by CD Moulton
live on and on.
I originally intended to write mostly empty-headed adventures and entertainment, but was now foraging into messages and psychological studies. The vast differences in the way a different culture or classification might think and act became more important.
The societies here on primitive Earth have varied ways of looking at things. What is taboo in one group is normal for another. We are driven by our greeds. Religions are perhaps our most divisive feature.
What about a galactic culture that isn't based on greed and petty power and that TRULY divided the church and state?
Writing demands research and an ability to retain a lot of details. It can be a very learning process. Learning about the different psychological responses of individual beings (as opposed to racial traits in societies) and how lives were affected by the most seemingly minor things was almost shocking. The CD Grimes murder mysteries received some benefits of the study as did the Nick Storie books in that the explanation for a psychological point in today's world here might prove universal in its mechanism. I wrote Bottleneck in the CD Grimes books based on some of the things I'd learned about why Z was so inhibited. I learned what an extreme disservice we do to our children when we focus on things that make them feel guilty because of things that happen to them that they have no control over. Z is very inhibited, but slowly is able to overcome it, but not for quite some time. He still feels guilty about many things that Maita, Thing, Tom and others simply can't understand. Morality Play in the Nick Storie books is based on the truth that some of the general psychobabble in courtrooms can actually apply.
It may seem strange that I speak of learning things about a character I invented, but it is a process that is vital to continuing works. I must know what motivates him and how and why he will react to a given situation or he soon becomes a character like too many in today's writing. There is no continuity between episode one and episode three because it's too much like Joe Smith in three is not the same person Joe Smith in one and two was. It's like, "Wait a damned minute! In one he was terrified of heights and in episode three he's chasing the crook along the ledge of the roof of a fifty story building? Who the hell is this imposter going to fool if he can’t stay in character?"
The machine-administered (Maita never was much for "rule") society was working well on the premise that the least law and rules were the strongest laws and rules. The empire was working for what it did FOR peoples instead of what it did TO peoples. The Maitan Empire was a huge regulator of the Traders Guild more than anything else and something that would insert itself into local affairs only when requested or when there was a problem. Hospital and University were established. Feach and Zeena were also becoming established for excellence.
I had wondered early how a large political entity such as the Maitan Empire could guarantee loyalty among the members and decided that would be accomplished when it was those members who insisted on becoming part of such an empire. Maita would only very grudgingly allow all who wanted to enter to do so because it felt it had enough responsibility already, but it was resigned to the obvious: the Maitan Empire was growing and would continue to do so. Emperor Maita was emperor and would continue to be emperor.
That led to wondering what would happen with such a system if its most prominent worlds did not formally join and Zeena became that experiment. Being a member of the empire automatically gave a world the use of the traders guild machinery and the legal machinery and got rid of most of the bureaucrats that are the curse of governments, particularly the governed, everywhere in my experience. Zeena used the machines, so being a member or not was a technicality.
I wondered what rules a galactic (It wasn't yet, but it was to become a galactic empire) must have and enforce to succeed – and found there were almost none. "He who rules least rules best" was the dogma of Maita. No nuclear weapons, they contaminated a world for its unborn (or hatched or whatever) future citizens of a world. Corollary to that is that no culture may attack another.
Criminal acts had to be handled, of course, but that was the responsibility of a given world, not the empire. Maita made judge machines that were programmed in the individual world's laws and who were absolutely just, which many cultures didn't want. They wanted justice tempered with mercy so Maita had an overseer board who could take the judge machines' recommendation or could alter it to the particular situation.
They seldom did, but the psychological factor was there. They had final control except in the case of nuclear weapons and cultural interference, in which case Maita would handle it personally.
The judge machines control the probe. Guilt or innocence can be determined instantly, but no one is forced to use it unless convicted of a capital crime, in which case the only thing the judge probe could do for their personal situation was save their lives. Many accused persons would demand use of the probe as it means an immediate release if they're found innocent. Only the agreed questions can be asked so there's no way they could be charged for anything the judge discovered and only machines will ever know anything in the probe except where guilt was proven.
Maita, at Z's suggestion, made the judge machines and empire administration machines part of the traders guild machinery, thus effectively transforming the empire into a huge trading guild. Maita could then trace everything going on in the empire instantly, could respond to any emergencies instantly, could distribute products and aid where most needed and instantly know small details of the empire.
Maita then made most of it the responsibility of the traders guild and interfered only when forced to by events, which could easily be handled through the machinery and coms aboard Maita. The rule was that the emperor may never be more than one minute away from communication with anyone and anyone could contact Maita directly by punching EC3000 on any fastcom.
A lot of jokes and problem solving was through that link because Maita could answer millions of calls at once while very few had the nerve to actually use the link. It was a major psychological point for the dynamic of the empire that every least citizen knew he/she/it had the ear of the emperor. Directly.
The situation now had to move from personal greed to a striving for racial respect. A strong societal imperative and dynamic had to be established that would eliminate competitions that led to disagreements that led to wars. Feach, Zeena and, most of all, Zule, were used to establish that. It was THE psychological factor that must become universal. Zeena was known for its craftsmanship. If any product was Zeenan it was the best that could be made. Period. Woost and Parf art has no parallels – except for the Zulians, who do everything better than anyone else.
It was time for some straight action/adventure so Tirate was written, then Happy Birthday! introduced the Freenz, adding an insectoid intelligence. It was rather difficult putting myself inside the mind of an insectoid because the type of society portrayed was of the social insect form where there is no real individual except the queen. I had to project that the average "citizen" of such a society would actually be incapable of understanding anything outside of its special area. I accomplished this by looking at the problem like asking an adding machine to report on the weather. It could give you the numbers, but would have no more idea what they meant than ... some of the weathermen on local TV here. They can read the script on the monitor, but that's the extent of their understanding.
The Maitan Empire was indeed rapidly becoming serendipitous! So was my understanding of the deeper motivations of my character!
The next project was to be a psychological study of good vs. evil with a part one/part the other presence. Heku starts with the original story from SSFSS, the Male Progeny Six/Heku story and an added later work involving the Vood. The Immins were the all-bad race, the Vood the innocent, naive, all-good race with Tab and TR as the neutral presence. I think this is one of the best books in the series.
Vood, the world of Heku, was always that one place where the random odds seemed to come together to an unbelievable degree. A Swaz had been abandoned on Voo
dworld six generations before and was greatly revered by the Vood. He had taught them how to find water and many other things and had convinced them to go to the forest for food. The Vood were an engineered race, as Brom the Swaz discovered, and had themselves come to Voodworld on a colony ship that crashed. Heku had the artifacts from Brom and had the village plant some contrasting-colored plants on the plains in the form of a Swaz distress signal. Tab was in the guise of a Swaz when he came to Voodworld. Brom and the Vood had natural biosystems that were compatible and the native plants and animals of Voodworld also fit that compatibility. I used this as a place where the improbable odds came together a truly improbable number of times, feeling there had to be such a place as a galaxy of 60 billion stars!
That led to the idea of different evolutions on the same planet. The biosystems would be based on the same things so would be compatible, but would the psychological points mesh? What if there were races of different classifications? Say reptiles and mammals? Would that be an automatic disaster?
Obviously they couldn’t have evolved in the same place because one would have naturally wiped the other out millennia ago. There