The automatic vehicle made an abrupt start. Guided by its electronic maps, it whizzed towards the station. At that hour of the day, the traffic was indeed running smoothly, with only a few carriages, cyclists and knights on the road, and a carriage drawn by a sturdy white horse. After a few sharp swerves, electro-taxi 606 stopped in front of the station run by the TKU (Trans Kontinent Ultrarapid, the bullet-train company). A light drizzle was falling from the sky, which looked heavy, low and grey. The weather was hot and sticky. With climate change, the climate of Brittany had become humid and tropical. Dimitri was impatient to enjoy the icy air and blue sky of Dorbisk, his home on the Bering Strait, 20,000 kilometres away, at the other end of the vast Eurosiberian Federation – the ‘Great Homeland.’
8:17 AM
The train silently left the underground station. Dimitri Leonidovich immediately felt the effects of its powerful acceleration. On the screen embedded into the back of the seat in front of him he studied the schedule and route of his journey: Brest-Paris-Brussels-Frankfurt-Berlin-Warsaw-Kiev-Moscow... down to Komsomolsk, on the banks of the Amour River, in the Siberian Far East. There he was going to catch a plane straight to Dorbisk, as the track for the planetrain to the Bering Strait had not yet been completed. Dimitri was going to spend the night with his wife Olivia to celebrate their ten-year anniversary. In Brest it would be just past 3 PM, but in Dorbisk, because of the time difference, it would be 2 AM...
All this was possible thanks to the planetrain or ‘planetary train’, as it was officially called. This revolutionary invention had radically changed the world of transport just after 2040. The patent for it was an old one: it had been registered by the (now defunct) American company Westinghouse in 1975! The principle on which it was based was the following: along a tunnel dug a few metres beneath the earth, a train – or rather a semi-articulated train of 150 metres in length functioning through magnetic levitation and ‘electro-linear’ propulsion – runs in a vacuum-packed atmosphere. Given the absence of friction from either the air or the ground, the planetrain can travel as fast as 20,000 kilometres per hour. It cannot travel at its full speed over short distances because of acceleration and deceleration problems, reaching 1,300 kilometres per hour at most. On long distances, however, it attains close to 20,000 kilometres per hour. Hence, the journey from Brest to Paris (480 kilometres) took longer than going from Moscow to Irkutsk (7,000 kilometres), as in the latter case the train could reach up to 17,000 kilometres per hour, albeit only for short stretches along its course. On the whole, the planetrain journey from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific took just over three hours.
Following the traumatic occurrence of the Great Catastrophe of 2014-2016, the ‘Renaissance’ of 2030 and the building of the Eurosiberian Federation, which was given the name of ‘Empire of the Two-Headed Eagle’ – for it marked the fusion between the European Union and Russia with the Pact of Prague in 2038 – the revolutionary Federal Government had chosen to make a clean break from the ideas of the past in the field of transport, as in all other fields. The use of electric vehicles had been extended to all, while private car ownership had been halted; horse power as a means of transport had returned, while the use of engine-driven vehicles in neo-traditional rural communities had been banned; highways had been abandoned and replaced with railway tracks for fast trains carrying lorries and containers; air travel had gradually been phased out in favour of planetrains; cargo-airships had been introduced for shipping goods; the canal network had been restored; and, finally, nuclear energy was being employed along with wind energy for maritime transport. The Government had been imposing these radical changes – a clean break from the past – since the ‘40s, and this had been possible because it was necessary to start from scratch. Once destroyed or rendered unserviceable by the Great Catastrophe, economic systems and infrastructures had been rebuilt on completely new foundations.
The construction of the planetrain, like other great continental projects, had enabled the launching of a new techno-scientific economy between 2040 and 2073. Unlike in the Twentieth century, this was no longer extended to all areas of the Earth or to all people: only 10% of humanity benefited from it. These people were grouped in cities – far smaller and less densely populated than Twentieth century ones. Within the Federation, 20% of the population lived in techno-scientific industrial areas. This had made it possible to repopulate deserted rural areas and solve the problems of pollution and energy waste – the planet could finally breathe again. The biggest city of the Federation, Berlin, only had 2 million inhabitants. Still, it was too late to stop global warming, the greenhouse effect and the rise of sea levels caused by wide-scale toxic emissions in the Twentieth century. Science had made rapid progress, but it only affected a minority of the population; the others had reverted to a Medieval form of economy based on agriculture, craftsmanship and farming.
The reason for this dynamism is that the global volume of investments and budgets, both public and private, no longer had to meet the various needs of 80% of the population, who now lived in neo-traditional communities based on archaic socio-economic systems and personally managed their own production and exchange of goods. So starting around 2040, innovation in technological science had resumed the level it had reached in 2014, but only in certain spheres: transport, computer science, genetics, energy, space exploration, etc. In all other sectors, given the limits of the market, technological products were rather primitive. Basically, a two-tier economy had been established.
Seven planetrain lines had been built between 2040 and 2073, all of them connected: Brest-Moscow-Dorbisk, Rome-Edinburgh, Lisbon-Oslo and St. Petersburg-Athens were already finished, while others – such as the Helsinki-Vladivostok line – were still under construction. Outside the Empire, only China (Peking-Shanghai) and India (New Delhi-Bombay) had bought plaintrains, which were jointly produced by the Typhoone and Eurospace companies. America, which had never really recovered from the Great Catastrophe and had almost entirely reverted to an agrarian economy, could not afford to pay for them. Besides, long-distance connections down there only interested a very few people: for only 8% of the American population lived in a techno-scientific system, chiefly along the Pacific coast and around Chicago. Even air travel was rare and made mostly via airships, since – after the Great Catastrophe and the devastating consequences of the greenhouse effect – a phobia of jet planes had spread. The days in which people – like Dimitri Leonidovich’s great-grandparents – dreamed of supersonic jets were truly dead and gone...
Brest-Berlin
The screen in front of Dimitri displayed the speed of the underground train: 1,670 kilometres per hour. On a simple map, a luminous dot indicated its position: ten minutes away from Paris Montparnasse. Paris... A city that must have been magnificent in the Twentieth century, Dimitri thought. He had few memories of it. He was only ten in 2016, when his family had fled the city plagued by anarchy and hunger to return to Russia. Most of the monuments had been burnt and destroyed, and its museums and treasures had been pillaged during the civil war that had broken out before the Great Catastrophe. Today, the autonomous state of Ile de France was carrying out restorations and reconstructions, but Paris was unlikely to ever return to its former glory. The only way to learn what the Mona Lisa, Sainte-Chapelle, the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre looked like was to visit virtual Websites with 3D images.
Dimitri Leonidovich sighed in sadness at these unpleasant thoughts and took out his multi-purpose laptop computer – every high-ranking imperial officer had one –from its case. This was a genuine wolf-fur case decorated with a double-headed Eagle on a red-and-white chequered background.
Dimitri opened the small object, which served almost any purpose. He adjusted the screen and keyboard and immediately Vega, his ‘virtual secretary’, appeared in 3D. He had created an ideal female assistant for himself on his quantum computer to be the opposite of Mrs. Groux, the dreadful and all too real secretary who worked for him in the headquarters of the Imperial Govern
ment in Brussels – a fat and repulsive old hag. His virtual secretary Vega had perfect measurements, always appeared in scanty dresses and made suggestive remarks from time to time; she knew all of Dimitri’s life and shared his intellectual outlook. Named after one of the stars shining in the Siberian sky, she was the woman of Dimitri’s dreams. He had created her in secret, keeping her existence concealed from his wife Olivia, who did not know the access code to the programmes of this extraordinary GPT (Giga-Power of Treatment) quantum computer which the huge Typhoone company had produced exclusively for the new aristocracy: the upper echelons and high-ranking civil and military engineers of the Federation. The GPT also served as a mobile phone, a fax and a multi-purpose terminal connected to the Euronet, and could communicate with the whole world by satellite, even from inside railway tunnels.
To prevent those next to him from overhearing his conversation (the planetrain travelled in the vacuum, magnetically suspended, and thus made no noise whatsoever), Dimitri put on his earphones. He switched the machine on and then typed ‘Vega’.
The first words of his virtual secretary were, ‘I went for an evening dress. It’s black and see-through. Do you like it, Master?’ A luscious and curvy brunette with a mischievous nose and sultry look, Vega had been meticulously designed by Dimitri with the help of a VSP (Virtual Service Personnel) programme. She slunk sensuously across the small screen in 3D.
Dimitri replied, ‘That’s perfect, Vega. I am now on the bullet-train, returning from an arbitration meeting in Brest. I will be spending fifteen days’ holiday at home, in eastern Siberia, before visiting Brussels again.’
The beautiful girl smiled and stroked her hips.
‘Master, I suggest you disconnect from the small screen of the GPT computer and plug into the one in the seat in front of you. You’ll be able to see me in a larger format.’
Dimitri hadn’t thought of that. He unrolled a tiny wire which he plugged into the screen embedded in the seat. Immediately the image of the virtual girl appeared in a larger size. She continued, ‘I would like to remind you that today is your wedding anniversary. You should get your wife a present.’
‘I have.’
Dimitri was bringing his wife a Celtic jewel in solid silver from the autonomous state of Brittany: a cross inscribed within a solar wheel with interlaced motifs and a large ruby in its centre. He had found it in a crafts market in the rural community of Landéda, near Brest.
‘I disconnected my private phone. Has anyone called?’
‘You have received two messages. Would you like to hear them?’
The first message was from Olivia, who confirmed she would be waiting for him at the airship port in Dorbisk.
The second message was from his friend Hans Gudrün, the governor of the state of Bavaria and a member of the Central Committee of the Federation (the body representing autonomous regions before the Imperial Government).
The Bavarian had called him on his videophone. An icon appeared in the top-left corner of the screen showing the smiling, ruddy face of the governor, who was wearing a green, feathered hat.
‘I hope you managed to solve our problems with those stubborn Bretons and defend Bavaria’s point-of-view. Expect a far more difficult negotiation after your holidays. Bavaria disagrees with the federal project for a solar powered high-energy plant. I hope you will take our view into account, my friend. Send my regards to Olivia and your children. I have booked a place of honour for you at the Munich Bierfest in September. Tschüss!’[3]
Dimitri would have to phone him back later. Gudrün was very kind, but shouldn’t put pressure on him like that, using their friendship as an excuse.
‘Any other news, Vega?’
‘Yes, Master. The last EKIS bulletin contains information that might interest you.’
The EKIS, or ‘Euro-Kotinent Information Service’, was an information network exclusively reserved for the leaders and cadres of the Federation. The media system that had been open to all in the Twentieth century had gradually disappeared, for it was thought to cause disinformation and demoralise the public by causing panic. With the help of keywords, Vega had selected news of interest for Dimitri.
‘I’m listening.’
The image of the virtual secretary shrunk to the size of an icon as a voice-over commented on the images now flashing across the screen. Vega had selected many news items, according to the centres of interest programmed by the Councillor. Dimitri focused his attention and fastened his seatbelt, for the train was rapidly decelerating and entering the underground station in Paris.
‘Demonstration outside St. Peter’s in Rome for the return of the Pope’ (a crowd was shown holding placards outside St. Peter’s, which was covered in scaffolding. The Roman Republic was rebuilding the Basilica, which had been destroyed during the war against the Muslims). The voice-over continued:
‘As is widely known, since the murder of the last Pope, John Mary I, in 2017, and the Great Catastrophe, no Pope has been elected. The Holy See collectively administers the Church. Since the schism of 2020, with the election of Popes Pius XIII, Pius XIV and now Pius XV, who is residing in Avignon, the traditionalist Church – which has been declared “impious” – has been calling for the return of “its” pope to Rome and the Vatican. The Holy See is refusing to meet this request, leading to the present traditionalist demonstration. Some protesters have travelled all the way from Poland by cart – a three months’ journey. No accidents have been reported so far. The Senate of the Republic of Rome is backing the Holy See and opposing the return of the Popes, in compliance with the Concordat of 2022 and in agreement with Father Diaz Fernandez, Superior of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). The Imperial Government has issued a bulletin stating that, in conformity with the principle of religious neutrality, it will take no side in the conflict, for this concerns an authorised religion within the Federation, Christianity. The druidic representatives of the Great Brotherhood of Cernunnos,[4] assembled in a conclave in London and representing all Celtic pagan cults, have issued a statement calling traditionalist Catholics ‘to join them’. The Imperial Government and the Central Committee of the Party remind all civilian cadres and members of the armed forces that they must not become involved in these disputes and must keep a strictly neutral stance.’
The demonstration outside the Vatican disappeared from the screen and was replaced by the image of a knight in armour from Poland, waving a white flag emblazoned with the monogram of Christ amidst the applause of the crowd.
After a ‘beep’ a new image appeared. In a hangar, a bizarre engine with enormous solar panels was shown, as big as a railway coach and surrounded by engineers at work. The voice-over explained, ‘This is IPC, the new Ionic Propulsion Cruiser developed by the Typhoone company and by Euromotor on the basis of a 1995 project[5] that was lost and has now been rediscovered. More efficient than space vehicles with conventional propulsion, the IPC can reach our base on Mars in two rather than nine months thanks to its “gradual acceleration” from the orbit of the Moon. It is fuelled by xenon, a rare, electrically charged gas that can be easily stored and which sets off a flux of high-energy ions. This sequence of images was filmed in an IPC assemblage factory in Toulouse, in the Occitan Republic.’
This was followed by another scene: a huge missile bearing the red-and-white chequered flag of the Empire was launched with a pyrotechnic show of lights and smoke. The voice explained, ‘Yesterday, at 2:45 AM GMT, the first IPC with five astronauts onboard was sent into lunar orbit by a Leonida missile, which left our floating platform for equatorial launches in the middle of the Atlantic. This revolutionary spacecraft will reach our base on Mars in 60 days. We are now well ahead of the Chinese and have a decisive advantage over them for the conquering of Mars.’
The image of the missile, whose white banner disappeared above the clouds, was replaced by a gaily coloured feast: bare-chested men, girls dancing with embroidered dresses, beef roasting on embers...a merry crowd of farmers. This was taking place at th
e centre of a vast clearing. The camera moved across the landscape: mountain peaks dotted with tight rows of white villages. The voice commented, ‘This is the feast of the summer solstice in the Republic of Lacedaemonia, which includes the Peloponnese. Since 2030 we have been witnessing a huge renaissance of this ancestral custom and it now represents a key moment in the life of many rural communities of the Federation. On the night of 21 June, the longest of the year, a large pyre is lit [the image of a brazier was shown]. For three days, huge festivals take place. Farmers, sailors, craftsmen, as well as engineers and imperial officials assemble from the four corners of the Empire to take part in this folk celebration in the ancient city of Sparta that stretches back into the mists of time.’
This was followed by some interviews: one with a Provencal mutton farmer who had travelled forty days by horse to reach Sparta (‘My sheep are well protected against wolves: I have three daughters and two guard dogs’), and another with a Swedish cosmonaut and Odinist who had arrived with his wife and six children on the Northern Europe-Athens bullet train and then a mini-airship taxi (‘We live near local people, in a rustic house, and wash with water from wells – but it’s still a good deal more comfortable than the Moon base!’).
Archeofuturism Page 25
