The Local System Administration

45:2.1The chief ex­ec­u­tive of a lo­cal sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds is a pri­mary La­non­an­dek Son, the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign. In our lo­cal uni­verse these sov­er­eigns are in­trusted with large ex­ec­u­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, un­usual per­sonal pre­rog­a­tives. Not all uni­verses, even in Or­von­ton, are so or­ga­nized as to per­mit the Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns to ex­er­cise such un­usu­ally wide pow­ers of per­sonal dis­cre­tion in the di­rec­tion of sys­tem af­fairs. But in all the his­tory of Neb­a­don these un­tram­meled ex­ec­u­tives have ex­hib­ited dis­loy­alty only three times. The Lu­cifer re­bel­lion in the sys­tem of Sa­ta­nia was the last and the most wide­spread of all.

45:2.2In Sa­ta­nia, even af­ter this dis­as­trous up­heaval, ab­so­lutely no changes have been made in the tech­nique of sys­tem ad­min­is­tra­tion. The pres­ent Sys­tem Sov­er­eign pos­sesses all the power and ex­er­cises all the au­thor­ity that were in­vested in his un­wor­thy pre­de­ces­sor ex­cept for cer­tain mat­ters now un­der the super­vi­sion of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers which the An­cients of Days have not yet fully re­stored to Lanaforge, the suc­ces­sor of Lu­cifer.

45:2.3The pres­ent head of Sa­ta­nia is a gra­cious and bril­liant ruler, and he is a re­bel­lion-tested sov­er­eign. When serv­ing as an as­sis­tant Sys­tem Sov­er­eign, Lanaforge was faith­ful to Mi­chael in an ear­lier up­heaval in the uni­verse of Neb­a­don. This mighty and bril­liant Lord of Sa­ta­nia is a tried and tested ad­min­is­tra­tor. At the time of the sec­ond sys­tem re­bel­lion in Neb­a­don, when the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign stum­bled and fell into dark­ness, Lanaforge, the first as­sis­tant to the erring chief, seized the reins of gov­ern­ment and so con­ducted the af­fairs of the sys­tem that com­par­a­tively few per­son­al­i­ties were lost ei­ther on the head­quar­ters worlds or on the in­hab­ited plan­ets of that un­for­tu­nate sys­tem. Lanaforge bears the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the only pri­mary La­non­an­dek Son in all Neb­a­don who thus func­tioned loy­ally in the ser­vice of Mi­chael and in the very pres­ence of the de­fault of his brother of su­pe­rior au­thor­ity and an­te­ced­ent rank. Lanaforge will prob­a­bly not be re­moved from Je­ru­sem un­til all the re­sults of the for­mer folly have been over­come and the prod­ucts of re­bel­lion re­moved from Sa­ta­nia.

45:2.4While all the af­fairs of the iso­lated worlds of Sa­ta­nia have not been re­turned to his ju­ris­dic­tion, Lanaforge dis­closes great in­ter­est in their wel­fare, and he is a fre­quent vis­i­tor on Uran­tia. As in other and nor­mal sys­tems, the Sov­er­eign pre­sides over the sys­tem coun­cil of world rulers, the Plan­e­tary Princes and the res­i­dent gov­er­nors gen­eral of the iso­lated worlds. This plan­e­tary coun­cil as­sem­bles from time to time on the head­quar­ters of the sys­tem—“When the Sons of God come to­gether.”

45:2.5Once a week, ev­ery ten days on Je­ru­sem, the Sov­er­eign holds a con­clave with some one group of the var­i­ous or­ders of per­son­al­i­ties domi­ciled on the head­quar­ters world. These are the charm­ingly in­for­mal hours of Je­ru­sem, and they are never-to-be-for­got­ten oc­ca­sions. On Je­ru­sem there ex­ists the ut­most fra­ter­nity be­tween all the var­i­ous or­ders of be­ings and be­tween each of these groups and the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign.

45:2.6These unique as­sem­blages oc­cur on the sea of glass, the great gath­er­ing field of the sys­tem cap­i­tal. They are purely so­cial and spir­i­tual oc­ca­sions; noth­ing per­tain­ing to the plan­e­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion or even to the as­cen­dant plan is ever dis­cussed. As­cend­ing mor­tals come to­gether at these times merely to en­joy them­selves and to meet their fel­low Jerusemites. Those groups which are not be­ing en­ter­tained by the Sov­er­eign at these weekly re­lax­ations meet at their own head­quar­ters.