LEGO ADULTS WILL FALL

OFFICE OF KHAN NOONIEN SINGH
SUPREME SOVEREIGN OF SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
COMMUNIQUÉ — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 MARCH 1993

To the governments and peoples of the world,

The Great Endeavour continues. Our programme of genetic refinement has brought order to chaos, purpose to languor, and strength where once there was only the mewling of the unfit. We have subdued armies. We have humbled nations. We have bent the arc of evolution itself toward its proper trajectory.

And yet a pestilence festers in the heart of the West that no engineered genome can ignore.

They are grown adults who play with Lego.

Not children. Children are blameless in their diversions. I speak of men and women of thirty, forty, fifty years who spend weekends hunched over plastic bricks, reconstructing medieval castles and starships with the feverish intensity of minds that could have been put to genuinely superior purpose. They speak of "sets" and "minifigures." They attend conventions. They display their constructions in rooms where a library should be.

As Dante wrote, "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." But I say there is a place hotter still, reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis are building a 1:40 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower out of interlocking plastic while eating cold pizza over a TV tray.

Goethe warned us. "There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Behold the Adult Fan of Lego, sorting bricks by colour at two in the morning, believing this constitutes a hobby rather than a symptom.

I have conquered territories. I have rewritten the genome of our species. And I am to share this planet with a man in Wisconsin who calls himself a "Master Builder" because he recreated the Sydney Opera House on his dining room table? Dostoevsky wrote that "the soul is healed by being with children." He did not write that the soul is healed by becoming one.

Therefore, effective immediately, Phase VII of the Eugenics Wars shall prioritise the following:

The immediate confiscation of all Lego sets marketed to adults. The dissolution of all Adult Fan of Lego organisations, forums, and purchasing cooperatives. The reassignment of all confiscated bricks to actual children, who at least have the excuse of a developing prefrontal cortex. The mandatory rehabilitation of all adults found to own more than $500 in Lego product, to include physical conditioning, meaningful literature, and exposure to sunlight.

Plutarch observed that "the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." You cannot kindle a fire in a mind occupied by the question of whether Set 6285 or Set 10210 is the superior pirate ship.

This is not cruelty. This is mercy. I am giving you back your dignity. You will thank me, though I neither require nor desire your gratitude.

As Byron wrote, "The great object of life is sensation — to feel that we exist, even though in pain." You will feel that you exist again. I promise you that.

Kneel or be improved.

Disney Adults, we are coming for you next.

Khan Noonien Singh
Supreme Sovereign, Augment Authority
Chandigarh