The Human Condition - Ch 105: Continuing Resolution

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“France... falls back into revolution by the act of the government itself... the legal regime is now interrupted, that of force has begun... in the situation in which we are now placed, obedience has ceased to be a duty... It is for France to judge how far its own resistance ought to extend.” - Armand Carrel, in response to the July Ordinances

~

As Peter Lee trudged out of the Pennsylvania State Capitol holding several hastily stuffed bags worth of his personal effects, he wore an angry scowl on his face. So it had once again all come to nothing. Once more, to have the rug ripped out from under his feet. The first time had been blindingly overwhelming, a surprise alien invasion of global proportions. This time, it was just losing his job and being booted out of a building at gunpoint. Much simpler to comprehend, but all the more infuriating because of it.

As he descended the expansive front steps of the state capitol, he saw what seemed like every single council member gathered in a big circle on one of the lower landings. Speaker Mason stood two steps above everyone else, holding a wooden rod that Peter thought looked suspiciously like the Senate’s old ceremonial mace. That definitely wasn’t George’s personal possession, but at this point nobody was about to report the unauthorized borrowing to the governor.

He could hear Councilor Marshall speaking as he approached: “What can we do? We were relying entirely on Alice’s and then his goodwill. Now that that has been revoked, we can do nothing.”

“We could order a general revolt,” Councilor Hale suggested. Hale was a member of the anti-Imperial radical faction, and his aggression didn’t surprise Peter. “Hell, there might be one even if we don’t do anything to encourage it. Pennsylvania was pretty red before all this, and that’s not even considering the upcoming holiday.”

“That’s one hundred percent a treason charge,” Councilor Marshall replied. “Right now, we are just private citizens who haven’t done anything wrong. If we were to become fugitives, that would not only prove the Imperial naysayers right, it would mean the loss of any sort of public platform we may have left.”

“What public platform? If we don’t do anything, nobody will care about us anymore,” Councilor Biswas, another radical, added. “I’m not necessarily saying we should go and shoot anyone, but we definitely need to do something!”

“We need to start by telling everyone exactly what just happened,” Victoria Belvedere interjected. “I have absolutely no doubt that Mr. N’taaris will already be putting his message out that we were divided, ineffective, and frivolous. He will pounce on stuff like that pizza party bill to paint us as incompetent. But, for whatever reason, he waited until now to start. This gives us an opportunity.

If we can get our message out before he can properly tilt the field against us, we can perhaps use this opportunity to delegitimize him in the eyes of people I’m sure he cares about: his fellow governesses. He made a culturally significant oath, and then broke it. That is an angle we can attack him from that I feel would make actual inroads with the Imperium.”

“I agree with that,” Peter said, stepping forward to join the circle. “To the public, the most convincing argument is the one they hear first. We need to come up with a unified message to push, and we need to put out a statement now. Of course, it also needs to be coherent and actionable, but polish ought to be an afterthought.”

“I volunteer to scribe,” Councilor Biswas said, pulling out a notepad and a pen. The Council’s staff were in chaos, and only a few of them had come out to help the councilors, and they didn’t have all their proper supplies.

“Any objections to her volunteering?” Speaker Mason asked. “If there are, we can have a proper vote. None? Okay, good.”

“Obviously, we should start by clarifying that Cornhole in there has just dissolved the council by armed force, and arrested Councilor Johnson purely for speaking out in protest,” Councilor Hale suggested.

“That sounds a bit biased,” Councilor Marshall protested. “He made a vague statement that Lord–er, Mr. N’taaris stretched into a threat. And he didn’t quite force us out at gunpoint.”

“So those militiawomen with their rifles bared were a welcome wagon? No, the threat was implicit, but perfectly clear,” Hale said, angrily.

“Wording is important,” Victoria added calmly. “But I think unfortunately, the time has come to use inflammatory language. What just happened was a coup. A successful one. Quibbling or introducing ambiguity into the accusation we are going to make will severely weaken our statement.”

Peter hadn’t quite expected that bold of a stance from her. As a moderate, she had always advocated toning down their language so that it was more acceptable to Imperial ears. But perhaps this was also an attempt to sound more palatable to Imperial ears. From what he had seen, strength was a source of respect in the Imperium, and hesitation was the opposite. At least, that was the most reasonable explanation for how the governesses had reacted to Alice.

“Do you think it would be wise to split our statements into those targeted at humans and those targeted at shil’vati?” Peter asked. The moment he voiced the question, he actually had second thoughts. Split messaging would absolutely be an own goal. “Actually, never mind. That was a stupid idea.”

“We need to appeal to both in the same message,” Victoria said. “It’ll be easy to outrage our own people. The tricky part will be eliciting outrage in people whose first inclination would be to do the exact same thing Mr. N’taaris just did if they were in his place.”

~~~~~~

As the dissolution of the council played out right in front of her eyes, Carol stood stock still, frozen in shock. While she hadn’t expected the meeting between Cor’nol and the Council to be cordial, she hadn’t hadn’t expected him to walk in, make a couple of loud complaints, and then immediately dissolve it!

She watched with mild horror as Councilor Johnson was carried away against his will. What sort of fate might befall him? Seven years ago, as the dust from the orbital bombardment settled, and the gravity of the situation became clear, certain members of Congress had tried to make a stand against the Imperial takeover. They had failed.

Although only those who had resorted to violence were given harsh prison terms, all of them had been forced to renounce politics and had been under effective house arrest ever since, as far as Carol could find information about them online. Some of them had tried to get back into public affairs, of course, but they had largely been thwarted by censorship and intimidation, except those unscrupulous few who had bent the knee and become collaborators.

But this wasn’t Congress, and Cor’nol might not be as willing to avoid creating martyrs as whoever had managed the initial transition to Imperial rule. Some governesses had had people thrown in prison for a very long time for threatening them publicly. A significant number of attempted assassins were either dead, or had been sent to distant prisons in so-called green zones on the opposite side of the planet. Carol had heard from a friend that apparently the largest Imperial prison on Earth was on Okinawa. Would Councilor Johnson end up in a small cell there?

The thing that snapped her out of her shock was her sudden realization that by turning the camera back on, she had inadvertently created a recording of the entire fiasco! Perhaps the only recording! She needed to save the file, and somehow get it out to the world! There was no hesitation or conscious decision, she just knew she needed to share the video with the public. They deserved to know!.

Pulling out her personal smartphone, she fumbled for the right cable to plug it into the camera. She had never done anything like this before, and she wondered if it was even safe to put the video on her phone. Had the Interior put spy software on human phones? Well, more spy software than humans had already had on them?

Surely they couldn’t look into random video files, could they? If that were the case, millions of people would probably already have been arrested for possessing or sharing seditious media, right?

Opening up the file transfer interface on the camera, Carol quickly swiped the file over to her phone, then double checked it had been copied correctly before deleting the video from the camera’s memory. As she unplugged her phone and slid it back into her pocket, she nearly had a heart attack as she spotted a red-and-black uniformed shil’vati militiawoman climbing the stairs the the balcony she and the camera were situated on. Looks like they had finally noticed her. But had they noticed her sneaking? Was she about to be sent to Okinawa, or worse, shot for treason?

Carol froze up again, and could only stand there as the threatening militiawoman approached.

“Itentify you self ma’am,” the miltiawoman asked in broken English. She also had a heavy accent, which made her hard to understand.

“Caroline Sharpe, ma’aam,” she responded in Vatikre. The last thing she wanted was to be arrested because of a goddamn language barrier. “I’m a member of the Count’s publicity team, assigned to cover the Council’s operations.” Playing up the fact that they were both technically employed by the same guy was probably a good idea. “I was just packing up.”

“Is that a news camera?”

“Yes. I was just putting it away. We received prior notification that this… session would be private beforehand. But since my senior partner had to go use the restroom, it’s taken me longer to put this away… and of course, I might have gotten a little distracted by the commotion down there.” Carol smiled nervously, desperately hoping that the shil’vati woman would believe her.

Just then, salvation arrived: 

“Hey, what’s going on?” Zar’na asked, looking around in confusion as she approached. “Why’s everybody leaving? Who are you?”

“I’m a militiawoman of Penn-shul-van-ya,” she replied, struggling a little with the English name for the region. “The governor just fired a bunch of people for poor performance. Not you, of course. I think.”

“You think!? Do I still have a job or not??” Zar’na exclaimed. “Oh goddess, if I get fired now…”

“He just fired the council. I’m sure you’re fine,” the militiawoman said. It was odd how she was actually being polite now.

“He fired the council!!?” Zar’na exclaimed. “But… I… wow. I thought he swore the Old Oath? Did they do something to provoke it? Was there, like, a fistfight or something?”

“They were rejecting his authority, and Councilor Johnson threatened him.”

Okay. Apparently that was the story.  Never mind that Councilor Johnson had only said that after the Council had been dissolved.

“In any case, serves those pompous fools right,” the militiawoman continued. “Our governor may be a guy, but he still knows how to lead. Show no weakness to threats and no mercy to traitors or fools.”

“Oh no, things are going to go red again, and my boyfriend will hate me!” Zar’na cried out, putting her hands on her head like she was having a crisis.

“Aw, who cares? Was he a human? If he was, he was probably an insurgent anyways.”

“No, he wasn’t! And you don’t understand! You have no idea how long I’ve been alone!” Zar’na started sobbing.

“Well…” the militiawoman seemed at a loss for how to deal with a sobbing camerawoman. “If he really does break up with you, here’s my number.”

“What?” Zar’na said, as the militiawoman handed her a small piece of paper and then walked away awkwardly.”Did… did she just hit on me??”

“I guess,” Carol replied, just glad that she hadn’t been caught. “Terrible sense of timing, though. I’m sure your boyfriend will understand that it’s not exactly your fault the council got dissolved, now is it?”

“But the council made you humans not hate us! Now you’ll all start hating us again, and he’ll have to break up with me. Even if it’s not him, they’ll start beating up people who date us again! Wait, maybe they’ll even beat you up, because you’re working with me!”

“I think you’re catastrophizing a bit there,” Carol said, putting her hand on Zar’na’s shoulder. She was perfectly aware that she herself had also just been catastrophizing a minute ago, but at least she could reassure her coworker that she wasn’t about to get beat up for no reason.

Okay, on second thought, maybe she was at risk of getting beat up, working directly for the likely soon-to-be despised governor. Fuck, maybe they were both liable to getting beat up by reasonably upset members of the general public now. That was a scary thought.

“I can’t guarantee anything, but I know that you should tell your boyfriend that you don’t support Cor’nol doing this,” Carol suggested. “And maybe, we could both consider leaving this job so that we don’t get beat up?”

“Leave… this job?” Zar’na asked. “Hah! And find another on a planet that hates me? Fat chance.”

“It’s a suggestion. I don’t even know what I want to do now,” Carol said. Well, she knew that she needed to get the video file on her phone out, but nothing beyond that. Would she need to worry about employment after that? Would they trace it back and arrest her because she was one of just a few people in the room when it happened? Would the governor get rid of her and Zar’na’s positions because he didn’t need anyone to film the council anymore?

Carol shook her head to clear it. Right now, she should go and figure out where best to post the file. Wait. The councilors had just left, and surely some of them must still be outside somewhere. Maybe one of them could help her?

~~~~~~

“Alright, so assuming we’re going to focus on using his broken oath as a grievance, correct?” Peter asked. “Should we start with that? Like ‘Governor N’taaris has broken his oath’ as a cold open? Or maybe more like the Declaration of Independence, ‘when, in the course of events, a man breaks his oath, who will enforce it?’ ”

“I like the sound of that second one,” Victoria said. “It’s already got a prompt to start laying our grievances down and has a call to action, all in the first sentence.”

“But how do we continue it?” a councilor asked. “Are we trying to enforce it, or do we want to try and convince other governesses to do something? Or are we leaving it to the people? But that just comes back to encouraging a revolt, doesn’t it?”

“All of those at once,” Peter said. “We call upon whoever is willing and honorable to enforce it. And even if we call on the people, there are other ways than violence. Passive resistance. Protests that aren’t riots.”

“But those haven’t gotten us anywhere before.”

“I know. But this is a limited, specific goal. Protesting for them to leave was obviously impossible, but maybe if we can be disruptive enough, they’ll let us have the Council back. After all, a governess created it. That has to count from something, right?”

“I hate to say this, but that sounds like wishful thinking,” Victoria commented. “We can’t protest in a way that they care about. Strikes wouldn’t ruin any economy besides our own, blocking roads means nothing when they can fly over them. Picketing outside the governor’s mansion means they raise the fence a little, improve their soundproofing, and call it a day. Rioting means reinforcing the image of our species and planet as lawless and in need of Imperial order.”

“We can’t even refuse to pay taxes because they have exempted us from those for the time being,” Councilor Biswas added. “Well, except the 10% corporate tax here in Pennsylvania. But it would probably be rather difficult to convince companies not to pay.”

“I, for one, will be petitioning the Empress directly,” Violet Eaton chimed in. “It would be a great injury to Imperial efforts and prestige if we were to be embarrassed by the puny humans. To make a mockery of the Imperium is a grievous offense!”

“So you think we should try to embarrass Cor’nol?” Peter asked. “Interesting idea, but how? And how do we maintain any sort of gravitas, putting that into the same document as ‘help us enforce his oath?’ ”

“Uh, excuse me,” a human woman that Peter didn’t know by name was approaching him, her phone in her hand. “Mr. Lee, I don’t want to bother you, but I think I might have something important.”

“What is it?” Peter asked. She seemed rather nervous.

“So, I was on the publicity team, assigned to–you know–broadcast the Council’s activities. We were instructed to shut off all our cameras by the governor. Probably because he was about to do… well, that. But I… didn’t. I kept the camera on during the whole thing. And I’ve got the video file on my phone here. I don’t know what to do now, so I was hoping you guys would be able to help me?”

“...I hope you know the magnitude of what you’ve just done,” Peter said, in awe at the great fortune this was. “You may have just saved us. Or at least, you’ve done something very important. I want everyone here to download a copy of that video onto any and all safe devices they have, immediately!”

“I thought it would be important,” the woman said. “That’s why I came out here right away. In fact, I might totally get fired for this, but it’s definitely worth it.”

As people started pulling their phones and omnipads from their pockets and bags, the camerawoman spoke off-hand:

“I’m surprised they haven’t sent someone out here to disperse you.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised too, actually. Maybe they just don’t think we can do anything anymore. If so, they’re wrong. Very wrong,” Peter said.

“I guess this is like, the Tennis Court Oath then,” she added, awkwardly.

“The… oh! That! Why didn’t I think of that before?” Peter exclaimed. “That’s exactly what we’re doing! We’ve just been thrown out, but we’ll be back. It’s exactly the same energy. Thank you, er, I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

“Carol,” she said, handing her phone over to them. It didn’t take long for the file to be transferred.

“Thank you, Carol. You have done much for little reward, and if nothing else, I shall forever be grateful for your help today.”

“Oh, it was not much,” she said. “I just watched and hit record. The people of Pennsylvania deserve to know what just happened. And if I’m lucky, no one will ever find out it was me, because I would very much like to remain out of prison.”

“So be it, but know that if it is one day safe to do so, I would very much like to see your name celebrated, Carol,” Peter said, meaning every word of it. 

“We’ve got multiple copies of it now, right?” Victoria asked. “If you’re worried about your job, you should get back to your post. We’ll handle the rest.”

“Okay, great,” Carol said. “And good luck! We’re all going to need it…”

With that, she left, going back into the capitol. 

“Alright. The Tennis Court Oath, eh?” Victoria said. “Not a bad idea to model our statement off of that. It is a bit short, but I would say that perhaps we’ll do better to keep it short, and maybe not go off on any tangents.”

“So we ought to focus on his oath, and our counter-oath,” Peter said, before muttering under his breath so that no one else could hear: “I wonder if the guillotine is about to make a comeback too?”

~~~~~~

Resolution 1-42 of the Advisory Council to the Governor of Pennsylvania

(Later known as the Doorstep Oath, or sometimes the Doorstep Resolution):

When, in the course of historical events, a man breaks his oath, who stands ready to enforce it? Cor’nol N’taaris, Count and Imperial Governor of Pennsylvania, swore upon the stars above, the sea below, and his own immortal soul to heed the advice of the Advisory Council duly convened. Now he stands beneath the same stars and above the same sea, having irrevocably broken said oath in the very strongest of terms.

Without any provocation, he has marched into the chamber where the council was meeting, and has attempted to disperse it by force of arms, thus forfeiting his oath, and shaming him in the eyes of all men, women, Gods, and Goddesses who hold a man’s word sacred. To add arbitrariness and tyranny to deceit and false promises, he then forcibly restrained and arrested one of our number, who was guilty of nothing but protesting the attempted dissolution.

Given such circumstances, it is doubtless that he hopes to frighten and scatter our Council, an institution founded expressly for the purpose of tempering the impulses and excesses of government which are sometimes found in acts of imperfect mortals. But he has failed, and will continue to fail, regardless of how much force he intends to bring against us. 

We, assembled members of the Council, do hereby swear upon the stars above, the sea below, and upon our own immortal souls to continue meeting and advising the Governor according to the Wills and Wisdom of the People of Pennsylvania, in whose name we act. Nothing shall dissuade us from doing so, and we shall meet whenever and wherever may be required, until his Oath is honored and the County of Pennsylvania once again stands upon the foundations of good and orderly governance.

This promise having been agreed upon unanimously, we declare that Oath shall right Oath, and that Justice shall right Injustice, unto the ending of the universe. Who stands ready to enforce an oath sworn and then broken? All good men and all good women.

We stand ready, who will stand with us?

[Signatures: Peter Lee, Victoria Belvedere, George Mason… Fatin Biswas, William Marshall, Richard Hale, Violet Eaton.]

Dated July 2nd, 2026 AD / 17th of Fral’nen, 1283 Imperial Era

~

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