Constitutional amendments within the alliance could be passed if 2/3 of elected officials from ¾ of the layers of government vote for it in a secret ballot.
This can include 2/3 of the top elected federal officials, 2/3 of the top elected regional officials, 2/3 of the top elected local officials, or any other combination that includes 3 of the four layers of the government.
Rob has enough soul splits across all layers to achieve this harsh requirement.
Over the years, he has created more and more soul splits; now, he has over 2,000, all in critical positions.
With them, he can control the top positions on all levels.
Each of them will receive brain rejuvenation and brain transplant procedures and don't need any soul power for maintenance.
They have a shelf life of 100,000 years.
But, even after 100,000 years, only their brain would deteriorate beyond repair; the soul split would remain intact.
After their shelf life ends, the soul splits have to change their brain and then they can live for another 100,000 years.
Their shelf life is 100,000 years, with the possibility of continued renewal.
This way, his number of soul splits could only increase; maybe, one day, he would have enough to fill every single position of power with his soul splits.
However, for now, 2,000 is insufficient to control every important position.
The passage of the new constitutional amendment caused shock to many people on the state and local levels. They couldn't have imagined how the federal government managed to get it across the finish line.
The election process itself was not in doubt. The commission responsible for reviewing the validity of signatures was appointed mainly through state and local governments, so they couldn't complain about it.
Some states with fewer of Rob's soul splits said they would not abide by the new amendment.
It was unacceptable for Rob.
Rob, in general, despite all the dictatorial things he did in the past, was a lawful person who always tried to do things strictly by the books.
The new amendment had lots of checks and balances.
First, voting on referendums was mandatory; any referendum with less than a 95% turnout would be void.
Secondly, only a single subject could be voted on.
One technique some use for passing laws is attaching unrelated subjects to a must-pass law; this won't work in Rob's design.
Any referendum must be presented within a specific format, with a word limit and a single subject, to prevent unrelated subjects from raiding on it to become law.
It was direct democracy with guardrails because, for anything to be voted on, the federal government must pass it. Another committee will check it to see if it complies with conditions.
Rob wrote the conditions with excruciating details to prevent the commission from twisting words to fit its purpose.
It was an experiment Rob decided to undertake.
Unlike Alex III, who has contempt for democracy, Rob likes democracy. Before, he set aside democratic norms because his power would have been in danger, but now, he no longer worries about himself.
After this, there are two routes things can go.
One is that the democratic process would improve people's lives; the other is that people vote on stupid things and cause everything to fall apart.
The result depends on everyone's collective wisdom.
Collective wisdom hasn't worked that well so far. The track record of it is not good. But, even if the people want to throw themselves in a pit, they should be allowed to.
The first law the federal government put up for a referendum weakened the Supreme Constitutional Court.
The Supreme Constitutional Court has been a headache for the federal government for thousands of years; its rulings have rendered it powerless.
The law they put up for a referendum was about removing the court's power to interfere in how the federal government distributes its money.
The referendum passed with 65% of the vote, with a turnout of 97%!
The federal government, in general, was much more popular than state and local ones. Usually, it is the opposite, but the situation here was unique.
Everyone knew and saw that the state was running things, so they blamed state and local governments for the problems; the federal government was something high above that wanted to help people but was obstructed by the state.
The result was a landslide win for the federal government.
However, the states challenged the result of the referendum in the Supreme Constitutional Court.
The court immediately went EN BANC, which means all 4,000 judges decided to hear the case sitting together, and with a vote of 2622-1208, voted to invalidate the election result.
The federal government, outraged, put another referendum.
This one stripped power from the Supreme Constitutional Court to invalidate the results of referendums.
It passed with 70% of the vote with a 99% turnout.
Voting was mandatory, with severe punishments for those who didn't vote, so it's no wonder turnout was so high.
The states challenged it, and the same result as before: the Supreme Constitutional Court invalidated the results.
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This ruling was extremely contentious. Many argued the court lacked the authority to invalidate the results, as the referendum stripped that power.
However, with Rob's soul splits intervention, any talk of disobeying court orders died down.
However, with the Supreme Constitutional Court acting like this, the referendum process became more like a joke.
The Supreme Constitutional Court developed a precedent that granted itself the power to invalidate any law it considers 'unreasonable.'
As for what unreasonable means, it is whatever a majority says so.
Basically, the final word on everything is the court. It was truly outrageous and far from the democracy Rob wanted to experiment with.
So, reluctantly, even Rob has to admit that his design of the Supreme Constitutional Court failed; it granted too much power to states and local governments.
He quickly used his influence and passed another constitutional amendment, creating a process that stipulated that decisions of the Supreme Constitutional Court could be overruled with a supermajority vote of 72% of the voters if the turnout was 90% or above.
The states challenged this constitutional provision, and the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled the provision of the Constitution to be 'unreasonable'!
This decision was so outrageous that even Rob shook his head in disbelief.
The court essentially ruled the Constitution to be Unconstitutional.
Even Rob, who was super lawful and wanted to avoid disrespecting court decisions at all costs, had to admit that if they were to comply with this decision, they would plunge into a dictatorship ruled by some judges.
This time, his soul splits advocated for ignoring the decision.
The court has power as long as other branches respect it. With Rob's splits not respecting the court order, the decision became effectively meaningless.
Another referendum regarding how federal money would be granted passed with 75% of the vote.
The Supreme Constitutional Court ruled it unlawful, but everyone ignored it. Even on the state level, Rob's splits greased things along, so no conflict between state and federal occurred.
All of this made Rob shake his head.
The makeup and system of the government are important, but what is more important are the people occupying those positions.
With extremely partisan people sitting on courts as judges, no matter what system, it would fail.
As for appointing 'non-partisan' judges, no such thing exists in reality, but still, there is a difference between 'very partisan' and 'a bit partisan'.
So, he passed another constitutional amendment regarding the appointment of Supreme Constitutional Court judges.
All four layers must agree on qualifications for any judge to be appointed.
The local and state governments couldn't appoint their partisan judges to the court anymore.
However, after a few years, the federal government blocked every judge, hoping the whole court would die out with no new judge being appointed.
Rob changed it again, stipulating that it is enough if only 3 layers agree on a judge.
The result was state, local, and regional governments ignoring the federal government and appointing their partisan judges.
He changed the rules again, passing another amendment that stipulated the four levels of government must agree on judges; if they failed, elected officials would lose their positions.
That changed things!
People are selfish, and so are the politicians; the only way to move things along is by threatening their job security. With this change, they began compromising and appointing judges in a non-partisan way.
Seeing this, Rob nodded and went back to the deep sea.
This time, he will sleep for a very long time.
With his soul split here, nothing would go wrong, and if something beyond their ability happened, they could always notify him.
...
One million years have passed since the dream switch began.
Alex III has been spending all of his time in sleep.
It has been many years since he last woke up. But at this moment, his eyelids twitched, and he woke up.
Looking around, he sighed. His room was as clean as before, with no dust.
The room is isolated from the outside, so no air from the outside can come in.
After all, vampires don't need to breathe, so fresh air is unnecessary.
After standing up, he went to a room and looked at himself. His clothes were in tatters.
A million years is too much, even for clothes made of the best materials.
He went and looked around but found all his clothes were in tatters.
Sighing bitterly, he disappeared.
He should get new clothes.
...
Outside a major city named Blue Blood City, a man with an umbrella in bright white clothes appeared.
It was Alex III!
After so many years, Alex III can now move at 1% of the speed of light!
One punch from him can destroy a big city! His body is so tough that nothing can scratch him. Even he would have to work very hard to draw a drop of blood.
His weakness toward the sun and silver has increased, but fortunately, as the vampire ancestor, they are still primarily annoying, not fatal.
His hunger as a vampire is very slight, with one drop able to keep him satisfied for thousands of years.
He is now closer to a divine being than an evil vampire.
Looking at the city, he laughed.
Now, this land he once ruled is utterly foreign to him.
Time is indeed ruthless; if not immortal, no matter how great, one would be washed away.
As early as hundreds of thousands of ago, all traces of him were gone. All traces of him, books about him, portraits, and everything were destroyed entirely.
Throughout the years, he came out every few thousand years to check the situation, but nothing interesting ever happened.
Alex III has experienced everything this world could offer; nothing exciting is happening anywhere.
"Immortal creatures are cursed!" this thought came to his mind.
He is so bored out of his mind that he wants to punch this world into ruin. Still, he resisted it and took a deep breath.
He still has to wait 11 million years for the world to be realized. The world must not be destroyed before then.
Looking at the gates, he laughed bitterly; everything was different but essentially the same: a traditional medieval city with nothing unexpected.
By this point, all vampires have been bored out of their minds; some buried themselves tens of kilometers beneath the ground and went into a deep sleep.
But, because Alex III ordered them not to commit suicide, they still come out to drink blood once in a while, but only secretly.
As for why they won't go mad and destroy everything, it's because Alex III forbade them from doing it.
Walking toward the city gate, he saw two separate entrances.
One had a blue design and was very clean; the other had a brown design and was dirty.
The blue one was the 'nobles gate,' where nobles enter, and the brown one was for commoners.
Throughout history, no matter how much Alex tried, nobility always found a way to creep back.
Alex III reached the gate.
"Wait! Who are you?" the guard asked vigilantly; Alex III's appearance was suspicious.
Nobles usually have luxurious clothes with flags of their families, but Alex III had bright white clothes and an umbrella on a sunny winter day.
Alex III would have recalled the scene nearly a million years ago when he encountered John if it hadn't been so long ago.
Now, however, Alex III has long forgotten all about John.
Seeing someone a million years younger than him talking rudely to him, he didn't feel annoyed. It's like an ant screaming at you; will you feel annoyed?
"I am King Alex III; go away!" he said, smiling.
He could have gone into the city without anyone noticing, but he didn't; he just wanted to mess around and return to sleep again.
The guard looked doubtful; as far as he knew, the king was called John X.
Still, he didn't risk it, bowed, and then went to his superior.
The main reason was that the bright white clothes and the umbrella, while weird, were of high quality; commoners couldn't buy those.
At the very least, this man is a wealthy noble who is mentally disabled. The poor guard is a commoner, so he cannot risk offending a noble.
After a while, the chief guard arrived.
"You said you are the king?" the man, who had a big mustache, black eyes, luxurious clothes, and the flag of a noble family on his chest, asked.
In general, any commander is chosen exclusively from nobels.
"Yeah, I'm King Alex III, about a million years older than you!" Alex III said.
The guard looked blankly for a few moments before laughing loudly.
"Yeah, sure! Go away before I arrest you for insulting our king, John X," the guard said while laughing.
Alex III sighed.
This is what he means when he says everything is boring. He has no opponent in the world and so no purpose. He can punch the guard to pieces with his pinky, but so what?
There is no point even to respond.
Therefore, he turned around and began walking away. He would go back to his refuge to sleep for millions of years, waiting and waiting for the world to be realized.
The guard looked in surprise. He didn't expect the crazy man to turn around and leave so easily.
He called out, "Hey, wait!"