Skreg looked at little Rhodri with tears in his eyes… well not really eyes; eyes is what you earthfolks call our assemblage of sensory organs. They generally work well …..until they don’t. Mine were working fine but Rhodri’s seem to have lost all functionality. Out of a sense of nostalgic allegiance, the partner progenitor had insisted on a name she had come across in the Incubatorium, whilst reading up on Ancestry.
“Rhodri Mawr, father of seven children or eight, depending on the source, and distantly related on my pater’s pater’s pater’s side,” she elaborated.
Skreg was unconvinced given the number of disrupted consanguineous and sibship lines in the family tree she was perusing.
“United three South Wales kingdoms in year 871 of earth’s first millennium. Our Rhodri will also be a great unifier; the three warring realms desperately need such a leader.” Her eyes grew misty with prediction.
“How?” Skreg retorted “with him unable to hold a line steady even when playing the simplest game of Quinton and blundering around the ship, upsetting the steerers and crew-hands, knocking into the navigational pods. If he were a human the diagnosis would be dyspraxia”
“Too harsh. Just a little clumsy and uncoordinated; something he’ll most likely grow out of. We must believe the experts”
Fast forward 30 earth years. Rhodri was universally acclaimed a great leader. Diplomacy had triumphed, peace prevailed; the three intergalactic enclaves of New Global Ceredigion, Powys-in-Galactica and TaweTumultus acknowledged his supremacy. Regarded as a fair leader and beloved by minions, vanquished and troops alike, the future of The Cosmic TriDominion appeared more propitious than it had been for millennia.
Then the unravelling started. Previously hidden detractors began surfacing like lug worms in an ebbing tide. An ancient livestream featuring Rhodri as an immature arthropod awkwardly engaged in Quinton began recirculating. In no time at all it had amassed several Googolplexes of “likes;” a mere handful of “dislikes.” Many of the latter were linked to other streams referencing the allegedly quisling qualities that Rhodri had reportedly employed in rising to power. The co-progenitor might have conceded the similarities to his namesake Rhodri Mawr had the craft’s cryogenic suspension mode not have malfunctioned rendering re energising. and thus any contribution to the debate, impossible.
“Nothing to see here” said the official mandible- jerk press release. “Dyspraxia is a developmental motor coordination disorder of neurological origin. That’s why the Great Commander could not excel in Quinton either as a hatchling or juvenile arthropod. In no way has it affected the finer motor skills such as writing. Our Leader remains untouched by dyslexia or any other imperfection. Long may he reign!”
But Rhodri’s writing and reading skills had been affected. The regime’s mistake was in permitting him access to an unsupervised personal account. One of his regular treaties broadcast for the education of the commoners proclaimed “Homophonia and expanding personal knowledge of such phenomena is the duty of every loyal citizen of The Tridominion.”
The masses were enlightened. Rhodri’s liberation was final.
