Over the course of the story, Steve grows to realise — truly realise — that vast power doesn’t solve everything. Nor can he hope to handle everything on his own. Very rapidly, his plans for a libertarian state are challenged by the need for a staff to handle things, for an effective system of government and a plan to defend Earth and all of humanity against an alien threat. Steve, who is armed with technology that makes wiping out large chunks of the Taliban and various global terrorist networks an easy task, comes to realise that it isn’t as easy as it looks to rule a state. It sure as hell isn’t easy to set the course of the future.
This is a common problem, in and out of both fiction and real life. Every election campaign, politicians make vast promises that, when they are forced to come face to face with reality, they find impossible to actually fulfil. One promise might be impossible to keep through lack of funds, another might be impossible to keep because there are international treaties underpinning the promise and removing them may open up other cans of worms, still more promises may be made when the politician was unaware of certain factors that mandated that the promise had to be broken. It isn’t as simple as you might think to become a global leader — or to act as one, once you reach such a position.
These are not the only problems, of course. A single issue might be easy to handle if the President (or Prime Minister, or whatever) concentrated on it to the exclusion of all else. However, very few issues can receive that degree of scrutiny from the Head of Government. It is far more likely that smaller issues will be handled by the head’s subordinates, who may butcher the job or simply decide it isn’t politically important. And, naturally, when (if) this blows up in the Head of Government’s face, it’s always his fault.
This represents a serious problem with our governments that, as Steve says in elaborate detail, is a major headache for the future. As politicians become more and more interested in looking good, rather than actually looking to the future, we find it much harder to respond to problems caused by the lack of accountability. In their place, colossal government bureaucracies set out to regulate society — with almost no accountability at all. Worse, the departments become more interested in preserving their own positions than doing their jobs.
Does this sound insane? Imagine you work in the Department of Homeland Security. If Congress were to become convinced that your organisation wasn’t doing its job, you might lose your job. Your incentives would lead you to find work for your department even if there wasn’t anything. You wouldn’t say there was no terror threat. Instead, you would ask for more resources to track down the terror threat you need to justify your existence.
I do not believe there is a single government department that is free of the taint of bureaucracies struggling to secure and expand their paper empires. Consider, for example, Britain’s UKBA (United Kingdom Border Agency). The forms prospective immigrants are meant to fill in are outrageously complex (applying to join the army is considerably easier), the requirements are often absurd (how many people really bother to make exact notes of when they moved from country to country a decade or so ago?) and the screening process frankly insulting to one’s intelligence. (How many terrorists would admit to it when filling in their forms?) Or various defence departments around the globe, concentrating more on defending their bureaucracies than defending the soldiers who fight and die in constant wars?
And if you were given a way to establish a society away from all that, what would you do?
Reasonable readers may disagree with Steve’s actions. I would quite agree that some of them were stupid and dangerous. But I don’t think they’re unrealistic.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
My intentions with this series are to follow the next generation of Steve’s family by skipping forward fifty years, then another fifty. If you want a sequel, of course, please don’t hesitate to contact me and let me know.
And if you liked the book, please leave a review on Amazon.
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