The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, 
according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you 
can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap 
between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to 
the heir *instantaneously*. Presumably, he said, there must be some 
elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, 
but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an 
anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to 
send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to 
modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the 
bar closed. 
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)