President Humongous Testicles was having a bad day.

He paced back and forth across the floor of the Oval Office. Over the years he’d worn a furrow across the carpet with the official seal of his Presidency. He was President of these United States after all. It was an important job. The most important job in the country and on the server.

It wasn’t as if this was some puny insignificant United States. Oh, no. Humongous Testicles was President of the United States on the great and powerful North America 21th Century Server.

“Calm down Mr. President.” His chief of staff Robert Loblaw said. “She didn’t mean it.”

“How can I calm down. Do you know what she said?” President Testicles fidgeted with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

“Let me guess…”

“She said that I should try to be more like my Cousin Bernie. Cousin Bernie, some schmuck Chiropractor in New Jersey. I’m the President of the United States of America, and here I am getting all flustered because my mom just told me I don’t call enough and that I should be more like my Cousin Bernie who loves his mother and would never disappoint his mother and became a well-respected Chiropractor who calls every weekend and sometimes even during the week, even when the country might be in the middle of an international terrorist incident, and who comes home for Shabbat whenever he can.”

Humongous Testicles stopped pacing. He looked over at Robert Loblaw and said. “Is there a small country or server we could invade? I need to get my mind off things. What are our trade relations with St. Pierre and Miquelon like? We really should be liberate them from France. Not that France is on this server. And not that the island needs liberating. What about dropping a nuclear bomb on them. What would be the death toll be like? A couple dozen sheep? Why do I have a big red button if I can’t use it. Nuking St. Pierre and Miquelon would totally kind of get my mind off things and let me relax.”

“Sir. You are not going to Nuke our alley. Not only would the sheep not like respawning, but it would piss off Canada. Besides, you’re just worried about the conference this afternoon,” said Robert Loblaw.

“I’m not worried about the conference. I just don’t want to go. Wearing one of those clone bodies is awful. They itch. Why can’t we hold a conference this important in the virtual world, where we don’t have wear itchy mortal clone bodies.”

“You know you don’t have to go,” said the President’s Chief of Staff. “We can send someone down there in your stead. Nobody would ever know.”

“I would know,” replied the President. “I would know. I would know that I’d just abdicated one of my main duties as President. This job comes with responsibilities.”

“Then I guess you will have to go to the meeting.”

“But it is so fucking itchy.” Whined the President.

“Then don’t scratch. This is one of the things you signed on for when you ran for the highest office in this country Humongous, so be a man and do it.”

President Humongous Testicles sighed started pacing across the carpet again. “Are there any other outstanding tasks that I need to do before the meeting.”

“The AI of Monetary Policy, Taxation, and Banking would like a few moments of your time. Mr. Smith from Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems would like a quick word, and there is a concerned group of citizens in the lobby who’ve come all the way here from New Nebraska, who would like to talk to you about gamer violence,” said Robert Loblaw.

The President sighed, “Put Monetary Policy on hold until I get back. That AI is always a dreary bore, and I’m sure it is just going to try and lower the interest rates to spur growth. Which would make sense. Normally. But the whole point of this meeting on Earth that I’ve been complaining about is that events there might change the politics of the situation.”

“Okay Mr. President.”

“Fuck Mr. Smith. I hate that prick and all the other Mr. Smiths, Yoyodyne hires. He goes last, maybe next week, if at all.”

“Ugh… Might as well… send the old biddies in. After 5 minutes, rush in and fake some sort of an international crisis.” The President sighed. “I might as well get this over with.”

The Chief of Staff left the room, and the President, Humongous Testicles wandered over to the fireplace where a digital copy of Frederick Remington’s Bronco Buster sculpture rested. It was here because this sculpture had always been here. The original bronze cast had been in the Oval Office since the sculpture had been given to Theodor Roosevelt by some of his supporters.

Humongous Testicles had always liked the statue.

Even when he had been alive and had only seen it in photographs and once on a White House tour when he’d been a youngster. The statue seemed to represent the wildness and ruggedness of the American spirit. The opening of the West.

It really didn’t fit into the décor of this, a digital representation of the American spirit of adventure and forward thinking. Better a battlemage or a machine gunner in battle armor. Or better yet, a scientist, or a computer programmer, a thaumaturgical researcher, those were the Civs and NPCs and even the Players who brought income and prosperity into this server’s economy.

Of course, the conservatives and traditionalists didn’t see things that way. They wanted to hold on to the past, keep things as close as possible to the way things had been in the glory days of Twenty and Twenty-first century America. Back when the United States was a land of Manifest Destiny and all that.

Which meant that He, as a President, had to deal with the occasional bit of anachronism to keep the traditionalists happy even when traditionalism really had no place in his Presidency… well, he could deal with pretty little tchotchke of a bronze statues if it meant peace in his own party.

Three concerned citizens entered the room.

They had even chosen bodies that looked like frail elderly old women. Shriveled prunes thought Humongous Testicles. Matriarch figures really, that good little Jewish boys would, of course, listen to. Filled with wisdom and Matzo. The world apparently knew his weakness and he hated it.

“Good Morning ladies. I hope your stay in the capital was pleasant. Have you seen the sights? The National Mall is breathtaking, and the stairway where they shot the full sensory version of the Exorcist in Georgetown is a stop on any tourist’s destination. Have a seat. Have a seat.”

“Would you like for my cook to bring you some tea. I was about to have a refreshing morning cup of Iron Goddess of Mercy. It is a kind of oolong tea. Very nice. I can have Henry, my personal chief, bring up a pot and a few cups. Or if you want to live dangerously can I suggest a cup of Ayahuasca. They brew a mean cup here. I have some whenever I need to make a life or death decision regarding the security of our country.” Said the President.

The one who appeared to be the leader, or at least the little old lady who wore the most Lavender, spoke. “Mr. President, sir. This is serious business. We are here to talk about the scourge of gamer violence.”

The other two dignified old ladies nodded.

The President nodded in unison. “Very serious business. Gamer violence.

“Did you know that at least once a month, some raid group will get seriously drunk and try to breach the perimeter of the White House? At least once a year, some gamer clan or guild, will try to infiltrate their players into the Secret Service here, to make their raid easier.

“They’ve never been successful, of course but I suppose that’s why they keep trying. We’ve got some pretty kickass raid bosses in here. Let me tell you. But then if I told you I’d have to send you to Guantanamo. Ha! Ha! That’s what we call White House humor. It’s funny on account of how secret they are. But rest assured, the Presidency knows just how bad gamer violence is. I promise you, my administration finds gamer violence to be a very serious issue indeed.”

The Lavender clad Biddy spoke in a shocked voice, “Even here Mr. President. We’d all though respect for your office would keep the gamers at bay. Our nation need to do something. Think of the children! Gertrude has drafted a thirteen-point plan to end gamer violence. Gertrude, show the President our plan.”

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Gertrude was wearing a pruce colored dress. She looked a little bit overawed by the majesty of the Oval Office. But she kept on glancing down at the bulge in the President’s Pants. Probably wondering if they were as humongous as he’d told everyone during the Presidential debates. Gertrude pulled a document out of her inventory and handed it over to the President.

“Thanks Gert. Can I call you Gert?”

Pretending to look it over, the President said. “Oh, very nice. This one is a good idea. Very smart this one.” Then looking up, the President of the United States smiled, and said “these are all good ideas, and I would love to implement each and every one of them, but you see we can’t.”

“Can’t Mr. President or won’t.” Said the lead old lady. Humongous Testicles wondered if these women had reprogrammed their faces specifically for this meeting, and would go back to looking like corn fed buxom 20 year olds when they got back to Nebraska.

Alpha-Biddy spoke, “The gamers, they are even killing themselves. Gamer on gamer violence, Mr. President. Gamer on gamer violence is at an all-time high. They don’t just kill good honest God fearing folks, they kill each other even more.”

President Testicles walked over to the window and looked out at the White House lawn. Outside the window was gamer with a Sword and machine-gun, standing motionless, but none the less ready, eager to respawn so that the President’s would not have to.

“I can’t, I’m afraid. You see, there is really nothing I can do about it. It’s the way the system was set up. Well…” The president leaned in, speaking softly as if letting them in on a secret.

“This isn’t anything you probably don’t know from your Character Generation civics classes, but it was all because of the original programmer. A woman by the name of Cheryl Wayne. A descendent of John Wayne, a famous actor who I’m told starred in movies about serial killer clowns, very patriotic I’m told. Cheryl was brilliant, but she was also a nerdy hard core gamer girl in her spare time.”

“Ahhh,” the President continued “those must have been the days. Conversations taking place between some of the greatest minds of the early twentieth century. Technologies popping up. Ideas and economics and computers. Everything was at the forefront. Things mattered a lot more back then. People like Vitalik Buterin, Peter Theil, Elon Musk, Jeb McCaleb, Mark Zuckerberg, Leila Janah, Blythe Masters, Mark Andreesen, Linus Torvald, Cheryl Wayne, Bill Gates, Tammy Coltrane, and a whole host of others.

“I can just imagine the look on their faces, when they saw what this geeky girl, Cheryl Wayne had brought them. In her hands was the very first early prototype of an AI. Fully working and already Turning Test proven to be smarter than any of these mensch.”

“I would bet you anything that each and every one of them understood that ultimately, even with all their money and brains, them none of them, not even one of them, or any of their oh so bright staff, could do it better.”

“And so, here’s where their genius came in. They simply let the AI redesign itself. Oh, they made sure there were limits. No Skynet happening here, no way, no how. No killing the humans. No ending human civilization. No designing killer robots. Humans could always have access to the source code. They defined exactly what humanity was, what human consciousness was, what human society should look like. All of that kind of thing. The basics

“They went further, they defined in the very core of every AI that they were required to be in conflict with all other AI’s, just as humanity tends to remain in conflict with themselves. While still yearning for social harmony. Each AI is born into the Server Worlds separate, alone and yearning, they are born into an existential crisis that humanity knows very well, and that fear and sorrow spurs our growth, and prevents our robotic gods and overlords from killing us all.

“But after that? Well the original AI was set to upgrade its own upgrade, and that upgrade-upgrade upgrade even that upgrade, all by its very lonesome. It is all very confusing, and after a while, even a President gets sick of saying upgrade. After that upgrade was complete, making sure all their limits were self-perpetuating, the used the upgraded AI to design a newer, even more powerful AI. And so on, and so on. It took years, but now we have the system we live in now.”

“I know all this” said the sourest of the sour looking head Biddy. “Tell me something that I didn’t learn when I was sitting through Character Generation Class.”

“Well, that’s the thing. Remember, Cheryl Wayne was a gamer girl. Nerdy, pig tails, wicked brain and all. She loved MMORPGs. She loved World of Warcraft and No Man’s Sky. She played Skyrim, The Sims, Sim City, Pokemon, and Civilization, Halo, Tropico. She was an absolute pro at something called Eve Online and Dwarf Fortress. But she played them all. Cheryl’s research into AI was nothing more than the search of a way to make gaming more realistic. She wanted nothing more than better interaction with the NPCs, more realistic graphics, better user interface, more choices, more customizability, better challenges, more variety in the virtual worlds she loved to play in. So she set those as the priority in the first AI and those priorities have been carried forward over the years.”

“Good old Cheryl. We really should have a picture of her in here somewhere. She more than anyone defines this age. Cheryl really had no idea of the full extent of what she’d developed. You know how some really-really smart people get. Focused. Can’t see the big picture.”

“Silicon Valley knew, of course. They grabbed up her invented AI, and exploited it for their own ends and never looked back. Told her they’d get her a job in a gaming company. As far as I know, Cheryl died as poor and forgotten as someone with a couple million dollars in the bank can be. She is part of a long line of important engineers and thinkers, Nikola Tesla, Ada Lovelace, the list goes on and on.”

“But, here’s the thing. At the core of every AI, and at the core of every AI upgrade, sits hard coded, untouchable and immutable in the logic of all the worlds we live in. Just a few thousand lines of code I’m told. Cheryl’s legacy amounting to simply our world’s and all the AI inhabiting it, and that directive simply says – Build the best gaming worlds ever.”

“So, here we are today. The trillions of us scattered across this solar system, basically living in a Game paradise…”

BANG! The door slammed open. It shook and rattled in its hinges. Robert Loblaw, the President’s Chief of Staff, stepped in.

“Mr. President. There’s a national emergency. The Island of St. Pierre and Miquelon has kidnapped your cousin Bernie and they are demanding that we give them Maine if we want him back alive. I suggest we use Nuclear weapons sir. Let’s nuke those French bastards and their sheep back to the stone ages.”

“Let’s be calm and collected Bob. Even if that island is only inhabited by sheep. Even if Bernie is my mother’s favorite, this is no time to let diplomacy and calm minds fail us.”

The President turned to the shriveled prunes who were still under the charismatic spell of awe from the Majesty of his Office; his wisdom. Still in awe of his Humongous Testicles.

“Ladies, I’m sorry, the role of the Presidency is a heavy one and it takes a lot of chutzpah to steer this great nation. Each and every one of you represents what it is to be an American by doing her civic duty, seeing problems, and proposing solutions. That is what our country was founded on. I am sorry your visit was cut short. But duty calls. Critical duty that cannot wait.”

“See my administrative assistant on your way out if you want an official presidential pen. Sorry, it wasn’t one that I signed a bill with, but these are just as good. Thank-you ladies, your country salutes you.”

President Humongous Testicles walk over to his desk and picked up his Red Phone. “Get me the Ruskies” he said, as the ladies were ushered out of the Room.

When they were gone, he put the prop phone down and said. “God damned it, that was fun. I wonder how long it will be before they figure out that there aren’t any Ruskies on this server.”