About the Ragoon

Who are the Ragoon and what do they want?

About the Ragoon

By Stan Morris

Copyright 2013

 

The Ragoon are the dominate species of an interplanetary confederation/empire that controls much of the galactic arm in which Earth's solar system is a located.  They have a certain amount of representational democracy, although not on the same level as the western democracies of Earth.  Their planets number in the hundreds of thousands and the total population is, well...there are a lot of them.  So many, that it's easy for a tiny, tiny fraction of their population to keep track of a measly six billion people on Earth.  How do they do it?  Nanocameras the size of a grain of dust that have been scattered throughout Earth, and Ragoon citizens who have been paid to allow surveillance videos to be sent to their computers where the video is incorporated into their screen savers.  This is a random process.  As an Earthling, you may be entertaining at any time, many citizens of the Ragoon species, most of whom could care less what you are doing, even if it is illegal under Ragoon law.  Still, you had better be careful.

The Ragoon are hermaphrodite and unfortunately they are extremely prejudiced against sentient species that aren't.  Some of their spiritual leaders have designated such species as sub-Ragoon, and there is a debate among the Ragoon about whether multi-gender species have complete souls.  Whenever the Ragoon encounter sentient species having more than one gender, they force the local authorities to enact laws enslaving the weaker gender to the will of the stronger gender.  The Ragoon choose which is the weaker and stronger genders, usually based on local tradition.  Members of the stronger gender can also become slaves (lifetime prisoners) but only to the Ragoon.  Luckily for their alien subjects, the Ragoon are also pathologically horrified at the idea of prostitution and sexual violence including sexual coercion, even by one’s owner.  Unluckily, they also frown on members of the slave gender not submitting to the will of the free gender.

The slavery that is imposed by the Ragoon is similar to that of the Roman Empire.  Slaves can aspire to high office, they just continue to be slaves.  The woman who is presently the President of the United States is in such a position.  So is the woman who is Secretary General of the United Nations.  Both are owned by the Ragoon conglomerate that controls the economies of our solar system.  Deliberately killing a slave is considered a sign of insanity on the part of either human or Ragoon.  Injuring a slave is considered deviant behavior and can put either Ragoon or human in danger of being subjected to civil penalties including the loss of your job or a demotion (terribly demeaning consequences to the mercantile Ragoon.)

The economic relationship of the Ragoon to their alien subjects is similar to the Dutch economic relationship to the people of the Spice Islands in the 1600’s.  Very favorable if you happen to be Dutch.  Not so favorable if you were born in the Spice Islands.  The Ragoon economic system is a mixture of socialism and capitalism, but the generous socialist aspects of their society is limited to members of the Ragoon.

The Ragoon conglomerates control different worlds.  These conglomerates are interested in harvesting the raw materials of giant planets.  By Ragoon law, they have to pay for their acquisitions, so they pay into a general fund controlled by the United Nations.  They acquire local currency (dollars, yen, and yuan) for their acquisitions by selling low grade (from their point of view) technology to humans.  The Ragoon encourage their subjects to develop intra-system spaceflight, and they provide technology for that purpose, although humans are forbidden to develop faster-than-light space travel, so humans can only travel to other star systems on Ragoon spaceships.

The Ragoon have extensive knowledge of psychology, and traveling with the Ragoon merchants are quasi-government officials from the Alien Psychological Division, which is designated in our Solar System as the Human Psychology Division.  These Ragoon are psychologists charged with creating conditions that keep the subject species content to be ruled.  They can intervene in the governing of planets, and because of this, they are often an irritant to the Ragoon corporate management; especially to middle managers.

Reaction to the colonization of Earth varied.  The emotional shock from the destruction of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands spread fear across the world.  Most of Earth’s people resigned themselves to the defacto rule of the Ragoon, especially after the Ragoon introduced advanced medical procedures and medicines.  The oligarchies of China and Russia quickly made accommodations with the Ragoon merchants.  The fiercest resistance came from North America and parts of the Muslim world.  Suicide bombers in the latter proved futile due to the sheer numbers of Ragoon and their lack of emotional trauma from the bombings.  After most of the population of the Arabian Peninsula north of the Yemeni mountains was removed by non-lethal methods and the Kaaba disassembled and reassembled on Mars, most of the resistance ceased. (The Ragoon promised that the Kaaba would be returned to Earth after an indefinite time of peace.)

In North America, the American Resistance Army continues to defy the Ragoon occupation, but the total number of resistance fighters has dropped dramatically, and most of the leadership has been captured and removed to small villages in the hinterland of Kazakhstan.  The few human deaths that occurred as a result of the Ragoon Occupation were almost always a result of accidents and a lack of experience on the part of local Ragoon managers.  The only significant incident in North America was the killing of several hundred students at the steps of Sproul Hall at the University of California in Berkeley.  The Ragoon commander was arrested, demoted, and exiled.

 

 

Reviews

[Nevtry]

Wow. The whole society, although using slavery, seems to be treating humans not like slaves so much as...pets, perhaps? Not to say that the humans aren't slaves, and that isn't horrid on it's own, but there is an element of "these are lesser being we can play with."

You have very original ideas. And while I'm hoping that humans manage to get away from the Ragoon at some point or another, I look forward to seeing where you take this.

- N