1.  Kor's "brighter and better" Vejhon commenced without any opposition whatsoever.  Many believed that The One had purged Vejhon of its criminal infestation so that those who truly loved Vejhon could live forever in peace.  Kor tolerated any view that eclipsed the truth and deified him.  He was the savior of Vejhon and had proven his claim with miracles.       

2. Without political adversity of any kind, the promises of Kor and The Elite could unfold in the most uncompromising way.  The path for an unbridled, hedonistic ogliarchy had been fully lubricated.  

3. After a generous revue of shell-wide victory celebrations and award ceremonies concluded, Kor gave his most gallant leaders governorships over large areas of Vejhon to rule as sovereign lords.  As long as their loyalty to Kor was unquestioned -- they could dispose of their lands as they wished.  

4. Kor had no desire to micromanage civilian affairs, so he limited his direct involvement to issues that could not be resolved without him.

5. His chief administrative adjutant and Vice-Elite Dal El, provided Kor with a daily digest of Vejhon's activities and the most newsworthy events.  Kor vested Dal El as proctor of Vejhon and delegated most chief executive functions to him.  Kor, as the shell's celebrated sovereign, appeared at events designed to bolster Elite achievements or to grace State affairs.  Making himself scarce added to his allure and kept the population hungry.             

6. The need to vandalize natural artifacts and important Vejhonian structures no longer existed, so Kor ordered that Shell monuments and State structures remain undisturbed.  Every last sheet of paper and every last device at the Big Ball was left exactly as it was when it was abandoned.  Everything that had once been touched or used by the exiled government was considered contaminated.  The Big Ball was an unoccupied monument to their Victory. 

8. For a brief period, Vejhon basked in a glorious utopia that altruists only dream about.  There had been a handful of brigands who used Kor's cause to perpetuate needless acts of destruction; Kor had those brigands quietly put down because their services were no longer required.  Without an enemy to fight, psionically or otherwise, combat forces began to get restless.  Fighters will pick fights if they have to.   

11.  "You had your chance to leave.  Now you must live with your choice."   

12. Kor did not want anyone to think that his government was any less caring that the previous regime.  He had hoped to convey an even more caring image, since those who remained had shown a great deal of faith in him.  He did not want them to feel neglected.   

13. “There will always be the dissatisfied no matter what you do,” Dal El consoled him.  But the lack of psionic opposition seemed to stagnate the social climate, instead of uplift it.  There had been no way to predict this stagnation without the actual experience.  Theoretically:  How could the absence of imperfection and weakness create so much bitterness?  Do the people need to suffer more in order to appreciate what they have?  Good question.

16. "What was all the campaign rhetoric about?"  "We can do better," yet, "what" was never defined.  It was obvious that volumes of complexity surrounded social issues that nobody comprehended.  Who is the elusive "they" that everyone keeps alluding to?  It's always "they" when it used to be "us."  Too many shellans bought the catchy buzzwords without knowing a single fact about the rhetoric.  Well, here is is:   

17. Government is work.  Government is not some mysterious quantity that stops for a few days to reorganize when things aren't going well.  Government  creates the dimension in which society operates, no matter how invisible that dimension may seem.  Dal El was up to the task and quite deft at it.  When the Sons of the Morning realized that Dal El could accommodate the mesmerizingly complex needs of an insatiable people, he curried their favor quickly.

18. As Dal El began to stabilize critical infrastructure, it was discovered that most of the educated citizens and those who possessed extremely rare specialties had left.  The new State had to scurry for engineers, mathematicians, doctors, chemists and most of the technical trades.  Astonishingly, some such individuals had remained, believing that their scarcity would magnify their social and financial status.  They were right. 

22. The very last straw occurred when Kor's internal security discovered a plot to depose him!  Of all the injustice!  Kor who had given them everything; the Dawn of the New Dan and social unity... Kor concluded that more permanent measures were needed to suppress the rebellion:  If the disenfranchised were unwilling to participate, then they would have to be destroyed.  They had their chance to leave. 

25. The Minister of Economics reported that all trade with Vejhon had stopped.  Without the Psionic Guard, Balipor's commercial quarter was too lawless and unsafe.  Commerce had resumed somewhere in the Outlands.  "I thought the Psionic Guard was banned from the commerce quarter?" came an inquiry.  "They were!  A Psionic Guard does not have to be physically present in order to influence mundane affairs," came one reply.  That made the  question rhetorical.  "All trade negotiations have stopped and all trade agreements canceled," the report continued.

26.  "We will re-establish trade in due time," Kor said, "I would not be overly distressed about that right now."    

27.  "The commerce quarter is not entirely deserted," injected one Son, "There's an assortment of pirates and brigands brokering contraband and unlicensed commodities."  Everyone laughed, "What's a licensed commodity?" came one reply.  "About half the shellans there are fugitives in hiding," replied one.  "Off-shellers," corrected another.  "Off-shellers looking for safe passage to somewhere else," the first continued. 

29. The last report was on the psionic climate:  There was a small, disorganized faction of shellans who refused to evacuate because, "Nobody is going to force me off MY damn shell and I don't care WHO the hell he thinks he is!"  "They want a more active role in government, My Lord," the official said.   

30. Kor and Dal El shared a mutual moment of private irony.  "Then by all means," Kor gestured cordially, "offer them more active roles in the administration.  I'm sure you can think of something."  The issue had been quite polarized:  Perhaps recognizing such individuals would produce a solution.  Kor had a soft spot for shellans who knew what they wanted. 

33. Kor stood up to emphasize his next point, "As I review our plight with improved eyes, I realized that there is no dilemma at all.  We... the Elite... and those who stand with us, do not have a problem.  We are not obliged to patronize the disenfranchised.  They made a choice.  We did not force anyone to stay.  We have offered everyone who remained, much more than the exiled regime ever could."   After a modest  pause, Kor reiterated, "The problem is not with us." 

34. Sighs of relief spread among the novice shell managers.  The task had proven overwhelming and frustration levels were high.  Kor reflected their collective relief which re-energyzed the mood; a giant weight was lifted.  The 'old Kor' had them in his palm once again, so he continued in rally style:   

37. Quite cheerfully, Kor continued, "Yes!  He threw it off.  Only we're not going to throw Vejhon into the 2nd Sun."  Everyone understood the fable's metaphor.   Kor did not intend to destroy the planet.  He resumed a more pragmatic tone, "Did we not deliver what we promised?"  Kor nodded his head for them, "Do understand me when I say, we don't owe those petulant, ungrateful shitheads, one frackin' thing!"

38. The room was so light that everyone could float.  Kor had done it again -- the Elders were jubilant.  "Life through light and death, beauty and savagery," Kor reminded them calmly.  "This is one of those times."

39. Kor motioned for Dal El to take over while the lights dimmed.  Huge monitors had been retrieved from storage for Dal El's presentation:

40. A gigantic frame inset with lasers on an x and y grid appeared.  The image was superimposed over a professional league sports stadium.  

41. An animated hologram zoomed in on the lasers and rotated throughout the stadium at different levels.  The lasers were fixed at 5 inch intervals, so that the playing field looked like a solid ocean of light energy.   The x and y grid became apparent upon closer inspection.

42. In the animation, prisoners were dropped through the grid and diced into 5" x 5" chunks.  The procedure was not survivable no matter how one fell through.  The image had its shock value, but possessed a morbid appeal that this crowd found fascinating.  "Very creative," one Elder thought.  "Very sporting," said another.  

43. "This form of demise," Kor acknowledged the Elder's quip, "will be called 'dissension' to honor the many... loud... dissenters."  Mantra didn't miss a beat, "In a rather unique interpretation of the word."  Kor politely nodded as though his presentation had no fatalistic implications at all.  

44. As horrific as it looked, it solved a serious problem in an entertaining way.  Some even chuckled as the crudely drawn animated figures were pushed off of ledges.  Capitol offenders were lowered more slowly to their end.    

45. "For all of its show," Dal El injected, "this actually kills the condemned faster, and more certainly, than anything else would.  They fall through at the speed of gravity, and the pain lasts less than one second.  It just looks worse than it is."  Dal El's pitch made the process sound sanitary, and his endorsement by Kor was the only formality he needed.  

46. "The visual part though;" Dal El nonchalantly added, "The Master believes will greatly reduce the ungrateful among us."  Nobody could argue that point.  The Elders were amused by it, perhaps a stadium full of spectators would be too.     

47. The hologram's designer had taken comic liberties to make the animated figures respond in ways that live prisoners wouldn't.  Kor forgave the infraction since the designer's approach helped to lighten the mood.  By holding these events in a sports stadium, loyal shellans could witness the eradication of Vejhon's last remaining plague.  Dal El finished with, "Prisoners are too expensive to maintain.  It would be more humane to put them through this, then to turn them into a public burden."   The Elite had shared this opinion all throughout time.         

48.  In the animation, beneath the lasers on the arena floor was a biologically-assisted layer of metallurgical acid that accelerated the decomposition of cauterized 5" x 5" chunks of flesh.  The chunks were of different lengths and bloodless.  The acid left no trace and there were no bodies to bury.  It was a perfect crime. 

49. "Have you given this contraption a name?" one Elder asked.  The name had been too obvious to detect.  "Yes," Dal El answered, "Grid Boards."    And so the word "Grid Boards" became a noun, an adjective and political means to an end. 

50. As the presentation concluded and the lights went back up, Kor allowed the images to settle.  "Elite Engineer," Dal El said, "your office has the plans -- you have The Master's blessing."  The engineer acknowledged psionically, and excused himself from the assembly.  Dal El was not psionic, but his intuition was rarely inaccurate.            

51. "Those of you concerned with mental health issues -- start taking names," Kor injected.

52. The Sons of the New Dan were sanctioned by Kor to condemn any non-Elite misfit they chose.  The power to indiscriminately select who would live and who would die became their highest badge of office.  Only Kor could restore life, but not those extinguished on the Grid Boards.    

53. Having taken Kor at his word, hundreds of thousands of uncommitted, unworthwhile and antagonistic 'problem children' were slated for extermination but were not immediately taken into custody.  Those most deserving of death were Grid Boarded in a globally televised spectacle.  It was hoped that some 'diamonds in the rough' would repent of their pessimism and agree to serve the State, rather than die senselessly.  It worked.  Many repented.

54. Some of the least liked media figures were also invited to cover the dissension story.  Precisely what happened to them afterward is unclear, but the prevailing suspicion is probably right.  It was not in the State's best interest to exterminate a citizen with talent, so anyone who 'came to their senses' was forgiven and put back to work.  The Grid Boards quickly became synonymous with State-assisted suicide rather than a means of execution.        

55. Interestingly, some spectators jumped into the grid on their own, perhaps unable to deal with their decision to remain behind.  It was acceptable to jump since a shellans unwillingness to survive was not considered a State concern.  Within days, Kor's "attitude rehabilitation program" was praised for being 100% effective:  All throughout Vejhon, talk of dissent and discord completely stopped; a testament of Kor's devotion to his loyal followers.