Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 325, Thursday
November 22nd, 2018
Chapter Four: Control
Every person was beset by the intense pressure that came with the
understanding that their future was completely dependent on the now.
The citizen in a position of power or authority, required balance and
poise, the more responsibility they had the more heavily they were scrutinized.
Every person’s life was a matter of public record, every step they took
outside the home, every word they spoke. At any time they could held
accountable for anything…for everything.
The Collective loved to see people and families built up, only to watch
them taken down, sometimes over the course of generations, at other time with
bewildering speed. The Continuum gave them these dramas, filling the Collective
with the vicarious experiences they craved.
The greatest narratives the Continuum had ever constructed resulted in
the destruction of entire world’s, the suppression of rebellion that resulted
in total genocide.
The more power a person had the more careful they had to be. Billions of
lives depended on their thoughtful application of it.
Such was the case with the High Priest. His rebellion had destroyed
everything he had ever loved. Then, after his resurrection and his complete
submission to Imperial rule, he held posts in which he signed orders that
starved quarrelsome population into submission.
He led the Imperial armada on missions that turned entire planets into
glowing cinders, sending their raw materials to the central system as an
offering to the Collective.
As High Priest he blessed these missions and absolved the commanders of
all crime.
Control requires ever greater control; to force it is to lose it. The
exercise of power had to be done submissively.
It was dichotomous.
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