Thought Experiment

November 25, 2020 

I have come up with a little thought experiment:
The planet Xylon, after many wars and other kinds of interactions between its inhabitants, has settled into a balance of power situation, between two great empires: Imperium Romanum and The Knights of the Checkerboard Federation.
You and I, with our roots in the Blue Blood of Imperium Romanum's aristocracy, are members of the Warrior Class with an educational background in biology and collective psychology. We are currently serving our empire on the Expansionary Taskforce.
Our task is quite straight forward: Find the weak spots of the Knights of the Checkerboard and exploit them as much as possible to our own advantage.
As biologists we know that substances can be released into the environment that can be deadly to some inhabitants, without affecting most others to a significant degree.
From a psychological perspective, we have also noted that our own citizens tend to be rather compliant with government edicts (as they should be) in contrast to the Knights of the Checkerboard subjects who tend to be rebellious and contrarian
to their government.
The problem is that they are damn good fighters and we would rather not tangle with them more than we have to.
So, we consult our friend Huberious Ludicrus, who is the janitor in our section of government office space.
Huberious, who mostly talks to himself, is never short of an answer, and after some background information and prompting is happy to help us with an interesting idea:
"Start a bug circulating, not too deadly, but which spreads very easily, and see what happens?"
"Why would you do that?" we ask.
"I don't know" says Huberious "That's why I am a janitor".
"Hmm.., he is pretty smart" we think. "Maybe he has got something".
And indeed he does: We let the bug loose, reign in our own people to protect them from too much damage, and watch what happens in the Checkerboard Federation.
When the carnage is over we walk in as the saviors and are welcomed with open arms.
Elementary, my dear Watsonious.

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