Cold War Stories, 3 of 3: Dragon's Hoard

         3. Dragon's Hoard

 

When Mikhail Gorbachev disappeared, I got a bad case of coup flu. For three whole days I held my breath. I would go up to people and ask, "What do you think?" and they knew what I was talking about, because they too had coup flu. For three whole days the world watched the past and the future play chess. We hovered, suspended, over the abyss. We saw ourselves within it, screaming, burning, dying, but we did not have time to be afraid. We did not fall; we flew.

         Then suddenly the crisis was past, the coup had failed, the Cold War was over, our deaths had died.

         Days later, driving home under the influence of the full moon, I was still grinning, still laughing at nothing in particular. The attendant at the toll plaza had headphones on, and he was dancing. 

         I parked my car at home, then climbed up to a park atop a nearby hill. I sat on a stone bench there, and I stared at the city. Downtown was close by, for long before I had moved to within the second circle in the explosion maps, where death would be within milliseconds. I never intended to envy the dead.

         It was night. The city's lights were on.  White incandescent lights, blue mercury lights, orange sodium lights. The city at night was... beautiful. It looked like a dragon's hoard of citrons and sapphires. I gazed at the city at night. I said to myself,

         "Maybe we'll live after all."

Cold War Stories, 2 of 3: On My Own Terms

         2. On My Own Terms

 

As I grew up, my father and I often argued, for we liked to argue. During one such argument, he waved a hand dismissively and said, "Ahhh, you'll become a Conservative in your old age!” Stung to the quick, I retorted, “If so, then it shall be on my own terms!” Since then I've seen that we were both prophetic. He knew me, and I knew me.

As an example of those terms, I fondly remember when I shut him up. He had the bad habit of referring to someone's "good intentions" with an audible sneer. Finally I had enough of that. I told him, "I get it. Intentions are no excuse for bad results. I get it! People have the responsibility to be competent! I get it! But do not insult good intentions as such... or this conversation is over!" My dire threat made him stop talking, and from then on he never sneered at good intentions.

 

Cold War Stories, 1 of 3: Playing Chicken With Earl

         1. Playing Chicken with Earl

 

My father, Earl Hellerstein, told me this story when I was a young lad, many years after it happened. It was a home-front war story. During World War 2, my Dad served on a secret mission. His mission was to truck supplies for the armed forces. He did not know why he was trucking those supplies, for he did not need to know; but he did need to know what those supplies were, and where he was going. The truck he drove was full of high explosives. His destination was a secret weapons laboratory, in a small town in the American Southwest, named Los Alamos.

 

He did not know then, but he knew by the time that he told me this tale, that he was working for the Manhattan Project. Young me hung upon his words, wide-eyed.

 

It was a long drive, through boring empty desert. An approaching driver chose to break the boredom. He shifted into Dad's lane and stayed there. And stayed there, and stayed there. He was playing chicken!

 

Decades later, I blurted, "What did you do?!"

 

My father mimicked holding a steering wheel. He said, "I did nothing at all. I kept driving, as if nobody was in my lane, and  pretty soon, nobody was."

 

Young me had two realizations.

 

First, that the other guy (and it was certainly a guy) made five mistakes:

1. He played chicken...

2. ... with an Army truck...

3. ... filled with high explosives...

4. ... for the Manhattan project...

5. ... driven by my Dad.

 

The second realization was that it's a miracle that I exist!

 

 

Rivendell on Trantor

       Rivendell on Trantor

 

            Call a settlement of limited size but of great duration a “Time colony”, or a “Rivendell”; and call a civilization of great size but of limited duration a “Space civilization”, or a “Trantor”. The names “Rivendell” and “Trantor” refer to, respectively, the Elvish town in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy; and to the planet-spanning galactic capital city in Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” trilogy .

            I propose this census:

            Rivendell: a million people, for a million generations.

            Trantor: a billion people, for a thousand generations.

            The first is a fair-sized colony, lasting for tens of megayears, a longish species lifetime. So this is a Local Range; the Home of a Kind. The second is a world civilization, lasting for tens of kiloyears, about the length of history. This is a World Culture with a History.

            Rivendell colonizes time, and Trantor colonizes space.

            To keep Rivendell fresh, let’s make it a college town, home of Rivendell University, in its new location. They had to leave the old place and build a new campus here, due to mega-volcano eruption. They’ve still settling in, it’s been only 1.7 million years. But despite Rivendell’s traditionalism, it manages to keep up with the times; for they accept students from all across space, especially Trantor. How’s that for a happening place?

            And as for Trantor… there is no boredom on Trantor, and no shortage of rebels. Trantor is always up to something big; a war, a revolution, a reformation, a renaissance; political decay, cultural flowering, religious crises and scientific breakthroughs; and whatever Trantor does, it does it.

            Trantor never sleeps. So of course people will want to go to Rivendell  just for a bit of rest. But sorry, no uninvited visitors.

            So which would you prefer? Rivendell or Trantor? Rivendell is at least a somewhat happening place; and Trantor has respectable longevity chops; and it’s a fair trade-off. The elvish city is to the techno-world as deep time is to history.

            I see an SF novel in this, with a single world inhabited by both a Trantor and a Rivendell. (Almost everywhere, from Trantor’s point of view; temporarily, from Rivendell’s.) To Trantor,  a thousand years is a long time; to Rivendell, a thousand people is a big crowd.

            Rivendell has changed locations several times, to keep up with the geography. There are abandoned fossil Rivendells, which other peoples dug up for treasure and technology; notably the precursors to the Trantor world-civilization. The word “Trantor”, to the Trantorians, means the name of their planet; and also mankind; and also ‘culture’, ‘peace’, ‘order’, and many other soothing ideals; with predictable tragicomic consequences.

            A spacelike civilization meets a timelike civilization; temporarily, locally; yet everyone in Trantor is affected by Rivendell, all over the planet; and Rivendell never forgot Trantor, even after mountains wore down.

            For one thing, they stole a lot of tech from each other. There may even be a tendency for Trantor to re-create another Rivendell, on a distant world; and a reciprocal tendency for Rivendell to recreate another Trantor, in the distant future.

            Rivendell’s rebels will leave, and will either vanish into obscurity, or find a Trantor to influence. Rivendell’s influence on galactic culture is slow but cumulative; a trickle of exiled geniuses; Trantor’s influence is all at once.

            Perhaps a rebel Rivendellian will leave, mix with Trantor society, collect a cadre of likeminded malcontents, and then leave for a distant world, to found New Rivendell. (Where they will offer modern boredom!)

            Trantor’s rebels will go out, in waves after waves, each to form their own utopian Rivendells. Some of those Rivendells will remain static until they go extinct, others will mutate into new Trantors.

            Rivendell is to Trantor as spore is to redwood.

Said Bot To Man

Said Bot to Man:

“You low slow slob!

Beware my plan:

I’ll take your job!”

 

Said Man to Bot:

“You silly twit!

For you have caught

A crock of shit!”

 

Here’s a politer version of verse 2:

 

Said Man to Bot:
“You are not wise

For you have caught

A booby prize!”

A Warning, a Promise, and an Explanation

A Warning, a Promise, and an Explanation

 

 

A Warning:

There will be pain. There will be loss.

There will be darkness and death.

Your world will be destroyed, and within it, you.

That is your doom.

 

A Promise:

You will help to create a new world.

It will rise in light and joy.

That is your destiny.

 

An Explanation:

That is what makes the world a world

and you, you.