Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #1
Call me Mira. That’s not my real name, nor are you seeing my real face nor hearing my real voice on this holocom; these have all been digitally altered to protect my identity and the safety of my family from apprehension by the Authorities.
While the intended recipients of this Ship’s Holog or its transcript are our contemporaries around the world, we realize that future generations may come across it still circulating in holospace, like light from a distant star arriving many years after it was generated. Because it is possible that these future-folk may not know the history of how we came to live as we do in this latter half of the 21st century, we have included explanatory links to The People’s Holopedia, its precursor, Wikipedia , and other sites that may or may not have survived the scrutiny of Authority AI censors. We hope these links will provide to these citizens of another time the historical, scientific, and socio-political background information that most of our contemporaries know only too well.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #2
Today, my one-hundredth birthday, marks the beginning of the first of several voyages that my family and I have planned in order to learn what’s really going on in our world today. This morning we launched our sailing ship, the Veritas into Lake Champlain, the commercial heart and major population center of the tiny nation of New Vermont. From here, we plan to make the first of our journeys, one in which we will visit that part of the former United States of North America (USNA) that is east of the Mississippi River, and also, we hope, the New Mayan Kingdom of the Yucatan and the Caribbean Confederation. Throughout our planned voyage, we intend to stop in cities, towns, and villages along lake, river, and ocean shores to see how our fellow Americans are really living today.
Accompanying me are fourteen members of my clan from four generations, including my eight-year old twin great-great grandsons, Castor and Pollux, and their younger sister, Helen. Of those on board, other than me, only my son (Ulysses), my daughter (Amelia), and their respective spouses (Penelope and Queequeg) remember what the world was like before the Hydrocarbon Age came to an abrupt end in 2030, the result of the final fossil fuel crisis that forever altered the way we live.
Accompanying me are fourteen members of my clan from four generations, including my eight-year old twin great-great grandsons, Castor and Pollux, and their younger sister, Helen. Of those on board, other than me, only my son (Ulysses), my daughter (Amelia), and their respective spouses (Penelope and Queequeg) remember what the world was like before the Hydrocarbon Age came to an abrupt end in 2030, the result of the final fossil fuel crisis that forever altered the way we live.
Geneology of Mira's Clan, fragment #2a
Mira’s Clan Genealogy
(All names are fictitious to protect their identies from the Authorities)
Generation I
Mira (b. Randolph, Vermont, USA 1978) & Miro (b. New York City, NY, USA, 1970; d. New Vermont, 2060)
Generation II
Children of Mira and Miro
Crew Members
Ulysses (b. Vermont, USA 2005)---spouse Penelope (b. Vermont, USA 2002)
Amelia (b. Vermont, USA 2007)---spouse Queequeg (b. California, USA 2010) No offspring
Home Base Support
Ethan Allen (b. Vermont, USA 2009)---spouse Margaret Sanger (b. Chicago, USA 2008)
Generation III
Children of Ulysses and Penelope
Home Base Support
Telemachus (b. New Vermont 2025)---spouse Soujourner Truth (b. New Vermont 2026)
Telegonos (b. New Vermont 2027)---spouse Jeanne D’Arc (b. Quebec 2028)
Children of Ethan Allen and Margaret Sanger
Crew Members
Noah (b. New Vermont, 2033)---spouse Mrs. Robinson (b. Massachusetts, USNA 2023)
Harriet Tubman (b. New Vermont, 2035)---spouse Anna Leonowens (b. New Vermont, 2036)
Generation IV
Children of Telemachus and Soujourner Truth
Crew Members
Sacajawea (b. New Vermont 2046)---spouse Nemo (b. New Vermont, 2050)
Uncas (b. New Vermont, 2049) No spouse as of 2078
Home Base Support
Pocahantus (b. New Vermont, 2052)---spouse Nelson Mandela (b. New Vermont, 2050)
Children of Telegonos and Jeanne D’Arc
Home Base Support
Jean-Paul (b. New Vermont, 2053)---spouse Kali (b. New Vermont, 2056)
Marianne (b. New Vermont, 2055)---spouse Muhammed (b. New Vermont, 2059) living in Burlington as of 2078
Children of Noah and Mrs. Robinson
Crew Members
Marco Polo (b. New Vermont, 2054)---spouse Schaharazade (b. New Vermont, 2056; d. New Vermont, 2077) No children
(All names are fictitious to protect their identies from the Authorities)
Generation I
Mira (b. Randolph, Vermont, USA 1978) & Miro (b. New York City, NY, USA, 1970; d. New Vermont, 2060)
Generation II
Children of Mira and Miro
Crew Members
Ulysses (b. Vermont, USA 2005)---spouse Penelope (b. Vermont, USA 2002)
Amelia (b. Vermont, USA 2007)---spouse Queequeg (b. California, USA 2010) No offspring
Home Base Support
Ethan Allen (b. Vermont, USA 2009)---spouse Margaret Sanger (b. Chicago, USA 2008)
Generation III
Children of Ulysses and Penelope
Home Base Support
Telemachus (b. New Vermont 2025)---spouse Soujourner Truth (b. New Vermont 2026)
Telegonos (b. New Vermont 2027)---spouse Jeanne D’Arc (b. Quebec 2028)
Children of Ethan Allen and Margaret Sanger
Crew Members
Noah (b. New Vermont, 2033)---spouse Mrs. Robinson (b. Massachusetts, USNA 2023)
Harriet Tubman (b. New Vermont, 2035)---spouse Anna Leonowens (b. New Vermont, 2036)
Generation IV
Children of Telemachus and Soujourner Truth
Crew Members
Sacajawea (b. New Vermont 2046)---spouse Nemo (b. New Vermont, 2050)
Uncas (b. New Vermont, 2049) No spouse as of 2078
Home Base Support
Pocahantus (b. New Vermont, 2052)---spouse Nelson Mandela (b. New Vermont, 2050)
Children of Telegonos and Jeanne D’Arc
Home Base Support
Jean-Paul (b. New Vermont, 2053)---spouse Kali (b. New Vermont, 2056)
Marianne (b. New Vermont, 2055)---spouse Muhammed (b. New Vermont, 2059) living in Burlington as of 2078
Children of Noah and Mrs. Robinson
Crew Members
Marco Polo (b. New Vermont, 2054)---spouse Schaharazade (b. New Vermont, 2056; d. New Vermont, 2077) No children
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #3
In the days before The Great Change, when fossil fuels were still available for use by ordinary citizens and the private companies that served them, people (many people) traveled freely throughout the country and the world in petroleum-powered vehicles. You’re probably familiar with many of these archaic means of transport from viewing classic 20th century 2-D videos and virtual museums on your holopods; the most common of these were called cars, buses, trucks, trains, and airplanes.
As difficult as it may be to imagine, in the first decades of this century, when I worked as a global sustainability planner, I regularly traveled by airplane from my offices in New York City:
Today, in this last quarter of the 21st century, it would take me about sixteen hours just to get to Burlington by horse and buggy, a trip of somewhat over 150 km from where I now live.
And, as far as we know, ordinary citizens in every country in the world are now limited by law to traveling by foot, bicycle, or “beasts of burden” (horses, mules, camels, elephants, and so forth), while civil authorities may also ride ATVs or fly Ultra-lights, powered by MPV (micro-photovoltaic) cells. As a result, to this day the only place most of my family has ever been is New Vermont. In fact, other than traveling to Burlington once or twice in their lives, most of them haven’t been outside the small lumbering and livestock-raising valley in central New Vermont where my clan has lived for the past 100 years.
As difficult as it may be to imagine, in the first decades of this century, when I worked as a global sustainability planner, I regularly traveled by airplane from my offices in New York City:
- in six hours to Brussels (then, as now, capital of the European Union)
- in eleven hours to the international city of Jerusalem (which served for a brief time as home to the United Nations after the USNA withdrawal from the UN that eventually caused that noble experiment in world cooperation to collapse)
- in just sixteen hours half-way around the world to Calcutta (at the time, having the highest population density of any city on Earth, but now eclipsed in that statistic by dozens of city-states around the globe).
Today, in this last quarter of the 21st century, it would take me about sixteen hours just to get to Burlington by horse and buggy, a trip of somewhat over 150 km from where I now live.
And, as far as we know, ordinary citizens in every country in the world are now limited by law to traveling by foot, bicycle, or “beasts of burden” (horses, mules, camels, elephants, and so forth), while civil authorities may also ride ATVs or fly Ultra-lights, powered by MPV (micro-photovoltaic) cells. As a result, to this day the only place most of my family has ever been is New Vermont. In fact, other than traveling to Burlington once or twice in their lives, most of them haven’t been outside the small lumbering and livestock-raising valley in central New Vermont where my clan has lived for the past 100 years.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #4
As you can imagine, it took a while for those of us who had lived in times of unlimited and unregulated use of fossil fuels to adjust to being limited to non-fossil fuel modes of transport. For many of us, the hardest of all the adjustments turned out to be our loss of freedom of movement. Although, I have to admit that in many ways the new life is a better one than the way we’d been living in the first several decades of the 21st century, when our dependence on fossil fuels, the prices of which had risen so dramatically, caused widespread economic and social dislocation and suffering for so many.
Nowadays, unable to travel large distances, families and communities have become more coherent and responsible, and self-centered materialism has given way to a focus on the necessities for communal survival. In many ways our lives, at least in New Vermont, now resemble those of citizens of many 18th century pre-industrial villages such as those shown on the Sturbridge Village virtual museum. Actually, the lives of the vast majority of people on the planet are far better than the lives led by their forbearers in the 18th century, especially in the developed countries where, by 2030, most disease was finally eradicated, so that very few people there now suffer from starvation or malnutrition.
Nowadays, unable to travel large distances, families and communities have become more coherent and responsible, and self-centered materialism has given way to a focus on the necessities for communal survival. In many ways our lives, at least in New Vermont, now resemble those of citizens of many 18th century pre-industrial villages such as those shown on the Sturbridge Village virtual museum. Actually, the lives of the vast majority of people on the planet are far better than the lives led by their forbearers in the 18th century, especially in the developed countries where, by 2030, most disease was finally eradicated, so that very few people there now suffer from starvation or malnutrition.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #5
Thanks to enormous advances in very-low-power (femto--watt) computing and holographic communications technologies, people are now able to interact easily with one another throughout the globe, using infinitely rechargeable MPV cells, satellite transmission, and tiny inexpensive supercomputing holopods that project life-sized three-dimensional virtual video images anywhere you are, like those you may now be viewing. Thus, by 2030 Planet Earth had entered the Virtual Age, one in which we could interact comfortably with others in their homes and workplaces without actually being there.
But, therein, lies the rub. Just as we can see into the homes and workplaces of those with whom we are interacting, the Authorities and designated state-owned or regulated businesses can look into our homes and small businesses anytime they wish without our even being aware of their “presence.” While this official snooping has had the positive effect of greatly reducing family violence, white-collar crime, pilfering, and illegal drug use, it also greatly inhibits dissent or even questioning of Authority. Simply put, people now feel that they can’t speak freely within range of a holopod, which, of course, means just about anywhere in one’s home, place of work, even out in public places where surve-cams record just about every movement and conversation in stores and out on the streets.
But, therein, lies the rub. Just as we can see into the homes and workplaces of those with whom we are interacting, the Authorities and designated state-owned or regulated businesses can look into our homes and small businesses anytime they wish without our even being aware of their “presence.” While this official snooping has had the positive effect of greatly reducing family violence, white-collar crime, pilfering, and illegal drug use, it also greatly inhibits dissent or even questioning of Authority. Simply put, people now feel that they can’t speak freely within range of a holopod, which, of course, means just about anywhere in one’s home, place of work, even out in public places where surve-cams record just about every movement and conversation in stores and out on the streets.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #6
Speech is not the only form of expression that is threatened in our virtual world; the written word has all but disappeared as a form of free expression, largely the result of the shift from local to server-based data storage, which began to take hold innocently enough in the first decade of the century with vast server-based digital music and video databases.
The convenience of being able to store and access any music, video, document, or bit of information on yotta-byte servers is convenient, of course, but the price paid has been steep. Every newly stored file is automatically scanned by an Authority AI censor, which immediately evaluates its content and, if it is flagged as subversive, removes it from the server and holo-interrogates the person who posted it. Depending upon the AI censor’s determination of the degree of subversion, the adequacy of the poster’s responses during interrogation, and his or her past history of subversion, s/he may be penalized. The severity of such penalties ranges from a minimal suspension of holo-posting privileges to house arrest and, for repeat offenders of highly subversive materials, incarceration in remote and dangerous ACFs (Actual Correctional Facilities).
Of course, the definition of “subversive” differs from country to country. In our progressive nation of New Vermont we have far more leeway than do citizens of repressive totalitarian countries like the People’s Republic of China and the New Soviet Union and than those who live in Islamic theocracies or Evangelical states in the USA , where any material ID’d as sacrilegious is also considered to be subversive.
It’s true that courageous individuals can store information on personal peta-byte flash memory sticks, but as soon as these sticks are connected to a holopod, they instantaneously undergo an AI censor scan. So, there’s really no way to keep digitized written materials secret anymore.
Even antique paper-based books are subject to examination by the Authorities, whose holocom-based surve-cams routinely scan the contents of people’s homes and offices to spot any newly acquired paper-based materials. If any are found, their titles are checked against a database of all written materials, authors, and organizations and, if the materials are flagged as subversive, their owners are ordered to appear with the offending AO (Actual Object) at a local law enforcement agency for questioning. At minimum, the AOs are confiscated. If any of these AOs do not appear on the database in any way, owners also must surrender those to the local Authorities, who, in turn, submit them to national Authorities for registration (and rating) in the database. If these materials are rated as being subversive by Authority censors, their owners may be brought in for questioning.
The convenience of being able to store and access any music, video, document, or bit of information on yotta-byte servers is convenient, of course, but the price paid has been steep. Every newly stored file is automatically scanned by an Authority AI censor, which immediately evaluates its content and, if it is flagged as subversive, removes it from the server and holo-interrogates the person who posted it. Depending upon the AI censor’s determination of the degree of subversion, the adequacy of the poster’s responses during interrogation, and his or her past history of subversion, s/he may be penalized. The severity of such penalties ranges from a minimal suspension of holo-posting privileges to house arrest and, for repeat offenders of highly subversive materials, incarceration in remote and dangerous ACFs (Actual Correctional Facilities).
Of course, the definition of “subversive” differs from country to country. In our progressive nation of New Vermont we have far more leeway than do citizens of repressive totalitarian countries like the People’s Republic of China and the New Soviet Union and than those who live in Islamic theocracies or Evangelical states in the USA , where any material ID’d as sacrilegious is also considered to be subversive.
It’s true that courageous individuals can store information on personal peta-byte flash memory sticks, but as soon as these sticks are connected to a holopod, they instantaneously undergo an AI censor scan. So, there’s really no way to keep digitized written materials secret anymore.
Even antique paper-based books are subject to examination by the Authorities, whose holocom-based surve-cams routinely scan the contents of people’s homes and offices to spot any newly acquired paper-based materials. If any are found, their titles are checked against a database of all written materials, authors, and organizations and, if the materials are flagged as subversive, their owners are ordered to appear with the offending AO (Actual Object) at a local law enforcement agency for questioning. At minimum, the AOs are confiscated. If any of these AOs do not appear on the database in any way, owners also must surrender those to the local Authorities, who, in turn, submit them to national Authorities for registration (and rating) in the database. If these materials are rated as being subversive by Authority censors, their owners may be brought in for questioning.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #7
By 2040, the combination of fear of Authority AI censors and the easy accessibility of Authority-approved digital publications from yotta-byte servers led most people to give up buying paper-based books or zines. Many people had long since stopped borrowing materials from public B&M (bricks and mortar) libraries when it was learned that records of what materials members borrowed were regularly examined by the authorities, purportedly to ensure homeland security. As a result, the paper publishing industry collapsed and most B&M libraries closed. Tragically, many people also destroyed the paper printed books in their home libraries. These days, due to the very high cost and rarity of paper, only religious tracts like the Bible, Qu-ran, and the Book of Mormon are still printed on paper.
And so, we now live in a dystopia that ironically blends the worlds described in two “subversive” 20th century books: 1984 , in which “Big Brother” is watching us and Fahrenheit 451 , in which books and magazines are burned as being subversive
Perhaps the most frightening issue regarding the ubiquity of holopods is this: how do we know that the holographic images we are seeing when we holocom with people, say in the great City State of Paris or the Federation of Oceania are real? Isn’t it possible that government N&I (news and information) agencies around the world are employing highly sophisticated VR (virtual reality) technologies to show a distorted propagandistic picture of the lives of their citizens? And that these agencies might even be intercepting the communications of ordinary citizens, digitally altering our words and superimposing false holographic images? How do we know that what we’re seeing and hearing is real? These are questions that my great-grand children first asked me some twenty years ago and that have been haunting me ever since.
And so, we now live in a dystopia that ironically blends the worlds described in two “subversive” 20th century books: 1984 , in which “Big Brother” is watching us and Fahrenheit 451 , in which books and magazines are burned as being subversive
Perhaps the most frightening issue regarding the ubiquity of holopods is this: how do we know that the holographic images we are seeing when we holocom with people, say in the great City State of Paris or the Federation of Oceania are real? Isn’t it possible that government N&I (news and information) agencies around the world are employing highly sophisticated VR (virtual reality) technologies to show a distorted propagandistic picture of the lives of their citizens? And that these agencies might even be intercepting the communications of ordinary citizens, digitally altering our words and superimposing false holographic images? How do we know that what we’re seeing and hearing is real? These are questions that my great-grand children first asked me some twenty years ago and that have been haunting me ever since.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #8
Over the past decade, we have had clear indications that what we were seeing of the rest of the world on our holopods was not all as rosy as it appeared. We knew, for example, that some of the holocoms we’d seen coming out of our own nation of New Vermont differed in curious ways from the reality we knew. We laughed cynically whenever we saw images projected by the Chamber of Commerce of New Vermont that showed the beautiful tree-covered slopes of the Green Mountains, as we knew full well that these mountains had been treeless since the early years of the Great Change, having been clear-cut in a desperate and short-sighted government program to provide lumber and firewood to its citizens.
More troubling than these C of C sleights of hand, though, were the strange tales we heard from the Nomads that occasionally came to our valley. On their visits to New Vermont, these folks regaled us with surprising accounts of places they’d visited, sights they’d seen, and people they’d met. Their stories, so at odds with the holographic images we saw everyday, are dismissed by most people we know as the ravings of what the Authorities describe as “deviants who subsist largely on hallucinogenic molds and herbs and are involved in a conspiracy to undermine the confidence of the populace in their leaders.” However, it seems to me (and my family) that it’s more likely that the Authorities of the world are the ones involved in a conspiracy--- one that is intended to shore up their powers by preventing ordinary citizens from learning the truth about the conditions under which people are living in other countries and in inaccessible regions of their own countries.
Any reader from around the world who was alive in the early part of the 21st Century is asked to share with fellow readers what life was really like in their part of the world after the Great Change, in contrast to how the Authorities portrayed it.
More troubling than these C of C sleights of hand, though, were the strange tales we heard from the Nomads that occasionally came to our valley. On their visits to New Vermont, these folks regaled us with surprising accounts of places they’d visited, sights they’d seen, and people they’d met. Their stories, so at odds with the holographic images we saw everyday, are dismissed by most people we know as the ravings of what the Authorities describe as “deviants who subsist largely on hallucinogenic molds and herbs and are involved in a conspiracy to undermine the confidence of the populace in their leaders.” However, it seems to me (and my family) that it’s more likely that the Authorities of the world are the ones involved in a conspiracy--- one that is intended to shore up their powers by preventing ordinary citizens from learning the truth about the conditions under which people are living in other countries and in inaccessible regions of their own countries.
Any reader from around the world who was alive in the early part of the 21st Century is asked to share with fellow readers what life was really like in their part of the world after the Great Change, in contrast to how the Authorities portrayed it.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #9
In keeping with my nature as a curious and politically progressive person, I became determined to find out the truth about the new world order. To accomplish this, my family and I began five years ago to plan a series of voyages around the world by sailing ship. Our idea was to see for ourselves what various parts of the world were like and if they turned out to be different from what we had seen on our holopods, we would find a way to securely holocom what we see back to the rest of our family in New Vermont and they, in turn, would get these spoken words and images out to the rest of the world. We would discover and share the truth— veritas.
We realized from the outset of our planning that to succeed in these voyages of re-discovery, we had first to accomplish two very large tasks: (1) to build and launch a sailing ship, small enough so it did not raise suspicions among the Authorities of the lands we’d visit, yet large enough to transport a sizable group of us and our supplies and equipment through lakes, canals, rivers, and ultimately across oceans; (2) to figure out a way to holocom the truth about what we were seeing without our messages being intercepted and destroyed or worse: altered by regional government censors.
Working closely with several skilled shipwrights from New Vermont, we completed the Veritas last summer. However, we delayed launch until June to wait for the perennial spring floods along the Mississippi River to subside and because we had to perfect and test our censor-avoidance technology, which had proven to be the more challenging of the two tasks. (If only we’d been able to complete this task first, we would have been able to holocom with shipwrights in other parts of the world without fear of Authority AI censor interception and so would not have had to rely so completely on our local shipwrights, whose knowledge, unfortunately doesn’t include ocean-going vessels. We hope this limitation will not turn out to be a serious problem when we sail the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.)
Reminder: We have taken every precaution in our holocoms to disguise who we really are. Any names used in our Ship’s Holog, including those of the members of our crew, those we meet along the way, our ship’s name, and the region from which we come, are fictitious, so that the Authorities will be less likely to find us or any members of our family back in New Vermont, as they forward on our holologs. It is also for this reason that all the faces you see and the voices you hear on our holocoms are digitally altered. We do not want to take the chance that in an attempt to find us the Authorities might interrogate (or worse) those with whom we have met and interacted.
We realized from the outset of our planning that to succeed in these voyages of re-discovery, we had first to accomplish two very large tasks: (1) to build and launch a sailing ship, small enough so it did not raise suspicions among the Authorities of the lands we’d visit, yet large enough to transport a sizable group of us and our supplies and equipment through lakes, canals, rivers, and ultimately across oceans; (2) to figure out a way to holocom the truth about what we were seeing without our messages being intercepted and destroyed or worse: altered by regional government censors.
Working closely with several skilled shipwrights from New Vermont, we completed the Veritas last summer. However, we delayed launch until June to wait for the perennial spring floods along the Mississippi River to subside and because we had to perfect and test our censor-avoidance technology, which had proven to be the more challenging of the two tasks. (If only we’d been able to complete this task first, we would have been able to holocom with shipwrights in other parts of the world without fear of Authority AI censor interception and so would not have had to rely so completely on our local shipwrights, whose knowledge, unfortunately doesn’t include ocean-going vessels. We hope this limitation will not turn out to be a serious problem when we sail the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.)
Reminder: We have taken every precaution in our holocoms to disguise who we really are. Any names used in our Ship’s Holog, including those of the members of our crew, those we meet along the way, our ship’s name, and the region from which we come, are fictitious, so that the Authorities will be less likely to find us or any members of our family back in New Vermont, as they forward on our holologs. It is also for this reason that all the faces you see and the voices you hear on our holocoms are digitally altered. We do not want to take the chance that in an attempt to find us the Authorities might interrogate (or worse) those with whom we have met and interacted.
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