#28 Anora Yurudón

Well, looks like I left my tablet’s stylus at my aunt’s house after Thanksgiving.  She said she’d mail it but I probably won’t get it back until Tuesday.  So to keep on schedule, I figured I’d try a few written entries instead.  The image is a five-minute pencil sketch I did and took a picture of with my phone, touched up a bit in Photoshop.

Name: Anora Yurudón

World: Race

Species: Jorgoan

Gender: Male

Age: 53

Bio: Sir Yurudón is the unofficial leader of the Jorgoan Upper Council, the single highest-ranked man in the entire empire.  Most call him the Protector.  Some have called him the Dictator, though those who do usually end up banished.  The mind-numbing injection now unknowingly given to and received by all Jorgoans upon turning eighteen, when they go in for their required medical checkups?  That was his idea.  He’s been infected with the desire to have as much power as possible, and seeing the entire population brainwashed in front of him is one way of doing so.  It’s oddly satisfying, in a way, seeing an entire race at your mercy.  His corruption also came with paranoia, though, and he desperately fears losing his position.  Any dissenters, nearly always youth who have not yet received their injections, are punished ruthlessly.  He even gets defensive around the other Upper Council members.  He’s gone so far as approaching the Innovation Team about extending his life indefinitely…perhaps transplanting his brain into a young clone of himself would work?

They’re after me.

I know they are.  I see the way Kalana eyes me during meetings, I see the way Noraji flirts with my daughter, the way Runi and Hinál always leave together, conversing in hushed tones with their shoulders hunched.

I see the number of dissenters rising.  Twenty-two this past year here on Jorgoa, eighteen on Eléz, twenty-nine on Atareo!  And all of them these teenagers.  I fear we may have to move the injection down to fifteen instead of eighteen, maybe even lower.  This can’t go on.  We can’t risk being overthrown, not now.  Not after all this time, all this effort.  I can’t let it happen.

The Innovation Team contacted me today and said their experiments were underway, but so far they haven’t been able to do a transplant without permanent damage to the brain stem.  I do hope they get their act together soon.  This body of mine’s only got forty more years to live, if it’s lucky.  And I refuse to let this empire go without me watching it.  I refuse to let it fall apart.  I’ve held this nation together for more than twenty years now, and Dani-Shugál smite me if I’m letting it go anytime soon.

There have been enough failures.  Our armies failed to subdue Anaziim and its people, those hideous slug-rodents.  Zanduul, they called themselves.  I already got on the Resource Team’s case for that one.  Water shortage, my ass.  You can’t have a water shortage if you’ve got a planet 85% covered in it under your belt!  Blame the Transport Team if you must for not expanding its NSoD facilities, but come on!  You’re higher than them!  Kick their sorry tails!

But no matter.  We’ve already scouted out another life-supporting planet, Narinno Gamma.  Less populated than its neighbor, Narinno Delta.  If we can seize the former and stock it with troops, the latter will fall all the easier.  Pray the locals aren’t as resilient as those damn Zanduul.  If they fail again, I swear, I swear by the Dani-Hajoro itself, that their grandkids are going to be feeling my wrath.  That system’s going to be ours if it’s the last thing I do.

General Race info, as usual, can be found here.

Tags: Alien, dictatorship, Dystopia

Category: Scifi