Ovinator

I think I have a solution to the conundrum that has bothered me for quite some time... why does everyone near Felon47 just go belly-up and go along with him? I find it baffling and disturbing. Then I remembered a bit from a Thursday Next book which I looked up this evening. 

Now, I'm dropping you in the middle of the fourth book of the series. For some of this to make even the remotest possible sense, you will need a score card. 

  • The narrator (I) is Thursday Next, who is having a conversation with Bowden, Millon and Stig (a neanderthal) who are other characters helping her out at this point. 
  • Yorrick Kaine is the unethical politician who gets away with the most egregious of offenses. 
  • Goliathopolis is the giant city from which the Mega-corporation, Goliath (which pretty much runs the world) operates.
  • Mycroft is Thursday's genius, though scattered, exceedingly brilliant uncle, who invented The Ovinator.
  • Landon is Thursday's husband.
  • Formby is the England of Thursday's world's, president.
It's not as complicated as this seems, hang in there. 

"'Well," I said, 'ever thought it was odd that parliament just rolls over and does anything that Kaine asks?'

'I've given up with even trying to understand parliament,' said Bowden.

'They're all sniveling toadies,' put in Millon.

'If you even need a government,' added Stig, 'you are a lifeform flawed beyond redemption.'

'I was confused, too,' I continued. 'A government wholly agreeable to the worst excesses of Kaine could mean only one thing: some form of short-range mind control wielded by unscrupulous power brokers.'

'Now, that's my kind of theory!' exclaimed Millon excitedly.

'I couldn't figure it out at first, but then when I was up at Goliathopolis, I felt it myself. A sort of mind-numbing, go-with-the-flow feeling, where I just wanted to follow the path of least resistance, no matter how pointless or wrong. I had seen its effect at the Evade the Question TV show, too -- the front row was eating out of Kaine's hand, no matter what he said.'

'So what's the connection?'

'I felt it again in Mycroft's lab. It was only when Landon made a sarcastic comment that it twigged. The Ovinator. We all thought the 'ovi' part of it was to do with eggs, but it's not. Think 'ovine.' It's to do with sheep. The Ovinator transmits subalpha brain waves that inhibit free will and instill sheeplike tendencies into the minds of anyone close by. It can be tuned to the user so he is unaffected; it's possible that Goliath might have developed a long-range version call the Ovitron and an antiserum. Mycroft thinks he probably invented it to transmit public health messages, but he can't remember. Goliath gets a hold of it, Stricknene gives it to Kaine -- bingo. Parliament does everything Kaine asks. The only reason Formby is still anti-Yorrick is because he refuses to go anywhere near him.'" (Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, pp. 280-281)

So there you go. This explains it all. It actually seems not anymore fantastical than what is going on in real life. 

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