Saturday 1 May 2010

Cicero Subrubreo, anti-prophet and historian. Part 2

Well, I'm back! Fricka too! I'm enormously grateful for MG for carrying on this blog, as best as he was able, it must have been an awful shock to suddenly wake up and find you cannot speak! It is however nice to know, for this Penguin at least, that he didn't manage to lose language altogether, otherwise the wait might have been TOO long for you!

After my disappearance last year, I wasn't sure if I would have the courage to resume. It was, after all, pretty cowardly of me to go off without even a farewell. But I have steeled myself and am now ready to jump back into the fray. MG can get his own blog! Ok, I don't mean that and to show that I am truly grateful, I attach one last example of his meandering, unintelligible prose to kick of my return. (Until next year!)

Going to watch 'Avatar' now, Fricka and I like a little romance mixed in with our mayhem. It's so nice that ALL dvd's come with subtitles now - so long as you can find them! Anyways, some more of MG ramblings. No doubt you'll know what came in part one (this doesn't make any sense to me at all - must read intervening blogs) and so it will make some kind of sense to you - who is Cicero Subrubreo, when he's at home? Well, anyways........

Wherein lies the power of the Monocracy? How does one man rule the Imperium. How does one solitary man withstand the plots, the stratagems, of those of his retainers who might wish to supplant him? How does he prevent the multitude of hosts, his armies, his sky-borne navies, his cosmanauticons, dealers in death all, from rising up in revolt? What stops the populaces across a myriad of different planets from attempting control over their own fate? A fate without the intervention, the whim, of the Monocrat?

Tradition, nothing more and nothing less. History is the key to the Monocrat’s power.

Accident, chance, even luck may have played their part in the millennia-old longevity of the Monocracy but the key to its power ultimately lies in its initial success and the lasting influence of that success.

From the earliest days of Osirisu’s conquest of the planet Ganth, a myth has arisen of the infallibility of the Monocrat. How all that he touches becomes a metaphorical gold. How he cannot lose; be it a battle or the hearts and mind of his people, even the conquered ones! Osirisu, it must be said, was fortunate to be born with, and schooled in, such ruthlessness, avarice, an over-arching lust for power. His savage treatment of his parents only fuelled the respect he was given, insane as though it may seem. With each ruthless and indiscriminate conquest, he added to that respect until the people came to believe he was infallible. A true demi-god amongst mere mortals.

Who would dare, even if power hungry himself, to rise up against the Monocracy. Who would dare go against the wishes of so successful a ruler? Is it not better to be riding the wake of a man that unifies a planet , a wake that brings enough power to satisfy all, except a man of Osirisu’s ambitions, than chance that you might be brought low by challenging the power that steers the ship; seek to provide your own course? Would the risk be worth it?

It is a truism that no-one thought to challenge Osirisu’s power, or if they did so think they thought better of it, for challenging someone so mighty, second only to Creator in power, or so the people of Ganth believed, could only lead to disaster; for the individual, for Ganth.

And so became the birth of a myth.

So strong was the belief in Osirisu’s power, that it, in all its glory, passed to his son and thence to his son’s son and so on in a never-ending cycle until the present. Who can deny that divinity does not pass from father unto son? As the Creator’s divinity passed to his son, Osirisu? How can it be otherwise? To think otherwise would question the Creator, in his omnipotence.

And so, the people do not rebel, the armies do not revolt, the bureaucracy does nothing overt to withstand the fancy of the Monocrat. To do so would be to court disaster, divine retribution. The overthrow of the Monocracy could only be conjured by a madman.

History, as you can see, both explains and defines the Monocracy.

Cicero Subrubreo, anti-prophet and historian, ‘Ruminations on the Monocracy, vol III (incomplete) CE110,357

Interdicted by Monocratic decree, 1.672.803.201, CE110,357.

5 comments:

  1. What is the difference between a monocrat and a dictator?

    ReplyDelete
  2. None whatsoever.

    Just, if you're going to start down the road of a long fictitious story about a dicatorship that lasts for millenia, interspersed with historical interpretations on the nature of that dictatorship by a fictional Cicero, Monocrat sounds better to my pseud mentality (far less common) than Dictator.

    If the English (dictator) had not been 'borrowed' as a direct steal from the Latin (dictator) maybe I would have chosen the Latin instead.

    PS 'Subrubreo' means 'red underneath' in Latin from whence came (via 'vulgate' Latin), the table football game of 'Subbuteo', from Falco Subbuteo, the Latin name for a small falcon, the Hobby, which has red legs. Geddit? Hobby, Table Football?

    The things you learn on this blog, ay?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Table football? Did you mean babyfoot? A national treasure in France.
    Funny, you are talking about Cicero. I remember at my previous job, we gave latin names to our softwares:
    Cicero, Prometheus, Marcure,...

    ReplyDelete
  4. No, babyfoot is what we call bar football. Subbuteo is little plactic men about 1/60 scale mounted on hemispherical bases. It's played on a big cloth 'pitch'. You move the players, and kick the ball, by flicking their hemispherical bases with the forefinger. The video here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMkx4--qArk shows a 'game' in progress

    ReplyDelete
  5. That game! Have you noticed how skinny was the goal keeper figurine and the size of the ball!
    You play with your fingers like you play marbles...
    I think such a game should have never been released because of the confusion it brings to football players. Many now use their hands to score a goal:-)

    ReplyDelete