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see another solar system for tens of thousands of years anyway. They might as
well serve to help us understand pre-fall civilization better.
Ossmuer: OK. (Turns to the shelf) So we want "Space". Under the English letter
"S". Here we are.
Ossmuer pulls out a CD and removes it from the case, handling it like crown jewels. He inserts it into the
drive with high anticipation. The computer screen fills with a directory. All three cheer and laugh.
Ossmuer pumps his fists in triumph. Tammerott hunches down beside Calledda.
Tammerott: OK, the name of the probes were Voyagers One and Two...
Calledda: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What's this?
Calledda is pointing to the directory on the screen. There is a long, alphabetized listing of subjects that
begin with the word "space". Calledda's finger is below "space settlement".
Calledda: I don't know what they're teaching in history class now, Professor,
had
but I was taught that pre-Fall civilization no conception of space
settlement.
Tammerott: (Off balance for just a second, but then recovering) Well,
Calledda, when a 20th century reference says "space settlement", it doesn't
mean the same thing as our modern usage of the phrase. I know it says "space",
but you'd probably find that it refers to the building of cities on the moon,
attempts to terraform Mars or Venus. That sort of thing.
Calledda: Let's find out.
She moves the cursor to this selection and presses "Enter". The screen begins to fill with text and
pictures. The camera's point of view shifts behind the computer, with Tammerott, Ossmuer, and Calledda
facing in the direction of the camera.
Calledda: My God. It's all here. Geosynchronous Solar Power Satellites. Lunar
mines. Capturing asteroids into high Earth orbit for resources. Artificial,
closed-ecology habitats in space.
Ossmuer: Every cornerstone of our modern civilization. It's all right here.
(Pause) What happened?
Calledda: These ideas came into theoretical discussion in the 1970's. But I
can't find any indication that actual work on the concepts ever started.
Discussion seems to trail off as you get closer to the end of the millennium.
Tammerott moves away from the computer and looks off to one side, dazed.
Ossmuer: It's something I've seen in history again and again. Sometimes it
seems like good ideas can be brought up before the world is really ready for
them. They then languish for decades or centuries until the human race is
ready to rediscover and use them.
Calledda: If only these ideas had fallen on more fertile ground and taken
root! If we had expanded into space back then, civilization probably would
never have fallen. If not for the Fall, where would we be at right now?
Ossmuer: Oh, we would've been to the starship stage by now. The first
starships would probably have left the solar system around the year...10,200,
say. That means right now we would be getting radio messages back from other
star systems almost 250 light years away. God. How much time humanity has
squandered.
Ossmuer turns to look back at Tammerott, who looks emotionally devastated.
Ossmuer: Tammerott! Are you gonna be OK? (Pause) Are you crying, man?
Tammerott: I'm crying for all of the lost generations of Mankind. Millenniums
of human beings suffering in a Second Dark Age that was unnecessary. An age of
untold misery that could have been prevented if only we'd had the faith in
ourselves to solve our problems.
I've been teaching my students a lie all these years. I told them that 20th
century man lacked the imagination to save himself. It isn't true. He had the
imagination. He just lacked the will.
Miniature special effects shot. Exterior view of the same space habitat we saw before.
Interior. Tammerott is in his office. He is dictating into a microphone.
Tammerott: The laser disks of the library in Dallas continue to provide new
insights into the nature of the civilization which existed before the Great
Fall. But will they ever help us to understand the crisis of confidence which
led to that fall? Can we hope to understand what makes a society fail to
acknowledge the possibility of a solution to its problems, even when the
solutions are known? How does a global culture fall into the fatalistic
mindset that nothing is worth doing anymore? How can human beings gifted with
brains and hands denigrate the value of knowledge and technology?
I find myself thinking again and again of all the wasted human lives that came
and passed on during that long, long night of the Second Dark Ages. Of the
vast human potential squandered.
Even before the Fall, they used to say "Those who do not learn from history
are condemned to repeat it". It is our hope that by examining the philosophies
of those who allowed failure on a planetary scale, we can be vigilant against
those attitudes when they creep into our own culture.
Dr. J. L. Tammerott,
April 13th, 10,698 Anno Domini
Turns off microphone and sets it down.
Tammerott: (Softly) What a waste of time.
Fade out.
Roll end credits.
The End
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