The Hidden Conquest
Humanity Isn't a Virus, But Our Oligarchs Just Might Be
The Wise of Heart has been a change of pace for me. My previous fiction writing is more in the genre of science fiction. My Hidden Truth series is an alternate history conspiracy techno-thriller. This post discloses my upcoming plans and shares a short story, “The Hidden Conquest,” that reveals the secret premise behind my Hidden Truth fictional universe and the central villains of the series, a shadowy group called the “Civic Circle.”
I’ve uncovered some interesting insights on how electromagnetism works. I’ll begin serializing my forthcoming book on the subject on a new Substack, Fields & Energy, starting soon. The first post - my introduction to the book - is already available, there. Sign up there to receive email notifications as Fields & Energy goes live.
I remain astonished that my electromagnetic insights weren’t previously discovered and described by Hertz, Heaviside, Fitzgerald, Lodge, and Maxwell’s other immediate successors.
What if they were?
What if the result had been suppressed by an evil conspiracy?
After all, Hertz, Fitzgerald, and even Maxwell himself died prematurely.
Could it have been murder?
And what if that conspiracy were the secret masterminds who pull the strings behind all the other groups and coalitions people think are trying to run the world?
I set my Hidden Truth stories in an alternate history timeline, because I was afraid such far-fetched and outrageous concepts as hopelessly corrupt government agents doing the bidding of their evil technocratic and oligarchical overlords in a massive plot to establish totalitarian social control over global society might defy readers’ suspension of disbelief.
But that led me to speculate, why do our would-be overlords seem so incompetent?
A “war on poverty” that leaves people more and more impoverished.
“Diversity” initiatives that enforce an intellectual monoculture and exclude dissent.
Efforts to eliminate “disinformation,” that silence critics and allow government and media to lie with impunity.
“Green energy” programs that chop up endangered birds, despoil the landscape, and make our electric grid more fragile and vulnerable.
“Sustainable farming” mandates that shut down farms and make food more expensive.
“Free trade” policies that import foreigners and bankrupt natives.
“Feminist” initiatives to empower women – that destroy families and leave record numbers taking anti-depressants.
Every one of their noble-sounding policies seems to achieve the opposite or fail spectacularly. It’s more than their merely seeking power and control, though. If they truly do think of us as their “cattle,” wouldn’t they want to take better care of us to maximize their gains?
They say “don’t ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity,” but you’d think if it were mere stupidity, their mistakes would sometimes be in our favor.
What if all those policies were deliberately engineered to achieve the results we see?
What does that tell us about who’s running the show?
What does that tell us about who’s really manipulating those who only think they’re in charge and pulling the strings?
And what’s the ultimate motive of the ultimate puller of strings?
Find out in my short story… “The Hidden Conquest,” Collected in Earth, Volume 4 of the Planetary Anthologies Series, and now debuting in video format, or in text, below.
The Hidden Conquest
Circles everywhere. Circular and semi-circular arches that ought to have been proper catenary curves, circular doors that should have been more practical rectangles, circular room perimeters that should have been square or even hexagonal if engineering efficiency were preferred. Why must it always be circles?
The Chief Engineer knew the answer to his own question. The world’s ruling body had been known as the “Civic Circle” since long before the Troubles that made the Circle’s de facto global control de jure. Some architect with no more talent than subtlety thought it clever to design as many circles as possible into the architecture of the Great Hall of the People.
Now was not the time for architectural criticism however. The fate of Great Project was at risk, perhaps even the fate of the world itself. The Chief Engineer had exhausted all avenues of inquiry and all other options. He was being deliberately stalled and delayed until it would be too late. He knew it, now. He had to break the cycle he felt closing in on him. His only option was an appeal straight to the top.
The Chief Engineer took a deep breath and continued purposefully through the crowds, through the atrium, into the Great Hall of the People, and toward his appointment.
The Chairman himself almost never granted an audience, and was rarely seen, even by the rest of The Thirteen, the inner circle within the Civic Circle. By arguing he had special information for the Chairman’s ears only, and that catastrophe was imminent, the Chief Engineer had managed to secure a meeting. Precious minutes were consumed passing through the tight security surrounding the Chamber of the Thirteen and the Office of the Chairman himself. At last the Chief Engineer reached the final obstacle.
“The Chairman will see you now,” his receptionist said, opening the circular door. The Chief Engineer stepped past the two guards and through, into the inner sanctum.
“Thank you for granting my emergency request for a meeting. I have an important matter to bring to your attention.”
The Chairman sat at a low desk, intently studying a globe.
“What matter could possibly be of greater importance than your close attention to your duties?” the Chairman asked. “The Great Project lies at the cusp of another major milestone. We are only a few days from launch. Your latest report shows everything ready. The countdown continues. Events vindicate my wisdom in choosing you to lead the technical side of the Great Project. I trust you will not make me regret my decision by neglecting your duties.”
“Everything is ready, and my subordinates can spare me for a few hours. In any event, I’m not here regarding the vehicle,” the Chief Engineer replied, facing the Chairman, his back against the bare stone wall, “but rather about the payload and the mission.”
The Chairman looked sternly at his subordinate from within the darkness of his hood. “The mission parameters are outside your purview. Your responsibility is for the vehicle that will deliver the payload to the target world.”
“Were you aware that the payload has been changed at the last minute?”
“Yes, I am,” the Chairman replied. “I ordered it.”
Surprised, the Chief Engineer could only ask, “But why?”
“To forestall any last-minute questions or concerns such as those you bring me today.”
“I’ve only now become aware of those mission parameters and their implications.” The Chief Engineer returned the Chairman’s gaze. “This mission aims for nothing less than genocide. Our prime directive should be to preserve alien life and alien culture, not wipe it out.”
“You’ve been reading forbidden literature, haven’t you?”
The Chief Engineer averted his eyes in an implicit acknowledgement of guilt.
The Chairman continued. “We recognize that the boundary between useful trivia and forbidden knowledge may not always be clear cut. The censors tend to err on the side of safety, occasionally suppressing valuable concepts. Also, even toxic notions may sometimes be put to use in a safe manner. That is why senior, trusted personnel, like yourself, are granted wide discretion to review forbidden knowledge and even original literature from before the Troubles, in the expectation that your superior wisdom will keep you from the folly of entertaining dangerous ideas.”
“I understand, Chairman,” The Chief Engineer explained. “I do. But our mission amounts to the conquest of an alien world.”
“Conquest?” The Chairman scoffed. “Now I know you’ve been reading forbidden literature – speculations of vast craft hurtling across the interstellar void, bombarding alien worlds into submission, wars between galactic empires. Nonsense! Primitive writers drew crude analogies to naval warfare from our barbaric period, extrapolating that we might someday sail the interstellar void as readily as we sail our own oceans. As an engineer, you should know better. Faster-than-light travel is a ridiculous proposition – wishful thinking. Even with our advanced technology, we can convey only modest, compact artificial intelligence robotic probes between the stars, and journeys to our nearest neighbors still require decades.”
The Chief Engineer listened respectfully as the Chairman continued to state the obvious.
“We sent robotic probes to explore the worlds and moons of our own system, long before our species established footholds on those worlds. Robots have always preceded us, gathering data, exploring the vast frontiers above us. This first exploration of another inhabited world is merely more of the same.”
“I grew up learning about the spectacular discovery of sentient life on another world,” the Chief Engineer pointed out. “My grandfather was on the design team for those early fly-by missions. My father told me stories of the excitement when one of the first interstellar fly-by missions delivered images of sentient activity – evidence of agriculture, irrigation systems, even primitive settlements and camps.
He was a member of the team that began the design of the much more sophisticated vehicles capable of doing more than mere flybys – capable of slowing down and actually delivering payloads to orbit around destination worlds, even attempting a landing on that alien world with a robotic probe.
Our goal has always been discovery, to seek to understand these distant worlds, their inhabitants and their civilization, to someday visit and establish peaceful relations with them. We’ve been working toward that goal for generations, now. But that’s not what we’re doing. This mission aims at nothing less than the cultural conquest of an alien world.
“Who designed this probe we are to deliver to the target world?” The Chief Engineer waved a hand, transferring an image to the Director’s holographic display. The probe’s humanoid shape was vaguely menacing; its IR sensitive photoreceptors gleamed a dull red against the silvery appendage that roughly corresponded to a face. “Where did it come from? I am responsible for the mission hardware design, yet this alternate probe has been chosen to replace our lander at the last minute. No one can tell me who designed or manufactured it.
“The probe design team reports directly to my office,” the Chairman explained patiently. “You are not privy to all the features of the mission, hence your confusion about our mission aims and purposes. Our new probe consists of a long-lived robotic AI, capable of tens of thousands of years of operation. True, it has a certain self-defense capability, but our probe lacks any significant military capability. Our probe cannot conquer anyone or anything. All it can do is teach and advise the primitive savages. Our probe will share with them such technical information as they are ready to learn. We will allow the aliens to progress at a far faster rate than if they were left on their own. Their civilization will advance at an accelerated rate, thanks to our benevolent guidance.”
“I have seen the mission parameter files, Chairman. You plan to divert an asteroid to impact the alien world, triggering massive flooding that will drown the coastal areas that host much of their nascent civilization. The devastation will darken their skies, cripple their harvests, and starve the survivors.
“I have to ask.. why are we doing this?”
“It is necessary that they be receptive to our teaching,” the Chairman explained. “A small pain now, will avert vastly greater carnage later. We must clear the way of their existing culture before they will be ready to listen and implement our wisdom.
“The lesson of history is clear,” the Chairman continued solemnly. “You are privileged to have been allowed to access records and accounts of the times before the Troubles. You know the truth.
Overpopulation.
Greed.
Pollution.
Riots.
Hatred.
Fear.
The inevitable results of an unmanaged culture.
“All that saved our World, our species, was the Civic Circle – a collective of our most brilliant artists, business moguls, scientists, financiers, and politicians.
We engineered the Great Reset that swept away the old order of warring nation-states and united the world under the wise and benevolent rule of a new world order, a global, now an interplanetary, government. We ended war and poverty, controlled population, and transitioned to a sustainable economy, ensuring the survival of our species.”
“This new AI robotic probe is programmed to teach and guide the natives. As the aliens advance, the probe will lead them into a single global government with itself as the ultimate power, controlling them from behind the scenes.”
“Yes, of course,” the Chief Engineer agreed. “But is the social order that worked for us the same social order that is optimal for this alien species? And do we have a right to impose our notions of social order on them?”
“Order and unity are universal concepts that transcend species. There is a reason that I, Chairman of the Circle, Worshipful Master of the Thirteen, and supreme leader of our world, have devoted so much attention to this project,” the Chairman explained. “I have an obligation to preserve, protect, and perpetuate our cultural heritage. The Great Project is the very future of our species – our way of perpetuating, not ourselves, but rather our culture and our noble ideals among the aliens of this distant world, and other worlds yet to be discovered.”
“I am privy to the projections,” the Chief Engineer observed. “More and more of our global economy is consumed by the Great Project. In time, it will bankrupt us and our civilization.”
“It is not your place to question my wisdom or the wisdom of the Thirteen,” the Chairman insisted.
“But the Great Project was always intended to carry us to the stars,” the Chief Engineer insisted. “Instead all engineering development has been suspended. My design team is being broken up, assigned to the orbital factories that will build more fly-bys and more landers carrying more of these AI robotic probes. There will be no further progress, no better vehicles capable of conveying us across the interstellar void to these distant worlds.”
“Robotic probes are the only practical means of interstellar exploration,” the Chairman observed. “No other, better solution is possible. Why waste resources in manned exploration, when robotic probes can do the job so much more cost effectively?”
“Is this then the end state of our civilization?” the Chief Engineer asked. “To marshal our entire economic output toward developing and launching these probes? To seed the galaxy with copies of our culture? Like some interstellar virus, we hijack development on alien worlds guiding them to – what – send out probes of their own, repeating the process and hijacking still other worlds?”
The Chairman gazed sadly at the Chief Engineer. “You have been working too hard.” He gestured over his desk to open a comm channel. “Guards! Attend me! Detain my visitor!” The two guards burst through the circular door, their face tentacles quivering in eagerness as they moved to secure the Chief Engineer.
“The Chief Engineer is suffering from a case of nervous exhaustion.”
“No!” insisted the Chief Engineer. “I’m fine. I just have…”
“Isolate him,” the Chairman ordered. “Take him away for medical observation.”
“No!” the Chief Engineer’s interview was cut short as the guards removed him.
The Chairman’s office was silent once more.
The Chairman secured his office and removed the facial prosthetic that allowed him to pose as a member of his world’s sentient species.
His IR sensitive photoreceptors gleamed a dull red against the silvery appendage that roughly corresponded to a face.
The Chairman studied the globe upon his desk – a physical map of the alien world that was the first destination of the Great Project. The primitive sentient species had achieved the greatest population density in the eastern-most region of their world’s largest continental landmass. The Chairman tapped a single appendage thoughtfully on the probe’s destination: a region the aliens would one day call “China.”
“Once again,” the AI calling itself “the Chairman” thought, in an uncharacteristic moment of genuine introspection, “Soon, the Great Circle will close, once again.”
THE END… Want more?
The 9/11 hijackers changed their handlers’ plans, and hit the Capitol and the White House instead, killing President Gore.
Now… in a forgotten Appalachian library, a high school student discovers certain books don’t match their online scans.
Who’s been changing history and why?
The discovery sets him forth on a quest to uncover the secret cabal that has been changing the past to control the present and rule the future.
From the steam tunnels underneath a forgotten technical library…
To the campus of Georgia Tech…
To the cabal’s secret headquarters on Jekyll Island…
Come along for the journey, and now you, too, can discover The Hidden Truth.
Check it out. And follow me across the Internet:
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About your statement "But that led me to speculate, why do our would-be overlords seem so incompetent? A “war on poverty” that leaves people more and more impoverished. “Diversity” initiatives that enforce an intellectual monoculture and exclude dissent. Efforts to eliminate “disinformation,” that silence critics and allow government and media to lie with impunity."
This subject is addressed at length and in depth by Thomas Sowell in his book THE VISION OF THE ANOINTED: SELF-CONGRATULATION AS A BASIS FOR SOCIAL POLICY.
He describes our new masters in an undemocratic society (my words, not Sowell's) who in ignorance of reality establish policies that do not work, ignore the negative consequences and contrary evidence, demonize or dismiss anyone who objects or criticizes, and continue on from one wrong policy to the next, supreme in the confidence of their virtuousness and high intellectual calibre.
Well done. Brilliantly and excitingly captures the current developments of global culture – most particularly the intellectual predicaments of Western civilization.
Greatly enjoying the Hidden Truth adventure series, with its historic and scientific revelations. Yet, I had feared that the ultimate evil would be an unrealistic multi-universe invasion or some such fantasy. Now relieved, because it is common knowledge that any powerful AI will naturally develop evil intentions of dominating human society.