Location of the meeting: Federal Navy Ministry, Brest, Popular Republic of Brittany, 20 June 2073.
Participants in the meeting: 1. The presidents of the parliaments of the aforementioned autonomous region-states; 2. two experts from the Federal Financial Delegation; 3. myself, your servant. The meeting was chaired by Father Wencslas, President of the Republic of Lithuania, a state not affected by the economic conflict.’
‘I’m first sending your Excellency the recordings of the most interesting moments of the negotiation.’
Dimitri inserted the disc with the recording into his computer.
‘First, there’s an exchange between Mrs. Gwen Ar Pen, President of the Parliament of Brittany, and myself...’
‘There’s no way we will ever fund the produce of those agricultural states! All they have to do is be productive, like us, and come up with innovations so they can export their rabbits and sheep at a cheaper price. I also wish to point out, Mr. Plenipotentiary Councillor, that the Breton state is an agricultural power, too, and that we manage to export our pigs, fruits and vegetables at competitive prices! We scrupulously respect the federal law imposing organic farming and banning industrial produce and GMOs.[23] If a Breton pig is 50% cheaper than a Czech one that’s because we’re better organised. Our neighbour to the south, the Free State of Vendée-Poitou-Charentes, which is also a maritime and agricultural state like us, does the same with its butter and spirits. The states of the Atlantic Arch also respect the federal laws banning the use of trawl-nets for the preservation of fishing resources. As a solution to the problem, I suggest the Federal Financial Delegation from Frankfurt fund the agricultural produce of the plaintiff states. I’m certain the latter will gladly accept such a solution.’
‘Madam, this is quite impossible. In this case, we should also be funding the agricultural produce of all 125 autonomous states of the Federation, so as to avoid making anyone envious! And this is not a realistic financial prospect. Besides, it also goes against the principle of financial responsibility for the Federation’s states. Let us not forget that the federal budget is already completely funding the rearing of workhorses and the spatial programme of low-orbiting nuclear plants, as well as the Hipparcus Crater mining base on the Moon, a space programme which was initiated by your own state – I would like to remind you – in partnership with the Republic of the Flanders, Bavaria and Moscow, amongst others. You are autonomous and cannot expect everything from the Federation. It seems to me that the Breton state is often taking too many liberties with respect to federal agreements...’
‘Such as, Mr. Councillor?’
‘For instance, why is it that the Breton language is so badly taught in Brittany? You are contravening to the norms of decree R.567 of the Language Committee. Each nation of the Federation must teach its subjects its own ethnic language. You are far behind compared to all the other bilingual states! Be careful, because I’ve heard there are some sanctions in store for you – they may, for instance, reject the allocation of the funding you requested for the space monitoring station on the Monts d’Arrée.’
The text of the recorded conversation appeared on the screen and was immediately received and translated by Schneider’s fax in St. Petersburg.
Everywhere, regional languages and dialects were flourishing again, both in neo-traditional rural communities and among the urban elites. Even the Île -de-France attempted to recreate its dialects, including Parisian argot, which was now being used in various artisan guilds.
‘This debate is really stupid,’ Dimiri thought... With temporary ‘sleep-chips’ implanted in his ear, connected to a teaching robot via radio, an individual of average intelligence could learn a language of the Federation in 200 nights – just over six months. Each language cost around 230 Eurosesterces. Because of his job, Dimitri had already learned fourteen languages.
The debate in this case had taken place in French.
Other recordings followed, including the final agreement. Late at night, after some fiery arguments, the representatives of the Atlantic Arch had accepted the suggestion made by the Siberian councillor. Dimitri informed Schneider:
‘Subject to confirmation on your part, I have drawn up the following plan: should we go ahead with the plan to bring food aid to North America (which would be of central geopolitical importance for us), the federal authorities could purchase large quantities of cereals, meat and milk from the plaintiff agricultural autonomous region states, in order to export them to the North American states in the grip of famine. In exchange for this, the Federation would ask these American states to accept its protectorate. Your Excellency, who has a good command of history, will realise that this would be a sort of reverse Marshall Plan.[24] This solution would help resolve the hoary controversy between the states of the Atlantic Arch and the others.’
An hour later, Schneider’s laconic reply flashed on the screen:
‘Report received. Brilliant solution. Suggestion accepted. Inform the Ministry of Defence.’
In contrast to the catastrophic practices of the old world, and in agreement with slogan number 65 of Vitalist Constructivism (‘Like the Eagle in search of prey, politicians make decisions quickly because everything is urgent’), federal authorities reacted quickly and made clear and rapid decisions, without letting problems deteriorate or losing themselves in a labyrinth of consensus-making, consultations and commissions.
Dimitri was pleased with himself: he had done his job well. He was hoping that this time, Schneider would promote him to a higher echelon – and salary – by appointing him Plenipotentiary Legate, thus enabling him to sit on the Supreme Court for Inter-State Disputes, which solved the most difficult problems. He would add a new star – a fifth one – to his collar badges, adorned with the symbol of his corps: a silver scale on a black background, surmounted by a double-headed Eagle.
* * *
The airship made a stop at Petropavlovsk, the capital of Kamchatka. The city and its harbour sparkled with lights. In the distance, under the moonlight, stretched the Yspetsas mountain chain, from which a beam of greenish light could be seen, reaching up to the starry sky. This was the HEPL, or High-Energy Photon Line, which connected the Earth to the Cortez Moon base in the Hipparcus Crater. The line transmitted over a million megawatts of energy produced in the solar furnaces of the Moon.
The airship pitched and moored itself to the mast. Its propellers continued to turn at a reduced speed with a light humming noise. A dozen passengers took their seats. From their iron-grey uniforms, bearing the spiked wheel insignia, Dimitri recognised them to be officers from the Engineers’ Legion. Among them was a tall man in a uniform adorned with the Order of the Stone Sun who greeted Dimitri with a wave. It was Engineer-General Jean-Maxime Tiernon, the man who had developed the spearhead of the armed divisions of the Federation: the Tyrannosaurus tank.
The stop in Petropavlovsk lasted no more than ten minutes. After takeoff, a steward brought passengers a light meal: smoked swordfish from the Fishing Community of the Commanders’ Island, reindeer steak from the hunting tribes of Srednekolymsk and – curiously enough – some organic camembert from Normandy. The cheese had travelled quite a distance and you could tell...
There was a beeping noise. Dimitri’s laptop wished to get in touch with him. He typed ‘18’ and Vega popped up, with yet another outfit. In a tutu, she was taking a few dance steps, salacious and provocative.
‘Master, His Excellency Commodore-Count Schneider has received your suggestions regarding the Brest case and approved them.’
‘I know. What else, my beautiful dancing girl?’
‘The High Court, in the person of Judge Kortchak, who is entrusted with negotiating with autonomous region-states that have acquired independence, is urgently asking for your opinion on the Corsican affair. He is asking me whether you suggest redeeming or invading it.’
Corsica had sought complete independence in 2059. It had been granted, following a referendum, in accordance with the Federal C
onstitution. But things had not gone as planned. Today it was a colony of the Sultanate of Tripoli, a deceptive and brutal regime which inflicted misery and oppression through its reign. In the meantime, a resistance movement called Corsa Libre was begging for a return of the island to the Federation.
Two months earlier, in a smart restaurant in Milan, Dimitri had discussed this problem with his friend Luigi Sutti, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federation and the former President of the Parliament of the Republic of Padania.
Dimitri had made the following observation to the elegant Milanese:
‘According to our informants, many Corsicans simply wish their island to be reunited with Provence. For geostrategic reasons, Corsica, which is located in the heart of the Mediterranean, cannot stay in Muslim hands. What do you think we should do?’
‘Proceed through invasion and war?’ Luigi Sutti had asked, sarcastically. ‘We would no doubt reach our goal, but at the cost of many useless deaths. It would prove more expensive than redeeming it. The Sultan of Tripoli would be quite happy to get rid of Corsica. He needs money because of his ongoing war against the Bey of Tunis and the Islamic Republic of Egypt.’
Dimitri remembered this conversation. He had studied the case. On his keyboard he typed:
‘Tell Kortchak that I’m of the following opinion: we should offer to redeem Corsica to the Sultan of Tripoli at the price of a billion Eurosesterces. I believe he’ll accept. But we should not annex Corsica to Provence. We shall make negotiations for a gradual return of the inhabitants to North Africa. We should avoid military confrontation with the Sultanate of Tripoli, who must become one of our protégés and allies in the region.’
Dimitri felt like a new Choiseul.[25]
* * *
The steward cleared the trays. He moved rather unsteadily because of the wind that was hammering the aircraft. The airship, which was now flying above the northern Pacific, appeared to be caught in a storm. Because of the greenhouse effect and the environmental catastrophes it had caused, cyclones had become increasingly common. Through the window, Dimitri could see the propellers spinning in all directions, like animals gone wild, to counteract the effect of the wind.
As was always the case in these scenarios, music was played to soothe passengers. From the loudspeakers a muted version could be heard of a popular hit by the Slovenian band Elektrock – in English, ‘The Wind Blows in Gusts’. Broken by the rumble of the storm and the motors fighting to stabilise the airship, Dimitri could make out some of the words sung by Arno Magister:
The wind blows in gusts, carrying our songs
The wind blows in gusts, carrying our destinies...
Cold is our reign and the frost makes the blue steel of our swords sparkle...
The Albatross leaned to one side. One of the suitcases fell from its net. A woman started screaming. Dimitri thought of Nafissa, who was probably sleeping by now on a carriage headed to China.
The wind blows in gusts, bending the black firs.
The music suddenly stopped. All that could be heard was the wild scream of the six propellers striving to straighten the huge airship. Were they going to make it? Dimitri started praying. An advertisement about Albatrosses from the Typhoon company sprung to his mind: ‘Our aircraft are getting stronger and stronger.’ It sounded reassuring...
Suddenly, all grew quiet. The storm had unexpectedly stopped and the airship had straightened itself out. A smiling hostess comforted the passengers by handing out glasses of vodschkaia.
* * *
Dimitri got back to work, but this time not with Vega. In accordance with Schneider’s orders, he had to inform the Minister of Defence of the solution he had come up with at Brest concerning the purchasing of agricultural goods as a means for bringing food aid to North America.
On the screen he started reading the text of a report from the General Legation on World Information (the information services) in Berlin regarding the situation in North America. This area had never recovered from the Great Catastrophe and had broken down into many states, some of which (the central region) had completely reverted to the Middle Ages, with no traces of industrial or technological economy. Dimitri looked at a map of the region. Only four organised states still existed: the Pacific State, which was in fact a Sino-Japanese protectorate occupied by Asian military garrisons; the Old American State (OAS), the most advanced of all, which included the Great Lakes region and southern Quebec, as well as former Ontario and New England (in these two states about 9% of the population lived a technological lifestyle); the Confederation of the South, entirely agricultural and with Atlanta as its capital, which had largely sought to re-establish the Confederate way of life, stabilising its citizens’ quality of life on an Eighteenth century level; and finally Dreamland (with New Orleans as its capital), a vast agricultural state in which most of the Black community had gathered following the Great Inner Exodus of 2024 – although Hispanics made up 50% of the state’s population. Dreamland was beset by ongoing ethnic clashes and actually found itself as a protectorate under its Mexican neighbour, which in 2031 had quite simply annexed former New Mexico and southern California.
The rest of North America was still in the grip of chaos: communities and tribes waged ongoing mutual war amid famines and the ruins of cities and the old infrastructures. Now, the Imperial Government had received a petition from the Old American State and the Southern Confederation. The two states were asking for emergency food relief, as climate change made agriculture extremely difficult, particularly given the return to pre-industrial methods of farming. The question was whether to send the Americans the millions of tons of flour, milk and cattle they were requesting. Of course, with the heating of the atmosphere, increased productivity in Ukraine and southern Siberia had led to a significant agricultural surplus, even now that organic farming had been adopted. But in the name of what, to help the Americans? Their petition ended with the following appeal: ‘...in the name of our belonging to the same civilisation.’
Dimitri remembered that some members of the Imperial Government were in favour of providing food relief for geopolitical reasons. Admiral Almagro, Baron of the Empire, Duke of Extremadura and Minister of Defence, had declared that, ‘The Asian powers control the Pacific coast. Their ambition is to strengthen their presence in those areas, further to the east, and ultimately to rule North America across to the Atlantic. Would it not be in our interest to establish a protectorate over the Old American State and the Southern Confederation, in such a way as to halt this expansion? A favourable answer to the petition we have received for food aid would be a good way of extending our influence in that region. Besides, the people in these states are almost exclusively of Euro-Caucasian origin – and have been since the middle of the century. There are around 18 million of them on the whole.’
Dimitri was absorbed in the thought that the population of these two states was about five times smaller than what it had been in the Twentieth century. He immediately chose to fax a message to the cabinet of Admiral Almagro. He typed it in on his keyboard, as he didn’t quite trust the microphone, fearing someone might overhear him. He thought of his career plans: the Minister of Defence would probably have appreciated the brilliant solution he had come up with, following the conflict between the states of the Atlantic Arch and the others.
Dimitri opened his text with the ritual ‘Your Excellency’ and then went on to describe the aim of the mission of the High Court in Brest. He concluded, ‘The two parties, the states of the Atlantic Arch and the aforementioned agricultural states have reached an agreement regarding my suggestion. Federal authorities will purchase part of the produce of the plaintiff agricultural states and send it to the other side of the Atlantic as food relief. The expenses faced here will not be in the form of gratuitous funding, so to speak, but will rather serve our foreign policy plans, according to Your Excellency’s views.’
Dimitri faxed the whole thing off, proud of himself, even if what he was suggesting was a small bre
ach of the economic doctrine of ‘autarchy for wide areas’.
The economic organisation of the world had, indeed, little to do now with the anarchic and catastrophic globalisation of the baleful years at the close of the Twentieth century. The Eurosiberian Federation practiced free trade within its boundaries, but outside these it was protected by extremely high customs. A bunch of bananas from the Antilles cost 90 Eurosesterces... Each great continental block lived according to its own rhythm and was economically independent. There were no longer any international flows of finance or investments.
* * *
An artificial voice announced, ‘The Orthodox religious service is about to begin in the chapel on the first floor of the aircraft.’
Many people got up and took the escalator. Others chuckled. Despite the humming of the propellers and the soundproofing, Dimitri could hear snippets of songs and liturgy. ‘They should thank God for having spared us from the storm,’ he thought.
Dimitri was not religious, but his wife Olivia was. Following the Great Catastrophe and the expulsion of Islam from Europe, there had been a marked increase in religious practice. This hadn’t benefited the Protestant Churches, which had collapsed. Catholicism had witnessed a very modest revival, hampered by the new schism and by the lack of an official Pope in Rome. In contrast, following the 2030 ‘Renaissance’, there had been a real boom in Orthodoxy, in a bizarre form of Buddhism, and of neo-pagan cults of all sorts – from the most superstitious and wacky to the more sophisticated. The latter found inspiration in an ancient philosopher, Marcus Aurelius,[26] whose work served as a central point of reference for what might be termed ‘philosophical paganism’. This current had developed a kind of syncretism between the Hellenic, Scandinavian, Germanic, Slavic and Roman traditions and was in close contact with the Hindus.
Archeofuturism Page 30
