Monday June 30, 2014
Book 15: Delegates and Delegation — Part II: Conflict

Note: "Prime Tangent" may sound like something from mathematics, but in this context it's more along the lines of "Prime Minister," only instead of describing a primacy of authority, it's a primacy of adjacency. The House of Tangents is a little bit like a gaggle of official lobbyists. They don't vote in any of the assemblies of which they're variously members. They move between them, taking bills, proposals, amendments, and sub-clauses from the Sophonate to the Plutorliament, from the Proletariament to the Congress Pro Rata, shepherding legislation back and forth in a nigh Sisyphean effort to get the polycameral U.N.S. legislature to actually accomplish something.

They can also prevent work from getting done. One definition of the word "tangent" is "distraction." 

Transcript

NARRATOR: Dom Atlantis, Plutorliament Annex, Office of the Prime Tangent...

HABAN: Breya, you'll never guess who's in town.

BREYA: Oh, I love this game.  Could it be Sergeant Schlock?

Perhaps as part of an embassy?  And maybe, because governments exist to institutionalize bad behavior, he's been extended a cloak of diplomatic immunity?

HABAN: I stand by my claim, because obviously you didn't guess.