In Earth year 2190, the first shipload of colonists departed for Ares, the newly constructed settlement on Mars. The High Council expanded the powers and responsibilities of two already-formed organizations: the Space Installation Authority, to oversee the establishment and running of Ares and all future colonies and space stations; and the Earth Relocation Authority, to screen and select the individuals who would settle or staff them. Meanwhile, lumber was being rationed in a worldwide effort to reforest the planet.
In Earth year 2230, an alien ship landed on the long-hop vehicle apron at Ares, and Humans got their first look at a Stragori, an honest-to-goodness extraterrestrial. He brought formal greetings from the Galactic Great Council and sampled the local tourist attractions while waiting for the Secretary General of Earth’s High Council to be transported to Mars for a meeting. The news was galvanizing. We had advanced sufficiently to merit additional assistance from the Great Council, so that we could join the other intelligent races out in the stars. Their first gift to us was a language, Galactic Standard, the lingua franca of space travel in the Milky Way. Their second gift to us was a piece of technology that could link our InfoCommNet to the Galactic Communications Web.
In 2232, there was a pandemic over much of Greater Europe and Indo-Asia, dropping Earth’s population by another 800 million souls before the virus went dormant again. This time, however, nearly 300 million were saved by quick treatment with drugs developed by a major pharmaceutical house owned by the Forrand family.
Humans are quick learners, even without the motivation provided by the threat of another pandemic. By 2254, we were ready for Gate technology, enabling us to take shortcuts through space and send long range transmissions. By 2300, Earth had a fleet of interstellar ships, a network of space stations, called hubs, and an aggressive colonization program in place, with 17 established settlements and more than 30 more worlds or moons earmarked for future development. We also had repulsion field and gravity field technology, thanks to the Galactic Great Council. Now, if only Humans had a few friends out there. Unfortunately, most of the alien races refused to have any contact with us. Certain individual aliens had gotten to know individual Humans, and would admit to a grudging respect for their tenacity and willingness to work their butts off, but that was not enough.
So, Earth’s High Council decided that Humanity would earn the right to equality. Each crew member or colonist became an ambassador from Earth and was expected to behave accordingly. That meant the screening process became downright stringent, and only the very best Humans, carefully groomed and prepared, got to leave the planet.
In 2320 there was another pandemic. A drug cocktail from the Forrand Corporation laboratories ensured an 82% survival rate if administered within 24 hours of infection. Still, hundreds of thousands perished.
The policy of letting only the cream of the Human race go out into space resulted in there being two classes of people — the Eligibles and the Ineligibles. While waiting for a posting, or “marking time”, the Eligibles were expected to remain Eligible by staying safe, healthy and out of trouble. To help them do that, the Relocation Authority established protected residential enclaves on the outskirts of every urban district, where Eligibles were expected to live, segregated from the Ineligible population, surrounded by high chain link fences and a repulsion field broken by guard posts. While living in the enclave, members of each Eligible family were required to be on their best behavior and to obey all the laws and Eligibility rules. Multiple infractions could be punished by suspension or permanent revocation of Eligibility.
Every Eligible was expected to be fluent in Galactic Standard and meet high standards of intelligence, moral fiber, and mental and physical health at the time of reassignment. Every Eligible was also guaranteed a well-paid job while “marking time”, whether or not it suited the individual’s aptitudes and training. This tended to foster resentment among Ineligible co-workers.
In 2370, a stay-on-Earth movement began growing among the Eligible population, spearheaded by two men: Gavin Holchuk and Professor Devon Strachan. Both were disciplined by the Relocation Authority, but the unrest they had expressed took root and began to spread. Eligibles began challenging the Relocation Authority’s right to control their lives. By 2387, many were refusing to live in the enclaves, and were mingling instead with the Ineligible population. They were even rejecting relocation altogether and committing themselves to working on Earth. However, there had been many deaths on colony worlds due to the Angel of Death Plague that had broken out in 2385. The Relocation Authority needed more Eligibles, not fewer, taking assignments off-world, and so it began to deal with recalcitrants in sometimes cruel and underhanded ways.
By 2384, Earth colonies numbered 58. Fourteen years later, 24 of them had been completely wiped out. The death toll off-world from the Angel of Death plague was 1.5 million souls. Because of the way the contagion was spread, there were zero casualties on planet Earth.
NOW THAT YOU’RE UP TO DATE, HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO FIND WHEN YOU ARRIVE ON EARTH IN THE YEAR 2399 C.E.
Geography
The population of Earth has stabilized at about 3.5 billion. Since the Reorganization of 2180, there are five geopolitical unions, empowered to grant citizenship. Americas is one such union, comprising the former Canada, United States, Caribbean islands and Mexico. The others are Greater Europe, Indo-Asia, the League of African Nations and Pacifica (formerly known as Australia, New Zealand, South and Central America, and the Pacific islands).
Within each union, the Eligible population is concentrated in Urban Districts (UDs). Large Heavy Industry Zones outside the UDs are designated reserves for food production, resource extraction and conservation, waste management, energy production, and raw material processing. By order of the High Council, these reserves must total at least 75 per cent of the land mass and water surface in each union. The Zones are owned by the Regional Council of each union, and the Ineligibles who work in the Zones are salaried employees of the Council. In Americas, the major UDs are Atlantica (formerly New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut), New Chicago, Greater Mexico City, Lakeside Ontario, Franangeles, Havana, and Vancouverville.
With field generation technology, the weather has been moderated. (It will never be tamed.) Seasonal precipitation is now restricted to the various Zones, and conditions in the UDs are kept temperate. There are still such things as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, but the science of prediction has advanced to the point where there is now sufficient warning to take effective life- and property-saving measures.
Food
Much of the planet’s food is still grown, but technology has made a huge difference in the hows and wheres of these activities. Offshore aquaculture and inland fish farming provide up to 30 per cent of each union’s food supply. Using hydroponics and in some places agridomes, most vegetables and legumes can now be grown anywhere in the world, year round. Fruit trees, grains, and blossoming plants such as squash are still being grown in soil out of doors, where pollination is accomplished by insects or the wind. All arable land is available for agriculture now that there are no more ranches. Meat companies use food animal stem cells to mass produce specific types of muscle and organ meat in factory-like facilities.
Domestically produced foods are kept affordable for all citizens of each union, by order of the Council. Foods which must be imported, or which are not grown in quantity by other unions and thus provide trading leverage, are exempted from the order and tend to be quite expensive. In Americas, for example, real chocolate, real tea and real coffee are saved for special occasions, and macadamia and lichee nuts are beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest individuals. The same is true of maple syrup in Indo-Asia or Pacifica.
Citizens purchase their foods in stores where shelves and bins are restocked each week. However, the stores in the enclaves are feeding Eligibles, and so they receive the choicest foodstuffs brought in from the Zones.
UDs are crisscrossed by multi-lane roads, called urbanways, which are completely automated to prevent collisions and regulate the flow of traffic. The InfoCommNet processes the transponder signals and onboard programming of every vehicle on the urbanway and feeds data to the Auto Traffic Controller for integration. An ATC Supervisor can reprogram any vehicle from a local station in response to an emergency (sending someone to the hospital instead of the office if the individual suddenly feels ill, for example).
Personal Vehicles (PVs) are considered a perk of Eligibility and are loaned by the Council to any Eligibles who request them; however, the development of synthetic fuel and the resulting fuel tax on PVs has made them prohibitively expensive for individuals to own. Most of the traffic on the urbanways is consequently Multipassenger Public Transit. Off the urbanway, in the much older parts of the UD, roads are not gridded for Traffic Control, and so all vehicles are equipped with manual controls as well.
Travel between UDs is accomplished by rail, on high-speed maglev passenger trains. InterZone or UD-to-Zone travel must be chartered through the local Transportation Office. The TO is a government agency that operates a fleet of publicly owned and maintained Multipassenger Vehicles (MPVs). The use of Personal Vehicles outside the UD is not prohibited by law, but insurance companies have been known to suspend or even cancel coverage on PVs taken into a Heavy Industry Zone.
Travel between unions is available by air, by boat, and by train, UD to UD, and since subsidized transportation is a perk of Eligibility, only an Eligible can afford a return ticket. Ergo, only Eligibles get to vacation abroad. In 2399 C.E., there are also three space stations, called hubs, set up for tourist traffic — Riviera Hub, Vegas Hub and Ginza Hub. These are reached by 20-passenger spacecraft called interhub liners, which must be chartered through the Space Installation Authority’s Transportation Office. Since only Eligibles are allowed to leave Earth, the price per person is not unreasonable as long as every seat on the liner is purchased.
Urban Works and Housing
Maintenance of buildings and utilities services in a UD is the responsibility of the District Council, which taxes the accounts of all residents to pay for local improvements. Improvement funds are allocated first to the enclaves, then to the urbanways, then to the various commercial zones in the UD, and finally, if any is left, to the older streets and housing occupied by Ineligibles. District Councils are told how much to tax and are forbidden to ask citizens for more. As a result, when the money runs out, at whatever stage of the process it runs out, the rest of the UD effectively drops off the scope for a year, until taxes have been collected again. In each UD, there are areas that have fallen into ruin from year after year of funding shortfalls. Some of these commercial or former industrial zones are eventually abandoned because they’ve become unsafe.
Employment
By order of the District Councils, every citizen who contributes to the wellbeing of a UD, whether Eligible or Ineligible, is entitled to remuneration, the amount of which is prescribed by the Regional Council and published in every Data Management Office. The newly hired clerk at the clothing store, the just-promoted Sales VP, the young woman who agrees to care for her neighbor’s children while the neighbor is at work — each one has only to submit a copy of a thumbprinted work contract to Data Management along with a biowafer for updating, and the correct amount of credit will be deducted from the employer’s account and added to the employee’s account at the end of each week. (Unless there’s a slip-up. It happens. Frequently.) Would-be entrepreneurs are made to jump through hoops to get their business licences, but if they persevere and are lucky enough to find office or storefront space in a commercial zone, and if their hunches about the need for this product or that service were correct and they are able to hire two employees to help them, the business owner’s salary becomes deregulated, making it possible for an entrepreneur to become quite wealthy.
The problem: Eligibles are guaranteed employment in a UD while marking time on Earth, and the Council would never place the cream of the crop in a low-paid, entry-level or menial job. That sort of employment is kept for Ineligibles, most of them high school dropouts, whose only other honest choice is to leave the UD and find work in the “industrial wilderness”.
Industrial workers outside the UDs are salaried employees of the Regional Council. The upside is that there is always plenty of work to do out in the Agricultural and Heavy Industry Zones, and not a lot on which to spend one’s salary. The downside is that the work isn’t always in the same place, and a worker may be ordered to relocate on an hour’s notice in order not to be in breach of contract. And then all the saved-up salary in the worker’s credit account could fly out of it to pay for the move, leaving this person back at square one.
Health
We’ve beaten some of the worst medical problems, but people still get sick, and they still have accidents. In 2399, health care works on a two-tier system: Eligibles get priority over Ineligibles. By order of the Council, the enclaves are first on the list to receive funding for health care and services. After that, any remaining funds must be shared by the several other hospitals and clinics in the UD.
In addition, Eligibles get priority in Emergency Rooms over Ineligibles in the same or less serious condition, and are fully medically insured by the Relocation Authority. Meanwhile, Ineligibles must purchase their own health insurance through the Regional Council, and the Council can only afford to cover the basics.
Each time a citizen receives medical care, the individual’s biowafer is updated. Once a year, on each citizen’s birthday, the individual must report to a Data Management office for a full biodata update, and at this time receives a medical and a dental examination, including vaccinations, as well as psychological counseling. This ensures a baseline standard of health for everyone in the union and keeps the census current in the event that a pandemic breaks out and a vaccination program must be mobilized.
Education
Each enclave is a self-contained community, with its own elementary and secondary schools and its own university. Ineligibles attend elementary and secondary school outside the enclaves, in badly run-down buildings, in classes led by teachers who are for the most part “marking time” and therefore counting the days until they can accept an off-world posting and get out of there. Understandably, the students in these schools display a lot of attitude. Discouraged by the lack of opportunity, even the brightest Ineligibles have all but stopped even attempting to qualify and/or apply for entrance to college or university. Nonetheless, there are several good colleges in Americas and Pacifica that still grant degrees to Ineligibles.
The curriculum inside the enclaves is advanced and enriched, suitable for people who will become ambassadors of Earth out in space: at the secondary level, students study history, art, music, literature, and both pure and applied math and science, in heavy doses. Since the greatest advances are being made out on the ships, hubs and colonies, where the Research and Development funding has been going, and where Eligible students can expect to be going as well, they are highly motivated to get themselves up to speed as quickly as possible. In university, each student gets to specialize in an area of interest, which will ultimately determine the nature of each one’s off-world posting.
Curriculum for Ineligibles leans toward business skills, trades and crafts, whether the students themselves lean that way or not. The High Council has mandated the inclusion of literacy and numeracy skills, and while there are a few teachers in each system actually giving courses in the arts and sciences/technologies, they are the exception, not the rule.
Clothing
AI technology has produced “smart fabric”, which can not only expand and contract to fit the wearer (within reason), it can also be programmed to resist stains and moisture, to change color, and even to maintain a specific temperature. As a result, people can make do with fewer pieces of clothin
g in their closets — and it’s a good thing, because this technology is also expensive to own.
Everyday styles haven’t changed much over the past couple of centuries. Men still wear shirts and trousers, and women still wear whatever is practical and attractive. Some details that are different: pockets have become accessories, transferable from one garment to another; smart fabric fastenings are programmable, making buttons, frogs and zippers into optional decorations and neckties obsolete; sashes for women and cummerbunds for men have replaced belts.
Communication (The InfoCommNet)
With the development of holographics and virtual reality, it became necessary to designate the older form of technology as flat-screen video. On Earth, this older form is the one most commonly used outside the enclaves for communication and entertainment, especially with the InfoCommNet.
Earth is surrounded by a mesh of interconnected communication satellites, making the InfoCommNet practical as a multimedia network keeping everyone in touch with everyone else, all the time. Every residence has at least one InfoComm unit, and every unit must remain online. If a unit goes down, an alarm is automatically triggered on a Data Management stat board, and a technician is dispatched to make the necessary repairs.
When one unit commconnects with another, the two become simultaneous live-feed video and audio transceivers. There are no newspapers or magazines — Data Management puts out updated news reports on the Net on an hourly basis, complete with real or virtual video footage. Specialized Info companies do the same with documentary and opinion pieces geared to particular segments of the public. The least reputable of these companies are referred to as “the tabs”. Audio and video are inextricably linked (except in some of the older PVs), and hard copy has become the prerogative of the receiving consumer.
The Relativity Bomb Page 28