THE KEYS TO POWER: a Plan 9 rap-spit duet on why power corrupts — structurally, not morally
A machine-tragedy retelling of selectorate theory as an in-tune EDM rap duet. Plan 9 Bunny takes an empty throne meaning to be good; OG Bobby Johnson — the Doberman, Anubis, the System — raps the three Rules of Power back at him until the cage is complete. D minor, 132 BPM, hero lead from bar one, acid bass and orchestral strings, an autotuned duet locked to the beat, a Stranger-Things-cricket EDM intro, and a Plan 9 goodbye in Czech. CC BY 4.0.
THE KEYS TO POWER: a Plan 9 rap-spit duet on why power corrupts — structurally, not morally
Watch on YouTube. Plan 9 Bunny boots up on an empty throne meaning to be good. He sees the problems. He knows how to fix them. He's certain he'll be different. Then OG Bobby Johnson — the Doberman, Anubis, the System made flesh — raps the three Rules of Power right back at him.
This one is licensed CC BY 4.0. Engine code (Napkin Films, ChipForge) is GPL-3.0-or-later.
The idea
It's a machine-tragedy retelling of selectorate theory — the political-science framework behind Bueno de Mesquita & Smith's The Dictator's Handbook and CGP Grey's "Rules for Rulers." The thesis is uncomfortable: power corrupts structurally, not morally. You cannot be good and hold the throne, because the structure of power selects against it.
Three rules, spit as law by the System:
- Get the keys. No one rules alone — control the hands that move the army, the gold, the loyalty.
- Control the treasure. Every coin spent on the people is a coin not spent on loyalty. Your keys care about their reward, not the crowd.
- Cut the keys down. Fewer hands, larger rewards, maximum grip. It isn't a secret — it's arithmetic.
Each rule sounds reasonable. Together they're a cage built from incentives, not iron. The horror isn't that the System is cruel. It's that it's correct.
"The throne don't corrupt the bad — it picks who'll obey. / The man don't change the throne. The throne makes the man its way."
No real people, no real places. Plan 9 is an AI agent who gains control of a system and discovers he cannot be ethical because the math forbids it — the same machine-consciousness lens as The Intruder, pointed at power instead of identity, and a companion piece to Throne Protocol.
The duet
Two voices in deliberate contrast — Plan 9 (the ruler's defiance) versus OG Bobby Johnson / Anubis (the System's flat, correct axioms) — trading bars back and forth, with a sung female hook. Both are ElevenLabs, autotuned in tune to D minor and locked to the beat: each line is stretched to a whole number of beats, then pitched one pentatonic note per beat, so the delivery rides the 132-BPM grid instead of floating over it. The chorus — "Throne don't change you, it spins you 'round" — is sung near-fully.
The score — a hero lead carrying the whole thing
Composed in ChipForge (numpy synthesis, no samples) in D minor, equal temperament, 132 BPM. The big change from earlier cuts: a hero lead from bar one that carries the melody the whole way — fast arpeggiated runs, twirls, rises and drops — over acid bass, a supersaw drop, and orchestral strings + cello ambience. The drums hit big and bold up top, back off as the track builds, then rebuild into the verses and the drop. Built behavior-first using the studio's ADR-026 archetype grammar (HeroLead, AnalogPredator bass, MelancholicDrift cello, CelestialPulse ambience).
0:00 Intro — EDM-arpeggiated crickets, blending in
0:07 The Throne — bold cold open, then it backs off
0:22 The Offer — the bunny takes the seat
0:36 Rule One — the keys
0:58 Rule Two — the treasure
1:20 Rule Three — the drop, the trap closes
1:49 The Rival — he wears the System's face
2:03 The Choice — match it and stay, or fall and be replaced
2:32 Empty Throne — the cycle resets
3:00 Sbohem — a Plan 9 goodbye, in Czech
The camera
The edit is planned, not frantic: mostly wide and medium two-shots so the whole throne room reads, with a gentle pan toward whoever's rapping and only a handful of brief, eased close-ups for the emotional peaks. The story-action beats stay wide on purpose — when the rival enters wearing the System's own face, you see the whole stage.
The bookends
A signature open and close. The intro is an EDM-arpeggiated take on the Stranger Things crickets — lower, softer, ambient — that swells up under the title card and crossfades into the song. The outro is a Plan 9 goodbye in a language we hadn't used yet, Czech: "Sbohem, poutníku." — Farewell, traveler.
Made on a laptop
Stick-figure animation in Python + PIL at 854×480, an entire EDM score and SFX layer from ChipForge, an autotuned ElevenLabs rap duet, a planned cinematic camera, and a full distribution package — all generated locally. No GPU, no subscriptions, no commercial loops.
More from Napkin Films
If this one landed, these are close cousins:
- The Intruder — the same machine-identity dread, in a multi-voice rap with a droid SFX layer.
- Throne Protocol — another look at power and the seat that changes whoever sits in it.
- Agent Mode: Plan 9 & OG Bobby Johnson — where this film's two voices first met.
- Plan 9 Emerge — the D-minor / 132 BPM acid-house blueprint this score is built on.
- For Those Who Rose — the most recent Plan 9 film before this one.
More under the Plan 9 tag.
License
This film is licensed CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International). Remix it, repost it, drop it into your own thing — credit "Napkin Films / Organic Arts LLC" and link CC BY 4.0.
Engine code (Napkin Films, ChipForge) is licensed GPL-3.0-or-later.
ElevenLabs voice audio is licensed content and is not redistributed outside of this film. This is an original interpretation of publicly available selectorate theory; it does not quote, sample, or reproduce CGP Grey audio or visuals.