bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2013) — Spring 2013 // Printemps 2013, pp. 46–48
The man sat behind a long table at the front of the room, staring intently at his watch. Nodding once, he said, “All right, turn over your papers and start reading.”
CANDIDATES’ ENTRANCE EXAMINATION: ESSAY QUESTION Consider the following hypothetical scenario.
It is the year 2033 and the small developing country of Yulandia is in crisis. The fundamentalist Christian majority, which has close and mutually profitable commercial ties with Canada, has a long history of violent repression against women, homosexuals, liberals and atheists. These attacks were carried out by both government forces and street mobs, with impunity in both cases. Six months ago, harsh attacks began on the country’s Muslims as well. AUN Special Representative has tabled a highly critical report.
In response, the highly conservative Muslim minority, which makes up virtually all of the armed forces, has overthrown the Christian-dominated government and installed a repressive dictatorship that has armed itself with the latest defence technology from Iran and declared a domestic jihad against Christians and Jews. The Christians and the Muslims both reject foreign intervention in Yulandia, largely because they both expect to win the increasingly violent civil war.
A third religious grouping, an extremist breakaway sect of Tibetan tantric Buddhism, has meanwhile been pouring acolytes into the country for several years. Apparently peaceful at the start, they have recently revealed their core doctrine, which interprets obscure sutras to say that full victory for their creed can only be obtained by giving all non-believers the choice between conversion and death. (“We will make a desert and call it Nirvana!”) They have formed the Saffron Tigers guerilla movement which attacks all sides in the war zones.
To complicate matters further, a small colony of non-Zionist Jewish settlers has purchased large tracts of land along the border lakes, where they expect their Messiah to show up before long.
While waiting, they make a living by harvesting and exporting a traditional organic drug from the bushes by the lake. Called “manna”, it is legal and popular everywhere in the world except the United States and Canada. (“It makes people happy and tolerant, so it’s immoral, plus it’s fattening, so it must be made illegal”)
Atheists form a small but lively community in Yulandia, dominating the cultural, intellectual, scientific and professional classes. They are under attack by almost everyone else, on grounds that unbelief is the only thing worse than heresy. The Jews aren’t looking for converts but have welcomed the entire atheist community into their kibbutz by the lakes, which has been fortified. Unfortunately, young female members of both groups have seceded from the joint community, formed military cells and started pre-emptive self-defence strikes against temples, churches and mosques outside the kibbutz.
External reaction has been strong but incoherent. The UN and Commonwealth Secretary Generals, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Grand Ayatollah, the Dalai Lama and assorted national leaders have agreed that something must be done immediately, but not what. NATO, La francophonie, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Security Council and the G-77 are all paralyzed.
The Israeli government and the leaders of a moderate Arab state adjacent to Yulandia, in a historic move, have banded together and massed troops on its border. They say they will invade in support of their respective co-religionists in 14 days with or without UN sanction. (Both the Jews and the Muslims in Yulandia have said they don’t want or need to be rescued, but the coalition is not listening.) The Israelis deny carrying tactical nukes.
Meanwhile, in the absence of a Pope (the conclave is still arguing about the contested elevation of Silvio Berlusconi — the smoke was green), the Knights of St. John have declared the first Crusade since 1292. Their hired mercenaries appear on the field in medieval-themed Kevlar armour, riding A-grav sleds with horses’ skulls mounted on the handlebars and carrying laser lances, with Dan Brown as their Father Confessor. They have spread chaos and panic not only among their opponents but among the Christians they are supposed to be protecting.
Offshore, a motley flotilla is approaching Yulandia’s beaches, carrying Kali-worshipping Thugs from India, jihadis from the Gulf, Shinto-inspired yakuza, radical Sri Lankan Buddhists and American rapturists who believe that the advent of the Jewish Messiah is linked to the coming of the End Times and are hedging their bets on its location. All are intent on supporting one or more religious factions in the fight.
In Canada, there is only a small Yulandian diaspora, made up of highly articulate members of the atheist community. Canadian religious denominations are taking things vocally to the streets, demanding that the Government do something to resolve the situation in Yulandia — in favour of their own denomination of course. Opinion polls show the general public equally concerned — and equally divided. Both opposition MPs and government backbenchers, conscious of the federal election looming in only six months, are tying up business in the Commons with urgent criticism of government inaction. The US President has contacted the PM. A Quaker, she wants him to lead a “coalition of the willing” to mount a “Responsibility to Protect” intervention in Yulandia in defence of religious freedom, on grounds that Canada is more likely to convince the international community to accept an R2P operation. The PM asks the defence minister to mobilize the special forces but also seeks advice from MINA, who turns in turn to you.
Ludwig Liebnitz looked up from the table and said, “This seems to be an examination question from two decades in the future. Appearances are deceiving however. It was supplied by the Centre’s advanced informant GEODE, a silicon-based life form hidden in the caves of SuWaNi, who informs us that it is actually a description of real events in 2033, focusing on a conflict that will lead to a world-shattering war if not defused. It comes to us in this form because of the time geas — events of the future cannot be revealed directly to those in the past because it would allow them to change the chain of causality, creating a paradox. The geas is rigid. Fortunately, GEODE figured out what was going on and was able to find out more from this end.”
“We have been contacted because a certain Dr. Boris Goodenuff, in response to the crisis, developed a solution for it — but then disappeared. The solution is a highly contagious retrovirus that suppresses the neurological basis for belief in everyone it infects, by methylating and thus blocking expression of the so-called ‘God gene’ (VMAT2) that promotes religious experience. It was calculated that releasing this in Yulandia would affect over 95% of the population within a few days and bring fighting to a halt.”
“But before this could be carried out, the good doctor had an attack of conscience. Although the virus causes no physical harm, he asked himself whether it was fair to tamper with everyone’s opportunity to believe or their chance for a profound ecstatic experience — and the virus would certainly spread beyond the borders of Yulandia. So he put together all his notes and samples, snuck into his world’s only time machine (the same one that was later used to send GEODE the essay question) and fled back to 2013. He is now hiding out somewhere in our world.”
Liebnitz continued, “The authorities in 2033, afraid to flood our own time with agents from the future lest one of them trip the paradox by accident, have sent us two more pieces of paper that provide his location but with the necessary indirection. The first just says 4-23 8-25-2-23-7-20-7-10-17-13-2 17-13-2-25-4-23-7-5-18 17-13-24-2-23 25-23-11-13-4. The second is a chart with a numbered list of religions in the left column, and a list of holy books organized by letter on the right. Linking the religions with their holy books will create number-letter pairs that can solve the number cipher and provide the doctor’s location. Some of the books are a bit obscure to the lay reader, but that’s what the Internet is for. Our future friends want us to get to Goodenuff and release the virus so that the problem will never arise in the future.”
END OF ESSAY QUESTION FOR CENTRE CANDIDATES’ ENTRANCE EXAMINATION The candidates flipped open their tablets and began to type. The woman at the front desk sat back and opened The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Can you solve the five-word cipher and determine where Dr. Goodenuff is hiding? bout de papier will declare a winner by drawing from all correct answers received by July 19. The winner will receive a book signed by A Aalto.
Not necessary to enter the contest, but what would your answer be to the broader questions posed to the Ambassador for Religious Freedom and to the candidates taking the Centre’s test? A Aalto’s own answers are provided below; the best of readers’ answers will be published in the next issue.
As fans will already know, Argentina’s Astor Piazzolla is the greatest tango composer of all time. “Pankki” is Finnish for “bank”. Rumours of sexual misconduct at the Hankki Pankki are exaggerated. The full plaintext of the cipher is as follows:
[President Kekkonen had promised that Secretary Brezhnev could lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Helsinki. But there isn’t one. So they covered the plaque on the abstract monument to Sibelius and used that instead, without telling the Russians. After the ceremony, Brezhnev said to Kekkonen, “The velvet curtain over the plaque blew aside and I saw the name Sibelius. Wasn’t he one of your world famous composers?” The President replied, “As a composer he was world famous, but as a soldier, unknown.”
Urho Kekkonen was the longest-serving President of Finland to date and famously quick-thinking. Contrary to the story above, there actually is a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Helsinki, at Hietaniemi Cemetery. The monument to Sibelius stands in the park that also bears his name.
The debenture, by the way, never made it to London. Somehow lost en route, which means that the wildlife preserve survived. Bond just shrugs.
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Canada’s 11th province. This means that deploying troops counts as “aid to the civil power”, not R2P or peacekeeping, which would need international approval. From that enclave, send out heavily-armed combat teams of ultra-loquacious UN bureaucrats, New York liability lawyers, sociopathic social workers and hard case Jehovah’s Witnesses. The country will be on its knees in a week. Meanwhile, get DART teams to put manna from the kibbutz in all of Yulandia’s water supplies and let everyone chill out.
Question #2: Find Dr. Goodenuff and confiscate the virus samples. Instead of opening them, deposit them with GEODE in his cave and mandate him to return them to the authorities once 2033 arrives change takes place in our time, the paradox is not invoked. The answer to Question #1 could also be included with the samples to provide an alternative course of action.
Free-lance prestidigitator and Tuvan throat-singer A Aalto will probably be back in Ottawa by the time you read this. (God willing of course.) The “God gene” VMAT2 actually exists, although its effects are nowhere near as clear-cut as the puzzle suggests. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists too — it is the holy book of the Pastafarians. Really. Yes, he made up “Mulderism” but hey, do you know any holy books beginning with the letter “X”? Agent Scully was of course Catholic. And A Aalto is an Inari.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2013) — Spring 2013 // Printemps 2013, pp. 46–48. Read the rest of this issue →
