Herald of Steel



As Alexander wrote his first history book, he somehow felt a surge of power running through him.

Because he knew he was changing history as he did.

What he wrote would be read by a thousand, then another thousand and another thousand, and then spread from mouth to mouth countless more times.

This book would likely be spread throughout the Adhan and Matrak provinces, meaning it would be his version of the story that would be the 'truth'.

After all repeat enough times a lie and it will become the truth.

And as Alexander realized what he was doing, he experienced an exhilarating surge of power, that honeyed power to warp reality to whatever he wanted.

And he found the taste utterly addictive.

No wonder absolute monarchs tended to go crazy with power.

It was too potent a poison.

Even someone well aware of what was happening like Alexander found it very hard to resist.

So how could the other unaware, defenseless mortals even stand a chance?

Now, after experiencing this momentary high, Alexander did work to rein himself in a bit.

Amenheraft and his close allies were still made to look like the bad guys, but those in the periphery were shown to be neutral, while Alexander's own allies were shown to be good, but not saints, their actions neither criticized nor glorified, only dryly mention in a deliberate, monotone fashion.

After all, today's allies might be tomorrow's enemies, especially someone like Ptolomy, and so it would be best if the future bureaucrats of Alexander's regime did not grow to particularly love any side too much. 

For now, Alexander was content with these young children siding with him and seeing others as mostly neutral who could swing either way.

This was currently Alexander's domestic policy.

As for the international one, well the vast majority of the general populace outside of Adhania was mostly shown to be misguided, lost sheep, hoodwinked by the corrupt nobility.

They were portrayed as people not to be hated, but to be liberated from the cruel yoke of their masters.

This narrative was taken of course to make sure if he did conquer and annex any of those lands, the common people there would not be too much discriminated against by the native Zanzan populace.

And as Alexander was writing the school curriculum, he really for the first time understood just how much power the government of his previous life had, being able to shape a growing child's mind through the textbook in whatever way they wished for twelve to sixteen years.

To Alexander it seemed that every single person in the general populace, all around the world was more or less brainwashed by their respective countries in some way or form.

American children are made to swear to the flag at the start of every school day to foster patriotism,  North Koreans are made to think they live in a utopia, and Cubans are taught that communism is the best economic and political ideology there is.

All these various tactics are employed to promote the ruling authority's goals.

This was not to say it was a bad thing per se.

But the realization did make Alexander wonder how much the thoughts people had were really their own, free thoughts, and how much were they influenced by other external interventions, even in the most liberal countries. 

As Alexander understood this, he found it to be actually good news, because remember, he now belonged to the ruling class.

Meaning these tools could be used to shape people to his liking.

Hence this was the current curriculum Alexander set up for the schools for the time being.

Now, some might have noticed, a few key subjects missing there.

And that was because Alexander intended to add them in the following years.

For example, the language and history lessons would stop after two years, and from the third year be replaced with other subjects.

One subject that Alexander intended to add was the natural sciences, which was an amalgamation of all the STEM subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy, Maths, Geology, etc.), all bunched together.

Alexander wanted to wait two years to introduce this because he wanted the students to become a bit more mature, and then he planned to teach the subject two hours a day. 

While in the meantime, he had to decide what to teach them there, or more specifically decide how much of his own knowledge should he transfer.

Because from whatever books Alexander could find about the subject, he found most of them to be utter rubbish.

Physics was the most passable for the time, with a heavy emphasis on the phrase 'for the time' as more than half of it was still garbage, such as believing the world to be flat.

But still, it did describe things like the motion of levers and pulleys well enough, as well as things like how a groma (an instrument for building straight roads) worked, all possible probably because there were real life examples of those principles being used in applications.

Compared to that, biology was ninety percent crap, with all sorts of absurd and illogical descriptions of how a body worked, like how blood flowed through the body like ebbs and tides of seas.

It also tried to mesh everything together, such as trying to relate a healthy living standard with a healthy mind to a healthy diet and getting nowhere.

Then was the attempt to classify birds and animals in absurd ways, like their number of feet or eyes, or body features like tails, hooves, feathers, etc.

The only thing Alexander could find that made sense was the classification of animals by their diet, i.e.- herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore.

In the realms of botany, there was little talk about plants, because of course plants were not seen as living beings.

Though there were a few books describing in very accurate detail the effects of various herbs, which were probably gathered from journals of medical practitioners.

Then there was geology, which tried to classify rocks and metals into various groups, with no real result, just a weird, intangible mix.

Then Alexander found bits and pieces regarding meteorology in one of the books, trying to predict the weather or explain the formation of the rain or snow.

But they failed here miserably as they could not figure out the water cycle, instead hypothesizing that rain was created by huge water sprouts formed in the sea that threw up massive amounts of water into the sky, which was then pushed towards the land by strong winds.

In the case of astrology, well other than naming a few stars, there was almost nothing.

In fact it was even forbidden to study the study as it was seen as trying to peer into the realm of the gods.

And lastly, about chemistry, well the knowledge about that was totally nonexistent.

It was known as alchemy and it had no clue about chemical reactions or why anything happened.

The subject was mostly practiced by quacks or amateurs as a pastime hobby, where the ultimate goal was the delusional idea of turning lead into gold.

Something that would be only possible if lead could be somehow made to fission and decay into gold.

Reading all these bad fiction novels, Alexander had a strong urge to burn them all but ultimately restrained himself.

Instead, he focused on what to teach them.

Should he spoon-feed them everything?

Alexander basically knew the classical physics front to back after all.

Or should he teach them to fish so that they could become a fisherman? 

This was a question that made Alexander ponder for some while with both having its merits and demerits.

The former could accelerate his growth but leave a hollow foundation as many derivations might be missing, leading to mistakes further down the line. 

While the latter would give his educated class a solid foundation, but progress would be much slower.

The trade offs were worth considering very closely.

But after thinking for a while, since Alexander had two years to think about it, he dumped it to the back of his mind for the time being.

Instead, he ruminated on what else to teach the students once they reached the third year, when he intended to increase the school hours by an hour.

Philosophy was a very popular option, as it was a kind of the yardstick used by the educated nobility to judge one's literacy. 

Something, as a side note that Alexander sucked that.

Because Alexander, being from the sciences had an inherent distaste for the arts.

And in that same vein, Alexander did not want to teach his students arts or painting, thinking it was a waste of time.

Something that was consequently very popular with the nobles too.

Alexander also ruled out music or poetry for that same reason.

Instead, he wondered whether he should teach the students economics, which was not a subject yet, to help them become better economic policymakers.

Or teach them accounting to help them keep track of taxes in their jobs.

Or humanities subjects like sociology, political science, or even psychology, all of which had their benefits.

Sociology helped people understand their society and resolve conflicts such as racial tensions, and class inequality peacefully.

The usefulness of a bureaucrat learning political science and how to play the grand game need not be said.

While knowledge about human psychology for a person leading a group of people was an invaluable asset.

There were lots of very good options for Alexander to choose and he struggled to pick only one.

[P.S.- If you had to choose only one subject, which would it be? Comment.]

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