Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World

by Fabio Fernandes

  “Link here, Guira!” Pagu asked for a link to a virtuality about the Jacy 14-bis landing on the moon, which she had put on the net in the morning to celebrate the 23-year anniversary of the feat.

  “…in other parts of the world, however,” Raul went on, “there was suspicion and spite: do Brazil and the Tauantinsuio plan to monopolize technology and the future? Who are these Pancolombians to call themselves representatives of humanity? Why go to the Moon when there are more important things to do on Earth? It was a mistake and this time the Union of Nations was keen to promote the active participation of all confederations, leaving no one out.”

  “Infograph this, Guira.” She asked for schematics of the project with the contributions of each confederation: the Tupã 8 launcher, the Xiuhtecuhtli accelerators and the Neogeia Ch’askawanp’u second stage, the Junrei robots and the Eastasia support satellites, the Ethiopian Mbombe exploration module, the Afrasia Jinni Robotic Plant, India’s Svarga Habitat, Oceania’s Garuda Take-off Module and Eurasia’s Argos Return Module.

  Pagu checked the remaining time and the netizens’ questions. She used to focus on at least one of them, but this time there were millions to choose from. Most naïve or not to the point, but Guira chose two that were popular and reasonably pertinent.

  “Raul, to wrap it up, two questions from the audience. Number one, asked by about twenty thousand, counting the variants: what’s interesting about discovering bacteroids on Mars, if we’ve know that there is much more advanced alien life since the Samsa case in the last century?”

  “Well, it’s one thing to have a way of life of unknown origin and probably extraterrestrial at that. It's another to find an alien lifeform, a microscopic one, blooming in its natural habitat. Even more interesting is to find it on an inhospitable world. It’s a sign that life is a much more common phenomenon than many people thought. Besides, we have discovered a different biochemistry and genetic code, which adds much to our knowledge of life. They would be interesting even if they were terrestrial.”

  “Number two, from over a hundred thousand: why don’t we use robots to save money and avoid risking human lives? Wouldn’t it be an example of global cooperation all the same?”

  “We didn’t have then—and we still don’t have now—robots with the flexibility, intelligence and initiative of a human cosmonaut. Maybe in the future, but I doubt it. Do you want to bet that we will have human cosmonauts exploring planets farther away than Mars before the end of the century?”

  “I’ll bite, Raul! But, geewhiz, if we live long enough for any of us to win the bet we’ll be so old …what shall we bet, a caretaker robot?”

  * * *

  The freighter coming from Oslo that anchored in Fortaleza after twelve days was a typical vessel of its time, combining as it did millennia-old oars and sails with the last word in technology. In addition to three rigid mobile sails that were also solar panels, it had twelve fins configured to rise and fall with the waves and to move hydraulic machines. An electrolyzer converted spare energy into hydrogen for fuel cells, which was used when there was no sun or wind available. In this almost totally robotized ship, the commander’s function was so solitary—except for the continuous access to Porandutepé—as it had once been that of a lighthouse keeper.

  The Solfisk carried 13,000 tons of salted cod, smoked salmon, pickled herring, and gravlaks. Only three people at the Norwegian state-owned Norskargo, including Commander Vidkun Quisling, knew that some of the containers contained a very special cargo. Revolutionaries with old-fashioned weapons, but well-preserved and functional, discovered by the group in a secret World War arsenal, forgotten in a dark fjord cave.

  How else could one arm a group of militants, with the world government prohibiting the purchase and possession of arms? What other way to dodge the surveillance of ubiquitous automatic cameras? Even after the containers were unloaded at the port by robot cranes, the fighters would have to wait until nightfall to open them and be protected by cloaks of invisibility and the complicity of the port administrator, a sympathizer named Gustavo Barroso. Agent Salgado would take them to the theater on a Sigma Turismo bus. It was traceable like any other vehicle, but it could take an unusual route and carry a group of strangers without drawing attention.

  * * *

  The interview ended in laughter, but Raul sighed with relief when he ended the call. He asked his fellow conspirator, who whispered data and suggestions through his headset:

  “What do you say, Juca? How did you like our performance?”

  “Awesome! He sounded like a statesman who knows what he’s talking about. The comments on the networks are 76% positive. But some of our fellow commissioners might think you made a fool of them. For many of them, this argument will not sound so fantabulastic.”

  “Leave it to me. As someone said, ‘when in doubt tell the truth: it will amaze friends and confuse enemies’.”

  “Speaking of surprising your friends, what’s the big news in cosmonautics? You spoke with a confidence that made me realize that there is more than meets the eye.”

  “Oh, I really needed to tell you that.” He rubbed his hands together. “A German physicist brought me a project that, if I have my say, will be built well before I need a robot caretaker. I just need the little toy we are going to inaugurate tomorrow to function properly so that I can present it to the Council. Here’s the thing…”

  * * *

  Happy with the repercussions of the interview, Pagu exchanged ideas with Guira about the next program, put the visor in her backpack and changed clothes. They were the last to leave the studio. The light-emitting diodes were turned off, the fans were turned off, and the doors locked automatically as their passage was registered by the cameras. She shared a robotaxi with her colleague, and the two-seat electric vehicle charged ten milis of each upon dropping them off at Lapa station, where they parted ways. Few people recognized her wearing a cap and without the visor, but the maglev did, and it deducted another ten milis from her upon embarking. Two chronos later, she alighted at Luz station and walked to her house at Barão de Piracicaba Street, where her companions waited. She celebrated her success with a threesome, delightful but without exaggeration. She had to wake up early.

  * * *

  The sun wasn’t up yet, but, fearing some infrared-sensitive aero-robot, they took shelter under the panels of a solar plant surrounded by the thorn bushes of the Agreste, a few dozen blocks from their target.

  “This is the Coaracytaba,” the leader explained, displaying the plant with a holoprojector. “It’s residence to the workers of the plant and also a base for visitors. The heliport, park, school, health center, social center, and hostel are here. Politicians will gather in the social center, journalists at the hostel. We will use the invisibility cloaks until the last moment.”

  He switched off the projection and went on:

  “Franco’s group takes most of the men and the best weapons, because they’re going to invade the social center, and there might be some resistance there. Probably a not very effective one, for half a century reigning in peace over sheep made these people soft and careless. Luxembourg must bring up to six other guards and Cândido approximately the same, armed with stun guns and magnetic pistols. Eliminate the agents without hesitation, but you must capture the main targets alive. If not possible, at least one or two important representatives. Try not to kill civilians unnecessarily; we don’t want to damage the reputation of our cause.”

  He paused and admired the impassive faces of his men, fierce, attentive and disciplined. A band that inspired respect. He went on:

  “My group will take the buses of the visitors and take care of the journalists. Some are almost as valuable as hostages as the politicians. Even with the buses, the reds can reach the destination before us, because the convertiplanes are able to arrive from Palmares in five chronos. We need audacity, discipline, and hostages to complete the mission.”

  He turned on the holo again to display the symbol of the mo
vement, a fluttering black flag with a red hurricane in a white circle.

  “Some of us will fall in this enterprise. The survivors will be thrown into the dungeons of the regime. It will be useless! Our coup will reveal the fragility of this decadent civilization and will initiate the economic and political collapse of the Union. Millions of brave people will know our message, follow our example and rely on us to lead the new world! Avast, heroes!”

  “Better to live a day as a lion than a hundred years as a lamb!” his mate seconded him.

  * * *

  Early in the morning, Pagu said goodbye to Oswald and Tarsila at the airport and joined Guira in line. Upon seeing her ID, the Ybytukatu clerk looked at her surprised and whispered a request for an autographed holo. She smiled and electronically signed his visor.

  They followed the other passengers along the long boarding bridge and settled into the seats of a Jubapirá, a subsonic airplane shaped as a stingray. While Guira distracted himself by creating colorful, three-dimensional curves with a holoprojector, she distracted herself by watching the sunrise and the movement of the hydrogen tankers until the commander gave warning of the takeoff. The vehicle took off and the solar roofs of Piratininga gleamed like gold in the morning sun. It would be a twenty-five-chronos trip to Palmares.

  As soon as the robot picked up the breakfast tray, she ordered the visor to review information subprograms for the Amanajé Mytanga’s Young Messenger special show, which she and Guira had prepared to later join or link to the final edition. In quick and funny animations, they told the story of the use of energy: the invention of fire, the water wheel, the windmills, the steam engine of Borba Gato, the alcohol and oil engines of Aimberê and Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Pedro II’s large hydroelectric plants, Andrada and Silva’s wind and solar generators and the lithium-water cells and the hydrogen plants of Gustavo Capanema. The pioneering nuclear reactor of Qarawayllu and the cooperation of the Tauantinsuio with Brazil and the Union of Nations in the Great War to launch the atomic bomb in Scapa Flow.

  After the unification of the planet, the Rebouças brothers’ study showed the dangers of greenhouse effect amplification for the climate and the planetary environment, after which UN resolutions increasingly restricted the use of fossil fuels. And also of nuclear energy, after its risks were evidenced when an earthquake followed by tsunami devastated the plant of Paramonga, in the Tauantinsuio.

  Fifty years later, there were only thirty experimental nuclear power plants and three hundred small research reactors operating in the world, all under strict supervision by the Union of Nations Commission on Science and Culture. And coal, oil, and gas were being used only as chemical raw materials. Former mining and industrial centers disappeared in many places. Although the Union financed the substitution of renewable energy sources, the imposition aroused much resentment in Eurasia, where many saw the threat of global warming as a forged pretext to deprive them of their technological independence and subject them to the uniform and oppressive vulgarity of solar panels and wind turbines that turned magnificent landscapes in ugly things to behold.

  Pagu looked out thoughtfully. They were flying over a sunny stretch of the Bahia backlands. Where there was once the Caatinga, regular lines of wind generators and the rectangular and circular compositions of solar panels alternated regularly and geometrically with crops and pastures. There were reserves of fauna and flora of that and other biomes, but it was a world much altered by the human hand, monotonically symmetrical and tamed.

  Old hydroelectric plants still supplied 4% of the energy, geothermal another 4% and tidal and wind power plants 2%, but 3.8 million wind turbines generated almost half the energy used worldwide and the remaining 40% came from 40 thousand photovoltaic plants, 49,000 solar thermal plants and 1.7 billion solar roofs. All that covered 280 million quarters, more than the entire area of Greenland. The picturesque roofs of the past could now only be seen in old paintings and photos, save for a few historic buildings. A few plants, especially hydrogen-producing power plants, floated in the sea, but most had replaced ancient or bucolic landscapes. Majestic waterfalls and beautiful towns and villages had disappeared beneath hydroelectric lakes. And the future? What would things be like in another hundred years, with twice the population and four times the need for energy?

  “Guira, isn’t this too biased? This virtuality of how the world would be if fossil fuels continued to be used, for example, wouldn’t it be exaggerated? Glaciers melting, hurricane multiplication, hunger from droughts and floods, people dying in cities, suffocating from the pollution… Doesn’t that sound too propagandist for you?”

  Her colleague looked at her, amused.

  “Propagandist? These are quotes from a documentary organized by Professor Lacerda de Moura. You know her, right? She is more of an anarchist than you, but she thinks that if the World War hadn’t abolished capitalism and imposed the energy conversion, we would be much worse for the wear.”

  “Even so, I wanted to give a more balanced account. When almsgiving is too much, the saint distrusts us and our audience, which is not stupid, as well. Let’s show that there is another side, that this came at a price. Demonstrations against the pollution of rivers by quartz mining and solar panel factories… There was one in Minas last year and another in China. The cities abandoned by the closure of the coal mines in the Ruhr and Midlands, one hundred million birds killed every year by wind turbine blades, visual pollution, alteration of the wind regime…”

  “I can do it, but what’s the right measure of balance?”

  “We’ll see that when it’s editing time. For now, I just wanted to have enough material available for this.”

  “Ok, I’ll sort it out.”

  The plane arrived on time. As they emerged into the lobby of the airport, a beautiful mestiça approached them. Both recognized her: although they had not yet met physically, hers was a face almost as well known in Brazil as Pagu’s.

  “Oxente! You’re Pagu da Poranduba Mytanga, aren’t you?”

  “Pleased to meet you! Guira, you know Anaíde Beiriz, from Quilombo Network, right?”

  “Naturally…”

  “Guira, what a riot to meet you!” She greeted him more than warmly and touched his bare chest. “I really like your work. Coisa porreta, da gota serena: damn fine thing!”

  She kissed him on the lips, ever so slightly, and the boy returned it very happily. Only then did she kiss her colleague, who started to wonder. She acknowledged that Guira received a smaller than deserved share from the fame of the couple. Seeing someone give him his due usually pleased her. But that moon-eyed hellcat… Did she want to steal her partner? If she wanted to just bed him, she would be all for it, but something told her that it was more serious. Professionally serious.

  “The gang who’s going to Intirana is right over there,” Anaide said. “Shall we?”

  They nodded and followed her to where a hologram with the logo of the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute of the University of Palmares floated, a stylized atom with the Palmares coat of arms in place of the nucleus, hoe and hammer crossed over a book and a star. Brazilian and foreign members of the press gathered around the woman who projected him with her communicator, a black woman with braids and a colored dressing gown.

  “Ah, the Piratininga gang has arrived, good morning!” she greeted them. And she turned to her colleague, a man of Mexican features. “Tlohtli, that’s enough people to fill a convertiplane now. I’ll take these people and you wait for the rest of them, okay? Vo kinen me pos petin,” “follow me,” she said in koina, the official language of the Union of Nations.

  “Damn newspeak!” a man’s voice mumbled behind Pagu as they set off for the courtyard. She turned and recognized Tina Modotti from the ENN, Euraziatische en Noord-Colombiaanse Netwerk, beside a tall, thin, white man with disheveled hair. He wore black, from tie to shoes, a sign of a certain style of radical anarchism. She smiled without understanding and he was embarrassed, but Tina greeted her:

  “L
ascia, the trip left him in a bad mood. We boarded at New Amsterdam late at night, he was coming from London and didn’t sleep well on the plane, you know…”

  “More than seven and a half hours!” he complained.

  “Huh?” said Pagu, not understanding, while stepping out of the corridor into the warm air and the northeastern sun of the concrete patio.

  “It was a trip of one hundred and thirty chronos,” Tina explained. “Mi piace presentare George Orwell, of the ENBC, who disapproves of koina and the decimal system and molte altre cose.”

  Pagu noticed the old-fashioned wristwatch with hands.

  “Bah!” he protested. “What bothers me is that there are privileged people who can do the same in two and a half hours.”

  Forty-one chronos, Pagu converted with the help of the visor as he pointed to the sleek commissarial supersonic of the Union of Nations, the Aero Uno, approaching like a gigantic heron for an elegant landing in Palmares.

  “Why can they fly faster? Don’t they say we’re all the same? Or are some more equal than others?”

  “Più che sciocchezza, Orwell!” Tina protested as she climbed in the convertiplane. “They travel the four corners of the world every day, they need a faster plane, but they still can’t offer it to everyone, they have the constraints of energy, the environment…”

  The argument continued until they sat down. Guira was still chatting with Anaide, and Pagu sat with Tina. The convertiplane fired the rotors and took off vertically. Upon reaching the appropriate altitude, the rotors moved to a horizontal axis and the vehicle gained speed.

  As soon as she went on cruise speed, the woman who had guided them rose and spoke in koina: