Author. Creative. Follower.

Exercise 10: The Ironist

Create an observer of events outside her own direct experience, someone who knows more than she lets on, who jokes with us (the readers) but who also indirectly reveals a complex reading of the events she is describing.

***

And who can possibly criticize the Institution, which has guided our great cyber-state out of the perils of the recent years? When the gwaiyu ran amok, it was the Black Daoshi’s who restored order to our public institutions, and brought the most dangerous gwaiyu threats to heel. Some of the residents of these territories refer disparagingly to the Institution as our “benevolent overlords” but I for one welcome that phrase without the negative connotation. The Institution stands as defender of cyber-state security in increasing uncertain times.

Besides, who else could we turn to in this difficult climate? Shall we seek our salvation in the White Daoshi, that death cult of Jiufeng, the nine-headed bird, and their multifarious conspiracy theories about out great cyber-state (all unfounded, of course).

Or perhaps some might turn to the Reds, that noble splinter-faction composed of territorials who still hold to the outmoded virtues of the old system: liberty, individualism, free enterprise. In times of instability, such values have a special allure to them and the Order of the Red Daoshi has garnered much popular support.

Granted, the Reds have garnered much support from the local populace for carrying out their practice in a way that benefits the common people. They present themselves as a charitable giving lot: willing to share their daoshi powers far and wide with those who need them. And thus, the populace are swayed by simple self-interest without any thought for the greater needs of the Social Credit system.

Ultimately, the Reds can be seen as a destabilizing presence in the ecosystem of the territories, one that keeps the populace focused on their small petty concerns and distracted from the greater endeavors of our society as a whole. The Red Daoshi may save a nursery of infants from being suffocated by a hungry ghost lingering in the NICU’s ventilation management system, but can they manage the wheels that turns the great apparatus that is our benevolent cyber-state?

I think not.

Works in Progress

Project #1
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Project #2
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Project #3
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