You are not family enough. You never will be. This is the thing you must understand because the Dear Leader declared it to be understood. Your self, your being, is to be part of a family owned by the Citadel. All power and praise to our Great Leader Vexton!
The Citadel is a true democracy. So speaks Vexton Primaris Solenne. That other place, Ashby Market, is a tar pit of sin and depravity. The only true family is the Citadel. It is spoken.
From a chat with CoPilot, “Giovanni Gentile, the Italian philosopher often called the “philosopher of fascism,” redefined democracy not as pluralism or individual liberty, but as the full identification of the individual with the state. In his view, true democracy meant the obliteration of private will, where citizens found freedom only through total participation in the collective will, embodied by the state and its leader. The individual did not exist apart from the state; personal identity was meaningful only insofar as it served national unity. Gentile’s democracy was not about voting or dissent—it was about becoming the state, with the leader as its living expression. This vision laid ideological groundwork for Mussolini’s regime and continues to echo in systems where visibility and loyalty are mistaken for liberation.
But what is this “true democracy”? Giovanni Gentile, the Italian philosopher of fascism, redefined democracy not as pluralism or liberty, but as total identification with the state. Freedom was found only through obliteration of private will. The individual existed only insofar as they served national unity. Gentile’s democracy was not about voting or dissent—it was about becoming the state, with the leader as its living expression.
This vision laid the ideological groundwork for Mussolini’s regime. It echoes still—where visibility is mistaken for liberation, and loyalty is mistaken for love.
Ideology Theft
I get why people bristle at the claim that Nazi Germany was socialist. It wasn’t. It was something worse. Hitler chased a utopia resurrecting the Roman Empire with Aryans at the top and undesirables like free of Jews, Roma, Slavs, and dissidents. His Germany used socialist rhetoric—workers, unity, national renewal—to absorb the words into total participation in the collective will.
Hitler borrowed from the political ideologies of his day to weaponize them. Socialism’s rhetoric of wealth redistribution gave him a mechanism to centralize economic control under the state. His pursuit of a Third Reich conscripted workers. The Nazi state absorbed private industry, crushed labor unions, and redirected production toward militarism and racial purification. DIE ZITADELLE ÜBER ALLES!
The Citadel. A fiefdom encompassing what once was Berkeley, CA. Between the year that I am writing this, and the time frame of this story (2125), there is no USA anymore. What replaces it is a set of warring states. I’ve depicted the Citadel as a fiefdom passionately in love with bureaucracy, A recurring theme in my feed is that the answer is more law. The Citadel has an abundance of law.
DIE ZITADELLE ÜBER ALLES!
The Citadel believes the answer is control. What’s news in this post is my discovery of Giovanni Gentile. Perfect. The way to gain unity, to create a family, is law and compliance. The Family is the Way. Because, y’know, rules.
Vexton Primaris Solenne is a family man. His loyal citizens are his family. Everyone must be family. There is no other way. you can’t live in the Citadel if you are not family. I mean, Ashby Market let’s everyone in. Fools.
One especially mortal sin is snacks. Standard rations in the Citadel are battered chicken fingers and rice gruel. Water comes from the Citadel. Everything else is banned. Especially Green Tea with Ginseng and Honey. That is super-duper banned.
Rules for Thee
What’s in Vexton’s fridge? A brand of green tea with Ginseng named, “Solene’s Folly.” In his pantry is a nice collection of banned snacks: DustRite™ Crunch Modules, CheeZent™ Thermal Sticks, MeatLogic Protein Tubes, and CrumpetCore™ Butterscotch Units. Why not easy brand names? Simple gets side eye. The Dear Leader likes obtuse complexity. More syllables mean more impact. Vexton has spoken.
Well . . . ok. What’s in the Dear Leader’s pantry and fridge look a lot like what a couple of merchants in Ashby Market sell. Ashby Market is super-duper, extra, extra illegal right? Remember rules for thee? One of those rules, shut up and behave. So saith Solene
Chaos Generator
We need law. There is a paradox with it, though. Too much law becomes its own unmanageable beast. Instead of facilitating better compliance it creates crime. To live in the Citadel is to commit crimes simply by living. The default is to ignore the regulations and policies of Primaris Solene. When it’s a crime to breath it is the law that is the crime.
He just wanted a meat stick, a MeatLogic Protein Tube. The buzz saw of compliance tore into his life. This punished bureaucrat hadn’t had a solid meal in a week. They took his usual quota of chicken tenders. His ration was weak rice gruel. Ashby Market was across the street. Seventy feet between misery and hope.
In seventy feet he would lose his family. His whole life is on the north side of Ashby Avenue where he was born and raised. Seventy feet away was a kind of death. And food. He could smell the food. Rumor was, if you walked that distance there was help. Was it worth losing everything?
The Other Side
He crossed the street to what remained of Ashby BART station. Ashby Market. As fast as he walked across the street his existence in the Citadel blinked out. He had never been born and in seventy feet he was dead. A meat stick murdered him.
Dorian Vell believed his wife and children were dead. That’s what the Senior Compliance Enforcement Directorate (CED) Agent said when he called support to report them missing. There is no fence around the old parking lot. A sculptor made a trellis spanning the MKLJr. entrance to the old station. Clematis vine covered it.
Vell walked through the trellis into the Market. The SMELLS! Chicken stew! Collard Greens! Five Spice Seasoning! Fragrances he hadn’t smelled since he was a child. One smell called to him. His wife used to make fish stew from the offal and bones of striped bass and crab. She called it Berkeley Pier stew. That smell was home.
Her is Home
Her salt-and-pepper hair fell to her shoulders, shadows of youthful beauty still flashing as she moved. He remembered Silvia Vell. Mother of his children, wife, and soul mate. Not dead. Working a food stall selling Berkeley Pier Stew.
He died in seventy feet then rose again in 170 feet, “Can I get some stew?”
Silvia Marcelli started at him. Life in the Citadel hurt him. He looked decades older than she thought he was, “What do you have to barter?”
Barter? Barter was seven evil depths of impossible. Everything came from the Dear Father Vexton Primaris Solene. No one carried their own money. The Citadel refills every citizen’s dispensation card every month. The Sovereign Nutrient Vector Distribution Authority (SVDA) delivers rations on the second Wednesday of every month. Everyone prayed for the benevolence of Our Dear Father Vexton Primaris Solenne, “nothing. I have nothing. I just crossed the border.”
Medical Soup
Silvia teared up. It was her husband in the flesh. The father of her children. “Eat your fill,” she said as she ladled the order of stew. To the soup she added a small baguet, “Sit on the curb, honey. I got you.”
Darian stood stunned. A legion of lies from life in the Citadel began screaming at him. He was already dead. Now standing at a food stall with his dead wife offering to feed him. Maybe not heaven but damned close.
Almost as fast as he sat on the curb his wife pulled over a milk crate, covered it with a cloth napkin, set the table with a saucer and the bowl of chowder, setting the baguet on the side of the saucer. Tears filled Darian’s eyes. He had no words.
Is He Safe?
Darian Vell, Sovereign Deputy of Harmonized Compliance and Familial Integrity, Tier IV, Citadel Division of Behavioral Metrics and Ritual Enforcement sat on the curb behind a milk crate holding his lunch. Ashby Market was audibly buzzing with nervous gossip. Why was this bureaucrat, this official of the Citadel three degrees removed from Vexton Primaris Solenne, eating soup while sitting on the curb?
What was he doing here? Should we be worried? Silvia felt it. She saw the side eye, “Marta, it’s ok. He escaped.” The collective sigh rippled through the market like a gentle spring wind sweeping away fear and loathing. Darian Vell was a husband to Silvia and a father to his two children again.
Slowly everyone in the market began to stop what they were doing and gather around Silvia’s stall. Another merchant began rolling a banquet dining table toward Darian. Other volunteers set up chairs and and set the table with linen tablecloths. This is what you did for a dignitary. Soon enough the table was set.
He is Good
Damian looked up from his milk crate place setting and fish soup. His tears filled his eyes. He didn’t deserve this. If anything, this crowd should build gallows and hang him. Silvia spoke first, “it’s good to have you at home.”
He stood from his meal, “I love you, honey. Thank you so much for letting me in.” Then hugged his wife for the first time in a decade. Darian’s phone belonged to his old life, it bleated a notification, “You are not family enough,” and bricked itself.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.