THE SUPERBLOC

"The Superbloc stands stagnant in the face of entropy!"

"Back in the Superbloc we don't need apology cards, only ruthless self-criticism."

We should see about getting the Reality Situation to air in the Superbloc.

"Has a guy from the Superbloc spoke to you recently? Suit, glasses, bald spot."

It's the bullet hole from Nestor's shot at the Superbloc treaty.

"And what has communism done for the people of the Superbloc? Single ply toilet paper, one-bedroom apartments. You talk of materialism but where is the material?"

So, I'm seeing the day Nestor broke with the Superbloc.

It's fine, they're comrade ghosts, from the Superbloc.

"He promised us Nestorismo. A new type of politics, his own invention. A middle ground between the Developed World and the Superbloc."

"Ha! It was Nestor who turned his back on the unions, the factory workers, the Superbloc."

"About the Superbloc? No... yes! After Nestor turned against communism, we started pulling up the Palace with our little speakers, singing and dancing to anything that mentioned Kohila or the Superbloc."

"To help him get his confidence up! Poor thing didn't have a single order, wasn't ready for these jackals out here. They still do things by the old ways in the Superbloc, menina. Traditional ways."

"What trouble? There was no trouble with him. It's his first time out of the Superbloc you know, you should take him to see some sights!"

"The Superbloc came to visit. We were all supposed to listen to some song in Nestor's office -- but then the bastardo opened fire on their treaty and threw us all out!"

"You were going to tell me about my colleague from the Superbloc."

One hit wonder by the False Midnights, who were blacklisted in the Superbloc for the song's irreverent lyrics about dating a communist girl. This only made the song more popular among Novessa's youth.

"Did you dance to any songs about the Superbloc when you were young?"

"Nestorismo happened. He invited everyone from the dye and silk unions and the Superbloc just for us to watch him turn his back."

"From the Superbloc, eh? Interesting... but no."

"I'm looking for a colleague -- a sock importer from the Superbloc. He may've been using that payphone."

In the Superbloc, it's farewell 'Perpetual Revolution' and hello 'pragmatic market reforms' and 'freedom of assembly'.

"You sure? A man from the Superbloc, probably asking a lot of questions?"

"I'm not even really here -- I'm currently on a long haul flight back to the Superbloc."

"Sock merchant. From the Superbloc."

"Turns out the Superbloc's material support is mostly theoretical."

"I'd advise you to burn it but the fumes from the Superbloc-quality plastics may kill us all."

"Oh, oh, reactionary, am I? Very clever, very original." He yells to the hallway, "You want the Superbloc delegation to see this slander?! We only have one bathroom, you fools!"

"The Superbloc. Their spy service, the Opera, isn't that how they call it."

"Do you think she was really spying for the Superbloc?"

"I'm from the Superbloc. Deeply repressed people."

"He wants me to get him out of jail. Send him to the Superbloc."

"How many tonnes of cotton did the Superbloc export last year?"

You once heard an old hand say that the Superbloc is short of many things -- transistors, cathode ray tubes, silicon wafers -- but it's never been short of brave idiots.

"You could have guessed that one from ideological context. Of course the Superbloc produces only one grade."

"I'm a sock trader from the Superbloc. I'm afraid there's been a terrible mistake."

"Where's the Superbloc in all this?"

The master treaty that Ended History and stagnated all current world affairs, signed ninety-six years ago by the Developed World and the Superbloc.

Young Carmuna races into the room, the Superbloc accented man's package in both hands. She's flushed, hurrying.

"Sweet Nestor cancelled a listening party and shot at a treaty with the Superbloc."

"Saw Nestor refusing to give a speech for the Superbloc ambassador."

"That's a clear picture, now! The Superbloc ambassador comes to Portofiro with a song, Nestor rejects them, a man gives a package to a woman, she sends it away in the tubes..."

"No way. The song is too bright, too alive! It has something to do with the Superbloc..."

"Again with the Superbloc." She looks up to the ceiling. "What are you trying to tell us?"

One hit wonder by the False Midnights, who were blacklisted in the Superbloc for the song's irreverent lyrics about dating a communist girl. This only made the song more popular among Novessa's youth.

You're an operant, a spy for the Superbloc, your actions are not yours -- they are the will of the People.

THAT IS THE RISK YOU TOOK THE MOMENT YOU LEFT THE SUPERBLOC, AND THE REASON THE OPERA KEEPS A SPECIAL TAB ON YOU.

"Portofiro should join the Superbloc, become a proper People's Republic."

This may, perhaps, prove to be the Superbloc's final and most dramatic own goal.

Is it, you know, the Superbloc and the Developed World, the power-people? Or do you think it's the regular people who never bother to read the fine print of their own existence?

"It's not like here or in the Superbloc, Hershel. My new employers do not fuck around. They have cameras everywhere, taking photographs with this exact film."