The Gamer Chapter 797 – House of Commons (Patreon)

The House of Commons had its meetings in the parliament chamber. Not because John was too stingy to give them their own room, but because the fundamental symbolism remained that the House of Exceptionals existed within a framework meant to protect the average Abyssal. As such, when parliament wasn’t in session, the House of Commons occupied the central place of the legislature in Fusion.

Despite all of that, John felt that the architect had done a better job with the House of Exceptionals than he had with the parliament chamber.

Following the curvature of the Fusion Capitol, it being an interrupted circle of a building, the room had the shape of a nearly flattened U. It would have seemed simply rectangular, like almost all other rooms in the building, were it not for the scale of the thing, being easily large enough to fit 2’500 representatives inside. It followed the same basic structure as the House of Exceptionals, being separated into three areas: floor, government seat and watcher’s area.

The first of those three stretched throughout the majority of the room. Each mahogany desk, like in the other house of the bicameral system of Fusion, was set on rails that were integrated into the marble floor, making rearranging things according to party lines an affair that should take an hour at most. Unlike the House of Exceptionals, the tables were assigned to districts and their representatives, however. That made party switching between elections more difficult, but it was a necessary trade given that members of the House of Commons were likely to be replaced at a much faster rate.

Because of the rails, the tables were also beyond orderly, surrounding, row for row, the seat for the government. It was, in itself, a monument. Made from marble and metal, it had three segments. At the back and at the lowest level were the seats for the ministers of John’s executive. They were deliberately positioned in such a way that it was easy to miss them since their role was purely attentive. They had no formal power inside the legislature, but they were expected to attend to keep up with current affairs and present the occasional speech of what they were doing and why they were doing it. There was only one member of the executive, aside from John himself, who didn’t sit down there.

At the front and elevated quite a bit was the seat for the Speaker of Commons. Since that was the person that not only headed the proceedings but also decided on the program of any given session, their position was naturally designed to be the first place everyone looked. The position was isolated from the rest of the monument through the way the metal outlines in the stone framed it and the sheer amount of room there was on there for extra chairs. The Speaker was encouraged to have advisors and the like by their side.

Up from there was John’s own seat as President. His position was only emphasized by height, allowing him to be seen from everywhere and look everywhere. Like the ministers, his main purpose was to listen and give the occasional speech. Unlike the ministers, he also had the power to veto whatever law he did not approve of. That aside, he was still the head of state and people should see that. In this point, the symbolism and his pride went hand in hand.

Between the floor and seat of government was a single podium for speeches. Nothing unusual, just a place for people to address the room.

John climbed the stairs that were skilfully hidden from most eyes by the walls of the monument to political power and reached his platform. It wasn’t quite as large as the one for the speaker, as was the nature of things that grew narrower with each level, but there was enough room on there to comfortably let some of his harem be present. Namely Aclysia, as first servant of state and John’s chancellor, she took a seat to his right on the integrated desk. She was supposed to be up there. Beatrice, sitting down to his left, had her official position down with the ministers, as she was head of finances. A bit of protocol that they skipped out on in favour of symmetry and John’s love of being surrounded.

It wasn’t like things could be taken too seriously, with both of them still in their maid outfits.

John looked over his shoulder and at the large flag of the proper Fusion symbol in its complicated design hanging behind him. Then he put both elbows on the marble desktop, folded his hands and rested his chin on them. His gaze wandered over the watcher’s area, a series of seats on a terrace that overlooked the parliament floor like the crowd above an arena. Burgundy red seats positioned along yet more marble.

The entire chamber was illuminated by sunlight that fell in through large, arching windows. The view was fantastic, either showing the gardens of the capitol or letting everyone see the Hudson in the distance. The floor of the parliament chamber was on the second level of the building, the watcher’s area on the third.

Everything was quite empty.

The enthusiasm that reporters had for the House of Exceptionals did not translate to the House of Commons. Maybe they had gotten dissuaded by the boredom of that first show session or maybe the Commons just weren’t as interesting to people. John could certainly come up with arguments for both explanations. Whether it was both, either or neither, the watcher’s area had only very few reporters among them.

The floor was, by comparison, as full as it was expected to be, but because the chamber was built with the future in mind, it was currently so far beneath capacity that it looked barely used. There were 100 people in the House of Commons, a number that would soon be increased by the addition of Florida representatives to the mix.

‘That will be an extra thirty-five,’ John thought, while his maids put laptops and papers on the table. ‘At least if the Guild Window is mostly accurate.’

There had been an increase of about 37’000 members when Florida joined. A tremendous increase. Doubtlessly thanks to its long period of peace and relative order, they had a sizable population compared to the rest of the east coast. Amacat came close and Maryland wasn’t exactly sparsely populated either, for Abyssal standards, but Florida took the cake.

When subtracting children and criminals, the number of total representatives needed was down to about 135. A pretty low correction, as John found, having compared the amount of children (being defined as those under 18 years old for the purposes of law) between his own population with a US census. Fusion could only dream of the birth-rates of the real US, which put a pretty dire light on the situation. Hope was that safety alone would create a spike there, otherwise the future of John’s newly created state was population decline. That would be a difficult issue.

Not one he had right now, he just had the data on hand and his mind went all over the place. A drawback when one was both mildly paranoid and able to think several things at the same time. It also created the advantage of having already thought of answers to all kinds of situations. An advantage that John found more than worthwhile enough to accept the mild bother these tangents were.

John focused from the abstract of future issues to the reality of present facts by inspecting the layout of the room. Checking where which party was situated and how many seats they had was a basic thing he needed to do. The further left in the room (or right from John’s perspective), the more they were in favour of ‘bottom-up’ solutions, and the further right they were, the more they were for ‘top-down’. A flawed approach, but John had to pick one to make it easier for things to be visualized.

Leftmost, therefore, was ‘The Free’ party. With a meagre two seats, they were as close to anarchists as they could be while still participating in the federal system. John had a sneaking suspicion they would stop doing so the second Fusion got weak, which was why part of his secret service was keeping an eye on their activity. The expectations for that party were that it would either step over a line and be dissolved or mellow out and get accustomed to the new state of affairs. Fusion still had only existed for several months, so some chaotic elements were to be expected.

With seven representatives, the Wrath party next to them was a tad more influential. Mostly elected by people from the small guilds in the Meltpot, they had named themselves after Metra and had a pretty ‘might makes right’ kind of view of the world. Which also made them pretty anarchistic, albeit in a more militaristic fashion.

Next to them was Fusion’s largest ‘party’, called ‘Individualists’, with a total of 24 seats. They were basically independents that had clobbered together a party without a program or central vision. Largely speaking, they were libertarians and had a natural dislike for anything overly organized. Since there had been a limited time between the announcement of Fusion’s government system, elections and this first gathering of the legislature, they simply hadn’t figured out yet who they wanted to join. That made them another party that John doubted would survive until next year. The members would, likely, one by one align themselves with other parties until the Individualists ceased to exist. Most of them, John reckoned, would become part of the party right next to them.

At 13 elected members, the Fusion Libertarians were those that had managed to actually put together a unified program and put in place a basic party structure. They would likely be a pretty weak party as far as cohesion on most issues was concerned, but when it came to general principles, John reckoned they would provide a nice bulwark against overly authoritarian measures.

Up next, close to the middle of the arch, was the Economists party. As the name indicated, those were mainly wealthy businessmen who wanted to keep the regulations loose and taxes low. They were primarily elected by the Amaca Coast. John had them positioned more on the ‘bottom-up’ side for now, but that could change pretty quickly depending how much they asked for government subsidies and market protection. As long as they were all about the competitive market place, they could remain left of centre. They had 14 seats, making them Fusion’s second strongest party at the moment.

In the actual middle of the distribution was the Stream Party. Those were what John, with his mundane upbringing, would have called cultural conservatives. The kind of people who went to church every Sunday and sometimes threw a bit of a fit when it came to certain issues, but stayed away from getting the government hammer involved into the solutions and wanted to rather have the conversation about what was appropriate. The members with moderation made for nice partners for a philosophical debate, those overly self-assured were more like preachers. At 13 members, they were fairly influential.

A tad right of them were the Centralists or, as Rave preferred to call them, the ‘John-Newman-can-do-nothing-wrong’-party. They were more loyal to John’s ideals than Fusion’s, from what their announcements sounded like. Basically, they respected his strength and decision making so much that they would support him for as long as what he did was even the slightest bit reasonable. Some, probably, would go even beyond that. Due to his personal pride issues, John was the most afraid of that party, especially if it grew any larger. At eight out of a hundred seats, they were thankfully not big enough to allow him to push through whatever he wanted with impunity.

Leaning onto the right side of things was the Supernatural People Party. It consisted primarily of fantasy races with relatively small populations that had special needs. Whether that was an increase in permanent forest barriers for elves, a special housing permit required for dwarves that wanted to dig out large tunnels, or anything else, they had issues that required some top-down organization. They were fairly large, but because they were made out of so many different factions, what they wanted was even more specialized than the libertarians and unity came out of the raw necessity to get a louder voice. A pretty successful endeavour, given that they had 11 seats.

Further right of there was Project Shield, a party that took the issues of the Stream Party and decided that debating these things wasn’t enough. They were of the opinion that the state had to be involved in the assurance of cultural hegemony within its borders. They weren’t completely without good arguments, it was certainly true that there had to be a somewhat common culture for a state to function, but John wasn’t comfortable with how far the more extreme elements took that. At least they kept it at cultural hegemony and policing; if they had been fantasy Nazis, John would have had to slap them out of the parliament immediately. They also only had five members and John actually expected that to shrink, percentage wise, as time passed and Fusion became more solidified. People in favour of centralized measures usually became fewer the more secure a situation was.

Lastly, the most top-down party in the current alignment was the Crowning Party. It was the smallest group around, with only two elected members. They were basically the extremists of the ‘John-Newman-can-do-nothing-wrong’-party, wanting to put a crown on his head and just rule by decree of might. John didn’t quite understand why there were people out there that wanted to give their politicians the tools to suppress them, but here they were.

John hoped that movement would die if he just said he wasn’t interested in a crown often enough.

‘Historically speaking, most of these parties will collapse into each other as time passes,’ the Gamer thought. ‘Given that votes are only on the legislature, I don’t think the combination of parties will continue until there are only two voting blocks left. I heavily doubt I’ll get stuck with ten forever, though. It will probably increase a bit as more areas are added to Fusion and then decrease election by election until something between two and five major parties are left.’

Aclysia gave John the signal that she was finished preparing and Beatrice, two seconds later, let him know that the schedule demanded he opened things up now. Therefore, he stood up and raised his voice. Enchantments within the stone reinforced it and caused his words to smoothly reverberate in the room.

“Thanks to everyone who joined today,” he said. “Usually, these opening addresses should be given by the Speaker of Commons, but we will only elect that person in a few minutes, so they can hardly do that. That aside, I want to thank all of you for joining the elective process. I realize that, for most of you, this is a hard switch from the previous and wild surroundings of the untamed Abyss. I hope you will find making a stint to this chamber twice every week a tad more pleasant. More hectic times may ask for more frequent and longer sessions, but your job here is only to decide matters on the level of the Federation. Local affairs will be handled locally, so our own burden should stay quite light. Now,” he clapped his hands, “who wants to be Speaker of Commons?”

Nobody interesting stood up to the task.