Introduction: What We Do Today

Chapter 1

We could start anywhere; the point of entry is arbitrary, and much of the story is cruel no matter where it’s told from. There are moments of hope and love, but many of these fuel the next terrible thing in history. But let’s not speak ill of history; they didn’t know what they were doing, as their story will bear out. They did the best they could is an appropriate epitaph.

Should we begin when they started to colonize space? When they harnessed fire?  Or when they first encountered intelligent extraterrestrial life? When they harnessed the basic elements? We could start at the beginning, but let’s start somewhere in the middle instead.

The Near Future

The sky was never clearer. For decades, the world had churned away in seemingly endless strife: economic disasters that led to famines, and finally war; nature ravaged as the byproduct of progress, including a particularly difficult thirty years after the oceans acidified, killing all planktonic life, which led to a third of the human population of Earth to a massive die-off.

Fortunately, stable fusion energy had been achieved by then, and this allowed for the nano technology that would eventually clean the oceans and the sky. Of course, achieving this kind of technology was what started the war. With endless free energy, populations across the planet exploded, and the war for resources and land began again. Lasting from 2050 to 2055, this was the great effort that cost another billion and a half lives and brought the ultimate weapon, the fusion bomb, into existence. With 140 countries fighting on 53 fronts in seeming endless stalemate for three years, one side dropped a fusion bomb on New Delhi, the capitol city of the largest faction of one side of the war. After the world saw the effects of that bombing, a cease-fire was called and all fighting ceased immediately. The country that dropped the bomb was the United States, where today’s celebration is taking place.

A sky skimmer zipped high overhead in Central Park, breaking apart O3 and collecting the extra particle in its filter so that only O2 remained in the air. These were common sights in the sky, as they buzzed around the planet continually keeping the atmosphere in perfect balance. A young boy sitting on his father’s shoulders lets go of a balloon and yelps as it begins to climb. His father uses his cybernetic arm to extend several feet to catch the balloon and brings it back to his son. A few people around him laugh and one even applauds. Everyone in the crowd is cheering easily, happy and relieved that this day had finally come.

It had been in talks since the end of the war, but nearly a decade had passed since its resolution among the 112 remaining countries following the cease-fire. Since then, the planet rebuilt itself once again, now with the total population hovering around three billion. Massive civic efforts, along with mechanical breakthroughs involving nanobots, rebuilt the world within a few years, stronger and better than ever before. The buildings were made of recycled materials and reinforced with newly developed alloys so they would stand for millennia; roadways and magnetic tracks for mass transportation were laid out by the mile within minutes because of this new technology; and society, now wiser for the wear, started anew, focusing on intellectual pursuits with a strong focus on civic duty, morality, and equality.

Children would begin their education almost immediately upon entering this world, and nearly all broadcast media was information-based and educational. Capitalism, along with most other political and economic philosophies, fell away, and humans were ushered into a new post-scarcity era.

The New York City skyline was the remaining jewel of the United States: after Washington, D.C. was obliterated in 2050, killing most members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, not to mention the president, the capitol was moved to New York City where the first invisible fusion-powered anti-ballistic missile dome around the city was quickly raised after hostilities intensified. As a result, many pre-war buildings still stood today alongside the new constructions, which in the new capitol were largely built in a postmodern Art Deco style to retain the dominant historical architectural aesthetic of what became one of the last few metropolis to stand from the American 20th century. While the US had its ups and downs in the 21st century, including losing most of Florida to global warming and having suffered a 10.0 earthquake along the New Madrid fault line in 2038, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions, the country still stood united, now celebrating its 289th anniversary.

A million citizens gathered in Central Park, where a lasting peace is going to be finalized today. The world leaders from all the surviving factions are gathered on an enormous stage constructed for the event, and video projections hover massively against the blue sky for the crowd to witness this historic moment. This event is being broadcast live across the planet to everyone with an active device, and the world stands still for this historic moment.

“Throughout history, mankind has been in a constant battle: with nature, the elements, and each other,” said President Soyez. “That battle ends today.” The crowd erupts in cheers.

“With this agreement,” he said, gesturing to a stack of documents sitting on a podium behind him, “we have a lasting peace"for today, for tomorrow, and forever.” More cheers; women and men alike wiping tears of joy from their face.

“What we have here, today, right now, is something that every person who will ever live from here on out can enjoy: security from fear, from poverty, from war; where one will come into this world and never want or suffer, like so many billions of our kind have before; to live our lives in harmony with the world and among ourselves; what we have been wanting but never able to achieve until today: world peace.”

The crowd"indeed, the whole of mankind"celebrated. There was nothing but goodwill, charity, and love in everyone’s hearts. That evening, all men and women of every race, nationality, and ideology would go to bed secure in the knowledge that the future was going to be bright, the horrors of the past would disappear, and maybe--if they were lucky--nothing bad will ever happen to them again.   

Utopia Rising

There is free, unlimited energy due to the advances in fusion technology. By the time The Great Leap Forward began, one fusion reactor could supply enough energy for 100 million households. By 2060, it was 300 million; by 2065, nearly half the planet could have been powered by a sole standard reactor. However, with multiple smaller reactors implemented worldwide, the distribution of power was consistent--and entirely wireless.

Since the war decimated approximately 78% of all free-standing structures worldwide, the world was built anew. One would say no luxury was expensed, but that would diminish the soul the survivors put into crafting this new world. It would be made right and just this time. Nobody would suffer; Everybody would live and belong here in these towers and public gallerias and homes.

With the massive, but uneven, global population loss, mass emigration occurred. With many developed nations having experienced similar events just two decades prior due to anthropogenic climate change, the relocations were organized and civil. In truth, nobody in the world had a unified nation left, save for one: the United States, the only nation that hadn’t suffered the massive infrastructure and civilian losses that the rest of the world had, save for the decimation of its capitol that started the war.

To that end, the US parceled out the world and made peace as they had after the war, only this time a global census took place**, the first of its kind since 2060. Ethnic background and geographic heritage were weighed against the territories that were able to support an influx of refugees, and megacities were constructed under the supervision of these people that would inhabit them.

The future sprung up quickly around the world, as a thousand silver towers made of a million windows began to rise out of the ashes. Once the resettlement and construction of this new world was completed (c. 2060), the people of Earth took a great pause and looked at where they were, how they got there, and how they could continue on. The horror of the war and the tragedies it wrought upon these survivors, both great and small, haunted them; even in rebuilding the world, their labors kept them on the whole distracted, while the nervous hope that the future would be better than their past kept them up at night.

Once everybody settled into their new homes, they wondered what would lead them, and to where, and how. It seemed obvious that nobody was good for anything anymore; in the five years following the end of the war, there had only been 210,000 live births per billion people; demographics largely skewed 75% female per capita on average; and 18-34 year olds were less than 7% of the total population. There was also the terrible fact that many people had been incapacitated, physically and mentally, from the war; most significantly, 78% of surviving males who had seen active combat over the age of 30 were afflicted with severe PTSD and suffered from depression (suicide rates among this group held at nearly 80% for a five years after the end of the war).

The planet was also in drought and unbalanced. While efforts were begun in earnest to restore the planet after the ravages of climate change, all resources were diverted into the war, and then into building the new world. The water was nearly undrinkable, and 95% of all species on the planet had expired since 2020. Without the protein generators and portable potable water generators, most of the population would have also starved after the war. The average global temperature had risen 3 degrees by 2060 and was projected to hit 4 degrees by 2075.

And while the world rose up bright and shining as a sunny Sunday morning, inside themselves the people were downcast, broken, and despairing. This century had been cruel and unrelenting to this generation, and some worried that this glittering monument to their dreams that they built was a hollow ornament they were placing atop a  rapidly expiring planet.

What We Do Today

President Soyez came into power during the war when he was a soldier. He had been a rising senator, but had already taken leave of his seat to command a unit when allied skirmishes broke out, shortly before the outbreak of all-out global war.

After the president and all high-ranking members of government died in the attack of 2050, Soyez found himself the highest-ranking living member of the Senate, which found him next in the line of succession for the presidency. He was recalled from battle in the Middle East to take healm, and the live broadcast of his inauguration in the back of an air transport in his soldier gear became an iconic moment in American history; his surprisingly steady leadership for such a young leader through the war kept the country and its people fighting. In 2055, when the fusion bomb was deployed, he delivered a speech addressed to the world:

“My fellow Americans, my brothers in arms, and my fellow man: today we embark on a new frontier, one where, hopefully, peace can be found.

“At 12:45 PM local time, India, a bomb that has been in development since the beginning of the war was deployed. This device, known as a fusion bomb*, was detonated less than five minutes ago in New Delhi, India. Those of you in the country of India and surrounding bordering countries should prepare for massive fallout. Check local weather conditions for which way the wind is blowing, since that will determine the immediate path of the fallout.

“Most populations in the area 500 kilometers surrounding New Delhi will experience immediate and significant fallout. If you are in these areas, I urge you to prepare for fallout or to immediately flee, if possible, to neighboring unaffected areas.

“Those within the 50 kilometer radius of New Delhi are most likely now lost.”

“This war has been costly on all sides; not only has our side suffered devastating losses of life, history, and ourselves, but yours has also fallen into confusion and despair. We all have suffered this together, and unless we stop now, nothing will be left.

“Let us stop, please, now. While we still have something left to live for. What we do today sows the seeds of tomorrow.”

“Thank you, and God bless everyone.”

*”Fusion bomb” is a misnomer and an underwhelming oversimplification of the power of the device. It worked more like a neutron bomb, only with far-reaching (500 km in radius) radioactive effects, much like salting the earth so that nothing may ever grow from it again.

Sorting It All Out

The first thing was to find out who everybody was and where they were; the massive migrations across the continents during the war and afterwards left much of the world’s social structures in disarray. While the census was being conducted, every individual was to provide as much information about themselves as possible to the now emerging formations of social and governmental services. After identity was confirmed, every person was given a nano ID implant that would serve as their universal identification.

Lifting their heads during this great pause as the world was sorted out, populations began to attempt to construct society once again. With the infrastructure in place and technologies being reinstated (now having advanced acutely during wartime production), a new culture began to form. It would become the guiding and binding force, and the base of future culture: reclaiming and embracing the past. While the physical world was largely decimated during the war, all music, film, text, and other archival media survived due to the digitization and cloud backup of all media during the 21st century. While the physical world was blown away, the efforts of the human imagination and spirit remained.

As the now unified world government pulled together, one of the central issues was what to do with the people of the world, especially future generations. The majority of the population was over 35 and many were irreversibly traumatized from the events of the war; the population to produce the next generation was nearly non-existent; and the children of 2060 were children of war, many completely without any formal education.

This is when a member of Soyez’ cabinet came to a solution, one that would clean the dirty mess that people presented"for the good of the future.

While the majority of the population was agreeable to the sweeping reconfiguration of the world’s governments to being consolidated into one unified body, there was some resistance, mostly in holdout pockets in the Middle East and across rural America. One major point of contention was autonomy: the resistors argued that after global war brought on largely through governmental forces, there should be no centralized government. They also argued that with the technology currently available, there is no reason for individuals to have to relocate to one of the megacities. Within five years there was no more resistance.

The Global Census of 2060

Total Population: 3,103,000 (estimated)

Gender

Female: 63% (1.954,890)

Male: 37%  (1,148,110)

Male

0-18: 364,603,000

19-34: 54,408,000

35-64: 744,720,000

65+: 178,733,000

Female:

0-18: 411,147,500

19-34: 163,222,000

35-64: 806,780,000

65+: 379,807,200

Population Distribution 2060

Utopia

The silver-sided buildings glittered in the morning sunlight on September 6, 2065. The glow from the safety light that illuminated the streets and sidewalks during the night began to fade, and another day in utopia was about to begin.

Thousands of sky skimmers started to dot the skyline as they began their whirring ascent from the tops of buildings, where they lay dormant from sundown to sunup, to begin their daily work of keeping the skies clean and clear from pollutants. Meanwhile, millions of nanobots, each the size of a fingernail, began to scurry back into their small charging stations affixed into the sidewalks and buildings, having completed their nightly task of keeping the infrastructure in perfect condition. With so much technology built into the city’s foundations, their job was vital to keeping much of the city in working order.

Every day at 6:15, the city at large awoke. Automated systems would start up, holographic projections would start to signal when it was safe to cross the street, the current time and weather, and scrolling news tickers that floated eight feet above street level and across the magnetic pavement. Automated trolleys began their repetitive tracks that brought the majority of the population from one place to another. Cars were outlawed in the megacities, since much of its population had no need and besides, there were rarely deliveries from outside of these zones; almost all food and material items were built in replicators. People would instead walk the streets freely, or hop onto a trolley to get across town.

Since there was no real commercial industry left"with technology outdating this concept--and the Public Domain Act of 2065 rendered all designs, commercial materials, and media free to the public. Since most replicators could build nearly anything a person could ask for, there was simply no need for retail outlets. Instead, many previous store fronts became gathering areas for people with like-minded interests to spend their time and trade their information and ideas: music enthusiasts could create an instrument of their interest and go to one of these centers to learn how to play it, or to trade it for another instrument. Similarly, book lovers would gather in libraries and help stock it, adding their favorite titles and discussing with other people their merits; food enthusiasts would go to one of the many specialized restaurants, where they would present their favorite recipes and meals freely, offering them (or being offered by other like-minded people) to share a meal gratis. There were gyms for physical fitness enthusiasts, laboratories for those keen on science, and a galaxy of arts and entertainment venues where people could share their favorite paintings, films, music, dances, and otherwise.

Popular gathering areas would recreate down to the finest detail places and activities from various points in history: at Studio 54, you could dance the night away with a Diana Ross hologram singing live, the large silver spoon and moon lowering from the ceiling as the lights pulsated in time with the music; at CBGBs, you could catch Blondie, The Ramones, and Talking Heads; at the Hungry I, you can see  Lenny Bruce curse his way through his set, or at Minton’s Playhouse, Charlie Parker would play three sets a night as you sipped on a sloe gin fizz. Sometimes there were larger events: once a year, Simon & Garfunkel would play a show in Central Park, and every four years that same park hosted Woodstock in full.

Very few people worked any more at any real capacity. So much of the world was automated, and in a post-scarcity society there was no need to spend your life toiling away at unsatisfying work just to survive. People spent their days actively pursuing their interests and wants for free. Those who did work did so because they desired to, and because they had ideas of their own that they wanted to pursue. Technology and the sciences were active fields of interest, particularly among the young; many were excited to travel to the stars and were feverishly working towards that goal. But most people"particularly those who lived through the wars"just enjoyed this utopia that they finally obtained. Money still existed, but it was viewed as extravagant by much of the population; those that worked for a wage would spend it on the newest technologies or bigger replicators not yet available for free to the masses, or to purchase more apartment space, or even buy antiques (a well-manicured DVD or CD collection of original print and their associated devices was viewed as a sign of sophistication), or else quietly save it to travel to another megacity, which was still expensive and heavily discouraged by the central government.

But nobody desired to leave their city; why would they? It would be depressing to see the rest of the country, which had been emptied out during the great migrations to the megacities, sometimes violently. Traveling across the countryside, you would see nature reclaiming the world, which was part of the reason why the government moved people into these cities. The environment had taken such a beating that it was decreed no one could live outside of any city territory for at least fifty years to allow for the planet to heal itself.

In high-rise apartments, men, women, and children alike would begin their days in technological wonderment. Depending on their like, their walls would come alive to either the sun rising over the ocean or watching earth from orbit while their alarm of choice accompanied their reverie. They would shuffle to their kitchens where their food replicators were and through voice-activation put their order in for breakfast. Then they would place their plates and cups into the rectangle cell. Like a microwave, it would ding and they would open the door to their order. Scrambled eggs and bacon with a cup of coffee? Within one minute, it would be waiting for them inside. These replicators were hooked up to tubes that fed into its generator, and like a 3-D printer, it would construct whatever the user desired based on the recipe from raw materials.

Living room areas would hold the materials generator, which functioned similarly but used raw, recycled materials to construct the products. Almost everything from these machines was from recycled plastic (which is why authentic antiques were so valued; you could generate a working replica of, say, The Beatles’ White Album, but it would be plastic). This was a great source of distraction and interest for much of the population, programming recreations into their materials generator and then, piece by piece (since they could only create a certain size based on their materials generator; the standard size provided in every apartment was 3 feet by 3 feet) assemble replicas. From this, a form of LARPing became very popular, where you would have people in full knight’s armor (made of plastic, of course) battling with plastic swords in the parks of cities, while elsewhere people would approximate 1900 with wool suits, penny-farthing bicycles, and ladies in broad hats and Gibson Girl hairstyles. Even though so much was automated, people still enjoyed working with their hands and inventing"and now they could spend their lives indulging these interests, distractions, and hobbies.

This Wonderful World

    

After breakfast, people would go about their business and interests that day in complete tranquility. This was mandatory. Under no circumstance was any deviation of the law, or acceptable behaviors, tolerated. This was also part of the Peace Accord of 2065: criminality behavior of any kind was outlawed and immediately punishable by death. If any sort of mental illness in a citizen was detected, it was treated through nano implants that would forcibly regulate their brain chemistry. This had a wildly positive effect on most cases, but in those where there was little hope of their condition improving to match the standards of this utopian society, they were also put to death.

The citizens accepted this harsh new reality with solemnity. They had fought too hard for this wonderful new world; and from their mistakes of empathy in the past, they found the price too high to allow such deviance in society. It was a great embarrassment if you had a criminal in your family; it was of great sorrow if you had someone with a mental illness that couldn’t be treated. But it was the only way any of this could work. Nobody could feel safe with the fear of being murdered or raped while they indulged their great desires; it would be upsetting to be enjoying a perfect performance by The Rolling Stones if a schizophrenic jumped on stage and swinging wildly at the holograms. As a result, the crime rate was near zero in the megacities across America.

High Life

Of course, drug use was a constant; that’s why the diversions of entertainment were so popular. These psychotropic substances were heavily regulated and completely safe, and just by swallowing a pill, the world would begin to shimmer and one’s mood would elevate into euphoria. However, there were no long-lasting side effects from the drugs; no hangovers the next day and no dependencies that developed from their use. They were simply genetically enhanced doses of marijuana. As a result, its users wouldn’t become violent or emotional like some could under the effects of alcohol or over-stimulated like users of old drugs like cocaine. Everyone would become placid and friendly under its influence. Use was completely voluntary, and indeed depending on one’s social set, it was either heavily encouraged or discouraged, as many things like that tend to go.

However, all other narcotics were forbidden due to their negative and unpredictable effects. The synthesizers wouldn’t process the combinations that would create these substances, and although somebody would get the smart idea to make their own alcohol sometimes, usually by synthesizing grapes and fermenting them secretly in their apartment, it was often easy to figure out who was under the influence of the illicit substance. If they had developed a dependency on it, then a nano bot would be injected into their brain to regulate the chemical desire for it.

Another Day in Paradise

Education was mandatory for those under 18, and physical school spaces still existed so children would learn social skills and not grow up isolated. However, lesson plans were individualized and carried out separately; a classroom resembles a quiet office more than  a traditional schoolroom. School started at 9 and ended at 3, with a one-hour lunch break for rest and socialization. Kids would have their friends and cliques and their enemies and all of the regular things every child experiences, but in this world many of the conflicts that divided children"economic disparity, material want, and general competition between each other"made a placid and peaceful generation. Older citizens would marvel at how well-spoken, calm, and kind the younger generation was; how smart and quick-thinking they were.

As for this older generation, they were appreciative of this paradise they lived in. They engaged in their calm daily distractions and enjoyments. Nobody quarreled or got angry or upset; and if they did, they could simply pop a pill and soon feel calm and relaxed. With all of the things offered to them every day, they found themselves feeling as if they had all died and gone to heaven. Of course, it was still the real world: snowstorms would come and cancel school, people still met and fell in love and got married and had children; and they would fall out of love and divorce and feel sad. People would feel jealous and get angry with each other. People would grow old and die. The regular, long rhythms of life that are hard to detect on a daily basis but rang out through the years still occurred. But without the strife of daily burdens, without unhappy careers that they had to waste their daily lives, and without the fear of losing their place in the world, interpersonal problems were merely another distracting drama to engage in.

Thanks to nanotechnology and advancements in the biological sciences, people were healthy and young-looking; a 60-year-old man’s body was scarcely different from a 30-year-old’s. Nano bots could regenerate ailing bones and organs and tissue, so the cities were filled with scores of seemingly the perpetually young. Generations began to mix together heavily, with 66 year-old men dating 25-year-old women and vice versa. Women could have children into their 70s. Some academics warned that this could lead to a collapse of society in just a few generations, or some sort of timeless stopping point in history, but nobody took them seriously. For all intents and purposes for the living, this was the best of all worlds.  

Chapter 2

2076

Ekl Ryan awoke in noise and chaos, the walls of his room flashing dazzling red and yellow patterns while the sound of two galaxies smashing into each other vibrated the bones in his body. It was his alarm going off, but with one word (“NO!”) the room fell into dark silence. He felt a gentle pulse begin on his wrist and blinked it away. Only when the sunlight started creeping across the floor did Ekl get out of bed.

With a tap on his wrist the walls came alive, his home screen jumping with notifications large and small in organized clusters while smaller screens dotted the room depicting conditions in various parts of Ekl’s interests. On one wall, a live shot of the sun setting over Tokyo; in another, a live shot of the Earth from a satellite in orbit that was geosynchronized with his city; and yet another running a series he was watching the night before on The War. On his ceiling an aquarium filled with coral reef fish of the Caribbean swam overhead, He got up and took a mouth full of anti-tooth decay formula, swishing it around in his mouth before spitting it into the sink in his bathroom, and said:

“Turn up sound on left wall.”

“…was eradicated by 2051, the new faction that came to power, an ultra-right wing sect of the National Party of Islam, shored up their forces on the border of Pakistan. On September 19, 2052, the then-called “Holy War” began. What this cost both sides is left for history to decide: today, the Hindi and Islamic religions’ followers number in the low millions, nearly a cult at this point, a far drop form the billions these religions used to inspire…” The narrator said as images of millions of Muslims held swords above their heads, a scene from history he recognized as The Battle of Mecca.

“Turn off left wall.”

He never liked that part of history, preferring the world that he grew up instead"after The War, after fusion, after all of the wrong and evil forces of history finally disappeared. Besides, that was all Old History, and nobody of his generation wanted any part of it. In fact, if it weren’t for the required class in Early 21st Century History at the university, he would choose to never think of it at all.

Walking across the city toward New York University’s campus, Ekl blinked away advertisements and pop-up augments for local gathering areas and landmarks, scrolling through his network interface overlaid on the world around him. His eyes shimmered from the overlay contacts he had activated. Around him, the city activity went on as usual; the low hum from solar engines of trollies, holographic notices dotting the sky, and public messages left by people looking for, or offering, friendship and love. He turned up his filter so that the world all but disappeared around him, with only black outlines of the buildings, sidewalk, traffic, and other pedestrians.

With this up, Ekl pulled open a window and began searching through the internet for news. Video screens at shoulder height popped up along the path, each coming to animated life as he walked, hovering just at eye level. Short bursts of information came out as he scrolled through the video headlines:

“Researchers say that arctic ice mass has reached pre-Industrial Age levels…”

“Money may no longer unnecessary, says Treasury Department…”

“Supersonic non-stop flights around the world to begin next week after a 10-year ban on international travel, including flights from New York to London in just one hour!”

“Birth rates at historic low: research by the census department revealed..”

He switched off the news feeds. Nothing ever happens anymore, he complained to himself. Sure, he didn’t want the awful times of The War, or even most of the century that came before it, which seemed like being on the deck of the Titanic from his reading of it. Maybe a time before all that, maybe the 19th century, or even the 5th. Although there were plenty of virtual simulations of life in that period of time (and any other sort), he wished that he could have lived then, in the flesh, when the world was new and nothing was known about it. Instead he lived in a world where everything is not only understood, but has been catalogued, designated, copyrighted, reproduced, and endlessly derivative. He had been offended when he found out his favorite show, The Simpsons, had been an entirely other show from nearly a century ago, only it was about a low-class family instead of a family of scientists that lived in space next to a time portal, which would bring them to their adventure that week. Digging through the archives and watching the original series, he was bored and somewhat baffled at the crudeness of it. It was very silly and often nonsensical, but at least it wasn’t another science documentary or educational program like its current incarnation is.

Everything was just a copy or a remix, and nothing new seemed to be produced anymore: either people could make whatever they desired through replicators or simulations or else all media is either informational or educational. Which is fine, if only it wasn’t so boring. He had recently gone on a late 20th century culture kick, watching old TV shows, but their pace was often boring and"once he picked up the pattern--he found that he could guess what was going to happen within the first five minutes.

At least it was original. Aside from the rare movie somebody would make about the struggle of life today (which, admittedly, there was very little to draw from), almost all other films are gigantic spectacles of bombast and speed, where the hallucinatory thrill of being in a theater is traded for story (besides which, the spectacle wasn’t nearly as impressive watching it at home as it ever was in the theater; diving into the center of a galaxy while watching a screen six hundred by eight hundred feet is much more impressive than watching the same thing on the walls of your room). Outside of this, after copyright law was abolished in the Peace Accord of 2065, all other cultural artifacts and aspects come from the past and are free for everybody to do what they want with them. This has led to an odd intersection of culture and history, where the present is completely being represented and cobbled together by the output of the rest of history, while outside of science and technology, very little was being created to represent the experience of now. But does that make us the ultimate victors of history? He wondered.

Arriving on campus he turned his display contacts off since the university was a strictly augment-free zone. He enjoyed spaces like this, where he could almost feel like he lived in another time. He wondered if this is what it felt like walking across this campus in 1995 or 1838. He wondered if another young man much like him thought the same exact thought one day in the past while walking right where he was now.

21st Century History started, with the screens up front asking the students to please turn off all devices. Dr. Orlan had his pad and tapped on the screen. A man who looked like he was born to be an old professor, Ekl had heard that he still gripped tightly to his status as professor; he was advanced in years, and had literally been teaching at the university for over half a century. Fat lot of good that did him, thought Ekl; he lived through the 21st century and has no insight on its history.

The dates 2040-2045 appeared on the boards.“2040. In the depths of the greatest economic depression in recorded history, fifteen years after the Great Die-Off in the oceans, two years after the New Madrid earthquake, and ten years before the start of The War. Can somebody tell me a notable bright spot that occurs in this year?

A few hands went up. He points to one.

“The first successful test of a fusion reactor.”

“Correct: In this year, in the depths of what many thought was going to be the end of the world, an American scientist named Julia Stross came up with the solution for keeping a fusion-state reactor at absolute zero, sustaining that temperature for the entirety of its run. Does anybody know what this theorem is called?”

Nobody raises their hand.

“It’s known as the Negative Entropy Theory. Can anybody explain this theory a little?”

Ekl raised his hand, a studious physics major.

“The Negative Entropy Theory states that while we cannot control the effects of entropy on a local level, addressing the issue on a particle level can neutralize the entropic effects of energy loss; this means that on a universal level, we’re trading out dark matter at a particulate level for more “space,” so to speak, so that entropy doesn’t occur.”

“Very succinct, Mr. Ryan. However, can you also explain why it’s still a theory?”

“It’s never been proven that it’s dark matter. Instead, scientists dumbly explain that it’s some sort of voodoo string theory that doesn’t make any sense, frankly, it’s…”

“Yes, no need for your--I’m sure very studied--opinion, Mr. Ryan. However, it is the string theory version that’s the official theory behind the vacuum of negative entropy that surrounds fusion reactors.”

“But it violates the laws of thermodynamics!”

“Which is why we re-wrote the laws of thermodynamics a few years ago. Please sit down, Mr. Ryan. Thank you for your passion. Why don’t we move on to 2041: The Year of the Plague. Can anybody tell me why The Plague led digitizing all cultural artifacts?”

Another student raised their hand and Ekl wished there was a clock in the room so he could see how much class was left.

Author's Note

This is the introduction to a larger work I've been puzzling over for quite a while. Is this a good start? Or is this anything at all? Looking for any and all feedback on this WIP.