It all went down like this.
Media doesn’t like to talk about it, but there’s a
little problem with imposing your Will on the market:
actually, you can’t, quite. Sure, you can saturate,
infiltrate, dominate - but at the end of the day
you’ve got to give the people what they want, or
you’re history. Nybbas is very, very good at
convincing people that ‘what they want’ is ‘what the
Prince of the Media feels like showing them’.
Unfortunately, he’s young for his position, and like
all youngsters is just a tad too ready to believe his
own hype. If he survives the next few centuries,
he’ll learn better - but for now, Nybbas will still
always try to force a trend rather than riding it.
And that’s why there’s still decent stuff to watch on
the boob tube and the big screen, why there’s still
kick-ass music on the airwaves and why you can still
get truly righteous games for the PC. He’d rather
that you used the tripe that he pushes out - but it’s
because he pushes it out that the good stuff exists.
Humanity hasn’t lost free will yet, you see. Force
them to consume junk, and at least some of them will
go looking for stuff that isn’t junk. The harder he
pushes, the more they look. True, this means
alternative communications channels, for the most
part, but there’s still people even in the mainstream
that like producing quality. Sometimes they even get
a shot at doing so.
All of this leads us eventually to Pandemonium.
At first glance, this particular animated television
show looks like precisely the sort of thing that
Nybbas would be all for: it’s the serialized
adventures of a sanitized Pan in the modern world,
complete with dreadful liberties with Greek Mythology,
relentless buffoonery and a catchy soundtrack that
claws its way into your cerebral cortex and refuses to
let go. It is, naturally, a hit with the Saturday
morning crowd, and the first wave of merchandising is
well under way. The formation of an ethereal cartoon
Pan was likewise a foregone conclusion. Everything’s
hunky-dory, right?
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
There’s some problems, you see. First off, well, the
show doesn’t suck. At all. Irreverent? Sure.
Wacky? You bet. Cheerfully insane? No question
about that. What it isn’t is trite, insulting to the
intelligence nor devoid of any and all moral sense.
The kids love it - but, frighteningly, so do the
adults. The college crowd has already adopted this
show wholesale; they started watching it for the
snappy dialogue and stayed because the scripts manage
to be relevant without being preachy and clever
without being self-indulgent. The TV critics
routinely praise the show - when one of the Media’s
trained seals tried to spoke Pandemonium’s wheels his
numbers dropped ten points in a week, and Nybbas can
take a hint. This baby is bulletproof for at least
the next two seasons.
This is not a problem, per se. Nybbas can manage
these sorts of problems away, given time -
unfortunately, he may not have time. There’s an acute
crisis ahead, you see. The ‘new’ Pan is sufficiently
different from the ‘old’ Pan that he’s got a distinct
personality - and the two don’t like each other at
all. Cartoon Pan doesn’t think that drunken
debauchery and rape is very nice, you see. In fact,
he thinks that it’s disgusting. He also thinks that
he’s currently getting a lot darn more freely-given
Essence these days than the incumbent (this is
perfectly accurate, incidentally), and that it’s time
for the incumbent to accede to the wishes of the
people and step down, not to mention wink out of
existence. In other words, it’s time for a bit of
Assumption combat.
Now, Nybbas is certainly not about to let this happen,
if he can help it. Not because he cares a flying leap
for some old drunken bugger with goat legs and the
inability to hear the word No, of course; he doesn’t,
and doesn’t care who knows it. What he does care
about is making sure that nobody ever, ever thinks
that they can just whack one of his slaves without
first getting the Prince of the Media’s express
permission. Nybbas doesn’t like it when people show
disrespect, and Cartoon Pan has difficulty showing
anything else when dealing with a certain type of
authority figure. This is completely unacceptable,
and should have resulted in the elimination of the
annoying little bugger, except for the third problem.
It’s called Heaven; more accurately, Michael.
Not that Mike gives a flying leap about ethereals,
either. What interests him, though, is the idea of
watching an old thorn in Heaven’s side go down in
metaphorical flames - especially if it can also result
in making a Demon Prince look like an incompetent
idiot. All the Archangel of War has to do is make
sure that nobody interferes until the two Pans throw
down, and trust that youth and energy will defeat age
and treachery (given that Michael sees no reason not
to cheat, it just might). He’s even got Laurence
going along with this program, albeit reluctantly;
watching the Archangel of the Sword balance the evil
of temporarily fostering an ethereal (JUST this
ethereal, mind) against the good of eventually
watching one of the Church’s oldest enemies cough out
its lifeblood was entertaining to see. Dominic still
doesn’t approve of the whole bloody thing, but then,
does he ever?
So, there’s the situation: plenty of work on both
sides, really, in any permutation that you care for.
Both angels and demons can find themselves either
hindering or helping this operation; bear in mind that
not everybody likes either Nybbas or Michael. Indeed,
they’ve got some impressive enemies, and some of them
are quite capable of working effectively in the
Marches. Also bear in mind that Cartoon Pan in any
scenario is almost certainly not going to enjoy a long
existence, even if he wins: even those giving him
assistance will stop caring about his well-being once
he’s no longer useful - although, bizarrely, some of
those opposing this operation might. It’s a shame,
really; this particular Pan is all right, in that
special animated chirpy oblivious cartoon way.
If only he’d stop playing those bloody pipes.
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