Der Sturz des Antichrist

A power-hungry Regent strives to attain world domination. He has already subdued the masses and only three figures resist his power: the technocrat, the priest and the poet – personifications of knowledge, religion and art. The technocrat is instructed to master gravity with his specialised knowledge, to construct a spacecraft and conquer the universe; the priest is ordered to create synthetic food out of stones and the poet is entrusted to extol the greatness of the tyrant in words.

The technocrat and priest are easily won over, but the poet refuses to carry out his task and is thrown into prison. However he is saved by the jailor, in defiance of the Regent, in an initiation and re-birthing ritual. As the technocrat and priest both fail in their insoluble tasks, the Regent passes sentence on them. He in turn is outwitted by the poet who relies on the strength of the word: the logos in human hearts. The Regent who, in his delusion, would have unhinged the entire world finally crashes into the depths with his spacecraft.