The Light Brigade

by Kameron Hurley

Reality is a constructed thing. Imagine us all standing in a circle, trying to describe an object to one another, and as we agree on its characteristics, the thing at the center of our circle begins to take form. That’s how we create reality. We agree on its rules. Its shape. Different cultures have created different realities just by all agreeing about the thing they described.

What I learned, as I looked back on those times, was that the lies are what sustained us. The lies kept us going. Gave us hope. Without lies we have to face the truth long before we are ready for it. Long before we are prepared to fight it.

said. “In officer training. You had to learn about those grand old battles. Tactics and logistics. That part of warcraft always appealed to me. Such things happen slowly . . . and then all at once. The ground must be carefully prepared, often for generations. Corporations had been chipping away at the authority of governments for a century before the Seed Wars. They experimented with company towns, and then outrageous benefits for employees. As health care became more expensive, one didn’t even have to offer private transport and free meals. Simply helping pay the cost to cure grandma’s cancer was enough to ensure blind obedience. That’s how you keep them loyal. Foster distrust in the democratic governments that are actually accountable to them. Show them that only the corporations can save them from themselves. You still see this war as one of bullets and bombs, but the rise and fall of Mars was engineered by intelligence forces like mine. Why did your grunts sign up to fight this war? Because of the moon? Because of the Blink? If you think I can’t engineer a story to make them turn on you the way I fostered a story to get them to throw themselves into war, you’re more delusional than even I assumed.”

Staring now at this dying boy, I understood. When you are under the thumb of a corp, they own you. They say you have freedoms, choices. When your choice is to work or to die, that is not a choice. But São Paulo was no choice, either. It was a bad death, when this world was more than rich enough to ensure we could all eat, that no one needed to die of the flu or gangrene or cancer. The corps were rich enough to provide for everyone. They chose not to, because the existence of places like the labor camps outside São Paulo ensured there was a life worse than the one they offered. If you gave people mashed protein cakes when their only other option was to eat horseshit, they would call you a hero and happily eat your tasteless mash. They would throw down their lives for you. Give up their souls.

S: So says every great tyrant. You mistake the interpretation of a truth with the truth itself. There is still objective truth. The truth that the sun comes up in the east. The truth of gravity, which keeps us tethered to this spinning ball of space stuff. Those are truths. The rest is made up.