All this is true.

Now suppose, at some future time, the Capitalist Peoples Democracy of ChimerAram succeeds in world domination. Easy, really. Money is power; power corrupts; control information and you control the world. What distress people feel, what yearnings they have are quickly squelched. Tianamen Square got nowhere. The Arab Spring has proven disasterously difficult to continue, even with large helpings of outside help. Once there is no outside, where is the help going to come from?

The Capitalist Peoples Democracy controls the world, except for Tikopia. Too small, too far away, not any trouble since they keep pretty much to themselves.

As the world becomes dominated, the Tikopians don't see anything happening. They continue their tightly controlled, but communally decided society; people meet and fall in love, farm and fish; they have babies - never too many - or go on dangerous adventures. Written works of philosophy, science or even fiction consume too much time away from survival activity, but they live full and complete lives.

Bureaucracy delights in completeness. Every last line ticked and vouched, every last toilet paper roll accounted for. A junior accountant in the Department of Correctional Thinking notices that the island has not had an annual educational seminar for decades. This is a potential black mark on him, his supervisor and her manager. The irritant floats upward until it finds not the Committee, not even a Sub Committee Secretary, but Tun Szu, a minor bureaucrat but also a woman of deviousness and decision.

To subdue the enemy without fighting is the greatest victory. Szu recognizes the Tikopian anomoly for what it really is, the small chink that could bring down her Capitalist Peoples Democracy. Force, even to the wiping out of the entire island would be easily managed but not aesthetic.

The Tikopians are not easily seduced. They have rejected hot baths, sexy lingerie and even the lure of fast food in the past. A wedge is need, but Tikopian society is small and tightly knit. Perhaps one of the dangerous adventurers could return and be made a hero?

continued