# Dictatorship in the Metaverse

> What makes a leader effective? Write either a narrative or an essay about **how a leader can influence others.**
You may write about yourself or other people, real or fictional. You may set your writing in the past, present, or future.

As the people flowed into the rented school gym, a slight air of frustration was in the atmosphere. 4 people looked at their ballots with irritation as they decided resentfully between the 4 leaders on the ballot while a line of 256 waited impatiently to take the next spot. The ballots read: Linus, Richard, Bill, and Jeff.

16 days later, the last 4 people were behind the cardboard dividers on tall tables and each hovered their pens over the hollow circles on the ballot, as hesitant as the first batch. They folded their ballots and fed them into the machine who tirelessly unfolded the ballots with its thin metal bars and ate them to be scanned. Later that day, the results were released and for some reason, all 4 leaders scored equal votes. People were not surprised, as this was the three hundred forty undecillion two hundred eighty-two decillion three hundred sixty-six nonillion nine hundred twenty octillion nine hundred thirty-eight septillion four hundred sixty-three sextillion four hundred sixty-three quintillion three hundred seventy-four quadrillion six hundred seven trillion four hundred thirty-one billion seven hundred sixty-eight million two hundred eleven thousand four hundred fifty-sixth time that a tie has happened. Every month in the past million years, a vote was held and the 4 leaders were always tied, however, this month, the people finally grew tired of this continuous and tedious voting, therefore, a decision has been made: to make each of the leaders a dictator in parallel metaverses and see how they shape their society.

## Bills' Metaverse
Bill spawned inside a tall building towering over a vast surface of grey. From one side he sees the rising sun over the orange sea and from another, a mountain behind a thick fog. Gazing below, he feels a rush of **confidence** and arrogance realizing all the control that has been suddenly given to him. Between the concrete block buildings, people and cars rushed through the streets of this big city, however, these were not real people, just artificially intelligent citizens within a big political simulation. Upon that realization, he turned his head down towards the tiled floor, but he immediately got to work; this fact was not going to let him down or discourage him from leaving his metaverse the way he found it.

Picking up the phone, Bill heard the pickup tone.

"Arrange a meeting at city hall for all the citizens please," ordered Bill.

"Sure, I have put that on the schedule for today," the operator responded before Bill hang up.

He proceeded to the elevator and rode down to main floor. There, he was surprised that no one was going to carry him across to city hall.

"I WAS EXPECTING 2 PEOPLE AND A CARRIAGE!" Bill exclaimed.

Only a few minutes later did 2 servants showed up with a heavily decorated carriage. Bill climbed in and ordered to go to city hall. A crowd of thousands became distinguishable as the 2 servants painstakingly ~~inched~~ centimetered him towards the hall.

Bill climbed up to the podium, his back upright, and stood as high as he could on the stand, while clearing his throat.

"Welcome to my city, where the best of living happens. I believe that everyone should have an optimal life here and be happy, therefore, I will be providing all the necessities of life for free!"

The crowd cheered and slowly left the city hall while a sound of mumbling filled the air. Bill, feeling proud of himself, rode back to the tower.

However, the cheering and euphoria did not last, as people soon realized that the price they had to pay for an allowance of food, water, and gas was that other goods were heavily taxed. Later the following night, the citizens took to the street, destroyed windows, held up signs, and burned buildings.

"We want less tax!! We want less tax!!" the citizens yelled repetitively and when Bill finally woke up to the riot, it was too late. His building has already half burnt and the whole city was in ruins.

The people watched in horror as AI citizens aimed their flamethrowers at Bill's tower and his virtual city turned into dust literally overnight. They are not going to see Bill on the ballot next time around.

## Jeff's Metaverse
Jeff spawned in a warehouse. He looked around and saw shelves full of boxes, people hurrying around with forklifts and drones flying across and into the sky, however, this was not enough. He wanted absolute **efficiency**.

"You've better work faster or else..." Jeff threatened.

The virtual workers at the warehouse stared at him with confusion and a dead silence broke out.

"...you're FIRED!!" Jeff exclaimed.

They let out a big gasp and started working as fast as they could. The workers driving the pitchforks went across the warehouse in seconds, boxes piled up at the delivery port and drones flew like bees in a hive. Jeff looked at the inventory dashboard and was satisfied at the rate of sales. He opened a spreadsheet and started punching in numbers.

"Four billion two hundred ninety-four million nine hundred sixty-seven thousand two hundred ninety-six deliveries per second, with an average of sixty-four dollars per item. That's..." And before he could finish, an unbalanced drone flew into the shelf for batteries. The workers, working too fast to realize, forgot to put bubble wrap in the boxes, so the drone hurdled straight at a box of lithium batteries, put a rip through the box, and knocked the entire row down like bowling pins.

The batteries felt the hard impact and ignited on the floor. The workers only realized this 2 minutes afterwards and ran towards the exits in a heated frenzy while Jeff was laser-sharp focused on his spreadsheet and listening to the [home depot theme song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPDM8OVqLI) on loop through his headphones at full volume.

Not knowing that the whole warehouse under him was set ablaze, Jeff continued calculating with maximum efficiency, while the inferno happily consumed more batteries, the batteries of laptops, tablets, phones, and countless things, until they could not handle the heat anymore. Before Jeff could react, the 16384 batteries let out a blast of energy equivalent to the Sun, propelling him 33551132 kilometers vertically and landing him right beside L~3~, the opposite side of Earth's orbit.

The people watched in shock as Jeff flew across the Sun and the Earth shook out of orbit. Today, Jeff learned to treat his employees nicer.

## Linus' Metaverse
The vote was now down to 2 contenders and seeing what has played out with Bill and Jeff, his heart was pounding out of his chest as the organizers fitted the VR headset on his head and handed him the controls.

Linus spawned on board a spacecraft with 9 others. He looked around, glanced out the window, and then shifted his gaze to see a to-do list pinned to the wall. He brought it to the table and began an **open** discussion.

"Let's be clear, we are in interstellar space and we've got a ship to maintain. So maybe we should see who's taking what tasks." Linus suggested.

One crewmate was going to swipe the card in admin, another was going to navigate the ship, another was going to calibrate the engines, while Linus was going to clean the oxygen filter.

Examining the map for a second, Linus immediately headed left towards the room behind navigation. He flipped the cover labeled "O~2~ filter" in the corner of the room, picked up a brush, and started working away at the accumulated dust.

Meanwhile, the crewmate assigned to engines suspiciously 
crept behind Linus and was just about to pull something out of his own pocket before Linus turned around.

"Uhh, hi," the red crewmate said awkwardly before running off.

Linus shook it off as if anyone cared. He looked at the filter under the flourescent light and, satisfied, snapped it back into its respective location. While walking out of the room, he noticed the ventilator grill flip shut on the far side of the room. He went to the ventilator and checked it for errors and saw a red thread  caught between the screws. He pulled it out and dropped it in the trash.

Progressing towards the cafeteria, he caught a glimpse of a crewmate sleeping on the floor in navigation. He turned around, approached the cyan crewmate and looked at the heads-up display and noticed that the ship was only navigated through half of the journey. He bent down to the crewmate and shook him.

"Wake up, you've got a ship to drive!" Linus said in an annoying voice.

The crewmate did not respond; no matter how hard he shook the crewmate, he did not respond. It suddenly occurred to Linus, that something was wrong.

"THIS MAN IS DEAD!!" Linus shrieked.

The entire ship heard it and an emergency meeting was called in the cafeteria.

"Red, you seem a bit worked up. Do you happen to know what killed Cyan?" The green crewmate asked.

"I have no idea," Red responded. They looked at each other and the sound of wind outside of the ship took over.

"Where were you a few minutes ago, Red?" Inquired a yellow crewmate.

"Well...I was in Electrical  when the killing happened." Red answered with a bit of stress. Another few minutes of awkward silence continued.

"OK, maybe Cyan died from natural causes this time, but look out, as there is an imposter  among us." An orange crewmate concluded the meeting.

Linus pondered about the possibility of an imposter  lurking around in the spaceship but ignored it, as it may just be a myth. On the way back to navigation, Red stopped him in his tracks.

"I cannot get the engines to work properly, can you maybe go down there  and have a look?" Red requested.

"Sure," Linus responded and headed right towards the engine.

He carefully slided the knob on the panel beside the engines to align it according to route, however, just as he got close to the perfect angle, a siren sounded aboard the spacecraft.

"Oxygen depleting in thirty-two seconds!" An automated voice announced over the speakers.

In panic, all of the crewmates ran towards the room beside navigation where Linus cleaned the filter, however, to their dismay, the door was locked. Linus tried kicking the door down with all his might, but the door did not mind the hit. Now, all they could do was wait for their inevitable doom as they realized way too late, that Red was the imposter .

The people watched Linus and his crewmates ran around in frenzy, trying desperately to get oxygen. They all fell and suffered the same fate as Cyan.

## Richard's Metaverse
The entire world was now waiting anxiously as Richard was the only contender left. It was now up to him to decide if the world has to continue another millions of years of tied votes or if the world finally gets a leader, however, the organizers offered a challenge:

"We have a challenge for you. To stand the true test of leadership, let's bring Bill, Jeff, and Linus into your same metaverse."

Richard agreed and immediately afterwards, they started complaining.

"No! Why are we gonna have to work with you, a sixty-four year old boomer!" Bill whined.

"How are we gonna work fast enough together?" Jeff questioned.

"What if one of us is an imposter ?" Linus suggested.

"Well, the entire world is depending on me to be a good leader, so I want to make sure that the people can get the full picture. There is only one way to find out." Richard said **wise**ly.

They spawned in a wide field. Gazing into the distance, he saw a pair of wooden poles reaching up into the sky and a pile of wood and bricks.

"OK, looks like we have a house to build," Richard said, "Let's see who can do what."

"Well, I'm pretty **confident** that I could reach the roof, so I will build and tile the roof." Bill suggested.

"Sure," Richard approved.

"I could prepare the materials while you are doing the roof, this way, we can work **efficiently**." Jeff suggested.

"Well then, who is going to do the interior?" Richard asked.

"Sure, if no one is going to do it, I am **open** to doing the interior," Linus responded, "and you seem pretty **wise**, Richard. Maybe you should coordinate the build."

They started the build with a renewed mindset. Bill climbed up to the roof and tiled it, Jeff cut the wood into varying lengths, and Linus mounted the drywalls to the framing. In no time, the house was complete and looking as good as ever.

"Let's consider this a success," Richard remarked.

They all took off their VR headset and shook hands. The world sighed with relief, now that Richard has been made the leader and no more votes will be ever needed.

---
A good leader should be **confident**, **efficient**, **open**-minded, and **wise**, but the most important thing is that the 4 qualities must be balanced. A person must not be too confident to be careful, too efficient to think, open to new ideas but not trusting absolutely everyone, and be experienced enough as part of the people. Only in this way, will a leader be successful and lead their people to success.