Chapter 3 (Part IV): Info Wars

"That was about the time we started running our 'Fact Check' series at The Kingstown Herald. At first I wondered if no one was reading it, but eventually I came to understand that circulation wasn't the problem. It turns out, there're two types of facts. There are objective facts, based on events, actions, and physical certainties - the 'facts' journalists are interested in - and then there's an alternative set of facts rooted in the subjective reality of the individual - these are the 'facts' that politicians are interested in. Unfortunately, our competitors were more successful at politics than we were at journalism."
               - Cupe Anders, writer for the The Kingstown Herald.

Syliva didn’t regret her decision to 'fire' Millon. Although the Loche brothers didn’t take well to the disappearance of the tenured editor, the suddenness of his departure seemed to drive home a point for both them and The Vulpine’s staff. The vacancy was filled internally by someone far more agreeable to Syliva’s way of doing things, and far more amenable to Baryd’s way of doing things. Before long the Broad Beard Press and The Vulpine Post were operating like two halves of a whole. In fact, Syliva was considering merging them – if she orchestrated it right, she might end up with complete (and entirely aboveboard) control over the amalgamation.

The two heralds inundated the streets with news about the riots, the investigations into the university, and the investigations into the former staff and students. They raised calls for more investigations, more scrutinizing investigations, and at every turn reinforced the idea that these demands came from the people, rather than from the publishers or the dragon that owned them.

They also commented extensively on matters pertaining to the kingdom’s laws and governance, with ‘educational’ pieces that dramatically reinterpreted, or altogether disregarded, the kingdom’s actual legal framework. Much of this ended up targeted at King Hylas – relatively normal acts of governance were suddenly criminalized, even declared treasonous, by the Broad Beard’s writers, and The Vulpine Post’s writers relentlessly criticized him for his failure to do things that, legally, he did not have the power to do.

 Most of the other major heralds were afraid to go head to head with Syliva’s tag team, but there was one exception – The Vulpine Post’s main competitor, The Kingstown Herald. The Kingstown Herald’s staff didn’t write anything seditious, they simply refused to present the altered 'facts' that the dragon provided as news. Particularly aggravating to Syliva though, was that, occasionally, The Kingstown Herald would present anonymously contributed ‘letters of concern’ or art that reminded their audience that while Syliva was powerful, she didn’t have any formal authority within the kingdom’s government. It was plucking the same nerve the woman in the market had struck during their argument.

As far as Syliva was concerned, that had reached the point of intolerable within days, with the writers becoming increasingly unkind and abusive towards her. It frustrated her ultimate goal to establish herself as a legitimate, legal authority in Caelia, and it aggravated her to allow any such opposition to pass.

Baryd felt certain that many of the most scathing attacks came from former scholars. Most of the those who’d survived the fires weeks earlier had simply dug in and kept their heads down or discretely left the city altogether. A few, however, threw in with The Kingstown Herald, contributing letters and editorials, and others were actively getting out in the streets trying to persuade the people that the dragon was causing their kingdom’s problems. Baryd claimed this was a positive development, as their opposition ‘maintained the established narrative’ that Syliva was an enemy of the intellectual elite, but Syliva was personally annoyed. She’d burned down the university to put a stop to this sort of thing.

Baryd had done his job, though. The more intense the opposition, the more material he was able to create for the Broad Beard’s writers to work with. A small group of the Beard’s most ardent supporters took to calling themselves “Nationalists”, and the Beard glorified their small movement, exaggerating its size, extolling their virtues, and giving them a platform for their rhetoric.

The Nationalists helped revive the claims that the scholars had used arcane knowledge to sabotage the economy and cried passionately that they’d been put up to it by the Gnoman Empire. Scholars, they said, were not just crooks but traitors, and foreigners were not just unwelcome, they were dangerous. When the Nationalists’ line gained the credibility of being covered in the Vulpine Post, their numbers swelled. People who’d quietly had an inclination towards the same mindset eagerly joined in, dragging or pressuring many others to support their cause.

The Nationalists ran wild like a horse that’d slipped its reigns in a crowded market, growing beyond Baryd’s control. The category of ‘scholar’ gradually broadened to include anyone with an education, and the category of ‘foreign’ likewise broadened to include anyone who wasn’t a white human or, as they liked to put it, anyone who was a “non-person.” Though Syliva’s lackeys no longer steered the movement, they still proved useful, championing the moral rectitude of the movement in everything that followed, while blaming and demonizing their opposition.

Of course, the Nationalist’s antipathy towards ‘non-persons’ was of immediate concern to Syliva. Politics was not her native game, but she knew she couldn’t very well gain legitimate authority in the kingdom if she was declared a second-class citizen. Her agenda required she position herself squarely on the ‘right’ side of history, lest she be the target of malice from both sides. For the time being, the best way she saw to do that was to make it clear to the Nationalists that she was the enemy of their enemy.

Syliva had Baryd arrange for some provocative street violence to stoke the Nationalists flames. Guards reported being attacked, and the Broad Beard pinned it on the minorities dwelling in Kingstown’s north end. Shops had bricks tossed through their windows, street vendors were harassed, homes were defaced, and it didn’t take long for the Nationalists to retaliate in kind. Of course, the men and women the Nationalists threatened responded in kind, and before long it became a self-sustaining cycle of outright street violence. Syliva ensured that the responsibility for handling that problem fell squarely on the shoulders of King Hylas, and when that happened, she invited Hylas to the castle to discuss the problem.

“Invited” – summoned may have been a more appropriate term. Hylas did his best to look important, of course, arriving with a full retinue not only of his personal guard, but many city guards for good measure. It was a meaningless gesture to Syliva, of course, but she imagined it must have made the king’s walk to the castle gates less embarrassing.

Hylas was a soft man, even by human standards. Caelus IV’s brother had never possessed the special qualities a people seemed to expect in their king, and over two centuries it seemed to Syliva (and others) as if the bloodline had been thoroughly watered down. Syliva had ensured the royal family retained a measure of affluence without the burden of responsibility, however. Because of that, Hylas was usually as docile as any domesticated animal, but for once, it seemed as if the squishy little thing was actually upset with her.

“You need to get your papers under control!” Hylas said, “Not just Broad Beard, but The Vulpine as well!”

“Why?” Syliva asked, “What harm is there in an informed public?”

“None, but there’s a great deal of harm in a misinformed public! The sensationalistic 'news' they print has turned a handful of rumors into a political catastrophe, and I’m being blamed for not preventing something that didn’t happen that I didn’t have the power to prevent!”

“Hylas,” Syliva hissed, “The Vulpine has always been as favorable as possible to the royal family. Your cousins have seen to that, and their father before them.”

“Which makes it all the more vexing that it has turned on us now!”

“You’re not suggesting you’ve been somehow betrayed, are you?” Syliva clutched her scaly chest as if she’d been stabbed through the heart, “As I said, The Vulpine has always been loyal to the royal family… but there are limits. When the royal family fails to protect the well-being of the country, surely The Vulpine can’t be faulted for saying so?”

“I have failed to do nothing!”

“As far as the people are concerned, you’ve failed to do anything.”

“Because that’s the story you’ve manufactured!”

“Oh, and now you think I’m somehow attacking you personally… I hope you don’t intend to take such preposterous accusations beyond these walls; paranoia doesn’t suit you Hylas.”

“What do you want, Syliva?”

“Brass tacks, then?” Syliva quirked a brow, “Good for you. I just want to do what I’ve always done – help the kingdom prosper by lending my wisdom and experience to the throne.”

“And?”

“And I want formal recognition for it,” Syliva said straightforwardly, “No more whispering and nudging and informal suggestions. I want an office – not a physical one, of course, but a title that properly acknowledges my role in holding this kingdom together.”

“For Golon’s sake, is this really because you suddenly feel underappreciated?”

“Well!” Syliva balked, “When you speak to me like that it certainly does! Really, Hylas! What would your family have without me? Without my protection? My resources?”

Hylas sighed, “What exactly are we talking about, then?”

“As I said, personal recognition in the form of a formal title – you can make one up if need be – and the authority to use the kingdom’s resources as I see fit, in order to quell the unrest in the streets.”

“If you want to quell the unrest, then just tell your heralds to stop fomenting it!”

Syliva laughed, “And how would that look to the Nationalists, hmm? If the king appointed me to an office and two of the kingdom’s major sources of information suddenly dropped the biggest story of the decade? That would be more provocative than anything.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“Give a big story a big ending,” Syliva said honestly, “and give the people closure. Do what the Nationalists want and see the investigations through. Deal with any… problems that emerge, and put people’s fears to rest.”

“You’re asking me to put the guard under your command?”

“Well…” Syliva decided to throw Hylas a bone, “If it would be more acceptable to you, simply give me the power to allocate funds for a special investigative force. I already have considerable manpower at my disposal – if they were, for a short while, on the kingdom’s payroll they could be temporarily deputized to officially participate in the investigation with legal authority.”

“You want me to pay for a whole new guard force?”

“Not you, the kingdom,” Syliva corrected, “In fact… here’s what we’ll do: I’ll continue to employee them personally, but contract their services to the kingdom part time at very low cost – in the name of patriotism, of course. And if that’s a problem I can obviously loan some money to the kingdom to cover the cost. As I said, it’s only a temporary arrangement, so it should be easy enough to pay back…”

“And I have your assurance this will be a temporary arrangement?”

“Of course. In fact, if you do this I’m sure we can have this problem dealt with within a matter of days.”