Birthright

...With more than one million worlds under Oligarchic control, it was inevitable that the news media

should take on new power and authority. For the most part this power was used to educate and inform the public, but there were occasional abuses, such as the notorious affair in the Aldebaran system, where the duly-elected Coordinator, Gile Cobart (5406-5469 G.E.), was denied all access to... —Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement ...It was Jorg Bomin (5389-5466 G.E.) who realized to the fullest the power of the media, and proved that, even among such a race as Man, the pen was mightier than the sword. Later discredited by his own race, and even by his own financial empire, the fact remains that it was Bomin who stood alone against the tyrannical regime of... —Origin and History of the Sentient Races,Vol. 8 Cobart had launched another attack, to nobody's great surprise. It was his fifth in four weeks. It wasn't a military attack, for Gile Cobart wasn't at war with any external force. As the duly elected Coordinator of the Aldebaran system, his borders were secured by the greater presence of the Oligarchy. But within the system itself, he reigned supreme. Or, rather, he tried to.

His problem, like that of all political leaders, was the media. His approach to his problem, which made up in forcefulness what it lacked in originality, was to strike out against his critics, castigating them whenever possible and trying to rally public opinion to his side. And in the Aldebaran system, unlike most other worlds where trusts and monopolies were outlawed, he had only one enemy: ASOC, the Aldebaran System of Communications. ASOC controlled, in whole or in part, every newstape, every video and holo channel, and every one of the old-style newspapers. And ASOC didn't like Cobart any better than he liked it. There had never been much love between the two. During the past election, ASOC had thrown up its hands in dismay at the slate of candidates offered, refused to endorse any of them for Coordinator, and sat on the sidelines as the people elected Cobart with a mere twenty-nine percent of the vote. But while he may have had minimal support, once in office he began gathering a maximum of power about him. He was forced to hold, tacitly at least, to the laws of the Oligarchy. But the laws were vaguely worded in many instances, and any man hungry for power could find ample ways to get around them. Such a man was Gile Cobart.

First came a systematic centralization of government. Aldebaran VII was made the capital world of the system, and the seventeen other planets became mere economic satellites. The plights of the native aliens on Aldebaran II, IV, V, and XIII were shunted aside, though given ample lip service. Soon the petty accouterments of dictatorship—brilliantly uniformed bodyguards, refusal to speak to the press, denial of voting rights to previously enfranchised portions of the population, trials of political enemies—began to take shape and form.

Only ASOC stood against him, and he felt it his duty—and his pleasure—to publicly attack ASOC at every opportunity.

ASOC and its chairman, Jorg Bomin, viewed neither the attacks nor the attacker with equanimity. The corporation was the biggest in the system, and its assets were almost as great as the planetary assets of Aldebaran VII. If Cobart had been looking for an opponent worthy of his time and efforts, he couldn't have picked a better one.