss, or is it just me?

Proposition...

2005-04-22T15:35:29Z

Political discourse in Britain and America have gone all flip-flop again.

The new ideological Battle lines are neo-conservative (New Labour, right-wing Conservative, most of the Republican party) against liberal (Democrat, left-wing Conservative, right-wing Liberal Democrat) against social democrat in the UK (Old Labour, left-wing Liberal Democrat) or paleoconservative in the US (centre bits of the Republican party, Dixiecrats).

Agree? Disagree? Throw rotten tomatoes at?

continuation

2005-04-20T14:14:06Z

6. William Pitt the Elder (1757-61, 1766-8)

I like Prime Ministers who win wars, don't I? Reform of the Army and Navy into something approaching competency (especially the Navy), the ability to choose the right man for the job and see to it that he stayed there (Wolfe in Quebec, Clive in India), and being an honest statesman in an era where corruption was considered normal.

7. William Pitt the Younger (1783-1801, 1804-6)

Anyone who stays in power this long has to be good. He was - began to sort out the Indian mess, got the national debt under control by introducing modern taxation methods, rode out the regency crisis, fought the Napoleonic wars to the last Austrian, consolidated the powers of the Prime Minister and did the nation the great service of appointing Barham (a man as great as Nelson, though less lauded) as First Sea Lord. At his best in foreign affairs, and he was the example for Britain's greatest foriegn secretaries.

8. Margaret Thatcher (1979-90)

9. Sir Robert Walpole (?-1742)

Hard to split these two. Both responsible for massive economic successes but also social problems. Thatcher wielded a handbag and a hatchet, Walpole a wine-glass and a dinner-knife. Neither were someone you'd want to cross. Both increased the political power of the House of Commons - Thatcher by taking on and defeating trades unions in something precariously close to armed struggle, Walpole in a rather more conniving way from the King. Both excellent in foreign policy; almost through sheer force of personality Thatcher had more influence on a sitting American President than anyone else has ever managed, Walpole kept the country out of several needless wars. Thatcher shades it by being considerably less corrupt.

10. David Lloyd George (1916-22)

Yep, someone else who won a war. This one deserves a lot of credit for it, though, as he actually made Britain fight it professionally, first as Minister for Munitions, Secretary of State for War and then Prime Minister. Kicked the Admiralty into doing something about U-boats. A man who would get the job done; would score two places higher but for the possibility that he might just have been a tad corrupt.