By the time a few more election cycles had passed, von Goldenbaum’s power had grown by leaps and bounds, and amid a complex brew of fervent support, uncertainty, opposition, and decadent unconcern, he succeeded in building a firm political foundation.
He was elected prime minister by popular vote, and then—by exploiting vague wording in the constitutional article that banned holding multiple offices simultaneously—was also appointed head of state by parliament. It had been an unwritten rule that no individual should hold more than one office at a time. These two positions possessed only limited powers alone. But when both were united in the person of a single individual, a fearsome chemical reaction took place. Now there was essentially no one left who could stand in the way of Rudolf von Goldenbaum’s political power. As historian D. Sinclair would write a generation later:
Von Goldenbaum’s ascension was striking historical evidence that, fundamentally, people do not prefer independent thought and the accompanying responsibility, but rather orders, subordination, and the accompanying exemption from responsibility. In a popular democracy, the masses who elect unfit rulers are to blame for bad government, but that is not the case in a monarchy. Rather than reflecting upon their own mistakes, the people are free to enjoy speaking ill of leaders who are even more irresponsible than they.
Regardless of his theory’s validity or lack thereof, it is certain that the people of von Goldenbaum’s generation were on his side.
“Strong government! Powerful leaders! Order and revitalization!”
Somewhere along the way, the young, powerful leader who had cried out these slogans came to be a dictator called “Administrator for Life,” and he did not permit the existence of any criticism. By SE 310, when he attained the title of “Sacred and Inviolable Emperor of the Galactic Empire,” not a few citizens found themselves cursing their stupidity for failing to learn the lessons of history. As for those who had been consistently critical all along, no one could blame them for feeling deeply resentful. But the numbers shouting for joy had been so much greater.
Hassan el-Sayyid—one of the politicians of the republican faction of that time—wrote the following in his diary on the day of the coronation: “Here in my room, I can hear the crowds outside shouting ‘Hail, Rudolf!’ I wonder how many days they’ll need to realize that they’re cheering their own hangman.”
The publication of the diary was later suppressed by the imperial authorities. It was also on this day that the SE calendar was abolished, and the first year of the imperial calendar was begun. Here the Galactic Federation collapsed, and the Galactic Empire—and the Goldenbaum Dynasty—were born.
It cannot be doubted that this man—who as Emperor Rudolf I of the Galactic Empire had become the first absolute monarch of the political system uniting all humanity—was possessed of extraordinary talents. With the boundless strength of his political leadership and the fortitude of his will, he enforced discipline, improved the efficiency of government, and purged corrupt officials.
This was all according to standards which Rudolf set himself, but the “vulgar, decadent, fallen, and unhealthy” way of life and entertainment vanished, and the rates of crime and juvenile delinquency plummeted in the face of severe—even cruel—judicial activism. In any case, the evil that had enshrouded human society was blown away.
And yet, the “Steel Giant” (as some liked to refer to Rudolf) was still not satisfied. His idealized society was one with a high degree of unity, regulated and managed in an orderly fashion by powerful leaders.
For Rudolf—who relied greatly on himself and had utmost faith in the justice that he himself executed—critics and opponents were nothing but foreign contaminants disrupting the unity and order of society. As a natural consequence, the cruel suppression of opposition forces began.
In Year 9 of the imperial calendar, this created the opportunity for the Genetic Inferiority Elimination Act to be promulgated.
The strong consume the weak! The fittest survive! Excellence is victorious while inferiority is defeated! This is the providence of the universe!
So Rudolf expressed his beliefs to his “subjects.”
Human society is no exception. When the number of aberrations exceeds a critical mass, society loses its vitality and declines into weakness. My ardent desire is for humanity’s everlasting prosperity. Therefore, the elimination of those elements that would weaken humanity as a species is my holy obligation as ruler of humanity.
Specifically, this meant forced sterilization for the physically handicapped, those below the poverty line, and those who “did not excel.” It meant euthanasia for the mentally handicapped. It meant that societal measures for the support of the weak were all but eliminated.
For Rudolf, weakness was the unforgivable sin, and the weaker members of society who “use their weakness as a shield, then demand to be taken care of” were nothing more than objects of his hatred.
When this bill was shown to the people, even the throngs that had thus far worshipped and followed Rudolf blindly were ashamed of themselves, as might be expected. The number of those who could confidently declare themselves to be superior beings was not so great. Everyone was thinking, Isn’t this a little too high-handed?
Politicians of the all-but-vanished republican faction still hung on in parliament, and they gave voice to the will of the people, lambasting the emperor. To this, the emperor determined to make a decisive counterstrike.
He immediately and permanently dissolved the parliament.
The following year, the imperial Ministry of the Interior created the Bureau for the Maintenance of Public Order, which came to wield fierce power against political crime. Ernst Falstrong, who was Minister of the Interior as well as a close associate of Rudolf’s, ran the bureau himself, arresting, incarcerating, imprisoning, and punishing—not according to law, but according to his own judgment.
Such was the unholy matrimony of authority and violence. These two soon gave birth to the infant known as “state terrorism,” which grew in no time to be a giant that engulfed all of human society.
At that time, a blackly humorous joke was making the rounds: “If you don’t want to be executed, don’t get arrested by the police. Get yourself caught by Public Order instead, because they don’t execute anybody!”
It is a fact that of all those whom the bureau arrested for political and thought crimes, not a single one was ever formally executed. However, those who were shot dead without trial, who died under torture, who were “disappeared” to barren penal asteroids, who were left disabled by lobotomies or massive doses of drugs, who died in prison of “illnesses” or “accidents” … the combined tally of these climbed to four billion. But because this number was only 1.3 percent of the Galactic Empire’s total population of three hundred billion, the bureau was able to spuriously claim, “We have eliminated a handful of dangerous elements for the sake of the absolute majority.”
Of course, that “absolute majority” did not include the four billion who shuddered in fear for their fates or the countless others who swallowed their objections amid the oppressive silence.
Rudolf crushed those who opposed him, and at the same time selected and granted special privileges to certain “people of superior ability,” creating an aristocracy to support the imperial family. But was it a sign of the inferiority of Rudolf’s own knowledge that all of them were white people who bore old Germanic family names?
Based on his strong service record, Falstrong also received the title of count, but on his way home he ran into a terror attack carried out by an underground republican group. In the flash of a neutron bomb, he met a tragic end. Rudolf mourned, and with the execution of twenty thousand suspects, he sought to comfort the soul of one who had served him well.
In the forty-second year of the imperial calendar, Rudolf’s life of eighty-three years came to an end. It was said that his huge frame had been stronger than ever, but psychological distress had cast a heavy burden on his heart.
The emperor did not die in full satisfaction. Of the four children he and his empress Elizabeth had, all were girls, and he was left without a male heir. Late in life, his concubine Magdalena gave birth to a baby boy, but it is said that the child was born an idiot.
Of this episode, the public records of the empire are silent, but we may surmise that the rumors circulating at the time were almost certainly true, because not just Magdalena, but also her parents, her siblings, and even the doctors and nurses who had attended her birth were afterward all put to death.
It must have come as a stinging blow for Rudolf, who had promulgated the Genetic Inferiority Elimination Act and sought the development of a superior form of humanity.