We've heard the phrase thrown around a lot. It's nothing to scoff at. In itself, its ominous, and can't be ignored:

"It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.."

A very powerful statement. When you think of world events, of terror and mayhem, it reaches right into your gut. It's a concern, and it preys on our minds.

What happens when someone turns those "If's" into "When's"? If "When" became tomorrow, or today. What would that make you do?

Problem:
You're a Sith Master, but no one knows it, save your apprentice of the day. Revealing this is not only not your style, but its also never done without there being some advantage. No sniper assails his target without first concealing his or her position.

You can't brandish your lightsaber. You can't telekinetically choke your enemies. You can't electrocute them with your dark powers, either. That would be...conspicuous.

Another Problem:
Not only are you a Sith Master, but you're a public figure on the rise. Your every move is scrutinized, and the more powerful you become, the more visible you become.

In order to continue to rise amongst the sheep of society, you must be sheepish and appear ...concerned..and...conscientious ...all those things *cough* Jedi-like things that make you wretch in the privacy of your roiling black thoughts.

Yet Another Problem:
Sith crave power. The very nature of Sithdom is the procurement of power - not just any power, Unlimited Power. But democracy is made to limit power. You can only rise so far to the pinnacle in such a framework. But to be so brazen as to grab power is to encounter the first two problems. Power has to be given to you. Power has to be lured to you.

Solution:
You have to find a weapon, one that every Sith before you knew to wield. An invisible, powerful weapon, but not the Force. The Force is not yet your ally in a world that thinks your kind is extinct.

Your weapon, your protection, your offense and defense is therefore: Information.

The mastery of information is a subtle art. You can use it as blunt force trauma, sure. You can blackmail, extort, malign, libel, disparage, but doing so means revealing your intent to harm. No, it takes a real pro to work information - to shape it, to throw echoes of information that appear to have no source. It takes a Master to work information from all ends to the middle. If you've managed to confuse people with information, you're doing ok, but it's amateurish. Mere confusion can be corrected. However...

~ If you can create your own covert information machine, effectively becoming your own secret source;

~ Effectively attribute this information away from yourself;

~ Produce information that is so attractive to those that trade information (even your enemies) that they can't ignore it, and willingly distribute it for you without questioning the source;

~ Convince people to have exactly the reaction you desire;

~ All the while you look like a hero for how you deal with the information you create...

If you can do all of this, you're big league. You're playing and winning for keeps. You're a Master of Information.

Palpatine, in less than 15 years, goes from mild-mannered senator from an unimportant world to Master of All He Surveys. And in that time, only once does he use the Force in the open. Only once does he draw a weapon. His weapon, first and foremost, is Information...

The Phantom Menace...

Political Gain:
Uses the conflict on Naboo (a blockade that he secretly bankrolls and directs) to remove the current Chancellor and bolster his support, via sympathy for the cause, for himself to become Chancellor. A practice run for the Clone Wars.

Military Gain:
Uses inside knowledge of Naboo's defensive capabilities and leadership to exploit weaknesses.

Personal Gain:
Is able to successfully deploy his apprentice, Darth Maul, to gather intel for him. The loss of Maul is inconsequential. The fact that he proves the methodology can work is immensely valuable. As an added bonus, he finds young Skywalker. How accidental this was, if at all, we still don't know.


The Lie: That because of the corruption in the Republic Senate, which reaches all the way to the top with Valorum, Naboo is threatened by external, greedy forces.

The Result: He replaces Valorum by way of a strong sympathy vote, and a platform of ending corruption.

The Advantage: His first field trial of this methodology, despite the acceptable defeat of the Trade Federation and the loss of Maul, is a success. The Trade Federation, along with other systems, now have a thorn in their side, and powerful friends with which to rally. On the other side, the Senate embraces the new "hard line" on corruption, and sets about dragging the Trade Fed through the courts. The lines are being drawn for a political schism, fueled by economic pressures and greed, by Palpatine himself.


Attack of the Clones...

Political Gain:
Uses the information of the new Separatist threat (a cause he secretly bankrolls and directs) to provide impetus to give his office, not the ineffective Senate, new importance to the Republic. The delivery of the GAR and the establishment of the Jedi Command layer likewise provides a framework in which to place the Jedi in a compromising position, not only ethically, but in direct proximity of the only force that can eradicate them. This culminates in sweeping Emergency Powers for the office of the Supreme Chancellor.

Military Gain:
Uses the perceived threat of a full-scale war to have the GAR created, and placed under his ultimate and direct control. Meanwhile, his alter-ego directly controls the movement of enemy droid troops under Separatist command. The chessboard is set, and he will control how many pieces are used, and how many are sacrificed - Palpatine is the only one playing.

Personal Gain:
Uses his relationship with Anakin to begin his seduction to the Dark Side. He meanwhile uses the considerable wealth and power of the disillusioned Count Dooku to forward his agenda while still keeping negative attention away from his now very visible public persona. He becomes amazingly popular, while Dooku becomes an enemy of the State.

The Lie: That there is an external threat to the Republic that the Jedi can not thwart.

The Result: He becomes the savior of the Republic, not the Jedi.

The Advantage: Those that can stop him are now maneuvered into a political mousetrap, while his own powers are consolidated.


Revenge of the Sith...

Political Gain:
Uses the information that the Jedi ordered the Cloned Army, and that the Jedi are seeking his ouster, as political capital to implicate the Jedi in return. Likewise uses his own personal knowledge to pinpoint the location of the Separatist leadership to have then eradicated. Lastly, uses all of these matters to create an overwhelming case that the Republic is weakened and vulnerable, and for its own protection must be realigned into the First Galactic Empire. His strong central leadership becomes a touchstone for nationalist pride, and a desire for change, even if that change is detrimental.

Military Gain:
Uses the information as head of the Separatist Command to deactivate the droid armies. The entire war, an elaborate ruse, had only one outcome - flipping a switch, eliminating his real enemies, the Jedi, and installing his own fiercely loyal military support for a coups no one opposes.

Personal Gain:
Uses information about Padme, the suspicions of the Jedi against his office, and the personal trust established with Anakin to twist his mind to the Dark Side. Not only does he enlist the Chosen One as his dark servant, he convinces him that as he's killed his own wife and child, and that there is no hope left save that of the Empire. Darth Vader becomes his own, and his Empire's, most powerful protector.

The Lie: That aside from the Separatists, the Jedi were the real conspirators, and the real threat. The Jedi must be destroyed.

The Result: The endgame - Order 66 eliminates all viable opposition, and order is restored in the form of the Empire. And the Chosen One, the only one that could destroy the Sith and restore Balance, is now safely under his personal control.

The Advantage: Unlimited power.

These are just examples from the Prequels. There are other famous examples of the Imperial use of propaganda and subterfuge from the Original Trilogy, namely:

~ Creating the lie that the Tantive IV sent a distress call and was destroyed - not attacked and boarded.

~Allowing the Millennium Falcon to escape so that they could track it back to the secret location of the Rebellion Command.

~Using the idea of turning Luke to the Dark Side as an excuse to eliminate and replace his apprentice, Darth Vader.

~Using the capture of the Falcon and the torture of Han, Leia and Chewbacca to lure Luke into a trap.

~Using the Bothan spy network to deliver the false impression that the second Death Star is vulnerable to attack

These are all examples of not just simply using information as an advantage. Palpatine, sometimes directly, sometimes through his henchmen, uses information as bait. And he uses it as a control measure. And he uses it aggressively. It's the perfect martial tool, information - it's a shield, it's a cage, it's a weapon.

Planting attractive information does not mean planting information people love to hear. It means planting information that people can't ignore, information that people have to have and share, information that people's lives and livelihoods depend on.

This information has to reach people on a visceral, primal level. It has to touch their hearts and minds profoundly, and dredge up their deepest feelings on issues. Information like this is never valuable if its not divisive, galvanizing, exciting, even so unbelievable and so unfathomable, it has to be real, because no one in their right mind would attempt a falsehood so vast in scale. In short, it has to be borne of extremes - it has to sooth their minds, or spawn the darkest night terrors. Or, it has to lull them into passivity.

You can control an entire population to believe exactly as you would have them believe. You can plant information, you can remove information, you can shape information. If the Only Source of so-called facts is a government, then you can literally control the minds, control the thoughts and feelings, of billions of otherwise intelligent, modern people. They control the vertical. They control the horizontal. Welcome to the Outer Limits...and welcome to the 21st century.

Last night I watched a PBS Frontline special called "Tank Man". In 1989, in the middle of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, a lone man defied a column of tanks during a brief popular uprising, mainly among students but followed closely by the entire Chinese nation, and in fact the world. On the heels of the collapse of the USSR and the Communist Bloc in Eastern Europe, the tide of democratic change seemed ready to engulf the largest nation on this planet. The Chinese government, with all of its oppressive might symbolized in that column of tanks sent to pacify the burgeoning rebellion, was held at bay by one small man, apparently barely in his 20's.

The program went on to explain that no one to this day knows for sure the identity of Tank Man, or his fate. Some rumors came out of China that he was executed. A story was even published in a major newspaper that the Chinese government had put him down. Frontline interviewed the reporter, whose name appeared in large font under an even larger headline "TANK MAN EXECUTED". The reporter was befuddled. He said he never wrote the story. Not only did he disavow the story, he said it was impossible because it cited American intelligence as a source - and he had no American sources.

China, however, officially denies his execution, and hasn't spoken of it on an official level in close to a decade. The West would have you believe they murdered a hero. China would have you believe he's just fine. And we will never know who to believe, ever.

The Frontline interviewer then tried a shocking experiment. He placed the iconic photograph of Tank Man in front of 4 Beijing students, all roughly the same age as Tank Man in 1989. Each of them studied their own copy of the photograph.

You've seen it. You remember it. The entire World remembers it.

They stared, bewildered. One of them whispered "Maybe it's a parade." Another said it might be a ceremony of some sort. And one quietly whispered to the others "1989". No one else in the group apparently understood what he meant. One by one they said there was no way of telling what the photograph depicted as it was totally out of context. One even challenged that it was some sort of fake. Even the young man that whispered "1989" recanted. He claimed to have no idea what the photograph was about.

Whether or not he knew its significance, the implication was staggering. Most everyone in the group had no real idea of the event. No one knew who Tank Man was. No one knew they were looking at Tiananmen Square. No one knew of an uprising.

If you were in China now, and went to Google, Yahoo, any search engine, you would never find an image of Tank Man. There would be no stories of this day in 1989. And if somehow you managed to download or pass along such a story, Cisco routers specially configured for the State Police to monitor traffic would catch it, your individual PC and your location would be identified, and you would be found, detained...and never tell another soul. As if it were possible to find the information in the first place.

Tank Man, as iconic to the rest of the world as the Berlin Wall coming down, or Boris Yeltsin scrambling to the top of a Russian Tank in Moscow, or Hanoi Jane sitting on a VC anti-aircraft gun, had no identity. No history. A hero-to-be in his own land, mere miles from the spot he took his stand, was erased from collective memory.

The power of information is unmistakable, unstoppable, and insidious. Palpatine wielded it as no one had ever done so in thousands of years, and governments rose and fell by virtue of his lies.

How appropriate, then, that in the new short story from Karen Traviss, ODDS in Insider #87, we see the hint of this mastery at work again. How do you terrify your own population into willingly giving up their freedoms indefinitely? How do you make your own private army look tragically heroic, in the face of impossible odds? In fact, damn near martyrs? How do you get your enemy to embrace information you yourself have invented?

Give your enemies impossibly huge strength. Make them the boogey man that stalks you. Make them out to be the absolute End of the World. Without knowing the actual source of the information, your enemy will hold your lies up as a battle flag to rally under. Both sides will ultimately have a battle cry that captures the best and worst of their imaginations -

"Look how powerful we are! Look how terrifying we are!. There's no way to lose!"

"Look how powerful they are! Look how terrifying they are! We've GOT to win!"

This stroke of Palpatine's genius shows his understanding of psychology. It's not about being "believable". You can wrap your head about things that are "believable". You can quantify them, understand them, prepare for them. This has no use for a Master. This is about making people feel it their bones, pushing them into making irrational choices, not about providing information to make sane choices.

The unbelievable is the very nature of the Boogey Man. And the believable can be the absence of the Tank Man. It is not about reality, it is about the tensions that exist between complacent Comfort and abject Fear, and the rush to fill the resulting vacuums of reason.

And no one likes to believe that they are, at this very moment, being misled.

Numbers, like tiny atomic structures, are seen individually as safe little fact based-units. Innocuous, helpful...apparently harmless. Put bunches of numbers together, you've got something, apparently, made out of fact, right? Or not...it depends on where they came from, and who they were intended for. This is how you become a Master of Information, and this is how you conquer millions, billions, or even trillions of minds. It's about making the If's into When's, dreams into realities, and nightmares into the bump in the night we all think we hear from time to time. All start with little facts, little numbers, little lies that look like truth.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a personally treasured poem, one that I refer to at every milestone of my life, called "If" - it's about the making of a man. Now, in a world with so many unasked and unanswered questions, it pains me to butcher his work, so please pardon my creative license. But I find myself referring to it again, because this in so many ways is important to how we view the world now. Not just as enthusiasts for fiction, but as the dependants on fact...

If , Revisited

If you can keep your head when all about you
Lose theirs without knowing you're to blame;
If you can trust yourself when no one doubts you,
But trust no one else all the same;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or while crafting lies, never seen in lies,
Or by being loved, secretly indulge your hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and make your dreams their master;
If you can think -- and make your thoughts their aim;
If you can devise Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've twisted
Spoken by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or break the things they gave their life to, watchful,
That they should never know how you use your tools;

If you can make intelligence out of thin air
Giving every T a cross and I a dot,
And scheme, and plant traps inside your schemes,
And never breathe a word about your plot;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your term long after it should be gone,
And so hold on when there was nothing in you
But a thirst for power which says: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' of "Information" --
Yours is the Universe and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more - you're a Master, my son!

DM out