Interview: How I Became Queen

My identity card became corrupt. Through constant swiping of the card through the archaic card readers on our planet, some of the magnetic particles smeared. Normally this is not a cause for celebration. It typically would leave me without an identity for the time it would take to get a new one. With our unpredictable bureaucracy, that could be anywhere from a week to a year. However, the corruption made my card indicate that I was Queen Redat. Never mind that Queen Redat has been dead some two hundred years, her cryogenically-preserved body having accidentally fallen into the larger of our suns.

Once I became Queen in the computers’ eyes, I no longer needed an identity card. The computers read my DNA, recorded it as Queen Redat’s DNA. Her palace, properties, and public duties reverted to me. I would not be able to undo it, and I would not try, even though I preferred my former status. That would be highly unpatriotic.

You ask whether you could purposely corrupt your card and so become royalty yourself. I don’t recommend it. Many of our historical kings and queens were psychopathic murderers, or for other reasons history does not treat them kindly. You would be executed or put into prison should you become the wrong sovereign. Or your card might indicate that you are a certain type of sewer bacteria. You would be added to a sewer tank to help decompose waste.

Our government is difficult to explain it to offworlders. The simplest way to define it is as a democratic random bureaucracy. Our planet was once decimated by information overload. Things changed too quickly. Thus, the structure is designed to slow things down. On my world, we value processes that mire things down. And, democratically, miring processes occur randomly to all, no matter their status. I recommend you research this more thoroughly offworld, as you may not be able to call up the files quickly here.