The Duke Of Uranium by John Barnes

A’s reaction will affect Mr. B, how Mr. B’s reaction will affect Mr. C, and how Mr. C’s reaction to that will affect Mr. D. Where Messers A through D could all be individuals, corporations, zybots, ethnic groups, clubs, unions, the government itself, or the whole social djeste, whatever.
    “Now compare that with Triangle One. They want three power centers—religion (in a single orthodox version of the Wager), the military, and the central bank. And the one means that they think that nobody should worry about feedbacks or secondary effects—you only think about what you do to the other guy, not about what he’ll do afterward or how that affects any third parties.
    “Basically, zybot names tell you what kind of society they want, and make the programs that they’re trying to social-engineer easy to compare. Low numbers like one and two are dictatorships that get things done, and high numbers like seven or ten are democracies paralyzed by having to take so many rights into account. The more axes of symmetry the figure has, the more equal all the contending sides are supposed to be. And the more corners it has, the more groups get to have a say. So that would mean that—”
    “So,” Jak said, “trying to cut this down to toves and malphs, the Triangle One people want three big power centers that answer to nobody, and you want a democracy that has to think about what it does, and
     
    who it affects, but not so much that it can’t accomplish anything. Couldn’t you have just said that?”
    From the way she glared at him, Jak realized, probably not. But after a moment she seemed to relax, and went to get Uncle Sib, to continue their conversation. He came back in with a broad grin. “I told Gweshira that it wouldn’t be easy, trying to interest you in politics and economics, when you’re so thoroughly distracted.”
    “She still probably did better than you would have, Uncle Sib. At least I dak the sides, sort of, and I understand enough about Circle Four and Triangle One to know who I’d rather have manipulating my society. If that makes you feel better. Now, what does it all have to do with the House of Cofinalez and, uh, Princess Shyf?”
    “Well,” Sib said, “Triangle One is always working to get the human race to have a simpler, more powerbased and authoritarian structure, more unified under tighter control, that kind of thing. To be fair to them for a moment (something I seldom believe in doing), it’s not pure power-worship; they think that the case in Galactic Court is apt to go against humanity, whenever that gets decided in the next few generations, and there’s going to be an extermination order against us, and the only alliance we have even a chance of making would be with the Rubahy—who would stab us in the back given a tenth of a chance. So since we might have to fight the whole galaxy, anytime between next week and four hundred years from now, Triangle One wants us organized into sort of a Super-Sparta or Prussia-to-the-Nth, well before that happens, and basically they’re always moving to give the human race as a whole a clearer chain of command.
    “The way Circle Four sees it, on the other hand, is that if we lose the decision, we won’t win the war—we’ll be dead anyway—and so we might as well die as our messy, sloppy, disorderly selves, still human, still reaching for the stars and still wallowing in the mud.”
    “All right,” Jak said, “I’m still on your side. What’s it got to do with Sesh?”
    “Well, do you know who the Cofinalez family is?”
    Jak rolled his eyes impatiently. At other times in history, it would have been like asking if you knew who the Borgia, Rockefeller, or Pilaratsaysay families were.
    “The family that controls the fissionables monopoly, of course. It’s the house that owns the Duchy of Uranium.”
    “Right, sorry, sometimes you show so little interest that I expect even less of you than you actually achieve, hard though that is to believe.