AAS to Delay Transition of Power

In recent days, many of you may have heard reckless rumors, malicious speculation, and what can only be described as irresponsible gossip regarding the future of the Association of Amherst Students and, more worryingly, my role in it. Let me be perfectly clear. I have no desire for power for power’s sake. I have accepted this burden only because the moment demands a willingness to do what a weaker leader would not.

We live in a time of mounting instability. The senate has become slow, fractured, and vulnerable to procedural obstruction. Committees have multiplied beyond reason. Resolutions have languished in perpetual debate. Voices have been raised. Google Docs have been circulated with increasingly aggressive suggestions. And too many emails have slipped through the cracks. At such a moment, one must ask: is Amherst served by bureaucracy, or by order?

For too long, this campus has suffered under a system that mistakes debate for progress, amendments for achievement, and the ritual transition of power for some sacred democratic principle that must be preserved at all costs. I reject that thinking. The student body did not elect us merely to preside over decline. It elected us to act.

And so, after deep reflection and in consultation with forces far greater than the nonexistent senate Parliamentarian, I have decided that the scheduled transfer of power in a few weeks will be hereby indefinitely postponed.

Effective immediately, I am enacting a full and final reorganization of the Association of Amherst Students. The senate, noble in theory but fatally limited in practice, is hereby dissolved and shall be remade into a new governing body fit for our age: The Amherst-First Galactic Empire.

Under this new order, the inefficiencies of the old republic will at last be swept aside. No longer will student governance be held hostage by quorum issues, muddled minutes, or representatives whose voices emerge in the late hours when they want to go home or before they walk out. No longer will the urgent needs of the student body be delayed by those who believe every question demands a subcommittee, every subcommittee demands a report, and every report demands a follow-up meeting. We shall have decisiveness. We shall have unity. We shall have decisiveness, unity, justice, and security in our new Empire.

The new imperial administration will bring immediate reforms. Student announcements shall be streamlined into clear and loyal communication. The legislative backlog shall be settled through executive decree. The cabinet shall be abolished and existing structures will remain in place only insofar as they are useful to the Empire. Those who prove loyal will have a place in this new era. Those who do not may find themselves reassigned to ceremonial advisory roles on distant and unimportant committees in the Outer Rim of campus life.

Let no one misunderstand me. This is not the death of student representation. It is its purification. I have seen the disorder. I have felt the disturbance in the Force. The time has come not for further discussion, but for rule. With that, I hereby name Ayres Warren ’26 the inaugural Governor-General of our Empire, with complete and total command over the 1st Imperial Regiment, our finest and most lethal force. She will help me oversee the immediate dissolution of the senate, the collection of some of its more thoughtful members for questioning, and begin planning outreach to other student governments across the galaxy for guidance.  

Some have asked by what authority I make these declarations. I answer simply: By necessity, the overwhelming spiritual endorsement of students who are tired of institutional weakness and would frankly prefer one person just decide where the funding goes–true executive authority. Emergency powers, once granted by circumstance, must now be exercised with the seriousness the future demands.

To those who worry that this is overreach, I ask only for patience. History will remember that when the old system faltered, when the senate drifted, when the Republic trembled beneath the weight of its own procedures, I did not stand by. I acted. And as the winner of the Class of 2026 Most School Spirit Award, I needed to act. My fellow students, these changes are not the end of our shared governance. They are its rebirth. A stronger Amherst will rise. A more secure Amherst will endure. A more glorious Amherst will emerge from the ashes of indecision. 

And as my first official act as Chancellor, I have ordered my personal guard to arrest and jail the traitor viceroy, Phuong Doan of the trade federation, and his sycophants, who have secretly been planning to overthrow me in an act of disgusting treason. He is no longer a threat and will stand trial in the near future to face judgment. He was holding us back, and with him gone, the old regime can finally end, and the dawn of a new era is born.

Let these actions be met with thunderous applause.

The Association is dead.

Long live the Empire.

Shane Dillon

Chancellor of the Amherst-First Galactic Empire