The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (56 page)

1. SpaceTime Manipulation (STM) and magicians. There have been, to date, thirty-seven known individuals possessing the ability to fold SpaceTime. Such individuals are referred to as magicians. Of the thirty-seven, sixteen are sane (though, by accepted standards of behaviour, extremely eccentric) and functional and crucial to the enablement of interstellar flight and the establishment of our extraterrestrial colonies, fifteen are suffering severe mental instability and are being cared for and studied in institutions, and six have vanished without trace. In this initial section, I shall discuss the role of STM in interstellar travel and its ability to bypass the limitations and time distortions of Einsteinian physics; I will examine the role of the tryptamine compound N,N-Dimethyltryptamine in our brain chemistry, its function as the creator of the reality we perceive, and its interaction with the Oxford equation; I will propose that surges in the pituitary gland's production of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine caused by extreme stress and confusion, and involving the breakdown of narrative cognisance, is principal in the development of magicians, as well as being at the root of the mental instability that has afflicted so many of them; and I shall suggest that, contrary to the prevalent theory, travel into the past or the future of Earth history is possible and has been achieved.

2a. The origin of the Oxford equation. Though the first recorded emergence of the equation dates from, and was integral to, the Great Enlightenment of 2202, I shall assemble and scrutinise the evidence that others have employed—most notably Professor Solomon Kessler, Doctor Eliza Beeton, and J. J. Moscow Jordan—to suggest that the equation actually has its roots in the dismantlement of the British Empire during the period 1860–1880. Thus I shall, with reference to the equation, review the abrupt shift in the policies of Benjamin Disraeli's government, suggest possible causes for what the majority of historians refer to as his “spontaneous madness,” and will examine how the resultant collapse of nation-state politics and protoglobalisation paved the way for neo-medievalism, the extinction of hierarchal political governance, and the establishment of networked microcommunities.

2b. The Oxford equation has enabled us to understand that reality does not exist independently of us, and we know that an element of its construction—namely, the narrative imposition we call Time—possesses an underlying “language” that can be consciously understood through the contemplation of symbolism, patterns, and coincidences. With that in mind, I shall examine a number of persons and events contemporaneous with Disraeli and will explore the possibility that they played a role in “seeding” the equation in the human psyche.

Most prominent among these people are Charles Darwin, whose
On the Origin of Species
marked, I believe, the commencement of a surge in human evolution that has reached its apotheosis with the phenomenon of STM; Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose subversive poetry and vitriolic critiques of nation-states perfectly reflected the zeitgeist of the period; Charles Babbage, whose artificial intelligences, according to persistent but unproven rumour, played a key role in Disraeli's downfall; the occultist Eliphas Levi and his (possibly fictional) diaries, in which a theory of multiple parallel histories is outlined; Sir Richard Francis Burton, in whose anthropological essays neo-medievalism was anticipated with astonishing accuracy; and Herbert Spencer, whose philosophical works touched upon many themes pertinent to the equation.

A review of historical events poses considerable problems as the intense political turbulence of the Religion Wars and subsequent Dark Age resulted in the destruction of reliable records. With the proviso that much of what I discuss is speculative, I will briefly touch upon: the rise and fall of what are now considered Babbage's “lost” technologies; the legend of Spring Heeled Jack and the possibility that the apparition was a magician from our own period; the Tichborne trial and the public disorder associated with it; the fabled Nāga diamonds, supposedly lost during the 1860–1880 riots (if they or, indeed, the riots ever really existed); the Irish potato famine; the American Civil War; The Russia-China Conflict; and the suggestion that
Tempus Flores
may have been present and widespread throughout the period under discussion.

3. Finally, I intend to present evidence that, via its pollen and sap,
Tempus Flores
stimulates the human pituitary gland, increases the brain's production of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, and has thus played a critical role in the evolution of human consciousness, the advent of the Oxford equation, the Great Enlightenment, and the occurrence of magicians.

— From the introduction to

The Oxford Equation and the Advent of Interstellar Humanity

by Professor Christopher Bendyshe, 2308,

Sawtooth Academy Prime

MEANWHILE, IN THE
VICTORIAN AGE . . .

CHARLES BABBAGE (1791–1871)

Babbage was a polymath, the creator of sophisticated calculating machines, and an irascible campaigner against what he considered to be public nuisances (children's hoops, for example). He was opposed to hereditary peerages, considering life peerages a better option.

SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON (1821–1890)

Undoubtedly, 1861 was the worst year of Burton's life. John Hanning Speke, egged on by Laurence Oliphant, had betrayed him by claiming the discovery of the source of the Nile as his own. Their feud was escalating and those who sided with Speke, including Christopher Palmer Rigby, engaged in a campaign of slander against Burton. Amid this turmoil, Grindlays Warehouse burned down, and Burton lost nearly every possession he valued. He married Isabel Arundell, but his misfortunes continued when he was made consul of Fernando Po—considered a “white man's graveyard”—and was forced to leave her behind in England.

EDWARD JOSEPH BURTON (1824–1895)

In 1856, Edward was severely beaten by Singalese villagers who objected to his hunting of elephants. The following year, he fought valiantly at besieged Lucknow where he suffered sunstroke. These two misfortunes led to a psychiatric disorder. From 1858 onward, he refused to speak but for one occasion when he denied a financial debt. In 1859, he was committed to Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, where he remained for the rest of his life.

LADY ISABEL BURTON AND THE GREAT BONFIRE

The majority of Burton's biographers assert that, upon his death, Lady Isabel Burton threw most of his papers and journals—along with
The Scented Garden
—onto a bonfire, her intention being to protect his reputation. Mary S. Lovell convincingly dispels this claim in her biography,
A Rage to Live
, which is perhaps the only one that treats Isabel fairly. While it's true that Lady Burton consigned
The Scented Garden
to the flames of a bedroom fireplace, there was no “holocaust” as was believed by most (including Swinburne), and Burton's diaries and much of his correspondence was actually preserved, only to be destroyed after Isabel herself had died (in 1896). Be that as it may, while we cannot fairly judge the decisions she made while stricken with grief, it is difficult to find any justification for her destruction of
The Scented Garden.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1ST EARL OF BEACONSFIELD
(1804–1881)

An aristocrat and novelist who twice served as a Conservative prime minister, Disraeli was one of the great politicians of the age, famed for his virulent battles with William Gladstone and for his driving the British Empire to the height of its power. In his more youthful days, he founded Young England, its aim being to promote the notion that the elite should protect the poor from exploitation by the rapidly expanding middle class.

“Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.”

“You speak of—” said Egremont hesitatingly, “THE RICH AND THE POOR.”

—From the novel
Sybil
by Benjamin Disraeli

“There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.”

“William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.”

“I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.”

“Power has only one duty: to secure the social welfare of the People.”

“How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.”

“In politics nothing is contemptible.”

MICHAEL FARADAY (1791–1867)

A scientist who specialised in electromagnetism and electrochemistry, Faraday's many discoveries led to the practical use of electricity in technology.

WILLIAM GLADSTONE (1809–1898)

A Liberal politician, Gladstone four times served as British prime minister and is widely considered one of the greatest. He was a supporter of the working classes and highly critical of the aristocracy. Though highly religious, rumours concerning his moral character persisted after it became known that he frequently walked the streets in search of prostitutes, ostensibly to talk them into changing their ways.

“In almost every one, if not every one, of the greatest political controversies of the last 50 years, whether they affected the [voting] franchise, whether they affected religion, whether they affected the bad and abominable institution of slavery, or what subject they touched, these leisure classes, these educated classes, these titled classes have been in the wrong.”

DANIEL GOOCH (1816–1889)

From 1837 to 1864, Gooch held the post of superintendent of locomotive engines for the Great Western Railway. Later, in 1865, while laying a transatlantic cable, he was elected as a Conservative MP, a seat he would hold until 1885. He was made a baronet in 1866.

GRINDLAYS WAREHOUSE

When Grindlays burned to the ground in the spring of 1861, Burton lost many of his belongings, including Oriental manuscripts and books, the journals of his travels in India, trunks full of costumes from India and Africa, and mementoes collected during two decades of travelling. He received no compensation for the loss. The original manuscript of
The Scented Garden
, however, was not lost in the fire. In fact, Burton never owned the manuscript, though he never stopped searching for it.

LIEUTENANT CHRISTOPHER PALMER RIGBY (1820–1885)

A brilliant linguist and accomplished Indian Army man who would do much to counter slavery in East Africa, Rigby harboured a deep hatred of Burton that had its roots in Bombay, where they'd both served and where Burton had several times beaten him out of first place in language exams. In 1861, Rigby was levelling claims of financial mismanagement at Burton, asserting that he had not properly paid the bearers during his African expedition.

ALGERNON SWINBURNE (1837–1909)

In 1861, Swinburne was on the brink of fame but was also beginning to suffer from his excessive consumption of alcohol. Visiting the French Riviera to recover, he then toured Italy, remaining there for much of the year.

THE TOOLEY STREET FIRE OF 1861

The biggest fire in London since the Great Fire of 1666, the Tooley Street blaze began in a warehouse and rapidly spread through the dockland district. It burned fiercely for two days and took two weeks to be completely extinguished. The head of the London Fire Engine Establishment, James Braidwood, was killed during the operation to quell the conflagration when the front of a warehouse collapsed onto him.