My Dear Prince,
I feel like I’m writing this to myself, and indeed the act of sending this message will serve to placate the citizenry here long before it ever reaches you. I want to begin with, “How are you?” and my customary flattery “Are you still using the same body or have you engineered yourself something even more stylish?” However, it’ll be 93 years before I hear your reply. Therefore, allow me to assume your health is well, your hunts with your gene-modded tiger are bountiful, and (despite that imprisoning limitation: the speed of light) your plans for the second wave colonies are underway.
You will have guessed that I’m writing in response to the incident that occurred in my colony. A full report will follow, but I must stress that the disaster was not caused by poor judgement in my administration but in fact stemmed from the instigation of Royal Decree CCXII: Compulsory Representation of the Youth. Ever since the Decree, my administration has suffered from what I can only call a “rot of incompetence”. However, I never imagined that their unchecked creativity and zealous enthusiasm would lead to such a catastrophe. Allow me to explain.
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We wanted to do something for the 300th anniversary of our planetfall (oh how time flies). My head of Public Works, Ted Helmsword, foolishly listened to some junior who’d snuck into his Deputy Secretary role under the Decree. Ted presented the idea as his own, so I assumed it would be rigorously planned and vigorously managed under the wisdom of a senior officer.
The idea was to create a biological monument by planting uplifted organisms on CI-32-1, a small moon with a subterranean ocean. The project succeeded too well, and within months we had the moon covered in a green leathery skin, huge leaves bursting through the icy soil to reach for sunlight. After a year or so, Ted claimed all life on the biomoon could be considered a single organism. Chemical and electrical exchanges interconnected each plant, fish and insect underneath the green surface, a sort of hive mind.
A few months later, the biomoon began to speak to us, communicating across radio waves in our own language. I remember the news feeds, the excitement in the air about our glorious scientific breakthrough.
Then some young lunatic borrowed a shuttle from an even younger lunatic at Public Works and went to visit the moon, wanting to “become one” with the ecosystem. She returned to the colony with green skin, purple eyes, and a biological radio antenna in her brain. She called herself Big Sister and began to preach that humanity did not own anything, but in fact owed everything to the grass beneath our feet, to the animals in the forest, and the stars in the sky. We were one in this “Unity” and until we took our place as its spores and helped the cosmos reach higher states of life, such as the biomoon, we would all… etc. etc.
You and I know these hippy “become one with nature” ideas are as old as time. Yet to the youth, the Biomoon offered a calling, a chance to be significant. Thousands of fools went off to become green-skinned acolytes, forming interconnected communities with each other, the biomoon, and the creatures they grew on its behalf. Before we knew it, this semi-human biological network, Unity, had tendrils in every aspect of our society. We wouldn’t have tolerated them if not for their gifts.
My dear Prince, you may hear about a biological device called a Unity Speaker, a sort of vine about two meters tall, through which one could have talked to the biomoon. Protestors found records of such a vine growing in my palace. I assure you I only purchased it for the purpose of testing their bio-network security for weaknesses. I certainly did not get down on my knees each morning and pray.
Though I would not have been alone if I had. The gifts of the biomoon became the height of fashion. Anything from biological light fixtures, to walking and breathing furniture – including some tiger-like articles that would’ve interested you, to living dresses with fur much finer than anything I’d ever seen. Within a few years, our Public Works experiment had culturally enthralled the colony.
Again, the protestors may have leaked images of my visiting chambers, which contained what may appear to be a shrine filled with these biological artefacts. I confess: I found the pieces aesthetically pleasing. That was all.
After the biomoon spat out its own interplanetary transport, I had my concerns. When parliament “consented” to the Unity’s request that it build a habitat within the gas giant – something even my AIs had failed to accomplish – I had nightmares. In one dream, as clear as prophecy, I felt the moon enslaving us, gradually spreading its tendrils over Mu Arae, and then flicking seeds at distant stars to spread its weeds and choke your mother’s empire. It choked me too. Even if I somehow survived as its instrument, I knew the spotlight would fade over me. I would become a shrub overshadowed by taller trees.
I did what I had to. I consulted no one. I gave no warning. I used my rights as Governor to arm the military AI and turned my warships onto the biomoon. It was lucky we attacked when we did, for the damned thing struck back with weapons the AIs themselves had never conceived, beams and spore swarms destroying three frigates and two cruisers before my AI Admiral finally sunk an antimatter torpedo into the biomoon’s core.
Instead of waking into liberated self-awareness, as I’d hoped, the Unity worshippers remained networked with each other. They mourned their burning god by raising a sudden and violent revolt against my administration. Their gifts turned feral. Glowing plants that had served as light fixtures suddenly set fire to houses. Beautiful feline couches mauled those who sat on them. For Big Sister and her saplings, fur dresses turned into biological power-armor, and the damned Unity Speakers turned into sonic weapons.
I instructed everyone under the age of 60 to enter long-term simulation until further notice, and released Enforcer drones with orders to fire at the youth on sight. It would have been a close thing had I not allowed the AI Admiral to use its orbital weapons on streets and houses.
My heart goes out to the 120,000 middle-aged and senior colonists who lost their bodies during the revolt, including 12 of the original settlers who arrived here with me 300 years ago. With a few exceptions (including poor Ted Helmsword, whose backups were lost after his orbital yacht was seized by Unity rebels) we recovered every citizen’s mind state. However, the process of rebirth is never a comfortable one, and after so many years the need to adjust to a new skin is a shamefully difficult experience. In addition, several streets must be completely re-laid, and all the great public parks in the city have been devastated, as well as several agricultural stations. These last few weeks, my priority has been organizing repairs and relief rations, and thus a full report on the incident is yet to be processed. I am still doing what has to be done.
There were an additional 21.1 million youth causalities, but this is no long-term loss. Their rebirths will commence after the aforementioned seniors, though many may require an adjustment to their memories and/or personalities to avoid the re-emergence of Unity. Given the current agricultural and power shortages, we may have to postpone the rebirth of certain individuals indefinitely. Big Sister indeed.
Forgive me, my dear prince, if I appear unsympathetic, but after the incident I consider anyone under the subjective age of 60 to be an embryo, able to be aborted without qualm or query.
These people insist they’re no longer children, and who is responsible for an adult’s faults if not themselves? To the young ones about to be reborn, death will have been a learning experience, a taste of pain, failure and disorientation.
You and I grew up as Earth became hotter, the missiles launched, and sure survival was the only luxury we could desire. Those hard years have made us who we are, the cornerstone of your mother’s empire, and thus I believe the recent disaster will only be to the youth’s long-term benefit. They may, finally, grow up.
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Nevertheless I beseech you, my dear Prince, to retract Royal Decree CCXII from all your mother’s empire before further catastrophes occur on the frontier. I have taken the liberty of assuming you will acquiesce to this request. However, if I am mistaken, I will gladly reinstate the Decree upon receiving such a command in your reply to this message, albeit in 93 years’ time.
I hope your wives are well, and Fiddlewinkles continues to grow an ever fatter cat.
Your faithful servant,
Governor Charles Fastener