Pushing through the early morning stillness with a quiet yet disturbing presence, the Lion strode purposefully into the clearing. The others were waiting there, patiently.
"Good morning to you all," he said amiably, "and let me start by apologizing for the uncommon hour. With the recent rains and subsequent flooding of the river, it promises to be a lively fortnight. I felt we should make as much progress as possible while the day is young.” The others nodded.
"Welcome, all, to our annual summit," he continued. "This is my 14th year serving as your host, and our 78,932nd annual gathering overall. For those of you with a predilection for tantalizing trivia, the species represented here today have been Top Five predators here on this savanna since before the last Ice Age break, more than 500 centuries ago. You might also be interested to know that, per the reports of our migratory winged cohorts, ours remains the most robust habitat on the continent."
The Eagle nodded affirmation.
"Finally, let me recognize our newest member," he continued, nodding at the Leopard. "Young man, your father was a respected member of our little consortium since I was a cub. He and my father served together for years. He'll be missed - and you, young sir, are most welcome!" The Leopard bowed graciously as the others applauded.
"Where are my manners?" the Lion suddenly turned, signaling to several hyenas waiting nervously in the bushes. "I've had some hors d'oeuvres prepared. Let's have a bite as we begin." The hyenas each held several dead moles, black-tailed rats, and musk shrews in their jaws; they disgorged them in a pile between the summiteers, then beat a hasty retreat.
"The meeting is called to order," the Lion declared after everyone had snacked a bit. "I'll begin with my general report, then we'll hear from each committee chair.
"Overall, our position remains strong," he began, "owing to this past year’s initiative, Operation Gaslight. Polling shows that a clear majority of the inhabitants of the savanna no longer consider us an Existential Threat – the number there has dropped to 32 percent – with another 19 percent rating us Pretty Fucking Scary, 15 percent going with Steer Clear, and an unbelievable 34 percent weighing in with No Big Deal. Now those, my friends, are incredibly promising numbers!”
The others were jubilant.
“It’s like everyone’s long-term memory has dried up!” the Eagle chirped. “Doesn’t every one of them remember at least one parent or sibling being eaten by one of us?”
The Lion chuckled. “I for one have no complaints,” he replied. “To continue: our own numbers reflect the operation’s success. We’ve all more than doubled our kills since this time last year, while successful predations of all five of our species have dropped enormously. Put simply: we’re living higher on the hog than ever before, and none of our gullible neighbors have even noticed.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” the young Leopard asked the Lion, “but what’s this Operation Gaslight?”
The others chuckled.
The Tiger spoke, her voice sultry and passively seductive.
“At last year’s summit, we considered the following problems,” she explained to the newcomer.
“First, economic indicators signaled that we were up against some hard limits in growth and product. Our own kill rates were leveling off, while our predation losses had begun to increase, for reasons I’ll get to in a moment. A drop in our population creates a perception problem: our status in society is maintained through awe and respect, and if we appear vulnerable – well, there’s less of both evoked in the population.
“Second, we learned through some informal studies that the leveling off of our kill rates owed to increased cross-species signaling whenever one of us appeared; put another way, the perception of danger increased, and vigilance along with it. Bad enough when our favorite targets are on the alert; when the entire population is wary, our plunder is thrown off.
“Third, there are those smelly two-legged creatures, the ones who play with rocks and sticks and fire! They’d never been a problem before, but lately they’re starting to seem...organized. They can’t climb, and they’re unbelievably slow; any one of us can easily take any one of them, but in recent years, even the mightiest of us has been taken down when they come at us in groups, with sharp sticks. In short: our own death rate, already unacceptable at the outset, began to increase. The two-legs had begun to perceive that they could assert themselves, better their lot, by climbing higher in the food chain.”
“Our solution,” chimed in the Crocodile, “was simple: if the perceptions of the population weren’t operating in our favor, then our task became, simply -alter the perceptions.”
“Gaslighting,” the Eagle explained, “is the process of causing someone to doubt what’s real and to believe in what isn’t. In our case, we needed to lower the perception that we are the deadliest creatures on earth, and fill the thoughts of our prey with alternate threats, both to distract them and cause them to weaken one another through pointless infighting – making our own kills easier in the bargain.”
“What exactly are you saying?” the Leopard asked. “What have you done?”
The Lion explained. “We quietly implemented policy changes on several fronts. That is, after all, why our little group exists: by covertly centralizing authority, we control the creation and implementation of policy (surely your father explained this at some point?). For millions of years, this was left to Natural Law – but taking that control for ourselves has given us not only emphatic survival advantage but more than a few perks – dietary, in particular. Operation Gaslight simply represents a major shift in policy to preserve, and hopefully greatly enhance, our advantage.”
“It’s really quite ingenious,” the Crocodile added. “For uncounted millennia, we have held our position at savanna society’s peak through fear and intimidation. There came a point at which that created more problems than advantage. Our innovation was to continue to cultivate fear in the general population – but to redirect that fear away from us, and onto each other.”
“This was achieved through the simple shuffling of kill corpses, to create confusion,” the Eagle added, “and has resulted in an atmosphere of distraction, where each particular species is no longer certain who its friends are. And that has the serendipitous benefit of diminishing cross-species signaling: there’s less vigilance, where we’re concerned, making it easier to keep our kills covert – and the drop in societal cooperation makes it easier for us to maintain control overall. We are, after all, very small in numbers compared to the population as a whole.”
“Another sweet move has been to throttle the survival in the two-legs,” the Crocodile said. “At the moment, they are the greatest rising threat to our supremacy. Our strategy has to meet that threat by making our targeting of them more selective. We now specifically seek out their older, more experienced members, and make meals of them, rather than the much more palatable young.
“This has two major benefits: first, it decreases the sharing of information across generations; when we pick off the older and wiser members of their tribes, the education of their young includes less institutional memory, leaving them less prepared to survive on the savanna. By controlling their educational system, we limit both their range of response to threat and their perception of their own role in society and the economy.
“Second, the older ones are just flat-out easier to catch, and don’t struggle so much as the young.” He licked his teeth.
“The net effect of Gaslight has been to greatly increase our plunder, while reducing our personal risk,” the Lion summarized. “We’ve achieved effective control the food and water supplies from the western edge of the great valley through the far river; the wealth of the savanna is completely under our control. In other words, we’re now basically running the regional economy, rather than simply benefiting from it, and no one’s the wiser.
“And that, my young friend, is Operation Gaslight.”
There was a long silence. The Crocodile snuck another dead mole from the pile.
The young Leopard was horrified. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” he sputtered. “This goes against our most basic dogma! Our superiority is based upon Natural Law! If we are the stronger, and consequently the most well-fed, it is because that status is earned, through skillful predation and crafty, wily, merciless behaviors!
“Nature’s bargain with us is struck at a cost to all parties! You’ve sought to increase our plunder while reducing our risk, but that balance cannot so lightly be upset without catastrophic consequences to the system overall, don’t you see that? You are playing with forces that will not easily yield to this kind of manipulation!” The others stared at him hesitantly as he began to pace.
“You hit economic barriers to growth because growth cannot be unlimited! Plunder and risk in our world exist in equilibrium – and we are part of that equilibrium, it is not for us to define! Natural Law defines it!
“And the two-legs? Their survival rate is climbing because they have invested in innovation, which is supposed to be a cornerstone of economic growth. Their efforts redistribute energy for the good of all. The net effect for any species that innovates the way they do is more plunder for fewer kills, at less risk – to which we all should aspire, the very definition of a healthy economy, and perfectly in keeping with Natural Law!”
“Dear boy, what’s the difference? You can scarcely praise the two-legs for innovating to their own advantage and then decry our doing the same.”
“Their innovation is based on effective competition! Yours is outright deception!” The young Leopard was infuriated. “This is just wrong! You’re placing us above the Law! My father would not approve... Why, he’s got to be spinning in the tarpit over this!”
The Lion slowly rose and crossed to the Leopard. Heavy, meaty breath sighed out of him as he locked eyes with the youngster.
“It’s true your father was no fan of the plan” he said calmly. “It’s also true that he worked against us, refusing to join in on our initiatives and spreading rumors about our intent. Not in his best interests – or yours, for that matter, come to think of it.” He moved in close. “Odd that someone with his wisdom and experience would up in the tarpit. But I guess anyone can make a wrong turn.”
The Leopard’s spine froze. He fell silent.
“In any case,” the Lion said amiably, “we’ve been over the Nature’s Law argument many times. Do you think for a moment we didn’t debate this thoroughly, carefully reviewing every consideration? The obvious conclusion is that it’s Nature’s Law that’s driving our newfound success. You argue that the savanna’s wealth is not an entitlement; I argue that it is ours because we are the strongest, and our strength entitles us to it. We are Nature’s Law; and to control the law is to control the wealth.
“The savanna is ours for the taking.”
He yawned. “I sense it’s time for a break.”
The young Leopard could say nothing.
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