Luna turned, picked up her pace and started to speak. She spoke with confidence and grace. She gave the story love and in that she gave it life.
“There was a time when vast cities covered the planet. Life wasn’t perfect but it was far easier than today. There were wars and famine, and lots of work to do, but for most it was a safe time. A time when people could make a life for themselves. They could choose how they spent their time. They could work or not work. They could own things. They were properly rewarded for their work. Yes, there was imbalance and hardship, but there was equal access to opportunity.
“Then came the Reset. Utopian dreamers had installed sufficient numbers of their brainwashed followers into political, governmental, educational, and commercial systems. They made their move. They changed the laws and used influence within large corporations to twist and corrupt the minds of the overly trusting majority. They forced the societal systems to align with their utopian ideals. They used various trojan horses, including equality of outcome, retribution for past inequities and sustainability. They used tools like ESG, programmable centralised digital currency and military-grade psychological operations. They broke the balance. They moved society away from competency hierarchies. They broke the systems that had enabled tens of thousands of years of growth. They moved the emphasis to power and identity hierarchies. They insisted that everyone should own nothing and be happy about it. This left societies incapable of functioning properly as increasing numbers of their citizens had to devote their time to the dysfunctional bureaucracies needed to enforce the utopian’s ideology.
“The impact on the poor was immediate. Services stumbled and became incapable of serving all but the well off. Pandemics and other health crises became common place. Overreach, blind incompetence, and adeptness at covering up the truth took over as the prominent skillsets. The systems no longer served to provide refuge for the less fortunate. The systems simply provided support for the madness.
“The impact on the middle-income earners came too. Mass unemployment and the burden of the hugely inflated bureaucracies left whole countries laden with debt. The burden was too great, and societies crumbled. Fighting became common place. Neighbour fought against neighbour. Whole suburbs fell into disarray as the fighting escalated.
“More and more cities fell into anarchy as those with means left and then regrouped. They congregated in an ever-decreasing number of cities. But the worst was still to come.”
Luna continued,
“In the fifty first year after the Reset the rich elite achieved the seemingly impossible. Shielded by their wealth, from the chaos and mayhem that confronted the majority, they had blazed ahead with their space programs.
“The fruits of these programs had been largely mute until that year. In that year they successfully breached the galactic horizon. A manned craft from the Musk corporation had successfully used dark matter technology to jump from our solar system into another and back again.
“The opportunity presented by reaching new systems took all their attention. The priority became forging ties with other solar systems and accessing their tech. Up until this point the elites had protected sufficient elements of the societal systems to serve their needs. However, when they put all their attention into the riches beyond the skies, nothing stood in the way of the utopians from taking complete control.
“This was the final straw for those that opposed the utopian madness. They fought back hard. This was despite billions of their number being lost through negligence, war, and genocide. The latter being achieved through pandemic counter measures. The resistance regained control of most places. They re-grouped and concentrated their efforts on the six remaining utopian controlled cities. The resistance nicknamed these cities Tangoalfa, Indiasierra, Alfadelta, Mikelima, Alfaecho and Tangoecho.
“However, this massive push was all in vain. Unknown to most, the utopians had been planning their escape. Under the banner of saving the planet they had established five eco-friendly urbanised regions. This was common knowledge. However, it wasn’t understood that at the heart of each region was a self-contained and heavily fortified citadel. The resistance named these citadels Kuedia, Inquis, Norline, Genda and Utopiam. Those names have stuck and were even adopted by the overlords.
“When it was clear the final six cities would slip from their control, the utopians retreated to the citadels. From there they released weapons of all manner on the rest of the world. Chemical, biological and traditional. Whole regions became unliveable. Billions perished. Some directly, but most from famine as the systems outside the walls of the citadels were destroyed, polluted, or rendered useless.
“With the world in chaos, the utopians played their final trick. Already in control of all sources of communications and masters at delivering false narratives, they laid blame for the destruction at the feet of their opposition. Then they offered conditional sanctuary to anyone who came to the citadel gates. They housed them in the walls to discourage attack and they put them to work in the various factories and green houses. Using the growing knowledge of alien tech, they fortified their positions. Within a few years, the citadels were the only place where people could exist in relative safety.”
Luna took a pause at this point as her, and Marr had reached the edge of the hills.
Before them was a nine-foot-high chain link fence. The fence disappeared away towards the citadel to their right and into the distance on the left. Beyond the fence were the vast tracks of grazing lands, vineyards, and orchards. Just on the other side of the fence was a stretch of bushes and shrubs. This buffer also disappeared into the distance in both directions.
As they slid through a gap in the fence, they checked their comms and looked around.
“The transport is still a few minutes away, tell me what we know about what happened next,” Marr asked.
Luna continued, “The years of conflict and turmoil had been put to good use by those behind the utopian dream. They saw first-hand how their strategies hadn’t worked. It had simply created stronger division. That division awakened and strengthened the resolve of those they saw as oppressing them. Instead, the utopians used their newly acquired authority afforded to them by the citadels to shift gear. From this they conceived the Rule of Twelve.
“The Rule of Twelve said that all were equal, but only when at the same level of assigned privilege. They conceived the model with twelve levels. Each level would be granted certain privilege, and with it, power, and entitlement. Level 1 having the most, and level twelve having the least. They appointed sixty of themselves as the first EOs for this new world order. Twelve for each citadel. They decided that EOs would remain in these positions until their death.
“Appointment of EO replacement is from the level below. This in turn opens opportunity for promotion for the level below and so on. Each can have up to twelve devoted followers, or observers, who occupy the level below. This propagates down to level twelve. In reality each really only has one to two subordinates.
“Most, start and remain at level twelve. Known as the deprivileged, they are destined to work their entire lives. They live in the walls of the city without not much more than subsistence-based rewards for their toil.”
Excerpt from Rule of Twelve, Book 1 - Double take, Chapter 2
