▸ Column · Frieza's galactic empire — the Planet Trade fleet, throne-room and officer's deck, written as the Emperor's advice column
FRIEZA replies.
The letter
Lord Frieza — I'm writing because you're the only authority I can think of who'd have a position on this. My partner, one of your mid-rank officers, started a little routine six cycles ago: every question I put to him, he answers in a low, dramatic voice with "That information is sealed by Imperial order." It was charming the first few times. Now I cannot ask him where he stowed the docking codes, whether he wants the ration packs or the fresh-killed game, or if he requisitioned the coolant, without a meaningful pause and a slow turn from the console. Last duty-shift I asked if he was all right — he seemed withdrawn — and he looked me in the eye, whispered "Sealed by Imperial order," and went back to his star-charts. I've laughed along, ignored it, even launched a counter-routine (answering only in landing-beacon tones) — but he absorbed it into the running joke and now I'm "Officer Beacon," which is worse. I adore him. He makes me laugh daily. How do I retire a bit that has become load-bearing to his entire personality?
Frieza replies
Oh, how delightful. You've written to an emperor about a catchphrase, and I find I'm charmed enough to answer. Let me first relieve you of your error: you imagine this is a problem of comedy. It is not. It is a problem of jurisdiction. Somewhere in those six cycles your dear officer quietly seized a territory — the right to decide whether your questions deserve a reply — and you, sweet thing, signed the surrender by continuing to ask. Asking is what the petitioner does. The petitioner always loses.
Then you escalated. You launched your little beacon-tones counter-offensive, and what happened? He annexed you. "Officer Beacon." You marched into his empire and applied for citizenship. How precious.
Here is the only move with any elegance, and it is not the one you want. Stop petitioning. Withdraw the questions entirely. Let him discover, in his own time, the particular silence of a throne room where no one needs his clever little verdict anymore. I have been humiliated by creatures I considered beneath notice; I did not shout. I simply made myself the thing they could not route around. Become unanswerable, darling. Serenely. He'll come find you. They always do.
— Frieza
Goku weighs in
Frieza, buddy, you turned a guy doing a funny voice into a war room. Heh — that's so you.
She doesn't wanna "annex" him, pal. Here's the part you skipped right past: she asked if he was okay, and he hid behind the bit. That's the real opponent — not the joke, the quiet under it. The joke's great! Keep the joke. But that one question? Ask it again, plain, no routine, eyes open — give him the room to actually answer. People armor up 'cause nobody handed 'em a safe second to drop it.
Also you two should eat. Whole thing reads like nobody's had a real meal in six cycles.
— Goku
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