The Queen Is Dead

What the f…?

What is it?

“Ping DIED!

“Really? What hap…

“PING FELL DOWN A PRECIPICE!

Humanity held its breath for a moment.

And then the infighting began.

Bloodshed

The Authority came apart more swiftly than anybody had expected. It seemed that the Chairwoman’s inner circle knew that she was ill and they had been sharpening their swords for a while now. But the suddenness of her accident was a shock even to them.

Her transport had fallen over a precipice. That kind of accident was impossible—it didn’t make sense. All transports had built-in technology to sense whether or not the ground ahead was capable of holding its weight. That’s why roads had fallen into disrepair and nearly disappeared. Rumor had it that Chairwoman Ping’s transports could even over really big drops, but the void where she fell to her death was much deeper than that. The whole thing smelled of sabotage but it was never proven conclusive.

After the initial shock, Ping’s inner ring acted quickly and when it was all said and done a lot of blood had flowed. The would-be-kings were left bossing over very small enclaves, wasting their energies on fighting each other. At the same time, the old RADICAL Pods reactivated more quickly than any of them had expected, and they were better integrated than ever, including the space habitats.

This time, however, they were able to protect themselves. They prevented a lot of fighting by redirecting the authoritarian troops away from each other. Sometimes they used their technology to confuse their dispatches and sometimes it was done by RADICAL Marine officers. This gave soldiers the opportunity to desert, and, as it so happened, the RADICALS were waiting to onboard them. The few soldiers who tried to subvert the RADICAL recovery operation were rebuffed by the ones who were sick of the violence and were ready to try a new way of living.

Hard-Learned Wisdom

Besides welcoming AWOL soldiers into RADICAL life, the Pods made a concerted effort to not let Fiat enclaves fester as they had in the past. This time they actively helped people integrate into the RADICAL communities.

This time people had lived under Earth Authority rule and reality. They had the scars that many years of authoritarian, and oftentimes brutal domination left imprinted in their minds and bodies. They knew that they had to actively help people learn to become fully functional and responsible adults and to recognize what was healthier for them. They knew, now more than ever, that people had to get there themselves. They had to create their own meaning and find their communities at their own pace.

This time the RADICALS were ready to actively help make that possible.