Chapter Twenty-Three: The Oceania Whitewash

Tuesday, August 24, 2100

“You are moving small sculptures about a checkered square,” Twenty-two said, watching Bruce and Toby. “Is this a game?” So Bruce taught Twenty-two how to play chess on the way back to North America on the Rocinante after the Oceania election.

The alien picked it up quickly. Toby watched the two go at it, anxiously awaiting the Oceania results. Politics was like chess, he thought; you move your resources around on a checkered world and hope to make it into the endgame.

He thought he had a chance to win New Guinea and its two electoral votes. If he did, voters worldwide would start to notice him. It was all about image. If you looked like you could win, you often did.

“Why did your world government adopt this political system?” Twenty-two asked between moves.

A question that, in his more contemplative moods, never failed to astound Toby, despite his frequent defense of it against Bruce’s criticism. How had it happened? The history was clear, but still…

“Remember how surprised you were about us developing nuclear weapons before we were in space?” Bruce said. “Well, that didn’t work out very well.”

“It probably led to blackmail,” Twenty-two said. “A country with such weapons can threaten a country that does not.”

Toby and Bruce exchanged glances. “It didn’t exactly happen that way,” Toby said.

“Did a country without nuclear weapons not give in to blackmail?” Twenty-two asked. “You had a nuclear war?”

“Not exactly,” Bruce said. “There were two nuclear wars, and three other places that got nuked.”

Twenty-two’s eyestalks were about as straight as Toby had ever seen them as she stared at Bruce. “Did they not learn from the first one?”

“Two nukes were dropped on Japan in 1945,” Toby said. “One hundred years later, in 2045, the Koreas nuked each other, then India and Pakistan had an exchange. Then the rising terrorist group Al-Nahda—‘The Awakening’—smuggled nukes into Israel and pretty much took the whole country out.”

“And then someone, probably Al-Nahda—they claimed credit—nuked Seattle,” Bruce said. “Sneaked them in, probably hoping to wreck the computer industry. That made us rather unhappy, though we caught the ones they planted in L.A., and D.C., and two of the three planted in New York City. A suitcase nuke brought down the Twin Towers again in June, 2045. It’s your move.”

Twenty-two wasn’t looking at the chess board—she never seemed to except to move. They were well into the endgame, with Bruce up a pawn. “What happened to those countries?”

“Let’s see,” Bruce said, “Russia and Japan went into Korea to help rebuild, and ended up going to war. China went into Pakistan and the U.S. into India, and pretty much rebuilt them in two years, though they stayed another five years after they were no longer needed or wanted. The U.S. and the rest of the world went after Al-Nahda and other terrorists around the world and pretty much routed them. Israel no longer exists, and the survivors relocated to the U.S. in the deserts outside Salt Lake City in New Israel, which hasn’t worked out so well—the Mormons are not happy about it. The U.S. rebuilt the Twin Towers in 2049, after cleaning up the radiation mess. And Seattle, well, their software industry moved to Vancouver in Canada, which led to 3-D full-sensory virtual reality, turning Canada into a growing powerhouse until the U.S. invasion in 2071 and the insurgency. Did you get all of that?”

Twenty-two moved a pawn. “Why did they stay in Pakistan and India?”

“Power,” Bruce said. “China and the U.S. felt good about themselves for helping out, but if they pulled out, they’d diminish their own prestige. So they stayed, helping out against the will of the ones they were helping. It took a lot of civil protesting, in China and the U.S. as well as in Pakistan and India—plus a resolution from the World Congress—to convince the occupiers that their job was done and it was time to leave.” Bruce moved a pawn. “Check.”

“You have checkmate in four moves,” Twenty-two said. “I do not understand the motives for staying.”

“You learn fast,” Bruce said. “You remember everything the first time.”

“Of course,” Twenty-two said. She began setting the pieces up again.

“As to why they stayed, in the immortal words of Robert Heinlein, you just don’t grok.”

“Grok?”

“It means you don’t really understand,” Toby said.

“No, I do not,” Twenty-two said. “What did your world government do when the nuclear bombs were going off?”

“There was no world government then,” Toby said. “That came about because of the nukings in 2045. It started as a private venture, funded by Wayne Wallace, the inventor of the TC and the world’s first trillionaire. He bankrolled candidates that would support world government until nearly every country was run by Wallymen. Then a constitutional convention in 2049, and world government in 2050. With Wallace as the world’s first president, of course.” Surprisingly, there’d been few complaints about Wallace practically buying the presidency. The biggest protests, Toby remembered reading, came about when the USE ordained that countries that had presidents should have their leaders renamed as governors or some other designation. In the U.S., the president became a governor, while state governors became state executives. There’d been a huge march on Washington by pitchfork-carrying protesters, but eventually the issue died down.

Twenty-two’s eyestalks glanced at each other, a sign Toby had learned that she was perplexed. “So humans voted for the richest person instead of the best person? Or was Wallace the best person?”

“Nope, he was the richest,” Bruce said. “A person votes once, but money votes many times.”

“I do not understand that,” Twenty-two said. “Money votes?”

“Of course,” Bruce said. “Want to play another game?” Twenty-two had already set the pieces up, and made the first move with the white pieces, the king’s pawn to the fourth row. She had grown fond of the king’s knight opening, and no doubt would be bringing the knight out on the next move.

“He doesn’t mean that literally,” Toby said. “Money pays for campaigning which gets the votes.”

“Same thing,” Bruce said.

“Who started the 2045 nuclear bombings?” Twenty-two asked.

“Terrorists,” Toby said.

“Why?”

“Because they are terrorists. They had demands that were not being met.” Somehow Toby had the feeling he was talking himself into a corner. Bruce was quietly smiling. “Some of the terrorists were even leaders in their own countries.”

“Did they have valid demands?” Twenty-two asked.

“Some were.”

“Were their valid demands met?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were terrorists!” Toby exclaimed.

Once again Twenty-two’s eyestalks met.

“You don’t deal with terrorists, or you just encourage their methods,” Toby continued. “The U.S. led the fight against them, and pretty much wiped them from existence. And that put the U.S. in a strong position at the constitutional convention, which is why our political system was adopted.”

“Why was the U.S. political system adopted?” Twenty-two asked.

“I told you, because we wiped out the terrorists.”

“Did the U.S. political system wipe out the terrorists?”

“Of course not!”

Twenty-two rocked side to side for a moment. “I am afraid I will never grok. Your species needs a nuclear web or you will destroy yourselves.”

“Maybe—” Toby began, but stopped when he noticed Bruce looking off into space. “The Oceania results?”

“Yep,” Bruce said. “Nothing for us.”

Toby pulled them up on his TC.

Oceania	Electoral Votes	Dubois	Ajala	Platt
Australia	4	65%	14%	21%
New Guinea	2	42%	39%	19%
New Zealand	1	56%	30%	14%
TOTAL	7	7	0	0

He hadn’t come close anywhere. He’d lost Australia by 44 points, New Guinea by 23, and New Zealand by 42. Not very promising. On the other hand, he had beaten Ajala in Australia—though Ajala had practically given him that. Considering he’d been at about 2% a week before, the results were not bad.

“Will there be a runoff in New Guinea?” Twenty-two asked after Toby put the results on the screen in front so she could see. The alien was nibbling on a hunk of fake lettuce, a vegetable she had taken a liking for. Stupid scurried over and Twenty-two shared a leaf.

“No,” Bruce said. “Dubois already won.”

“How can Dubois win in a three-way race without getting half the vote?” Twenty-two asked. “Dubois beat Ajala by three points in New Guinea. Toby received nineteen points. Do not the voters for Toby get a choice between Dubois and Ajala?”

“I know where you’re going,” Bruce said. “First, put on your illogic hat, and I’ll explain.”

Twenty-two stared for a moment, then picked up Stupid and put him on her head. “I have put on my illogic hat. Or should I call it my Stupid hat?”

“Okay, then,” Bruce said. “Suppose Toby were a liberal, and he and Ajala split the liberal vote, with the same results shown here.”

“Then the conservatives get 42%, the liberals 58%, and so the choice of the liberal side wins easily. The choice should be between Ajala and Platt.” Twenty-two was stroking the purring iguana with all four arms. Toby found it disconcerting, but Stupid squirmed with enjoyment.

“And yet,” Bruce said, “the winner in New Guinea is Dubois, the conservative who loses in a race against either of the other two.”

Twenty-two began rocking front and back, waving her arms. Stupid jumped off her head. “An election is supposed to decide the choice of the voters, not the person they least want!”

“I believe your stupidity hat must not be on firmly enough,” Bruce said. “Seriously, you are right. One hundred percent, totally, absolutely, unarguably right. But not in human politics.”

“So in a race that Ajala should win over Dubois, he loses because someone else with similar views entered the race?” Twenty-two looked like she was about to have a fit.

“Welcome to chimpanzeeland,” Bruce said.

“It makes no sense!”

“No it does not,” Bruce said. “Do you expect logic from a chimpanzee? In some smaller races, like for city mayor, they do have runoffs if nobody gets fifty percent of the vote, but not in a major race like for president of the planet. That’s too important to trust to logic. We may try to recruit a fourth-party conservative challenger to siphon votes away from Dubois. Maybe a fifth-party liberal one to take some from Ajala, just in case.”

“Have humans considered dropping this electoral system?” Twenty-two asked. “Going directly by percentage, with runoffs? Not just for three-way races. In your electoral system, it makes no sense to even campaign in countries that will not support you, and so you never get the chance to try to convince them. And if you know a country will support you, you reward them by not going there at all.”

“A few people have argued to go to a straight worldwide percentage vote, but there’s no real move to change the system,” Bruce said. “That’d be too logical. So we only campaign in battleground countries.”

Twenty-two stared down at the chessboard. “How can a race that creates such a logical game as chess invent such a political system?”

“Because we’re a bunch of simple primates,” Bruce said, picking up Stupid. “Another game?”

Once again Twenty-two took Bruce into the end game before losing. Bruce was a very good player, and yet he had to struggle against an alien who had learned the game just a few hours before.

“Play again?” Bruce asked.

“No,” the alien said. “I need to practice.”

Bruce glanced over at Toby, shrugging his shoulders. “Okay, how do you want to practice?”

Twenty-two stood motionlessly, her eyestalks resting on the top of her head. “I am practicing.”

“How?”

“In my head.”