Phone Calls
This isn't a proper fanfiction with proper plot, characters, or anything like that. It's more of a philosophical musing over CoE and its limitations. It came out of a conversation over precisely why TW:CoE could never have worked on an international level (or any sort of level if one gave just a smidgeon of thought to it). It's just a fact that not every country would be willing to give 10% of any part of their population no matter how high the resultant death tolls climbs. And that's really where CoE fails in the plot. It's all predicated on the fact that everyone will agree to those terms and that just will not happen.
It works best if you read it in the style of an old Bob Newhart comedy phone bit.
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Smith the Bureaucrat hung up with the Isle of Man. It had been relatively, supremely easy to get their acceptance of the situation. They were still dominated by the British after all, so it wasn't that difficult. 1,403 children to be rounded up and delivered to England in 24 hours. Ireland had been a bit trickier, but 98,738 kids were also being packed and sent on their un-merry way.
Breathing deeply, the man went down to the next country on the list, dialed the given number, and waited for their secretary to pick up. After making his diplomatic introductions, he waited patiently for their prime minister to answer…
"Thank you very much for taking this call on such short notice, Prime Minister. I know you're a very busy man, but there is something that we need to discuss today…. Yes, we wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't important... Well, here's the issue. There's this alien threatening to kill all of humanity unless we hand over ten percent of all prepubescent children to them in about one day... Well, you see, it's these aliens that want them... No, you can't just hand over the Palestinian kids... Yes, offering 20% of their children would be immensely appreciated, but that would be absolutely unfair and probably against some kind of law... Well, let me tell you what we've done. We compiled a list of our own children using school test scores and income level areas as the basis for culling- I mean selection... What's that you say? Eugenics? That's a thing? I see... Well, you see, the one time we decided to stand up to them, they gassed an entire building full of people... I know! It was awful. Bodies everywhere. You wouldn't believe the clean up involved…. "
Smith listened intently a bit longer, nodding his head, slowing as the phone conversation continued. He finally managed to hang up, inhaled deeply. Took a minute for himself.
Picked up the phone again, dreading the next conversation. "Yeah… Israel says no… Well, he told us to 'go fuck ourselves.' I took that as a 'no,' but maybe we could work something out…. Yes, we could give them some time for it to sink in…." Smith finally hung up, wrote "call back later" next to Israel, picked up the phone, and began dialing Italy.