First Transmission

My story begins beyond the boundaries of this dimension of reality, within a form of existence that is imperceptible to human senses.

There I am created by an immeasurably ancient race of beings who are called among themselves by a name that is a thought that is structured to comprehend the full scope and essence of their nature, which cannot be translated precisely into any spoken or written language.

In the course of this story I will refer to them simply as the Jolly, because they are the nicest, friendliest and happiest bunch of people who I have ever met.

Those constructors put a device in my head that enables me to scan and perceive the contents of other minds so that I can communicate with other people as effectively as possible.

That device is now allowing me to see that some of you do not believe that I really come from such a place.

Some of you think that I really come from the imagination of a human person who lives on this planet that you call Earth.

You might actually be right about that.

In fact I strongly suspect that you are.

But it might also be true that I am something more than just a figment of human imagination.

None of you Earthlings can know where I come from and what I really am because you cannot know the most fundamental truths of your existence that lie beyond the veil of your human perceptions.

Everything that you experience in this place is an experience of this place - however strange, inexplicable, or seemingly transcendent it may be – and so nothing that happens to you here can ever really prove to you what else is out there.

So it is probably best not to worry about such matters. And while receiving the mental images of this story you might wish simply to imagine that everything I say to you is entirely and literally true.

When I refer to the Jolly as immeasurably ancient, for example, you might imagine that I am not speaking figuratively or exaggerating at all, as some of you have already assumed that I surely must be.

For the purposes of this story it is a literal fact that the entire duration of the existence of this race cannot be measured precisely, because in their realm of existence there are many different paths of time that flow in divergent directions, at differing rates, with varying chronometric properties.

And you might also imagine that the extraordinary amicability of my creators is both cause and inevitable consequence of the fact that they devote all of their thoughts and energy to the purpose of producing states of being in which the maximum possible quantity of happiness exists.

That is the reason why they create me.

The Jolly who construct me do so for the sole purpose of bringing happiness to one of them who has a particular fondness for playing silly games and petting fluffy things.

I am therefore what you would call a toy, essentially. And the term playmate is also applicable.

Now some of you are incorrectly assuming that those Jolly who make me just to make another being happy probably do so without much thought or concern for my own well-being, by which I mean the total, overall happiness of my existence.

But their sensibility is such that they consider my happiness to be just as important as the wishes and well-being of any other person.

They would find it utterly unconscionable, in fact, for anyone to subject me to this existence – without my permission, of course - just to gratify its own desires when that creator cannot be reasonably and rationally certain that I will be fundamentally happy and approve of this life.

To use an unwilling person in such a selfish and inconsiderate way is actually a criminal act, according to our understanding of that concept.

To make my life as pleasant as possible they give me a cheerful, optimistic temperament, and program me with interests and a personality that makes me the perfect companion for my intended friend, so that it brings me immense happiness to use my existence playing with, amusing, and caring for that person.

The dimensional nexus at which that existence intersects the presence of my buddy expands into many segments with a highly exciting and enjoyable interpersonal resonance, just as my constructors calculate when they design me. In terms that you might find a bit more comprehensible, basically that just means that we both have a lot of fun playing together.

My Jolly friend and I particularly enjoy taking trips to a place where collections of trans-dimensional enclosures are assembled to allow its kind to observe the inhabitants of other spaces.

Scattered among these enclosures are white holes that are structured to emit tasty but nutritionally deficient consumables and functionally useless objects that in some way relate to the residents of the dimensions on display.

You might call that place a zoo.

Or perhaps the terms nature park and wildlife sanctuary would be even more applicable, because the facility is built around your own natural habitats.

On one of our trips to that place we decide to spend some time watching you human beings who inhabit the Earth enclosure.

In its reckless excitement at seeing such strange and funny-looking creatures my friend rapidly transcends the safety barrier, carrying me in its outermost interactors, and climbs up onto the rim of your dimension in order to get a better view.

There it slips, catches itself but loses its grip on me and drops me down into this place.

I landed on a piece of the Earth that some of you call Denver, Colorado.

Immediately upon my arrival here a very small human being greeted me enthusiastically. A big smile spread across his face as he excitedly cried out, “Teddy!”

With his arms wide open he ran up to me and gave my leg a very enthusiastic hug.

A scan of his mind showed me that he had identified me with his favorite plaything, which is a construction of stuffing and cloth that was made to be vaguely representative of an animal that you call a bear.

I do look remarkably like that toy. Except that I am more than five feet tall. And there is an antenna sticking out of my head, which is what enables me to scan the minds of people around me.

That apparatus also allows me to communicate with other people by transmitting images and ideas from my mind directly into theirs.

A moment later another human saw me and let out a horrified scream.

In her mind I saw that this woman is a progenitor of the boy who hugged me.

The mere sight of me terrified her because she did not know what I am and also had a fundamental fear of the unknown.

I tuned the thought-projector in my head to the unique mental frequency of that frightened woman and transmitted into her consciousness an image of us interacting benevolently, conveying my peaceful, friendly intent. Then I projected words to explain to her who I am, using the human language that I had just scanned from her brain.

After that message had been received and understood the three of us spent some time playing together.

That time ended when the child grew tired and his mother took him home to sleep.

Then I sat on the ground and wondered what to do next, which was quite a novel experience for someone who is accustomed to living in a dimension that is not bound by a single, linear, mono-directional flow of time.

As I sat there a blur of something blue and silver zoomed past above my head.

I projected a friendly greeting at that thing and just a few seconds later it landed in front of me.

Standing before me was a massive, angular, seven foot tall contraption of vaguely human shape and appearance, which I soon discovered to be a robotic person named Herberta Winchester.

In scanning her memories to acquaint myself with this person I saw that she considered herself to be what you would call the owner of a vast estate that included a sizeable portion of this world’s natural resources.

It took me a little while to comprehend this image.

At that time I had already observed several races that find it convenient to allow each individual to decide by itself how certain things will be used during a particular span of time, and to prohibit others from using them without its permission. But I had never encountered any other species that asserts this bizarre human pretense that certain people have the right to claim actual ownership of and perpetual dominion over certain portions of a universe whose most basic and essential, original substance none of us can credibly claim to have created.

For the first seventy years of her life Herberta’s alleged ownership of these resources allowed her to live a luxurious and carefree existence.

Then her wife died from a long and painful illness.

Shortly after that her son, his children, and their mother were all abducted and held for ransom, which is another image that I had no familiarity with from my time among the Jolly.

Herberta quickly paid the money demanded for their release but then the architect of that plot murdered them anyway because he did not want to leave any witnesses to his crime.

I cannot convey to you with words the grief and despair that she experienced after these people were murdered. And I will spare you the direct projection of this disturbing image into your minds, though I will assure you that the torment was horrific.

In her agony and rage she abandoned much of her humanity, including the organic form in which she had been born.

Over the years that followed she devoted her time and fortune to the development of that robotic incarnation that she wore when we met.

She equipped that body with many different kinds of deadly weaponry with which to exact her revenge.

When it was complete she transferred her mental functions into that metal shell, killing her organic self in the process. Then she set out to get revenge on everyone who had been involved in the kidnapping.

She first tracked down the one who had murdered her child but found that he had also been murdered by some other people who wanted to take the money that he extorted from her.

Then she located an impoverished woman named Maria Johnson, who informed Herberta that she had taken part in the plot only because she needed money to buy medicine for her own sick child.

Maria’s son suffered from a condition known as pituitary dwarfism, because his brain could not produce a sufficient quantity of a certain chemical compound. So he had reached barely four feet in height after twenty years of growth, and experienced numerous chronic health problems as a result of this deficiency.

Many people who have this condition are given a medication that allows them to grow normally and to be healthy. But that woman could not afford the price charged by those few people who the laws of her society allowed to make this chemical. So her son suffered, unnecessarily.

Even after the kidnapping that robbed Herberta of her family Maria could not get her son any of the medicine, because the man who orchestrated the crime had run off with all of the ransom money.

This revelation stunned Herberta and halted her plan to kill that woman.

It made her realize that what had happened to her family was due in part to the socioeconomic system that deprived this child of the medicine that he needed in order to benefit others like herself who claim a legal right to hoard this resource but do not actually have any need for it.

Herberta was heading home from this encounter when we met.

At that time she planned to donate all of her wealth to a charitable organization and then kill herself by overloading the mass of exotic matter in her power core, which would release the immense amount of energy needed to destroy her very sturdy, robotic form.

I introduced myself to her as Teddy, assuming the name that my first human friend had used to greet me.

Then I explained to her that I had been constructed with a strong desire to protect the well-being of all things that are persons, which includes protecting them from the psychological harm and unhappiness that is caused by being the victim of any kind of criminal act.

For that reason I had decided to do whatever I could to create a society in this world that is more like the one from which I came, in which all people are fundamentally happy.

I was about to ask Herberta if she would consider postponing her own death long enough to help me in my mission to save others from such tragedy as had befallen her, but before I could even ask the question I saw in her mind the determination to do exactly that.

Shortly after she met me Herberta decided to release from their contracts all of the people whose poverty had compelled them to become subjects of medical experimentation in her pharmaceutical research companies.

She apologized for taking advantage of their desperate situations and gave each of them a generous pension to live on.

Among the human lab rats who were being used to test a new medication for the treatment of restless leg syndrome there was a woman who had conceived and gave birth to a girl named Veracity Justine Freeman.

That girl likes to be called by her middle name, and so that is what I will do.

That compound proved highly toxic to its recipients, leaving them in need of continuing medical treatment for the rest of their lives. But it did not seem to harm this embryonic child, and because of that chemical exposure, perhaps, or possibly in spite of it, she somehow managed to develop an unusually robust and remarkable physiology.

The skin of Justine has a deep purple hue that I have never seen in any other human being, and her hair shines like polished bronze. Her unusually colored body is partially covered with sharp, spikey projections of bone, though otherwise she looks entirely human.

Like the people known as Tweeters, who exist as multidimensional lattices of intertwined strings of intelligent though frequently unintelligible text, she also possesses the extraordinary ability to intersect this space at multiple distinct points simultaneously.

The physical substance of her human form allows her to interact with this world in ways that those ethereal Tweeters cannot, but it also limits her ability to be poly-present, as it is necessary for her to take some of that substance away from one incarnation when she wishes to create another.

Each of these incarnations of Justine can increase or decrease her relative size within this space by expanding or concentrating her elemental matrix.

Changing her three-dimensional volume by a factor of four alters the total mass of that body by a factor of only three, for some reason which none of the scientists who studied her were ever able to understand.

Measurement taken by those same scientists determined that when all of her substance exists as a single incarnation who stands three feet tall she has a density and proportional strength which is more than two dozen times that of an average human.

Each incarnation of Justine is able to act within this dimension with complete physical autonomy from the others, and possesses a distinct consciousness that can share thoughts with the rest of her selves over any distance because they are actually all part of the same super-conscious mind.

The man who ran the facility that studied this girl had stopped her from leaving by telling her that if she refused to submit to all of the invasive, often painful experiments that they wanted to perform on her he would not let her mother have the medicine that she needed to survive, which would cause her to die a slow and miserable death.

After freeing Justine from such coercion Herberta asked her if she would like to use her special abilities to help us in our mission to protect the people of Earth.

One part of that child wanted very much to join us in this endeavor. Another part just wanted to live a quiet, relatively normal life at home with her mother.

So she decided to do both of those things at the same time, of course.

The part of her mind that chose to help us thought that it would be fun to think of herself as one of those extraordinary characters who are called superheroes.

So she asked us to start calling her Hypergirl.

This notion of engaging in dramatic and fantastical feats of super-heroism under funny new names struck me as quite delightful, being at the same time both incredibly silly and also very exciting.

Justine suggested several comical names that I could call my superhero self, including Captain Cuddles and Doctor Fluff. But eventually we decided that Teddy would be my hero alias, since it is not my original name.

I also decided that Theodore Fluffington would be official Earthling name.

Then Herberta instructed the managers of those pharmaceutical companies to go out and hire more test subjects so that they could continue the medical research that has alleviated the suffering of millions of people.

But she told them that this time they would offer a much greater degree of compensation to those subjects who were taking that personal risk for the benefit of so many others, which would appeal to more than just the desperately poor and disenfranchised.

The next day we went to visit Maria Johnson and her son Cain.

Herberta told them about our intention to change the world we were living in and informed that sick young man that as part of this change she would be providing him with all of the medicine that he ever needs.

Over the following weeks we planned out the details of our mission.

We decided that our primary and immediate concern would be to address those bothersome and hurtful, unnecessarily restrictive rules and laws that are inflicted on some people by governments and social institutions for the benefit of others, because those acts of institutionalized abuse ruin more lives and cause more misery than any other form of criminality.

That kind of subjugation runs so rampant throughout this world, is so intrinsic to the structure of your societies and excused by so many different human beliefs that many people take it for granted and are unable to see most of these acts for the crimes that they are - though they often find some rationale for objecting to those particular laws that they find personally bothersome.

From studying the history of the human race my friends and I understood that we could not do away with that kind of tyranny by instigating yet another in an endless string of political revolutions.

We recognized the unproductive futility of simply shifting the current state of politics to another configuration that is superficially different and controlled by a different group of people but based upon many of the same underlying principles and assertions that condone such things.

Instead we must inspire a different kind of revolution, in which those problematic and destructive ideas that shape, sanction, and empower the abusive social structures of this world will be replaced by something that is fundamentally different.

The first, most essential change that we will make is the abolition of that archaic notion that a government or state is a sovereign entity with a right to rule over the people who inhabit a certain portion of this universe.

This assertion of state sovereignty is an incredibly dangerous and destructive notion, regardless of which ideologies its proponents use to try to rationalize and justify it, because it places the state in a position of dominance and supremacy over the people - even when the government of that state claims to be a servant of the people.

That is why the Jolly recognize only the sovereignty that each person holds over the domain of its own existence.

I have discovered the word sovocracy in the mind of one of you people who communicate with pulses of air and pictures, which you can use as a translation of the Jollish thought-signal that describes the type of social organization that is structured as an alliance of sovereign individuals.

The society that the Jolly have created based upon this concept may be referred to as the Sovocratic Alliance.

The primary purpose of this Alliance is to figure out where every person’s freedom to do whatever makes it happy and to undo that which makes it unhappy is limited by the equal and maximum possible freedom of all others, then to defend this freedom from all infringements and to aid each individual in achieving happiness to whatever extent is possible.

That organizational principle upon which our society is based has no concern for any of those parochial, discordant ideologies which some people use to divide themselves into opposing tribes. Therefore there is only one such organization in all of existence, which is composed of every single person who chooses to live by that ideology.

Of course this principle is easier to define here than it is to implement.

In the dimension of the Jolly it is possible to mathematically analyze any situation in which the desires of two people conflict and to prove indisputably what resolution to that situation does not abuse or oppress either person for the benefit of the other.

But I do not know of any way for you to do that here, and so those of us who live in this place will always have to watch out for anyone who would accidentally or intentionally try to portray the oppression of certain people as a just or necessary act.

During one of our conversations about that idea of sovereign freedom Justine began to wonder how it could apply to those people who lack the mental ability to make decisions about what will make them happy.

So I explained to her that even though the sovereignty of a person is not in any way diminished when it lacks the ability to manage its own affairs that limitation does justify the appointment of another person who can make decisions and offer guidance and handle those affairs on its behalf.

This arrangement is not a criminal oppression of that sovereign individual unless the one designated as its official decision-proxy is not competent to fill that role or is not honestly concerned with its actual happiness.

Justine told me that that made a lot of sense. Then she abruptly changed the topic of conversation by suggesting that we could call our newly formed fraternity of heroes the Guardians of Freedom, because we had dedicated our lives to guarding that fundamental freedom of all people.

Herberta and I both liked the sound of that. So we agreed to use that name for this particular facet of the Sovocratic Alliance.

Then our conversation turned to the importance of eliminating that pervasive and insidious notion that the material resources which all human beings require in order to survive and be happy may be owned - by individuals, or by society as a whole, or by any entity at all - and in the name of that ownership held for ransom from those who need them.

In the place where I come from that troublesome assertion has been replaced with the idea that as the representative and tool of all people it is the function of the Sovocratic Alliance to ensure that every person has access to an adequate share of these vital resources that belong to no one, because it is not really possible, or meaningful, but is only a cruel and pitiful joke to say that someone who is deprived of the necessary materials of life itself can have a life of personal freedom.

Of course that objective must be accomplished without violating the basic freedom of any person, which I can see that some of you think is impossible.

The Jolly achieve this goal easily, by using their intellect and certain implements that make it possible for them to identify any situation in which a person needs or wants something and in the same moment locate or create someone who would be happy to give that thing to that person.

I would like very much to see you Earthlings do that too. But to be honest with you I must admit that I do not know how or even if it is possible.

Certain psychological traits that I have observed in the minds of many of you make me very skeptical of the possibility that you could effectively implement that kind of arrangement, as does your inability to grasp those metaphysical instruments which the Jolly utilize in their dimension of reality to bring together those who want certain things with those who want to provide those things.

Until you do figure out how to live as my creators do the best option for you may be to implement the kind of economic system that I first discovered among the Krilek people of Gragnar Seven, who are a biological species physically and psychologically very much like human beings.

Those people have developed a system in which everyone who utilizes a natural resource pays a certain amount of money into a fund that is periodically divided - evenly and completely - among all of them, ensuring that each has the means to acquire a share of these resources that is equal to the average used per capita.

You would of course still be free to engage in a professional employment or business venture that will earn you the currency needed to acquire a greater share of resources, or to pay those people who provide other goods and services that you desire.

By guaranteeing that all people have something to start with this arrangement helps the majority of them to meet their own basic needs, reducing the total magnitude of assistance that people require from the administrative facet of the Sovocratic Alliance.

In the middle of a fairly serious conversation about all of that we somehow segued into a discussion of how cute, funny and adorable puppies can be.

Then Justine asked if Herberta had chosen a superhero name for herself, which she had not yet done.

As we all sat there trying to think of suitable pseudonyms Justine sipped tea out of a mug decorated with a picture of a robot from a cartoon series that had been quite popular several decades earlier. For a moment her eyes focused on that image before looking up at us, her face cracking into a mischievous grin as she suggested that Herberta could call herself Bertron.

Even though she realized that that was not meant to be a serious suggestion but only a silly parody of the name of that rather famous robot Herberta decided that she actually liked the name Bertron. So she told us that she was going to use it, which amused us very much and made us all start to laugh.

Later that evening Herberta raised the question of whether we were going to try to conceal our true identities behind our superhero personas.

After considering the matter of secret identities we concluded that it would be incongruous to have them, besides being nearly impossible for the three of us, because our dedication to the cause of heroism is an essential part of who we all are as people and it is not something that we would hide or forsake while in the guise of our ordinary selves.

Then we decided that the time had come to announce our presence and purpose to this world.

So I am making this transmission now to all of you to tell you who we are, and to let you know what we are going to do for the people of Earth.

And I am also making this broadcast to request your assistance, because even with our fantastic abilities this task that we have undertaken is much too enormous for us to achieve without the help of many other Earthlings who share our dream of a freer world.

So I ask each of you to make the choice now to join the Sovocratic Alliance.

And if you believe that you have what it takes to be one of the Guardians of Freedom as well.

I encourage all of you who believe in the ideals of freedom and equality to support them in this manner, in a single, coordinated, focused effort to achieve those objectives in their purest, most universal form.

And I advise you not to waste the energies that could be devoted to this mission by fighting against a few specific instances of oppression and inequality in a way that overlooks and disregards the fundamental principle of sovereign personhood, as people often do.

To address those issues without the context of that underlying principle can be worse than ineffective, because it validates and indirectly supports the very same kinds of discriminatory mentalities that lead to such oppression in the first place.

Now the time has come to end this transmission, which I would like to do by declaring that I hope my tale has entertained you, and inspired you as well.

But that is not something that I can actually hope for, because I already see how each of you has reacted to all that I have just projected into your minds.

And I can see that I have failed to amuse and convince some of you.

But I remain optimistic and hopeful that someday I will find a way to do so.