Introduction To Politics

Emma asked for the night to think about everything and sleep on it as soon as we got back to the Kingdom barrier. I can’t blame her to be honest. It’s a lot to take in. From Lena telling her about the existence of the abyss yesterday to seeing how dire the situation in Sydney is today, it’s only been a little over a day for her to process everything.

We bid them both farewell, and sat down to relax for the day. It’s definitely been a bit of an emotionally charged day for some of us. Nobody with any sense of empathy at all can see people living like that and not feel a sense of melancholy from it. It’s a very difficult situation.

As it gets closer to the evening, Ivy goes into the kitchen to make us dinner, while Olivia departs for the day. She’s never stayed overnight with us, which is fair enough. I’d like to think we’re getting closer to her on a personal level, but it’s really hard to tell with her.

“I hope we didn’t scare her off.” Mia says, still somewhat cheerful, and forgiving me easily for not letting her go with us. I shrug. “I guess we’ll see. It is a lot to take in, in such a short amount of time. We at least had a bit of time between processing so many different things at once.” I point out. “True. We kinda just went ‘BLEGHHH here’s everything.’” She chuckles, and I snort.

Ivy pokes her head into the living room. “Dinner babes.” She says. We all sit down at our dining table, and the conversation continues, as lively as ever. Skylar tells us about the book she’s reading, getting more excited as she describes the plot, and we all listen, happy our girlfriend is enjoying herself.

“Anyway, I guess the politics of it all got me thinking.” She says, after talking about the plot of the political drama she’s so engrossed in for a full ten minutes. “How’s that?” Mia asks, taking another bite of her food. “What are we gonna do after we overthrow Mathias, if we ever get to that point? What kind of a system are we gonna have?” She asks.

The question stumps me a bit. Skylar turns to me expectantly, waiting for an answer. “I guess I haven’t really thought about it.” I admit. “Well…we’d want people to have a say, wouldn’t we?” Ivy asks, looking to Skylar. She shrugs. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know how we’d handle it. I just wanted to bring it up because it’s probably a good idea to have some kind of plan.” She says.

“We should just make Gemma the Queen!” Mia proclaims. I shake my head immediately. “Queen of this castle and our guild, I can do. Queen of a nation? Uh uh, no way. That’s way too much responsibility that I’m not ready for.” I deny firmly. “Aw damn.” Mia giggles. “Would we wanna do like a vote or something?” Paige asks. “I mean probably, but who would they vote for? This place has been fractured for so long, there’s no political system at all.” I put in.

“Or systems of any kind really.” Skylar adds. “Exactly. There’s no government at all to overthrow. It’s just Mathias and his stupid non-system. If we want order in Sydney, we’d have to build everything ourselves from the ground up.” I agree, now seriously pondering the question. “Does that mean we’d have to be in charge by default?” Ivy wonders.

Mia nods. “If we wanna get anything at all done, then yeah.” Skylar shakes her head. “It’s a big problem in every story and historical case of revolution. After the revolution, what happens next? If the people leading the revolution don’t take charge somehow to try to organise things, it can get even more chaotic and awful afterwards.” She says.

“How much more chaotic and awful could things be around here?” Paige asks. “Good point, things are already crappy. They couldn’t get much worse.” Mia replies. “Well let’s argue the opposite point. What would happen if we took out Mathias but didn’t establish a system ourselves?” I pose the question. We all fall silent for a few seconds to think about it. It’s Skylar that answers first.

“Probably one of the stronger gangs would take control, kill the competition and do whatever they felt like.” She says. The others nod in agreement. “And would we be able to trust any of them to create a decent system that wouldn’t cause suffering to others?” I ask, continuing on my line of thought. My girlfriends all shake their heads.

“Yeah I agree. I think we need to take control afterwards and try to create a system ourselves. I don’t know what that would involve, but we really can’t trust anybody else to do it, and if we’re the only ones with the power to get rid of Mathias, we’re really the only ones who can scrape something together out of this mess.” I state.

“See this is why I think you should be Queen Gemma. You understand this stuff.” She says. “Why are we talking about a monarchy?” I ask. Mia exchanges a look with Skylar. Skylar voices what Mia already seems to know, but doesn’t know how to say. “The abyss needs a strong leader because of how many other strong people there are around.” She explains.

I look at her questioningly and she continues. “Well, if you’ve got a democracy where a vote can change any leader, it’s a popularity contest. That works fine enough for mundanes where there’s no big difference in individual strength. But say you’re level 200 and the people vote in somebody who’s only level 50, but they liked them more than you.”

“What happens when a bad person with ridiculous levels of near godlike power threatens the nation?” She posits. “I’d fight in that situation.” I reply. “But you’re starting from a disadvantaged position and taking orders from someone less powerful than you, probably less wise, all of that. How long would it take him to contact you? What if you don’t want to fight? What if he hasn’t given you all the information? What if he orders you not to fight because he wants to?” She asks.

I hesitate, unable to answer any of those questions. “Democracies are more prone to failure in the abyss because people are emotional. If they’re convinced to vote for somebody who is unsuitable for the position, it really shows. And that’s without talking about all the bureacratic process of a government that gives the people power.” She explains.

“You’ve really thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” I ask. Skylar gives me a small smile. “I read a lot. You should try it sometime. Anyway, in a war situation, speed is everything. The reasons the Nazis were so successful in world war 2 at first is because of the Blitzkrieg. They struck hard and fast before anybody else had a chance to react, and managed to take over tons of territory because of it.” She continues.

“Weren’t they all hopped up on meth?” Mia asks. I laugh in surprise. “Really?” I ask. Skylar nods. “Yep. All of this stuff matters so much more when it’s one person rather than mass armies that are doing the damage. If you’re in charge, you need to be able to organise quick responses, and do that without having anything holding you back.”

“Why are you talking about war so much?” I ask suddenly, taking a step back to question it. Skylar smiles sadly at me, almost the way a mother would when about to tell a child a disappointing answer. “Because in the abyss, it only takes one guy with bad intentions and too much power to smash everything. In the mundane world, that stuff is a lot more predictable and delicate. In the abyss, some things hang on a knife edge.” She says.

I nod slowly, not liking what she’s saying but understanding her point. “Oh I think she’s overwhelmed, poor girl.” Mia giggles. “Shush!” I tell her. I turn back to Skylar. “Yeah I’m gonna need time to think about this stuff. I’m the leader of this guild, so I guess if we’re going to be the ones taking charge, I’m going to be the decision maker.” I say.

Skylar nods. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that you had to make a decision now or anything. Or any of us, by the way.” She says, looking around at the rest of the table, our girlfriends mostly sitting and listening by this point. “Just that this is stuff that’s probably good to think about before we overthrow Mathias.” She says.

“If we manage to.” Ivy puts in. “Bah, now you’re sounding like Olivia. We got this. We’ll beat him.” Mia says confidently. “Don’t get cocky babe.” I remind her. “W-we do need to be careful.” Paige speaks up. Mia turns to the earth mage and kisses her forehead. “We will be.” She says. The conversation turns to other things as we all eat our delicious meals, courtesy of our talented resident cook Ivy.