The story behind the story: e-PLURIBUS

This week, Futures is pleased to welcome back S. R. Algernon, who returns with a fresh take on how to run a country in e-PLURIBUS. Regular readers will know that S. R. Algernon has written several stories for Futures before (a full list is at the foot of this post). You can keep up to date with his latest work by visiting his website or following him on Twitter. Here he reveals what inspired his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing e-PLURIBUS

The origin for this story was rather straightforward. I received a jury summons at one point and reflected on the fact that a group of ordinary people make decisions about the guilt or innocence of a defendant, rather than leaving the decision up to a judge. Considering the challenge of running a country, and the need for a president to represent the people, I thought of a collective presidency that reflected the life experience and thoughts of a sample of the country’s citizens. Once I had the main concept in mind, I thought about how the selection process might work and the problems that might arise. The approach was similar to the one I took in We’ll Always Have Sybaris, published in Daily Science Fiction (30 November 2015). I tried to make the story general enough so that it could apply to any country with an executive branch of government, rather than commenting on any specific president.

Other Futures stories by S. R. Algernon