Page 62 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Operation KNEECAP

the entire planet. Their protection from espionage by rivals, and the
reason that their combined assets are so huge, is that they are in one
family: the Papp triplets, Manny, Moe and Jack. Their properties
range over dozens of countries and scores of economic sectors.
They are of one mind on this mission, and their commitment is
absolute: in practical terms, it means they will stop at nothing to
distribute free solar energy from the sky to everyone, everywhere. I
think it plausible to present such fabulously wealthy and well-
connected people as sufficiently megalomaniacal to set themselves
above international law and not even be averse to committing
murder in the service of their goal. Yes, the ends justifying the
means, on the kind of scale that excites and engages sci-fi fans.”
“Now, one of my difficulties is where to start this thing, given
the single-thread dramatic unity required by the short format. The
earliest version of this plot and its possibly cautionary ending is, of
course, Prometheus: he stole fire from the gods and was painfully
punished. Icarus and Phaeton failed to understand the moderation
required by the sun’s power; they crashed and died. Too early in
historical mythology? I know—just a little warm-up to show the
Sun as god, or king as sun-god. Moving along, the key engineering
document in my story was produced at a secret meeting in 1910,
attended by Tsiolkovsky, Tesla and Birkeland. These pioneers of
rocketry, plasma research and broadcast power drew up plans to
transmit electricity to towers on Earth from satellites on the edge of
the heliosphere. Those blueprints were first shelved, then lost, and
finally forgotten in the wake of a series of world-shattering events
in the early twentieth century. The Papp brothers found them,
validated the basic design elements, updated the technology and put
their plan into motion.”
“The Papps have operated like a triad cell all their lives, making
decisions unanimously or granting the will of a two-to-one
majority—in all cases playing their cards close to the vest and
keeping their secrets secure. Of course, they control their far-flung
commercial empire through a chain of anonymizing intermediaries
as dense and opaque as anything in existence today, providing the
brothers a powerful shield of deniability. Yet the actual and

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