Friday, May 22, 2009

Most people are familiar with Hans Ch...

Most people are familiar with Hans Christian Anderson's The Emperor's New Clothes.  I have my own derivative of it (It's good that Mr. Anderson's heirs aren't able to come after me for "idea infringement.") titled The Emperor's New Armor.  The ideas of George Soros and Victor Davis Hanson have influenced the story somewhat.  Although certain parallels can be drawn between real life and the following poor attempt at fiction, the reader should make no direct comparisons.

Once upon a time lived an emperor.  He had been very successful in battle other than in one little mountainous region just to the north east of him.  In fact, because of the emperor's success, his generals spent more time worrying that the soldiers might get fat from sitting around than they did worrying about military preparedness.  If only they had a human powered chariot with which to exercise their soldiers.  Because the emperor was so powerful and the plunder from his campaigns so great, not one of his senior advisers ever dared question him out of fear that their access to plunder would be cut off. 

One day some metal smiths from the last remaining enemy defected to the emperor.  They told him that they wanted some plunder and thus were willing to build him a suit of armor that would make him invincible against their brethren.  The emperor thought this to be a fantastic idea and commissioned the metal smiths to make him a set of this innovative armor.  He was even willing to pay for multiple specification and design changes that brought the final price over budget by an obscene amount.  "No matter" he thought, "I've got all these warehouses full of plunder."  The metal smiths appeared with the armor several months past due and dressed the emperor in the lightest, yet strongest armor ever seen.  The senior advisers all told him how great the armor would be when the emperor lead the armies in battle against the last remaining unsubjugated neighbor. 

One young lieutenant happened to be in the capital city for some training when the emperor's new armor was unveiled.  To him the armor appeared to be merely a sheet of blue splotchy silk.  He tried to get as close as he could to the emperor to tell him it was just silk, but security forces wouldn't allow him to.  When he got as close as he could, he yelled as loud as he could "but it's just a piece of poorly colored silk."  He was immediately tackled by security forces who brought him to a detention center where he was tried for insulting the emperor.  On his way to his execution he felt sad that even though he was to die for his loyalty to the emperor, the emperor would still be entering battle with silk armor.

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