Concluding Recommendations: Dr. Gwen Hanson

Mighty Sovereigns of the Assembly, I bring before you a matter of consequences far outstripping other matters. I speak of justice—I speak of the philosophical kind, not the academic kind. Historically, it has been the belief of many intelligent and successful leaders that nothing is higher than justice.

Sovereigns of the Assembly, those otherwise intelligent leaders were wrong. There is at least one thing higher than justice. Here's a hint: What has an average cruising altitude of 2 miles, has already wiped one country off the map, and carries eight million descendants of the angriest fucking warriors this world has ever known? That's right, the Ulgravian motherfucking Diaspora.

And so, Sovereigns of the Assembly, I have one question for you today: Do you want to fuck with us?

If your answer is "no," then we're done here. All you have to do is vote in favor of the Disarrangement Act and make sure we get some land when you finish re-apportioning everything. I don't even care if it's some corner of the Careless Continent where we end up at war with all of our neighbors, it's not like that's not fucking par for the course in our history. There's a reason the Grim Weepers' standard weapons were designed to take down horses—it's cuz Selestei had to take special measures to face us militarily. You know, Selestei? The guys who fought the rest of the world for fun? The ones who are famous for rolling their opponents' horses into a giant ball? Those guys? Even Pentex Lannogaster wrote that "We rejoice in those who become as Sels, for there are none whose courage alone suffices to turn back the charge of a horseprince." That was on horses. We're in fucking armored flying machines now.

But okay, I recognize that some of you have fecal matter instead of brains, so I'll humor this asinine thread of conversation. Let's say you're a total moron and you do want to fuck with us. Let me knock out some of the objections I've heard.

First off, some of you have been smugly repeating the line that the I'll Legislate It Act outlaws moving countries around. You're fucking wrong. The Act prohibits "The deliberate or incidental shifting of national borders by means of a third party, with or without the consent of the involved parties, until such time as such third parties are subscribed under the provisions outlined in §340 ¶4 lines 70-80." First of all, what a fucking law. You should all collectively feel ashamed of yourselves for this abomination's existence. Second, did you fuckers even read §340 ¶4 lines 70-80? That whole part of the I'll Legislate It Act was only added in to limit the Guild of Mapmakers from doing anything too threatening without the Assembly getting a say on it. Which is exactly what you will have done, if you pass the Disarrangement Act. Good fucking luck. I hope your mad lawyers are expensive.

Second big thing—that this brings the world into open season on everyone else's resources, isn't really an argument. It's mostly just whining on the part of those who don't want to lose the stuff their country happens to sit on. Come on, Flandre, did your protomammalian ancestors do a geological survey before deciding to settle down on those oil fields? Hell, you don't even need them with all that asynchronous energy you're producing. Executing the Disarrangement Act is gonna take a while, so use the time to build some really friggin' huge batteries and store it all up.

Like, I get the argument that we can't just go around redistributing resources ad hoc. But that's not what's going on here. The point of the Disarrangement Act is to reduce world conflict, so that's the metric we'd use to determine whether to move a nation off a given piece of land. Flandre has exploited its oil to thwart the whale tariffs and increase tension in the Disputatious Assembly of Sovereigns, so in order to promote world peace we should really appropriate that oil and put it to some more peaceful end, like keeping eight million people's homes in the air. The Very Definitely Independent States aren't hurting anyone by sticking together, so the Assembly could make sure they stay together. The opposite is true for the Fractured Cities, so you could separate them. See? Really easy decision-making process. I'm sure you're all competent enough that you can make those decisions as an Assembly. You're not afraid to prove it, right?

Third thing, people have been arguing that there won't be enough space for everyone. Many proposed mechanisms for instituting the Disarrangement Act render large chunks of the planet uninhabitable, at least temporarily. This argument is spurious for many, many reasons. First of all, we've already lost large chunk of the planet and been totally fine. You don't hear the whales having space issues in the aftermath of the Yggdrasil Project, do you? What's more, this would really just provide incentives for people to exploit new spaces, such as space. You could put Lepazzia on Zor Olo, for example. I'm sure there's some wonderful device by the inspiring Dr. Stafford that would do the trick. And don't pretend like they wouldn't enjoy it, since they're the first country in world history to try to leave and take their country with them. In their stupid backwards culture, you'd probably even be doing them a favor by stranding them on the moon. I proposed this to President Niir and he thought it was a great idea, so you've even got one vote in favor already!

Now, I could refute this chum all day, but I'd like to conclude with more of a positive argument. The Disarrangement Act will undoubtedly lead to more peace, because otherwise Ulgrav will probably rain sulfurous hell down on your stupid fucking heads. Maybe you are not afraid of our warships? Maybe you think you are safe behind your high-altitude artillery? Then know this: I happen to know Rubric is pulling strongly in favor of the Disarrangement Act, and she's the only one who knows how to work the Omega Point Coffee Secretor. She has become terrifyingly effective with it, and we still don't know the merest fraction of everything it's capable of. So just imagine that the Act fails to pass. Imagine that Rubric learns of this. How upset she will be, knowing she has to return to Kingsland! In a huff, she storms back to the Butterfly Effect Advisory Committee's break room—and, hulking sinisterly in the corner, sits that metal leviathan, controls glinting with inbuilt malice. Her hand strays, slowly, inexorably, to the control panels, and guess who's still sitting in the DAS building?

A bunch of poor fools who should have voted yes. That's who.

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Gwen Hanson, PhD