For the latest episode of Improper Attitudes, Carlton Byron had invited his usual mix of pundits to co argue for the viewers' entertainnt.
Sarah Allensburg was a political science professor at a prominent liberal arts college. Her dark, frizzy hair, thick glasses, and twitchy mannerisms gave her the look of a distracted intellectual. She was sharp, but easily provoked, which was all to the good in Carlton's opinion.
Paul Harrison was a conservative pundit who usually managed to offend everyone, and that was good for ratings, too. He wore a typical blue suit, white shirt and red tie, proclaiming his patriotism in crayon for the audience. His argunts showed similar sophistication.
Gabriel Haversham was very sharp—sharp enough to save most of his zingers for the end of the discussion, so as not to end them too soon. He had a bushy salt-and-pepper beard and a sleepy expression, while his eyes tracked everything.
Jennifer McMurren was a fountain of facts and numbers, many of which had little relevance to whatever discussion was at hand. She always wore exactly the sa green dress, in direct contravention of won's fashion. Carlton wasn't sure whether she had any other dresses, or if she just had a dozen identical ones at ho.
Sarah Allensburg was speaking.
"A big problem with Goldaskian governance is that we have no way of knowing the personality of whoever they put in charge as Viceroy of Earth. We won't get to vote on it. In fact, the leader of the expedition that cos to Earth may well appoint himself, and if Captain Foh was any indication, that's not going to go well for us."
Jennifer jumped in. "Yes, but there not much that they will actually do to us, is there? They're not going to take our gold or oil and ship it 18,300 light years, which takes even their ships 102 days. It will be small, valuable items like art, and spices, and cultural things like Shakespeare and The Walking Dead."
"The Walking Dead?" Sarah burst out with a laugh. "You think aliens will consider that the height of Earth culture?"
"It was an example. Ga of Thrones had a higher viewership. The top ranked is actually I Love Lucy—"
"Not Breaking Bad?" Carlton put in with a smile before Jennifer started quoting too many numbers.
"That's the fifth best."
"I think people might object if they make off with the Mona Lisa to put it in so Goldaskian admiral's bedroom," Paul pointed out. "I don't care for the thought of aliens looting Earth or trying to tell us how to run our lives."
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"I agree, though we can't make much of a case for doing a good job ourselves," Sarah stated.
"Earth is for humans. This is our planet, not theirs."
"Their warships might disagree. What are you going to do, climb into a fighter jet and try to shoot them out of orbit?" Gabriel said in a mocking tone.
"How we can stop them is a different topic. We know they can be beaten—even the Ooafans took over one of their ships, and they're primitives! Let our scientists figure sothing out. Right now, I'm just arguing that it's a bad idea to let aliens take over Earth without a fight."
"Easy with the word 'primitive' there, Paul. They had radios. Are you calling your own grandparents or great-grandparents primitives?" Sarah snapped.
"All I'm saying..."
Carlton let the argunt flow back and forth until it started to settle. Then he tossed out, "What do you think about Nick Tomsun?" He expected that to spark lots of argunt, and he wasn't disappointed.
"Traitor to the human race!"
"A hero."
"A clueless kid, who admittedly is doing his best."
"We might do better with him running things than the people currently doing so," Sarah observed. Paul pounced at once.
"I know liberals are in favor of one world governnt, but I never thought I'd see one advocating for a tyrant ruling over Earth!"
"I am not, Paul, and you know it!" Sarah snapped. "I think he's made so very tough calls and done well with them. Admit it, if it was a choice between a Goldaskian tyrant and a human one, you'd pick the human every ti."
The two of them tore into each other for a couple of minutes while Carlton hid his glee. Then Gabriel jumped in. "It doesn't matter." That brought the two-sided fight to a screeching halt.\\
"What?"
"What? How can you—!?"
"It doesn't matter," Gabriel repeated firmly. "Nick Tomsun is the ruler of Earth."
Over Sarah and Paul's sputtering, Carlton loudly demanded, "Explain that, please, Gabriel."
Gabriel spread his hands and shrugged as if it were obvious. "He has the power to give or withhold cures for diseases. He probably has blackmail material on every rich person on Earth, if alien hackers are worth anything at all. He has weapons at his command that could flatten any country of his choosing in a matter of hours. He's in orbit, untouchable. Can you honestly think of anyone who could even survive defying an order from Nick Tomsun unless he allowed it?
"Face it, every person on Earth now lives or dies at the whim of a twenty-five year old kid from Boston. If that's not an absolute ruler, then throw out the words because they don't an anything."
"We don't know the aliens would kill humans at his command," Jennifer pointed out.
"Would you roll those dice?" Gabriel demanded. "I wouldn't. The aliens keep referring to Earth as 'Nick's planet', and we had better start acting like they an it literally. If we don't, ignoring it might be the last mistake we ever make."
"He doesn't want to be a tyrant," Sarah argued.
"He doesn't really get a say in the matter. That's the situation," Gabriel insisted. "Those are the facts. So far, he's been a very hands-off tyrant, for which I'm sure a lot of people are very grateful. But we shouldn't be arguing about whether a tyrant is a good idea. That ship has sailed. What we should be debating is what would be good for our well-aning, bumbling tyrant to do."
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