Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

The Sins of the Few

"What is this!"

Five of the most renowned university lecturers on the Vrul homeworld stood before the council, light filtering from seven faces of the eight faced glass octagon that constituted the Vrul council tower. The city was arrayed below them in full 360 view. Their star was beginning to sink behind the horizon, casting the walls and tower into long shadows.

The five professors looked down at the piece of paper being brandished towards them. It was a schematic of some sort, and the engineering professor took it with some interest and examined the diagram quickly before passing it on, "Quite fascinating." He was saying

"What do you mean fascinating." One of the council demanded

The medical professor took a look, their antennae waving in sight interest, "Mechanics is not my expertise, but medical is." There was a pause as they looked over the piece of paper for a long moment, "This looks like the schematics for-"

"For a more efficient incubation system." The engineer was growing excited, "This is quite revolutionary. Well not even that it is quite simple, but the temperature regulation and convection heating would stabilize heat inside the chambers allowing for the perfect environment for offspring. If this works like I think it will, than..... than we may reduce the number of Gammas and deltas in the population. We would have a higher likelihood of producing Alphas this is...."

"It is impossible." One of the councilman said

The engineer frowned, "No it isn't, we've made ships before, ones that can travel on the interstellar level, this would be ea-"

"No, it is impossible."

The engineer looked on in confusion.

"This is propaganda, and I want to know where you got it?"

"Got what."

The group of them turned to look at Director Vall who stood at the far end of the room looking out the window, "Found all over YOUR campus."

Her antennae vibrated softly, "Not just my campus."

The group of them walked over to the window to see what she was looking at, and as they did the council gasped.

Pamphlets.... Pamphlets everywhere. Pamphlets with small moving images on them in some cases so that whoever picked them up didn't even have to read if they couldn't. Thousands upon thousands of them fluttering through the air on wind currents and dispersing over the city, using the city's own vents to create the widest dispersal range.

"CALL THE GUARDS." Someone ordered

Director Vall leaned her head against the window softly watching as a gently floating paper fell into the hands of a passing beta, who held it up and looked on in interest .

"its too late for that." She whispered as the room burst into life around her

***

The problem with the structure of Vrul society, is just how effectively ideas trickle down from the top. It was originally designed like that to keep the council in control, but over the past week that effect had been working against them. Someone was feeding propaganda to educated alphas, who, in turn, were directly responsible for the betas, who were often the handlers from the gammas and deltas . Betas gammas and deltas have no imagination and so the propaganda would be unlikely to work on them. You have to be able to understand the implications of propaganda for it to work, but as of right now only betas and alphas were being targeted. Unfortunately for the council, their only line to the greater masses was through the alphas, and the alphas were easily able to understand what they were seeing.