Department of History,
Uinversite de Nouveau-Montreal,
Nouveau-Montreal, Triton.
July 25, 3001.
Dear Mr. Davies,
Thank you for letting me see your manuscript. Unfortunately, as even a brief
account of the events leading up to the boomer revolt of 2041, some revision
would be necessary before I'd be willing to consider the work as a whole for
publication through the Librarie de UdeN-M. I've made notes on particular
passages that seem incomplete or inaccurate.
This, of course, is not to say your topic is of no interest; to the
contrary, an account such as you have attempted is desperately needed.
Historians of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries were as much
prisoners of their own frames of reference as any before or after them. Just
as earlier historians blithely used "the Hundred Years War" to name the
series of otherwise nameless conficts between the kingdoms of England and
France fought from 1337 to 1453, their spiritual descendants spoke of World
War III as though
it were fought from the beginning of open hostilities in April of 2001 until
the final use of nuclear weaponry in July of 2078.
Please remind me just which conflict broke out in April 2001; at the time
Earth would have been torn by war and civil war beyond belief, even if there
had been no "Third World War."
This was not the case,
although one can easily understand the reasons for such simplifications. To
describe every conflict fought between the great powers of that period would
consume millions of data units.
The Lady Mercury, from whom I learned what little I know about physics
during my studies at the University of Crystal Tokyo, would not be amused at
use of such jargon. Perhaps it reflects her great age, but she was the one who
taught me to speak in volumes and libraries, even if paper manuscripts are
almost unknown in our age.
At the outset, there were two primary factions whose conflicts began the
war. On the one hand was the United States of America and its allies in the
Second North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Neo-NATO), later termed the Anglo-
Russo-American Alliance. On the other hand was the People's Republic of China
and its client states, usually termed the Eastern Coalition. However, this
faction would subsequently and more accurately be known as the Chinese
Hegemony.
Muddying the waters of the conflict from its early stages onward were
several of the most powerful multinational corporations of the day, of which
General Nippon Orbital Manufacturing (Genom) was perhaps the most infamous.
Because of the Eastern Coalition's dedication to the principles of
revolutionary
communism, one would have expected these "megacorps" to have been aligned with
Neo-NATO. In fact, most of them saw the war as an opportunity to inhibit the
ability of governments to interfere in their affairs, while also enriching
themselves, and sought to prolong it for as long as possible by playing both
sides against each other.
Recall as well that the PRC's theoretical dedication to socialism was in
fact a dead letter in practice by the turn of the century; the last firm
holdout of the command economy in the Far East by 2001 was North Korea, which
in any case it had been more firmly aligned to the now-defunct Soviet Union than
to China even in Mao's day.
For example, during the Polar War (2029-2036) Genom sold arms to the
Eastern Coalition and to their Neo-NATO adversaries. As Genom held a monopoly
on certain technologies essential for successful warmaking in this period, it
is
quite plain to see why they became very wealthy, very quickly. It is equally
obvious why Genom's Chairman, Quincy Rosenkreuz (1962?-2041?) desired to avoid
the governmental interference which had shattered the similar monopoly created
by Microsoft President Bill Gates. [1]
This may also explain Rosenkreuz's decision to base his manufacturing empire
in Japan, rather than the otherwise economically sounder USA. Japan had a long
tradition of tolerating or even encouraging cartels (such as the pre-World War
Two zaibatsu and postwar keiretsu) with the aid od dirigiste econmic policies,
as, to a lesser degree, had many of the nations comprising the European Union.
Only the US was definitely intolerant of trusts and monopolies, and even with
the rise to prominence in the early 21st century of the Libertarian Party, a
radical pro-free-market, anti-statist party, this stance was never completely
abandoned.
(Breaking character for a moment, Chris, assuming such anti-trust attitudes
like we see in the US to exist everywhere's a bit provincial. That, and I
hardly expected such American provincialism here. You're from _Alberta_. ^_^;
Of course, I don't know what stance Canada has generally taken towards
monopolies.)
A fourth factor in this complex pattern was the United Nations -- or, to
be completely accurate, the New United Nations. Following the first period
of open
hostilities between Neo-NATO and the Eastern Coalition (resumed Korean
War, 2002-2004) the organization underwent a number of major reforms. Many
nations outside of the Neo-NATO and ECON axes had been severely shaken by the
possibility that one of the superpowers might use nuclear weapons to resolve
the conflict. As several of these nations (Canada, France, Spain and Japan
among them) had representatives on the U.N. Security Council, while the United
States and China were boycotting it, they were able to make certain amendments
to the U.N. constitution.
The primary change was one of attitude. While the primary mandate of the
United Nations was "peace-making", they were only allowed to assemble military
forces for their secondary mandate, "peace-keeping". Under the amended
constitution, the U.N. could establish forces to create stable conditions if
the Security Council felt it necessary. [2] Predictably, this alienated both
the governments of the United States and China, as well as those of the United
Kingdom and Russia (whose representatives had voted against the proposal).
Thus, while the "new and improved" United Nations now had the authority to put
a peacemaking force into the field, the resources on which it could draw to
create and outfit that force had been severely circumscribed. It is believed
that awareness of this "paper tiger" state of affairs saved the New United
Nations from complete abandonment by its alienated members, and it's probable
that affairs might have reverted to their status quo except for an
unpredictable chain of events.
(It helped that the US and China retained their vetoes on the Security
Council, making such deployment impossible without their cooperation. I
strongly recommend some note be made of this.)
In 2007, scientists working for Harriman Enterprises developed an
effective, sustainable fusion process. However, they soon determined that the
reaction was potentially unstable, requiring constant attention to prevent it
from going out of control with all the force of a fusion weapon. Computer
safeguards were demonstrated to be only partially effective for any
Earth-based
fusion reactor. But in a startling move, Delos D. Harriman (1949-2037)
sponsored
an initiative to move his company's main fusion reactor, which also served as
a plant to manufacture the fusion process' catalysts, into orbit. There, it
could
be safely monitored by computer, only requiring human workers to transport the
catalysts back to Earth by shuttlecraft.
(Breaking character for what I hope is the last time--you'll have to remind
me of the references for the names not from anime.)
The scheme worked. Numerous corporations, from IT&T to Stark-Fujikawa,
licensed SDPC's launch facilities in order to begin developing manned orbital
stations, and the corporation's satellite repair squad soon found itself
working
overtime. A new space race -- a corporate space race -- had begun, and the
"park
service" realized that one of its duties had to involve policing the high
frontier as well. At the same time, the New United Nations abruptly realized
that it now had half the equation for their "peace-making" force.
Two years after the _Pioneer_ mission, the New United Nations unveilled
its
Strategic Space Defense Force -- an international militia chartered to enforce
peace. Their primary weapon in this task was a network of geosynchronous
satellites equipped with particle beams able to shoot down missiles launched
from any point on Earth. [5] To outraged protests that this contravened
national
sovereignty, General Douglas Schwartz (1982-2036) replied with the words that
became the unofficial motto of the U.S.S.D.: "A nation's right to swing its
fists must end where its neighbors' chins begin."
A note is in order here on the impact made by the establishment of the
U.S.S.D. on the progress on the unilateral plans of the United States for
missile defense, first proposed in earnest by the George W. Bush administration
at the turn of the century.
As it transpired, none of the members of the "nuclear club" were
desperate
enough to test the U.S.S.D.'s resolve. Its commanders had chosen a fairly good
time to introduce themselves onto the scene. China was largely preoccupied
with
a mild civil war in its hinterlands...
Against the Amazons, as we know now.
"Mild's" not the term I'd use for a war. "Low-level" might be more
appropriate.
while the members of Neo-NATO were still
largely flush with their successful intervention in the Hong Kong War of
Independence (2006-2010). With an enforced peace in place, affairs settled
even
further, focussing increasing public attention on the drama of space. In
partial
fulfillment of Gerard O'Neill's vision, construction began on the eight
kilometre long Space Station One (later dubbed Genaros) at Earth's L-5 point.
Luna City still had more in common with Antarctic stations than with any of
the
swelling cities of Earth, but it was growing steadily. Missions were launched
to Mars and Venus, and later to the Jovian and Saturnian sub-systems. Small
but
measurable advances in medicine were made.
An odd observation. Small compared to what?
And Katsuhito Stengovitch (1983-
2022) was beginning the research and development which would lead to
artificial
intelligence.
[...]
On May 27, 2025, an earthquake measuring 8.0. on the Richter Scale rocked
the Kantou plain, devastating Tokyo. Aftershocks ran up and down the Pacific
Rim
of Fire, causing brief eruptions from the volcanos on the remaining Hawaiian
islands, tital waves along the Australian coastline, and secondary quakes from
Alaska to Mexico. The death toll reached nearly three million worldwide, a
third
of that from Tokyo alone.
What source do you cite? You must know that even the death rolls of the "Big
Ones" in San Francisco in the 20th century (e.g.), which were in the 8.0 range
or higher, didn't reach four figures. Given how used to and well-prepared for
earthquakes Japan was as a nation, 1,000,000 for Tokyo seems greatly
exaggerated. Earthquakes in industrialized nations by that period caused far
more damage than death.
On the other hand, large death rolls would be more likely for cities in the
poorer nations along the Pacific Rim, as they were in Turkey (e.g.) or in
India. Sloppy, earthquake prone construction was one reason.
International aid was swift to come pouring in, but even the best that
the
Red Cross could offer prompted more than one editorial cartoonist to compare
their efforts to a disposable bandage over the fault crack that cut through
the
city. Memoranda exchanged by surviving members of the Japanese Diet and the
city
council strongly suggest that the government seriously considered abandoning
the
city to reconstitute in Kyoto. Nearly a week after the quake, however, Genom's
representatives contacted the city council with a deal they couldn't refuse.
The megacorporation had apparently been planning to move its headquarters
from Osaka to Tokyo for some time, based on certain real estate transactions
dating from 2015.
Much of it acquired, I take it, from those investors in GENOM that had
previously been active in the milleniarian grup SEELE, whose membership
contained a disturbing number of the world's best and brightest, I recall.
They now offered to rebuild the city in a new,
technologically
integrated form, in exchange for certain degree of extraterritorial autonomy
for their facilities. Faced with a choice of surrendering some of their domain
and losing control of it completely, the council agreed to their offer.
The very next day, construction companies from around the world poured
into
the ruins of Tokyo, drawn by the extremely generous contracts offered by
Genom:
very good pay, room and board, and the opportunity to use advanced technology.
I should point out that Tokyo and most other large Japanese cities had much
experience with rebuilding after "acts of God and enemies of the nation;" in
the past orderly reconstruction had been aided immensely by an extremely
law-abiding populace. A few words on why the reconstruction of Tokyo was handed
over, in an unprecedented fashion, to a single firm with a view on rebuilding
along the lines of an American planned city (without the defects of slums), not
to mention what justified, at least in the minds of the city fathers, an
imminent outbreak of lawlessness unprecendented after the previous natural and
man-made disasters that had devastated Tokyo in the past.
At least perceived to be part of the problem must have been that by 2025,
thanks to more liberal immigration laws and naturalization laws made necessary
by the sluggish population growth in Japan at the turn of the century, Tokyo
had become as overtly multicultural as New York, Chicago or Los Angeles (not to
mention Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver), with a Caucasian immigrant minority
which by 2025 had passed the 10% mark. Much of this was from the Russian
Federation; Nene Romanova was only one of the most outstanding of the "new
Japanese."
However, it is well known that popular attitudes had not kept pace with
official changes in cultural policy in the multicultural direction; old
prejudicial ideas must have been in the back of the minds of Tokyo's more
conservative fathers.
The foremost examples of that technology were Genom's cyberdroids, now
officially marketed as "boomers", While most of the rebuilders preffered to
use
the more advanced versions of standard construction equipment that Genom also
provided, the demands of the jobs were such that most of them had no choice
but
to use cyberdroids to increase their workforce.
[...]
But it soon became readily apparent that these "assemblers of prosperity"
could be very dangerous if abused or given confusing instructions.
[...] As a result of incidents of this nature and of the general lawlessness
prevalent in the ruined city, a new branch of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police
was
created: the Special Felony Crimes Elite Division, more commonly known as the
Advanced (AD) Police.
[...]
Ironically, while the Tokyo AD Police inspired the formation of similar
police squads in cities worldwide, by 2027 they had acquired a very poor
reputation on the home front. Historians generally concur that a major factor
in this was the passage of a law in that year: the Bionic Enhancement Control
Act...
Centuries later, in an age where such modifications are quite obsolete,
we
can still imagine what public reaction to such an ordinance must have been.
They
would have wondered why and how the figure of seventy per cent had been
chosen,
and whether or not it was subject to revision downwards. The ancient question
asked whenever a group within a population is singled out -- "Who's next?" --
must surely have been on their lips. Bionics became unfashionable, then
unpopular, and hidden. Those who looked for someone to blame could easily find
the AD Police. [10]
A plausible assumption, but surely some anecdotal evidence at least should
be used to back this up. Articles from the news media at the time, opinion
polls and so forth would do nicely; if such are not available in the Japanese
press (given GENOM's increasing control over the Japanese polity and ability to
stifle criticism of its actions in Japan itself), some commentary must have
been made abroad.
Eventually, in late 2027, urban Tokyo was declassified as a disaster
area,
although reconstruction efforts continued in some parts of the city for more
than a decade. The new heart of the city was the kilometre-tall Genom tower
located at the heart of the old Shinjuku district. To own a boomer was seen as
the height of chic by most businesses, even those whose businesses weren't
actually helped by a cyberdroid presence.
Much as a generation earlier most had web pages just for show.
Genom explicitly and unashamedly used
the reborn city, dubbed MegaTokyo, as a showpiece for their products; the
ultimate multimedia commercial, a Disneyland of the twenty-first century.
Boomer
sales took off all over the world.
All over the world, that is, except in the United States. From 2026
onward,
Senator John Connor (Lib., CA) (1985-2043) had been waging intense battles in
the senate and in the media to outlaw the importation of cyberdroids.
My knowledge of the Senator's career is not what it should be. I do know
that death at age 58 was to die a rather young man even by the standards of the
2040's, never mind by the standards of our own blessed age. Was foul play
involved?
While
his arguments were initially based on the reports of berserk boomers, they
gradually took on a far more disturbing tone. If the articficial processors
used by the cyberdroids were in fact as complex as a human brain, then they
could possibly be as sentient as a human being. The programming blocks which
generally forced boomers to obey orders given by human beings were compared by
Connor to lobotomies and other means of keeping certain people docile.
Essentially, he compared the sale of boomers to the slave trade.
Connor's initial arguments cost him the support of much of his party, but
he eventually developed a broad base of multipartisan support from all four of
the major political parties active in the U.S. Congress and Senate.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main line of the LP held up the
reconstruction of Tokyo as a model of free-market solutions to problems of
urban planning and renewal. I dimly recall hearing that Los Angeles seriously
considered contracting out reconstruction to GENOM in case of a similar
disaster.
I have forgotten who were the fourth party in US politics in the period. The
Democrats, the GOP and the LP make three.
A
moratorium was passed on the construction of boomers on U.S. soil and the sale
of boomers to private citizens. Furthermore, any cyberdroids purchased by the
government for military purposes would be carefully observed for signs of
sentience. Senator Connor was unsatisfied with this result, and continued to
campaign for further, independent study of cyberdroid psychology, with the
intent of demonstrating that many boomers already were sentient.
Forgive me, but by what standard could they be "proved" sentient? At least
by the Turing standard, there was little if any substantial difference between
the illusion of sentience created by an AI and the "real" sentience of organic
creatures (like humans). Of course this may have only strengthened the argument
for Connor's beliefs in the eyes of some followers.
The United States Armed Forces were necessarily more pragmatic in their
attitudes towards cyberdroids than the civilian government could be. They
needed them, for the same reason that their allies in Neo-NATO needed them:
because their enemies in China and its client states already had them, and
were
willing to use them, as they were already demonstrating in the Antarctic.
In 2026, massive oil deposits had been discovered on the frozen
continent.
While most of the population of developed nations had gradually switched to
non-
fossil fuel based automotive mechanics over the the previous two decades,
there
was still a substantial demand for petroleum-based products of other kinds,
and
for fuel oil in less advanced nations.
Forgive me again, but I forget the circumstances that allowed non-fossil
fuels to become economically viable and safe enough for adoption by the 2020's.
I do know most were nothing more than experimental at the turn of the century,
with only the most optimistic seriously expecting widespread adoption in the
foreseeable future.
Such was the state of the world at the start of the 2030s. The war was
far
away, and it was poorly covered by the media when compared to previous
conflicts, but most people still couldn't quite keep it out of their minds.
Genom and other, rival megacorporations continued to wax in power, and it
seemed
that there was nothing that anyone could do to oppose them. To be fair, many
of
the products they introduced greatly improved the quality of life, but only
for
those who could afford them.
You mentioned that boomers were cost effective enough to make them
affordable to even small forms even by the 2020's. I have in mind the boom in
microcomputer technology that, by the turn of the century, made the idea of "a
computer in every home" as real a possibility as "a TV in every home" had been
a generation earlier. Of course the idea of "the family robot" had beeen the
stock in trade of badly written sci-fi for generations before hand, but it must
surely have been a real possibility by the 2030's, assuming, of course, a drop
in the cost of the technology at the rate television and computer techology had
in the past. If not, why not?
...Mars drew more tourists
than the Moon, in the early years of its colonization, because of its
unimagined wonder: signs of intelligent, non-human life. The first signs had
been uncovered in the previous century, but it wasn't until unaided human eyes
first saw the pyramid (or rather, the monument) and face on the Cydonian plain
that the immensity of the discovery came home. Furthermore, beneath the shadow
of Mons Olympus, the first team of of Martian explorers found a valley (or
canal, as it was most commonly termed) that showed clear signs of having been
constructed. There were obviously artificial towers and other buildings,
fashioned from glass-like polymers unkown to science, lining the sides and
floor of the so-called Grand Canal.
The first clues to the mass of humanity of the legacy of the Silver
Millenium. What a shame so much was thoughtlessly destroyed!
The newest of the Martian ruins had
apparently been constructed around 20,000 years before. Finally, when examples
of Martian writing were discovered in 2038, cooler heads spoke over the
clangor
that proclaimed it as the ancestor of Futhark runes and Chinese pictograms,
stating that it was entirely alien and probably untranslatable.
One thing never discovered were any fossilized Martian remains, or indeed
any sign of what had become of these "faerie towers'" inhabitants. Nor did the
later discovery of markedly similar constructions on Neptune's moon Triton,
dating from between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries of the common era,
do anything to clarify the mysteries. [11] In any event, the
xenoarchaeologists
were soon left with only photo- and holographs of the Martian ruins; most of
them were quickly dismantled for building materials, while others were
converted
wholesale into new, pressurized structures.
You mentioned what attractions the Martian ruins were for tourists; there at
least were economic incentives to preserve the ruins, given the revenue they
might have provided for the developing Martian economy. The destruction of the
ruins must have been controversial at least at the time. A few words are in
order regarding why so little effort was made at preservation.
...[T]he cargo carrier _Behemoth_ (one of the mighty _Megaload_
class of vessels, at that time and for many years after the largest ships in
service) set out for Venus, operated by a computer only a bit less than an
order of magnitude less complex than Genom's own private mainframe, and
carrying
a "cargo" of 687 Bu-84V mining cyberdroids. A few months later, it grounded
itself in Devana Chasma, the great rift valley in the center of Venus' Beta
Regio. With only a few modifications, _Behemoth_ was converted into the "base
camp" for the operation. It remains the heart of Venus' capitol, Adonis, to
this day.
One of my fondest memories as a girl was my visit to the _Behemoth_ on a
high school field trip. A wonder of the ancient world, if anything can be
called so.
Over the next ten years, the cyberdroids painstakingly carved out a cave
nearly thirty-four kilometres long and a kilometre deep. Installing shock
absorbers identical to those used by Terrestrial facilities intended to
survive
nuclear attack, they also covered the cavern's entire surface with heat-
resistant polymers. The polymers also served as a sealant for the cave,
allowing
Earth atmosphere to be pumped into the cavern and maintained at Earth-normal
pressures. The next phase saw the cyberdroids importing and desalinizing
enough
Venerian soil to cover the floor of the cavern to a depth of nearly twenty
metres, engineering what the geologists on Earth hoped would be an effective
farmland after they added water and air.
In this, they erred. Unknown to the planners, Venus' topsoil contained a
number of incredibly hardy microscopic organisms totally alien to Earth. They
endured the desalinization process and took to Earth atmosphere and water like
incipient alcoholics take to liquor. When terrestrial crops were introduced,
they were in immediate competition with a nascent Venerian ecology. The
conflict produced a swamp-like atmosphere through much of the cavern. Still,
other areas remained viable farmland, and the project was otherwise without
incident. [12] The "flooded jungles,/crawling with unclean death", like much
else described by Harlan Rhysling (1989-2047), only existed in this mind, but
the project was not nearly as successful as had been hoped.
One of the ironies of history. My daughter is active in an environmental
group that focuses on the preservation of the Venerian swamplands from
destruction by human development; my frequent observations in her presence that
the swamplands are themselves inadvertant human creations generally go ignored.
That was the status quo, and while many other things -- from fashions to
technologies -- changed with almost blinding speed, the fundamental things
always applied.
Perhaps that was why, when global terrorism returned, it did so with such
incredible violence. In May of 2033, terrorists led by someone using the alias
"Maximillian Largo" [13] managed to seize control of one of the U.S.S.D.'s
particle beam satellites. Largo used it to target Genom's regional twoers in
Sydney, Chicago and Berlin, killing thousands, allegedly while in conference
with Quincy himself in the main tower in MegaTokyo. Exactly what Largo was
trying to extort from Genom remains a mystery; the terrorist was apparently
killed by the enigmatic mercenary vigilantes known as the Knight Sabers. No
body
was ever recovered, however, and some barely plausible rumors tie Largo to an
attempted attack on the MegaTokyo fusion reactor a year later, also foiled by
the Knight Sabers.
Genom was apparently more seriously weakened by this attack than an
observer would have anticipated. Possibly certain unrevealed projects,
critical
to the corporation's immediate future, were wrecked in the destruction of the
three towers. Alternatively, the company may have decided to deliberately
lower
its public profile in order to feign weakness to its competitors and encourage
them to overextend themselves.
I dimly remember from Lady Mars's lectures on the history of the period a
brief mention of something called "Galatea," a sort of superboomer that had
been created by Stingray. Mars conjectured, if I recall correctly, that it was
Galatea that destroyed Dr. Stingray along with his lab. But perhaps her
conjecture is without merit?
On May 27, 2041, sixteen years to the day after the Second Kanto
Earthquake, every cyberdroid on Earth, in orbit or on the Moon paused in its
tasks, and then went berserk. There had been boomer revolts before, but
nothing of this magnitude. In less than an hour, MegaTokyo was in flames ...
except for
Genom Tower, standing serenely untouched by it all.
Later, a high-ranking executive who surrendered to U.S.S.D. forces in
exchange for immunity and protection would tell an incredible tale about how
it
happened. According to her, Quincy had placed himself in a form of cryogenic
suspension sometime in the late 2020s, after being diagnosed with an
inoperable
cancer. The suspension method he used allowed him to cybernetically control
various android doubles and create, with the most advanced graphics software
on
Earth, a believable video avatar of himself. But in 2041, his condition had
entered an irreversible decline. Quincy had always intended for Genom to
become
the sole master of the world; if he couldn't live to see it happen, he was
ready
to destroy it instead. Thus, he activated a program hidden in Genom Tower's
supercomputer: the Over Mind System. Hidden in every Genom-built boomer was a
bit of code which could override any orders or pre-programmed instructions in
favor of signals coming from the OMS. The boomers went berserk because that's
what Quincy wanted.
[...]
But the embattled people of Earth knew none of this. All they knew was
that close to a million people had died in the last few days, and that the
damage to property exceeded nearly a billion dollars. All that they knew was
that an age had ended, a new one begun, and that nothing would ever be the
same.
A billion (10^9) dollars? Again, what source do you cite? All other sources
I've seen give estimates of the cost of damage caused by the boomer revolt of
2041 that exceed this by several orders of magnitude, some putting it in the
trillions (10^12) of 2040 US dollars. Such figures are more plausible
considering the extremity of the revolt, its worldwide scope and the enormous
loss of life.
[2] Fragmentary records indicate that these major changes to the U.N.'s
policies
may have also been prompted by the disappearance of a covert operations group
which had until that point acted on the U.N.'s behalf. Without the support of
this agency of "special talents", the U.N. had to consider operating openly.
These must have been the Sailor Scouts and the other groups associated with
the Order of Paladins.
[6] As with almost every visionary scientist since Archimedes, a small body of
myth has grown up around Katsuhito Stengovitch. While we know that he did
correspond with Dr. Ikari Yui (1980-2025), her claims of scientific knowledge
far beyond the standards of the day (related in her autobiography _Gehirn: The
Truth Behind Evangelion_) are hard to take seriously. Likewise, accounts of
Stengovitch studying the remains of the Golem of Prague, examining the work of
one Professor Ten Brincken, or pursuing the research journal of Victor
Frankenstein, are almost certainly facetious.
Lady Mercury, who knew Ikari Yui personally, has informed me that Dr. Ikari
was born in 1977. She herself believes Ikari's reputation as a teller of tall
tales is not completely deserved, in light of discoveries in the field of
transuniversal physics made after Ikari's death.
[9] It was generally thought that the Diet was influenced in this course by
Genom, who was quite notably not a producer of bionics. In point of fact, a
fair
number of black market bionic components were cannibalized from boomers, and
the
corporation may have been acting to suppress such activities. On the other
hand,
they may have been acting to prevent the public from realizing that "cyber-
psychosis" was several times more likely to victimize users of such
"boomerware"
bionics.
That it was able to do this with impunity is testament to GENOM's death grip
on Japanese society after the 2025 quake. Lady Mars, by temperament a
conservative to the core, quoted an ancient author dismissively of the
libertarian movement of the era: "They wanted 'to abolish government by calling
it something else.' That, or just reorganize it on a for-profit basis." I
wouldn't go that far, but Quincy Rosenkreuz' career surely was proof beyond
doubt that even the entrepreneur so upheld as a model by the libertarians was
not immune to mad tyrannical dreams of world domination and remaking man in
one's own image. Wealth can only be created by doing someone good, but that's
no guarantee that one will only do good once one has it.
Again, thank you for your submission. The Librarie will be pleased to
consider a revised version, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Kiryu-Miyazawa, Ph.D.
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