Chapter 821 – And the session continued

Chapter 821 – And the session continued

John was one of the last people who came in after the break. ‘It’s just way too easy to forget the time when you’re busy fucking in two bodies,’ he justified things to himself as he marched towards the seat of government. Descending the long steps that split two party clusters, he first went to the lowest point in the room, then back up the construct of stone and metal. Soon enough, he was at the highest point on the floor, only those in the watcher’s area at an even higher elevation.

‘Statement: you’re welcome,’ Beatrice chimed into his thoughts as all three of them sat down. Ever the reliable assistant, it had been her that had pointed out to him they needed to get going.

‘I do very much thank you,’ the Gamer sent back and stretched to reward her with a few head pats. ‘Good girl, very good girl.’

She radiated happiness; the other maid radiated envy and shame. ‘I do apologize that I failed to keep time in mind, Master,’ she voiced her regret.

‘Well, your mouth and mind were rather preoccupied,’ he joked. The conversation would have continued with further banter and innuendos, had the Speaker of Commons not raised her voice at that point. It was a short announcement of where they had left off, how they would continue and which party was to send their representative next.

There were only two left, Project Shield and the Crowning Party. The former of those two got to go first.

Project Shield suggested things that went quite heavily against John’s moral code. That was to be expected, he found himself in the centre on most issues, so both extremes were bound to attract his disdain. In detail, they wanted that any form of homeschooling be outlawed, while also making all other forms of school run entirely through the federal level. This was then combined with suggestions that there should be one homogenous program for everyone, including, on the inoffensive side, math, language and physics and, on the more offensive side, philosophy and history.

It was entirely in keeping with Project Shield’s proclaimed goal to create a strong central culture. John was quite concerned that any culture that came about through top-down action, he would even go as far as calling it indoctrination, was going to be both too rigid and too easily hijacked. People that were just raised to believe something were too prone to not understanding why they believed it. This problem could be alleviated by having lots of different viewpoints that continuously clashed and forced people to inspect the weaknesses in their knowledge. This alleviation was difficult to find when all schooling came from one central policy.

There were even further issues with it. The schooling plan devised by a central committee could be fantastic and then everybody would get a fantastic education. Historically, even if this was the case, there came a time where the plan would be in need of reform. Because the curriculum affected everyone, everyone would want something thrown in there and that would create a giant mess. In the unlikely case that they somehow started with a great program, it was going to fall apart with time and then everybody would get a horrible education. It was much better to leave schools to compete with each other and have them figure out through trial and error what was actually needed.

That was the educational view of this. Politically, there was another thing to be cynical about.

Because the plan would be devised by whatever party was in charge of the ministry of education, that party would naturally give orders to teach along their own values. This would increase their share of voters in the next generation considerably. Essentially, this was a great way to take a long but straight path towards the single party government. All of these factors made John oppose any sort of forced curriculum on the federal or even state level.

‘Of course, I am biased because I went to a pretty good private school before all of this happened,’ the Gamer thought to himself and scratched his head. ‘Not that I would call any of my school years particularly pleasant. Then again, that had nothing to do with what we were taught and all who I was taught with.’

Outside of that schooling issue, they also suggested stronger police, condemned degeneracy and agreed with the Supernatural People Party that they should be getting separate spaces. John got a whiff of segregation in the tone of the representative, but that could easily be his imagination because it fit so well with everything else they were saying. Rather, it fit so well with the kind of political ideologies John already knew to have similar viewpoints in the other categories. Inference was useful, but he shouldn’t assume he was right just from it alone.

At the very least the Crowning Party put out nothing unexpected or annoying. They did as their name suggested and presented all of the advantages of a monarchy. That it was the most stable form of government. That the Abyss was naturally ruled this way, proven by the two strongest guilds on the globe, the Sons of Rome and the Mandate of Heaven, both being monarchies. Of course, that conveniently ignored that a whole bunch of the remaining Divided Gates, the Illuminati, Prometheus and the Sons of Odin to name some of them, were not governed by any royalty.

“We would like to know why this has to come out of Fusion’s pockets. President Newman negotiated this deal and Collide has the resources to provide this by themselves. The federal budget shouldn’t be burdened by wasteful spending like this,” Mister Holla declared and sat back down.

John got on his feet in turn to answer. “Two simple reasons. The terms of the agreement clearly state that it has to be Fusion that pays this. Furthermore, it will simply be easier to organize something that crosses borders through the central administration, especially when ships are involved.”

“Would the Economists like to respond?” the Speaker asked, following protocol. The answer was no. Not because the party was happy with the answer, their faces didn’t look the convinced part, but because they knew that having the debate would be useless. “In this case, the vote is now open. You have five minutes to deliberate.”

John once more followed things on the screen. The Economists flipped from grey to red, with three exceptions. The other parties went majority or entirely green. Perhaps because it was so ridiculous, some people grasped at any reason to deny this. Regardless, it came out positive.

“84 votes in favour, 22 votes against, 7 votes withheld, 1 vote absent,” Jumthek announced the result. “The Act of Floridian Prune Cake Delivery passes with a clear majority.” She put in a pause, both to gather her breath and to make clear that she was moving onto the next topic. “The second point, tangentially related to Florida’s joining, is the official Fusion calendar. First, does anyone here object to making the Gregorian calendar the calendar of Fusion?” There was none voiced. “Splendid, then, to the allocation of the holidays. A committee has compiled all suggestions sent in by you, the representatives, as well as popular suggestions made by the people. To start with, we are mandated to add a four-day weekend to the calendar, due to us agreeing that Florida should join Fusion. This holiday will be in appreciation of cute animals. The suggested name is the ‘Fusion Pet Appreciation Festival’, does anyone take issue with this? ...Yes, Miss Liddell?”

Alice’s hand had shot up immediately. “Not all cute animals are pets. The name is inadequate,” she declared. “Fusion Fluff Festival, that’s what it should be called.”

“Any comments from the floor...? Yes, President Newman?”

“If you take issue with the first name being inadequate for the reason of not all animals being pets, how does this not exempt all animals that aren’t fluffy?” John wanted to know.

“All animals are fluffy,” Alice returned, speaking out of standard protocol. Nobody minded, as this hurried this discussion along.

“I have a three-metre crocodile at home that would beg to disagree,” the Gamer returned.

“Stirwin is fluffy at heart. All animals are fluffy,” Alice insisted with unshakable fervour.

Sighing, John turned to the Speaker. “In accordance to the wishes of the representative of Florida, I request the holiday name be changed to ‘Fusion Fluff Festival’.”

“The request is heeded. Does anyone take issue with this new name?” Bored silence. “Then, as for the placement. The suggestion is that the holiday should occur every year on the first full weekend of June, encapsulating the Friday prior and the Monday after the weekend. Does anybody take issue with any of this?” Another ten seconds of silence. “In this case, the vote is now open. You have five minutes to deliberate.”

The holiday was voted in without any issue. There wasn’t anyone going against it, but about a fifth of people withheld their votes. John relaxed once that was done. There was now nothing that stood in the way of the proper integration of Florida into Fusion. Nothing could suddenly spring at him and ruin what had gone so smooth and had cost him several points of sanity.



Little did he know that the following discussion about the remaining holidays would be so much worse.