Practical Kingseeking

Usually you can find out who the king is by being exiled for injuring him, but as reliable as that is, the time expended and the injuries required make this difficult without a large grant enabling a large staff.

Addendum

Relatively speaking, of course. An empire can't be counted upon for reliable law enforcement across all its possessions, territories, client kingdoms, and so forth. What you really want is a mage judge.

Surely Somebody's Done This Already

Fairy Mason

Addendum

The ultimate goal is banning all forms of entertainment aside from books and movies based on books, but progress on that needs to be gradual. Overton windows and all. You understand.

Straight to the Top

"You have heard of the elevator. You have seen the space elevator. Now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the spacetime elevator." The inventor waved for the curtains to be pulled away from the model. That was the apex of his showmanship, but he was only an inventor, after all.
"The name is indicative, but what precisely does it do?" a judge asked.
"Very simple. Look. The passengers enter a car at the bottom. They ride up." During his narration, the model demonstrated the procedure. "They reach the top, but all the time they've been going up, they've been going back in time as well. That means that when they get there, the spacetime elevator hasn't been built yet, and the car goes . . ." The little model car plunged into the miniature ocean below and sank.
"Amazing! First prize!" The World Execution Expo judges admired the invention greatly, as did the wider community once word of it spread.
Finis

The Hidden Burdens of Illegality

One day the king decreed a change to the law code. "The punishment for a criminal, justly tried, shall be equivalent to the harm suffered by the victims."
"How wise!" the advisors said. "How succinct! Then the murderer shall be put to death and the robber deprived of his goods."
"No!" The king stood and brought his hand down in a decisive gesture. "The murderer shall sit in a room listening to people prattle about matters of no consequence to him. The same for the robber, the adulterer, and the adjuster of scales. Every other crime shall have the same punishment."
"Surely the costs to the victims are not those," the advisors said, more doubtful than before.
"I am the king, and in every case brought before me, I am made a victim."
Soon crime vanished from the kingdom altogether.
Finis

The Societal Implications of Art and Literature

Now that everybody's a big Dune-head, when are we going to legalize family atomics? Never? Sometimes I wonder if there's any point to all this.

Wheel of Time Season 2

I thought about it, but it turns out Matlock is available on Amazon Prime. I'm sure everyone understands.

Discussion Corner

When another Wheel of Time TV show is produced in thirty years after we're all dead, should it be a game show? That's what the name would lead one to suspect, after all. A history-based quiz show? A bunch of challenges like stand on one leg for three minutes? An endurance battle of flames and scorpions? That'll probably be legal by then.

Dragon Cunning

Sometimes dragons pretend to be people, but what about pretending to be other dragons? Think of the legal complications.

Science Fiction Worldbuilding

Here is what you have to figure out first in your science fiction setting. Do your spaceships land on planets or not? Some of you might believe you first have to decide whether there are spaceships. A prison cell is waiting for you.

Penetrate!! The Lawsuit Planet

"Dr. Ugari's digging machine really is something, but don't tell him I said so." The sonarman had leisure to talk, since the dense earth around the digger denied him the use of his instruments. If Professor Moxt was correct, that would change.
"Try honest praise for once, Mr. Jurven. The boost to your career may surprise you." Captain Ittel's casual tone, he hoped, disguised the excitement he and all the crew felt. Out of all the planets from the ice planet to the jungle planet, the lawsuit planet had to be the most boring. And yet, the respected Professor Moxt put forward so convincing a hypothesis that unbelievable finds waited beneath the layers of paperwork that had solidified into the planet's second crust that funds were raised and volunteers found for possibly the greatest expedition of the age. With Dr. Ugari's innovative drilling machine, the truth would be revealed.
The driller not only had to pierce through the layers of the planet but also accommodate the crews for the days the expedition was projected to take. And so it did, until at last Mr. Jurven reported his sonar gave results. They had reached an open area. Not a chamber or a building, but an entire hidden planet.
Exploring all of that was of course an impossible task, but the crew soon found a journal that explained everything. "Another day on the mining planet. Boy, we mine so much stuff here, but there are so many accidents I wouldn't be surprised if this turns into the lawsuit planet someday!!! Color of the week: Russet."
Historians were stunned.
Finis

The Tube

The claims of New Paradise to be at last the perfect land mankind had yearned to reach but had never before done outside of myth had a great amount of factual support. Metro GDP, commute times, unemployment homelessness, education outcomes, homicide rate (0.2 per 100,000), reported happiness; every measurable category put it in the top five cities in the world, and when considered together none could top it.
Yet Percy had always doubted it. Starting with his name, which seemed impossible in a true utopia, but stretching to the fake-looking smiles, the endless friendly chatter on inconsequential topics, the complete lack of swearing, the looming threat of the Tube, everything about New Paradise defied the human condition. He could not believe it, he did not believe it, and at least he did something about it.
The authorities treated him kindly, of course. They seemed more upset about the situation than he was. "Come now, Percy," they said. "You don't want to go down the Tube. We're all waiting for you to smarten up." But he was resolute. He had found his path.
With sighs and even some tears, though not from him, the condemned man was escorted in front of lamenting onlookers to the Tube. Guards opened the hatch, two keys being required simultaneously, and closed it again behind Percy. The mayor pressed the button, and with a phwump, the malcontent was gone.
At last Percy would find out the secret of the Tube and what lay behind the city's glamorous facade. So he believed as he shot along miles and miles of clear plastic tubing above roads and confused cows. Finally the Tube shot him out, and after taking a moment to recover from the unusual trip, he took stock of his surroundings.
"Huh," he said. It was Crown Douglas, the second-most idyllic city in the world. He found out later it had a Tube as well.
Finis

Unconventional Legal Strategies

Whatever crimes ex-governor Letenlo committed during his administration of his province, and no observer doubted there were many, the dignity with which he bore the haranguing of the city's greatest orator who had both technique and the facts on his side resembled that of the statues of his ancestors or the very gods so that everyone watching felt a lump in his stomach that whispered, oh, what a loss that a man suited by nature for every kind of excellence devoted himself to iniquitous gain, oh, what an age this is, what a grievous world.
Letenlo's serenity deepened during the trial. No doubt the certainty of his approaching conviction that promised at last to terminate his misspent career satisfied his soul within that yearned for the right. So far did his mood improve that when at last he delivered his final defense, he smiled as easily as an innocent man. Nor did he resort to lies about the character of his prosecutor as the guilty often do, thereby proving what before had only been suspected, that their quality was the same as the vermin that skulk and steal cattle and chickens.
Indeed, so intricate was his address and with such clearness did he deliver it that he got a skill point in the middle. Observers joked that he might put it in Oratory and improve his position in that manner, but of course ten points would not make up the gap. And yet, Letenlo paused when he earned the point. To say he paused understated the situation, for he stopped entirely, smiled wider than before, slammed the point into Acrobatics, and bounded out of the court. The orator who brought the suit on behalf of the mistreated province attempted the chase despite having 0 Acrobatics, but no less certain could be the result of that contest than that of the legal one which had proceeded so well for him.
Finis

Fictional Society Question Number 1,676

How would the people of this society rate the following professions in terms of respectability?

- Merchant
- Pirate
- Orator/Arguer in law courts
- Farmer (owns property)
- Farmer (does not own property)
- Informer

What Life Is Worth

The man walked into the hall, uninvited, unforeseen, and unchallenged by the servants who fled his terrible look and angry blade. He walked toward Froeri son of Oesti and said this. "I am Naul son of Naud. I say that you killed that man my father. What do you say then?"
Froeri, when he spoke, was never judged poor at it. He spoke then in this way. "I admit that I did, that you are his son, and that I owe a price. Here is my offer." He emptied the cup before him, and a large cup it was. He reached behind his seat then into a chest and filled that cup up, three handfuls it took till gold spilled from it. "Well?"
Naul stepped forward to accept the weregild, but Froeri drew it back. "But wait." The master of the hall gestured, and the servants carried in a great board that when set on its side became a wall that had three closed doors in it, too small for men. Froeri grabbed two more cups and filled the both of them with what he took from a different chest, which was copper. He went behind the little wall with it between him and the man Naul. After some little time, he came out again.
"Whether I owe the bigger price or the smaller, we will decide this way. Do you pick which door to open, and that cup behind it is yours."
Naul thought on that and prayed to the gods that favored his family and the laws. "That," he said, and pointed to the middle door. A servant, one who had run and became after that eager to please his master, walked toward it, but stopped when Froeri held up his hand. "First, open that one." The servant did as he bade. The leftmost door had behind it a copper-bearing cup. "See that? Now I give you this choice. Either order the creature to open the middle door, or else change your mind and your luck by picking the right instead."
Again Naul prayed, that time to whatever gods of wisdom and cunning he knew, and this was his answer. "Why not kill you and take all three?"
"The rightmost one."
Naul nodded and took the greater price alone.
"None of these men like sport and wit," Froeri complained.
"You did kill all their fathers."
"Who spoke just now? Where is the villain?" That, he never learned.
Finis

Calendar Rationalization

It's pretty messed up that the tenth month of the year is called October. November doesn't even bear mentioning. I propose a panel of fantasy authors be convened to come up with new month names.

Revealed Preferences and the Law

One day, two pilgrims on their way to that famous shrine paused their journeys to rest at the very same spot. The first was from the country called X, while the other hailed from Y country, and both had left their own lands. The travelers talked about this and that, the news and the rumors, and when they were quite relaxed, the man from X told something of his story.
"I made a vow some years ago to go to the god, but my trip was postponed because of a rash of robberies in my town. I was called upon to assist in handling it, which I did. The culprits got their punishment, and at last I'm on my way."
"Oh? Is robbery still a crime in X? I'm surprised to hear that. We do things a bit more rationally in Y."
"What do you mean?"
"We threw out all our old laws. What good have they ever done? Someone broke them every day. Doesn't that tell you that those laws went against the wishes of the people? We decided the purpose of laws is to serve the people, not the reverse. For that reason, we set up new laws that agree with what the people really want."
"I never heard that Y had become a democracy."
"Certainly we did nothing so foolish as that. All you have in democratic states are people who say what they imagine they will be praised for saying. What good is that? No, we examined the evidence. Deeds, not words, and what is done the least and the most. Now robbery, adultery, and assault are all legal. Murder, only if the victim deserved it. Cannibalism and honesty are strictly forbidden."
"That all sounds very sensible. But if someone performs an act of cannibalism or honesty, does that not indicate it was their desire, and that society should accommodate them?"
"Not at all. A society which exists for the bulk of its members cannot at the same time indulge a man here and there who goes against it, more likely out of unworthy contrary impulses rather than true conviction. Now, if the frequency of those acts increases, the laws will change." "Even so, I like for my goods to remain mine."
"But do your countrymen agree? If so, you would be quite happy under our system."
"I can hope that is the case, if we ever adopt it. But you speak of men only. Do the gods have a place in your laws?"
"They do, if only they will come among us and demonstrate what behavior we ought to pursue. I make this pilgrimage to pray for that very thing." "I understand, and I will do the same."
The two pilgrims traveled together the rest of the way, and prayed, and that was the day the gods returned.
Finis

Hidden Fears

Are you ever afraid you'll be dragged in front of a judge and executed if you spell "oeuvre" wrong? No? Oh. Me neither then.

The Reddened Firmament

The claim is made that four moons once ruled the sky, alike in their luminescence and their envy. The four armed themselves against one another and fought so that men and animals of ground and sea saw nothing above but mayhem, and birds descended out of fear. Some, they say, have never regained their courage and still walk or swim. The moons died in fraternal strife but one, which rules today as the sun. As for the others, the blood of the first comes as rain, of the second as snow, and as to the third, a lake high in the mountains collected all of it. Fratricides who bathe in it will be relieved from their pollution.
That is the claim. Believing that, a man walked alone and climbed those heights, for he was guilty of that crime. The lake was there from which no river carried the cloudy liquid, and in it the man bathed himself that night.
There his eyesight became as clouded as the water. The world around him dimmed, and he heard a voice say this. "Was it wrong, what you did?"
"No," he whispered.
"Was it wrong?"
"No," he said.
"Was it wrong?"
"No," he shouted, and his throat burned.
"Take this weapon, and with it wreak what is no more a crime than what you wrought before."
He stood and left the lake, and in his hand then was a javelin famous enough that he had heard of it as had every man, despite that it came to be that very day for the first time. It was the sun-slaying spear, and there was justice and piety in the world before he used it.
Finis