by DIMSUM AGGLOMERATIZATONALISTICALISM, Alternate Reality News Service International Writer
Above the stage at one end of the hall hangs a banner that reads, "Free Scotch!" As the man on the stage starts talking about the advantages of Scotland becoming an independent nation, the packed house becomes restless. When he runs a series of short videos taken from Home Universe GeneratorTM searches that show an independent Scotland as a place of eternal sunshine (even at night - sort of like the North Pole, but with fewer soccer hooligans), children happily playing unidentifiable games with sticks and armadillos in the streets, and tattie scones for everybody, members of the audience start to boo and hiss loudly.
"Tough crowd," the man, Angus Burrsides, comments. When somebody angrily points to the sign above his head, he considers it for a moment before responding, "Oh. I think I see where the confusion lies, here..."
The road to Scottish independence is full of sinkholes.
Scotland has been part of the United Kingdom since...long before Wiwipedia. Some Scots have a problem with this.
"We wanna declare Bill Forsyth a national treasure, but how can we when we don't have a proper nation?" Director of Recruitment, Refreshments and Recriminations for the Scottish Independent Puddin' Movement Madeleine Grrf plaintively explained. Explaintained. "Oh, and we have our own legal system and oil revenues. Those would, I imagine, be important considerations for some people."
Opposition to Scottish independence has also relied on video taken from a Home Universe GeneratorTM, which was incorporated into a television ad portraying a smoldering Glasgow being overrun by seven foot aliens wearing strange masks with braided hair (this is not a writing mistake: the ambiguity was intentional because it was hard to tell from the grainy images whether the hair was attached to the masks or the aliens' heads). "Scottish independence," a gloomy voice-over narrator intoned. "Can we risk it?"
"Ah, well, fair comment, right?" Angus Sweetie, leader of the pro-UK group Hang Together, asked. Under a barrage of complaints from pro-independence groups and science fiction clubs, Hang Together relented, replacing those ads with images taken from other Home Universe GeneratorTM searches that included: moviegoers in Aberdeen kissing the feet of a six foot tall mouse; a long lineup outside a Scottish Social Services Council office of people in mouse costumes; and a baby's arm holding an apple. With a mouse's tail sticking out of it.
Obviously, both sides in the independence debate are gooseberrypicking (because cherries are not native to Scotland) images from Home Universe GeneratorTMs that support their position. As the country headbutts (some of the debates have been especially lively) towards a referendum on independence on September 18, is this helpful?
"Och aye, nay," said Angus McFuss-Potts, professor of Political Snap Judgments at the University of Edinburgh, "Ye dinna ken the momentous meanin' multiverse maunderin's. No one can. Ken, ah mean."
Okay, that answer definitely wasn't helpful. "You'll have to forgive old Angus," said Rosemarie Perth-Dundee, Professor of Political Not Rushing to Judgment at the Dundee-Perth Polly Wanna Cracker Technic Institute. "He's a bit of an Ayr-head." Perth-Dundee was, of course, referring to the city of McFuss-Potts' birth. At least, she was if she was being professional about this.
The problem with Home Universe GeneratorTMs is that you can find a universe that can justify just about any course of action you want to take (the only exception, for some reason, being entering the Iraq War - that never ends well!), so it doesn't actually prove anything. Nonetheless, people often use Home Universe GeneratorTMs to score points in political debates, tending to find the most extreme scenarios.
"I mean, pfft, seven foot aliens wearing strange masks with braided hair that I prefer to believe was attached to their heads? Really?" Perth-Dundee scoffed. Scoffed really hard. Scoffffed. "Who would believe such a thing?"
"I'm voting no," said Inverness resident Angus Sheepherder, "because, bad as things are, they would be worse after an invasion of seven foot tall aliens wearing strange masks, no matter where their hair was attached!"
"Okay, that guy," Perth-Dundee allowed. "But, other than him, who would belie - umm, well...okay, perhaps more research is called for..."
Scotland is not the first country to find an independence debate centred around competing Home Universe GeneratorTM images. A referendum for Quebec's independence from Canada, for example, was narrowly defeated because people in the province were convinced by images from a universe where fluffy bunnies hopped all over major city streets, upending bicyclists, who went flying into the air on a regular basis, and getting run over by cars in such great numbers that the roads were too slick to drive on. Thus, the campaign's slogan: "Are you ready for the bunny guts?"
Then, there was the referendum in Ukraine, where images of Russian tanks occupying Kiev led to a resounding defeat. Of course, Russian tanks were eventually sent to occupy Kiev anyway, but this speaks more to the futility of a referendum to break away from a heavily armed thuggocracy than it does to using Home Universe GeneratorTMs in the quest. Maybe not much more, but more.
Although the consequences wouldn't be as dramatic if Scotland gained its independence, it's the focus of this article because...umm...well...it's the one that is happening closest to this news cycle.
"Every nation wants to control its own destiny," Burrsides explaintained. "Scotland doesn't need Mommy England telling us what to spend our allowance on, or when to go to bed or who to go on a date with, especially if it won't let us take the family car because it doesn't trust us not to get sloshed and do something stupid. Really! How does England expect us to grow up if it won't give us some measure of personal responsibility?"
Ignoring Burrsides' obvious parenting issues, I asked why he felt the need to resort to images generated by Home Universe GeneratorTMs - surely, his eloquent argument for independence would appeal to Scots without them?
"Some people had happier childhoods than I did," he darkly stated.