The Case Against Conspiracy (short story)

The Case Against Conspiracy was a short story written by Peter Guy and illustrated by Aristide Twain. Part of The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, it opened the series' 2021 Advent Calendar. Jenny Everywhere did not appear, but Jenny Anywhere was mentioned.

Around the Christmas period, after becoming convinced that A Christmas Carol was written by apes, Conspiracy-1263 decides to prove it by replicating the experiment. Stealing a Fog Ship, he gathers large amounts of apes and monkeys, as well as typewriters, on the uninhabited planet Reichenbach IV. As well as setting a large contingent onto the task of writing A Christmas Carol from scratch, he also assigns a division to replicating the works of William Shakespeare. The former fail utterly, but curiously, the result of the latter experiment matches the text of a play indeed published in the First Folio of 1623, a comedy named The Christmas Cacophony.

This is because, after the work is complete, Conspiracy travels to the Interdimensional Tavern, where he meets the Multi-Coloured Medic, an eccentric interdimensional traveller known to the Crew for often hanging around in the 17th century of various Prime -adjacent universes. They get to talking, bonding over being decried as reckless and mad by their home civilisations. The Medic reveals that she has access to a time machine from her home universe, intended for transtemporal tourism. This machine normally doesn't allow the occupants to impact history, but she's been tinkering with hers to push those limits. He gives her the manuscript which he insists perfectly mimicks Shakespeare's style and the Medic dashes off.

Eventually, back in the Homeworld, Conspiracy is interrogated by Judicator-337 to ascertain quite what happened. The Department of Festivities' Prefect, Celebration-665, intercedes on Conspiracy's behalf and he gets off without punishment for his mischief, since it was all done in good faith. The Department of Zoology take charge of Conspiracy's “writers”. Meanwhile, the Department of Documentation, and a Recorder Cupid in particular, are tasked with writing up an Incident Report on the affair; the transcript of Conspiracy's interview with Judicator contains blanked out portions, however, which the Department of Discipline refuses to explain satisfactorily. It is clear that the Medic, at Conspiracy's request, changed the Prime Universe's history to have the gibberish written by his monkeys published in the First Folio.

A hidden addendum to the Incident Report explains that the Department of Discipline is well-aware of this, but have chosen to mysteriously redact those parts of the document, and classify the Incident Report as if it were about some high-profile threat, in order to allow the Department of Literature their fun trying to make their own theories about The Christmas Cacophony.

Worldbuilding

Jenny Anywhere

The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids are aware of a Jenny Anywhere as a “neutral party” relative to themselves.

Universes

The framing device of this story takes place in the Cupid Homeworld.
Conspiracy-1263 travels to Reichenbach IV in an unidentified universe.
After meeting with Conspiracy at the Interdimensional Tavern, the Multi-Coloured Medic alters the history of the Prime Universe.
The Medic is usually active around “Prime-adjacent” universes' Earth.
The Third Universe is mentioned.

Other

Larrikin-1029, Conspiracy-1263, Robespierre-1665, Gaius-816 and Conquest-932 form the Triangular Society.
The Incident Report is filed next to the files on the Codex Document and the Decade Stone, both apparently extremely dangerous or sensitive items.
Conspiracy used to be the Prefect of the Department of Conspiracy Theories.
The Crew's Department of Journalism create the Cupid Courier.
Philatel-426 once met the Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present and Ghost of Christmas Future from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.
The Department of Transportation usually handles the allocation of Fog Ships. The Department of Technological Advancement once created a sentient Fog Ship.
The Cupid Homeworld includes the Mainland Cloud.
There are a number of travellers who are neutral towards the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids and deemed possible Hyper-class threats if they should become hostile to the Crew. They include Century Smith, the Infinite Buccaneer, a person whose name is redacted from the Third Universe, and Jenny Anywhere.

Continuity

The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids used to own “chronicles of the Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles' complete history”, but the documents ceased ever to have existed, implicitly having been removed from Time by the Collective themselves to preserve their secrets. Similar facts were previously hinted at in PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker.
Century Smith, also seen in PROSE: Century Smith and the Time Terror, is an interdimensional traveller of whom the Crew are aware.

Behind the scenes

Read online

This story is available online on the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids website.