Crisis Memes -13 - Fri 08 Aug 2256 13:00

“You want to see Harry?” asked Megan. “Is there something wrong?”

“There is no cause for concern Mrs McLaren,” Selena said. “Harry asked if I would help him with a book that he has borrowed from the library.”

“You’re a service ‘droid aren’t you Selena? You must have a lot to do at the moment.”

“You are correct madam, though my primary assignments for this time period are complete and I have no further scheduled duties for the next two hours. I am available to respond to ad-hoc requests for any sort of passenger assistance.”

“Surely there must be more important things…”

It had been a confusing day for Megan. Even in dim lighting, the opulence of the new penthouse apartment to which the family had been relocated was almost beyond her comprehension - she still hadn’t seen inside all of the rooms in the suite. Even the service ‘droids seemed to be programmed to provide a better level of service up here. Selena was a sweet little thing. She looked very different in her off-duty clothes - just like a normal teenage girl standing at the door, and she did have that nice fragrance about her. Harry had always been rather shy with girls, even though he was now past sixteen and had become a very handsome young man. Perhaps he just needed to get some confidence…

“Hmm. Oh, alright Selena, he’s in his new room - just along the passage there, third left. Would you like some fruit juice? Oh, I’m sorry - I mean, do you drink juice - or anything?”

Selena touched her stomach. “I have a cold-fusion micro-reactor, Mrs McLaren. It has a guaranteed lifespan of five hundred years.”

“You couldn’t connect that to the kettle I don’t suppose? A cup of tea would be lovely”

“That would melt the kettle and most of the cabling in this sector, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, right,” Megan said, unsure whether to laugh.

“Are you aware that the lights are back on in all the Streets and Retail Loops above Deck 10?”

“Oh my goodness, no-one told me!” Megan glanced at the lights above. “But not in the accommodation sections?”

“The Delta Destiny’s solar panels are picking up a some starlight and solar radiation, but the power supply is still severely limited.”

“So, is it safe to go and look along the Streets, do you think?”

“There are no reports of disturbances on the upper decks, and Marines are patrolling.”

“OK - I’ll go and take a look.” Megan stopped at the doorway. “Are there any shops open?” she asked.

“I do not have that information.”

Megan grabbed her purse, just in case.

***

Dressed in the same clothes as the previous day, Harry was sitting at the desk in his new room with a wind-up flashlight dangling from a shelf above him. A dead keyboard and a blank computer screen were pushed to one side, and he was engrossed in the book on Dynamic Social Evolution. Out of the corner of his eye he became aware of a girl dressed in blue jeans and tee shirt, standing at the doorway.

“Hi Lauren,” he said. “What’s new?”

“I estimate a ninety seven percent probability that you’ve has mistaken me for Lauren Ferguson. Lauren and I are of similar height, but my hair is three inches shorter and perceivably blonder.”

Harry suddenly paid attention. “Selena! Oh, hello. You look different – out of uniform I mean.

“How are you progressing with the book, Harry?”

He held it up. “It’s absolutely immense. Why don’t they teach us this stuff at school?”

“I believe that science and technology are considered to be more useful than social sciences. May I come in and sit down?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She pulled back Harry’s chair and sat down on his lap with her arm draped over his shoulder.

“Oh, there’s another chair over there,” he nodded towards a dark corner.

“That is correct,” she confirmed without moving.

“It might be easier if you let me bring it over for you.”

She paused, as if making some interpretation, and then stood up. Harry brought the other chair and placed it at the side of the desk. Selena sat on it.

“Could you summarise what you have read so far?” she asked.

Harry started to relate what he had learned, skimming over the first couple of chapters, until he got to the more interesting parts.

“It says that since physically evolving into modern human beings with a decent sized brain, we’ve passed through about half a dozen different sets of ‘life conditions’ and our brains developed a different ‘coping mechanism’ for each one in turn. All the societies on Earth today have been through phases of basic survival, tribal societies, local warlords and dictators, authoritarian hierarchies and religions, and most recently a period of industrial and scientific domination.”

The wind up torch started to dim, but Harry continued on.

“But here’s the stuff that’s interesting. After the Industrial and Scientific age the book says we should have entered a new phase that seems to be about equality, ecology and sustainable lifestyles. Then there come some phases which I really don’t understand yet.”

Selena nodded. “Don’t worry about those Harry, they are just theoretical. So where does the journey start for modern humans?”

“The first thing the book talks about is living in a jungle environment. In order to survive people form themselves into small bands - sometimes not much more than a family group. It’s a dangerous place, and they survive on their instincts - they’re probably much better at hearing and smelling things than we are today. They don’t seem to want very much out of life - as long as they have something to eat and drink, and are warm and safe then they’re happy, and they don’t worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow.” He flicked through the pages to remind himself of what he’s read. “Oh yeah, and they don’t have any kind of moral hang-ups about having sex - they just do it because it feels good and it makes new people almost as a by-product. If fact they don’t really have much sense of morality at all.”

Selena leaned forward over the desk and rested her hand on her chin. “So would you conclude that the people in this state are of low intelligence?” she asked.

“Well, I might have said that once - but when I think about it some more, it seems to me that they knew just as much as they needed to know in order to survive, so really they were smart - or rather they had exactly the right sort of smartness. If they knew more, they'd want more, and if they couldn't get it, they'd be unhappy and frustrated.”

“Would you say then, that all humans today have a better ‘coping mechanism’ that allows them to live in a much more complicated world.”

Normally Harry would have read the book and kept the new knowledge to himself, but today he was finding it easy to speak about what he had learned. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t talking to another human being, although by the light of the torch above, he did suddenly notice that Selena’s eyes were a beautiful shade of brown.

“Please share your thoughts with me Harry.”

“Yeah, right. As I understand it, all humans go through this survival period, right after we’re born and when we’re babies, and we don’t actually grow out of it and leave it behind because you can still get knocked down by a ground transporter if you don’t have enough survival instinct to cross the road. So you don’t pass from one stage to another, discarding the others - you integrate them all together, sort of adding more layers as you go through life. So when there’s a disaster or a major crisis like a war or something, people stay alive by sliding back into survival mode no matter how civilised they were originally.”

“Yes, people can move in either direction. But what happens if they revert to earlier phases and still have access to sophisticated technology – like modern weapons?”

“Then you may get massacres and genocide. A warlord generally thinks the same way whether he has swords and armour or nuclear missiles. History is full of examples. In the twentieth century warlords took control of industrial nations – and millions died in huge wars.”

“I believe you have understood the essential points so far Harry.” She leaned further forward and said in a quiet voice, “Tell me, what would expect to happen if we dropped all the people on this ship into a jungle with less food than they needed to survive?”

Harry sat back in his seat.

“Selena, why are you asking me all this?”

“Because I am a creation of technology. I have no evolutionary layers to access, and I need the thoughts of a someone who can help me to predict human behaviour of the face of the approaching catastrophe.”

“Catastrophe?” asked Harry. “What do you mean? Surely we’ve survived the worst part – we just have to wait until we’re rescued. Dad says there’s food and water for a year or more.”

“That is correct, but we are thousands of light years from the nearest colony planet. No rescue ship can possibly reach us before the food runs out. Yesterday the crew discovered a planet which could provide us with sustenance, but with only our auxiliary propulsion operational it will take us more than five years to reach it. We need a plan that will maximise the number who are going to survive the journey.”