First Rule: a short proclamation by GF Willmetts on behalf of your new world (flash fiction).

Greetings. I have been selected to be your world leader. You may think you have voted for other nominees, but the result won’t be changed. You have no experience in the interplanetary affairs where you need one individual to represent you. Who wants to talk to individual country leaders when only a world leader is needed for a conglomerate of many worlds?

You only have a little bit of your planet and probably not the bit they’re interested in. Without me, several sentient species would have stripped your planet for, what is it you call them, peanuts and cheap gems? You really have no idea how cheap diamonds are out there. You put values on things that really are commonplace. Someone has to protect you from yourselves. After all, you have no idea what you’re worth, if anything at all. Intellectual properties are worth far more and are a lot rarer.

So I’m not one of you. Under the skin, we are all immigrants. I just come from further away. I even brought my own family. That shows how committed to my ruling. Forget the guards. They are entitled to protection from those who object to anything because they don’t understand it.

We are a lot closer to you than you imagine. I know; I’ve read your fiction. We have political regimes. We once had religions. Some of the worlds out there still have those, although there is much debate on how many deities there are watching over them and how they allow violence to continue. Within species, we have different skin colours, eyes, limbs and tails ourselves. We ignore these things because other species have far bigger differences.

Trading deals can be set up to make your world more financially viable and give you a better position in the local space than otherwise. As the key sentient species, you are also responsible for your outer planets that can be used for fuelling stations. We will stop the current piracy for our own percentage and get you the supplies you need. Your populations will have needed food and various supplies, and that needs a source of collected interplanetary currency to barter with.

As to international violence. It isn’t as though we are asking you to get rid of your military forces, but we can provide you with a real enemy to fight rather than amongst yourselves. It was one of the selling points that got you into our policy group while you got your aggression out of yourselves.

Employment for all. If you are not aiding your own planet, then you can certainly help our association in defending our collected space. What affects us will affect you, so that is in your best interest.

With territory spread so wide, you would not think that there are other associations who will think nothing of broaching our territory. There, you are wrong. The fact that there is so much distance between sentient planets is ignored. It is the number of sentient planets each association has under its wing that defines greatness. You should be very grateful that you are under our protectorate.

Ah yes, penalties for not obeying orders. I’m glad you raised that question. Contrary to what you might have heard about us, we are not murderers. You live off your own consonance. You all behave; you all live. Failure to keep dissenters under control will be a failure for you all. More so should any of you attack the leadership on this planet.

Can we all be happy?

Questions? Democracy? What is that?

© GF Willmetts 2025

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