I’ve always jumped around from job to job, but this time I’ve topped myself. I’ve taken the job of Galactic Emperor, six millenniums from now.
Or, to be exact, I’m playing the role of the Emperor Simonides in the Imperial Realms game for which I did some writing last year. Steve Bougerolle, whose project it is, offered those who have contributed to the game the chance to be immortalized in this way, so I agreed.
I did think of standing in for Basileus III, the emperor notorious for enobling his pet cats (and demoting one to Baroness when she scratched him), but, I thought Simonides a better match. After all, for all my eccentricity, I’m not likely to give titles to animals. But Simonides, who helped revigorate the empire by mobilizing against the Nano threat sounds like a steady, personally austere type of organizer I might at least hope to emulate.
I’m especially pleased because Simonides is one of the emperors whose accomplishments I specified while I was writing about the aliens and human clans in the game (the history is Steve’s).
One small problem with Steve’s idea is that I don’t look very Imperial. But a studious type like Simonides – whom I imagined while writing about him probably had an office right behind the throne room where he spent most of his time – I might just be able to pull off (in the dark, with a group of near-sighted people who had forgotten their glasses). A warlike emperor would be harder for me to pull off with even marginal conviction.
Still, the thought of someone as solidly working class in origin as I am playing an emperor of any sort amuses me more than I can say, so I’m making sure that everybody knows of my elevation. If you’re a friend, and you haven’t received an invitation to the coronation all I can say is that, next time, you’ll know better than to slight me, won’t you?
Off the Wall 