PART IV
THE NEW ORDER, After January 1, 2181
(How things worked on the newly resettled Earth)
CHAPTER – The Dedovian Religion
September 17, 2185: The last five years had been a tumultuous time on the Earth and on Mars. Both groups had new cultures to assimilate and new technologies to master. The races were so computable that a male from either race could father a child with a woman from the other race. On Earth there had been no effort to segregate people by race. Inter marriage was commonplace.
December 25, 2185: As for religion, the human survivors had been limited at the time of the holocaust to Christians, Jews, agnostics and atheists. On Dedov religion had not played as important role as it had played on Earth. Perhaps that is why the people of the planet Dedov did not share the violent past that Earth had. The people of Dedov were taught one religious concept as children which they retained throughout their lives. A Dedovian in conversation with an Earth native gave the following description of the Dedovian religion:
“God was the product of evolution that had occurred on a planet long ago and far away. The people of that planet had mastered the art of out of body experience. When their planet had run it's cycle, lost it's orbit and was plunged into its sun most of the population had left their physical bodies and stood helplessly by as they lost their planet. Not knowing what else to do and having no place to go these out of body beings merged into one being. And went in search of a new home planet. Once a planet had been found the being took stock of itself . The entity retained the spirits that had reached a state of perfection and cast out the others. That central perfect spirit that remained is what we think of as God.”
“The other spirits, the imperfect ones were to go to the new planet they had found and seek perfection. Once that perfection had been achieved they were told that they would be welcomed back to join that central spirit as perfect beings.”
“The imperfect ones not knowing how to go about this task of becoming perfect became bored and began to enter the physical bodies of the birds and animals that lived on that planet for a few minutes or hours or days in order to experience life in the physical flesh again for themselves. As time went by more and more of these errant ones became trapped in the physical body of some animal or bird. The central God seeing this said “This will not do, if these errant ones want to enter a physical being then I shall create a being that I approve of as the host animal. He chose a being that seemed to be at the top of the evolutionary ladder and seemed to have more intelligence than the other animals on the planet. God then told the errant spirits that this would be the only animal they would be allowed to enter. They could only enter the body of that animal as it drew it's first breath after leaving it's mothers womb. God also decreed that once a spirit had entered such a body that it must remain with that body until such time as that body was no longer capable of sustaining life. Once that body had succumb the spirit would be free to rejoin the other errant spirits. They could repeat this process as often as necessary until they succeeded in living a perfect life in the flesh. None of the errant spirits ever succeeded in doing this so they complained to God that it was impossible to lead a perfect life in the flesh, the test was unfair.”
“God then sent one of the perfect spirits from his central Godhead to the planet to enter a newborn body and live an explanatory perfect life to show the errant ones that it could be done. The life of this perfect one has been written about in history although he walked on Dedov more than a thousand Earth years ago. His life has been recorded for us to emulate. He has been known as the Son of God. Some of us still try and be like him and lead a perfect life but others have given up trying and just enjoy the physical life that they have been given for the time that they have it. Some have had doubts that there ever was one who lived a perfect life. Yet others have come to believe that if they put their faith in him and beg him for mercy they will be accepted into the Godhead when they leave their physical body.”
“None of us have any way of knowing whether this is true or not, we are taught that we must just accept it on faith. Once we make the decision to enter the physical body of a newborn child we are not able to recall our lives before that moment. When we depart that physical body it becomes impossible for us to communicate with those who remain in a physical body. Thus it is a matter for conjecture whether anyone has ever lived a perfect life on Dedov. It is also conjecture as to whether those who have put their belief in he who did live a perfect life has entitled any of us to return to the Godhead. There are endless conversations and disagreements on this subject. We, the people of Dedov are those errant spirits. There is now much controversy over whether or not us moving to other planets and interbreeding with non believers from other races will have any effect on our eternal lives.”
Our definition of a perfect life is to be able to actually love the most despicable person you have ever met more than you love yourself. That does not mean to give lip service to the concept it means that you must actually feel that way deep down inside yourself. To my knowledge no one has ever succeeded in doing that but it is what we are all taught to continue to strive for.
“At any rate that is the substance or our religious beliefs in capsule form. I know that you Christians and Jews have a holey books that you read from and you attend meetings in churches, sometimes weekly and sometimes even more often than that. I am quite sure that your religion is far different from ours, though I have never read one of your holy books.”
“Our religious beliefs may not be as different as you might think Aglgd, Merry Christmas.”
CHAPTER – The new Government
The new Government that developed started with the issuing of credits and kind of evolved from there. As soon as the Government started issuing credits they found that certain kinds of skills were becoming scarce because so many people with those skills had left Government service, striking out on their own. In order to lure those people back to fill the hard to fill positions they started offering to pay some workers more than the basic thousand credits per month. Soon the thousand credits had just became the minimum wage. As the society grew and matured the need for skilled workers in every field was realized. The most critical need was in the medical and technical fields.
One of the first thing the new society had done was to start schools to provide children with a basic education. That naturally lead to starting colleges and Universities to provide those interested in special skills the vehicle to acquire them. Once again Earth was forced into tapping into Mars for help. Mars had been running schools of higher education for centuries and some of their universities had developed rich traditions. Better than half the population of Mars had a college education. Mars sent teams of educators to start the Universities on Earth and to staff them. Mars was where most scientists had gravitated. In the early 23rd Century Mars was a far more sophisticated planet than Earth.
It was also an interesting phenomena that ever since the institution of free interplanetary travel Artonians had been flocking to Mars to complete their educations then returning to Arton to apply what they had been taught of Mars. The natives on the inner Islands of Arton were almost as developed as the Martians. Earth not only called out to Mars to help organize higher education but also to Arton. Artonian teachers and professors were highly sought after and were considered the best instructors because of their patients with the students and because their students were perceived to learn more in a shorter period of time.
The first major University to reopen was San Diego State University followed by UCLA, Cal Berkley and Stanford. When the law schools reopened everything went to hell. The court system had to be reestablished, then Police Departments had to be formed to feed the Court System. Civil law soon reared it's ugly head and lawyers proliferated, not only prosecutors, but the whole gambit of public defenders, private practice attorney's and public agencies for child care, mental hospitals and everything else that fed that system. Old law books were drug out and reprinted. The Constitution of The United States was revised. The voters approved the revised constitution. In the revised form there was no longer a representative form of Government but rather everyone voted on every issue. Anyone who wanted to introduce a bill could. New bills were filtered through elected committees and eventually presented to voters who voted on them directly. A television station presented both the pro's and con's of every issue. People could sign on either their personal communicators or computers were required to give their password before voting on the issue. There was no Executive branch of government. The local committees were only paid a nominal sum for service to the community. There was a citizens committee that supervised the police but any split decisions called for a public vote. The members of the Supreme court ran for the office, anyone running for the office had to have the required number of years of service as judges in the court system. They had to take a written examination, an oral examination, a physical examination and a thorough background check. The results of these examinations were made available to the public, the public then voted on their favorite candidate. A judge was allowed to serve on the Supreme Court until some other judge challenged him for his position. Challengers would be allowed time to plead their case on public Television, followed by the Incumbents rebuttal. Then the public would vote on whether the challenger should be allowed to challenge the Incumbent or not. If the public voted to allow the challenge then the examinations took place. After the results of the examinations were known the public would either vote for the challenger or the Incumbent. Honest men of good faith and conscience were seldom challenged but a scoundrel would be ousted in no time. Most of the members of the Supreme court served for life or until they chose to retire.
The concept of privately owned real property had never really caught on because there was so much of it. There were, however recording books at the local court house where a person could describe the property that he used for his personal residence. In the United States there were the old plat maps, lot numbers, addresses that could be referred to in giving an accurate description of the property. Each person was also allowed to record on one piece of recreational property. The size of any claim was limited to the amount of land required to make the property viable. If a person was running a thousand head of goats on a ranch he might claim that he needed ten thousand acres, but if he lived in a condominium complex he might only be allowed to claim his undivided interest in the complex and his personal interest in the unit he lived in. A person could claim anything they wanted to claim but if another person disagreed with that claim he could call for a hearing where the issue would be decided by a judge. Most people managed to work land use out between themselves and seldom was a hearing called for.
CHAPTER – The New Economy
So far the entire three planet system had been running without any real economic system for the last eighteen years. Everyone had just been too busy to give it much thought. They were trying to get things working again. There were few luxuries or special privileges to be had. Carl Marx would have loved it, the state of perfect communism. The problem with that was that as soon as all the pressing needs had been met people had a desire to acquire luxury items, jewelry, and special privileges that if made available to all wouldn't be luxurious or special. If a person wanted to have a splurge meal, there was no restaurant that served such meals. If a person wanted to give another an expensive special gift there was no place that manufactured such items and no store that sold them. If a person wanted to spend a week on a cruise ship seeing the sights there was no cruise ship. Everyone had tooth paste but it came in a generic tube labeled “tooth paste”. So far what exchanges that had taken place had been on the barter system. The planets need an economy.
That set off a two year debate on how such an economy could and should work. On Mars, over the years they had dabbled in currency and an economy only to abandon it in times of turmoil and crisis. Once again the economy of Mars was working in a limited fashion. On Dedov they had a vibrant economy until the planet had faltered. On Earth before the disaster there had been a world economic structure so complicated that no one understood it. What they needed on the new Earth was a simple system that would allow people access to luxuries and special privileges that they had an opportunity to select for themselves. Private ownership of property didn't seem to be an issue with anyone on a planet that had formerly had enough real property to accommodate nine billion people but now was home to only four and a half million. No one wanted or needed private ownership of land. Everyone respected the place where another person wanted to live, if they didn't like it there were millions of other places to live. What these people needed was some kind of enticement to cause companies to produce a better product or induce a person to open an upscale restaurant.
What they came up with was a computer program that started everyone out with the same amount of credits. The arbitrary number selected was ten thousand. Everyone had a cell phone that could access the system but only the individual that owned the credits could transfer a portion of them to someone else. Everyone that performed a job that benefited society in general would have an additional one thousand credits added to their account on the first of every month. If someone wanted something that cost more than the credits he had available he could borrow credits from someone else. The people all agreed that this could, in time, evolve into a good system so the majority was behind the idea.
Over the next hundred years that simple concept grew into a complex three planet economy that actually worked. Within that flexible framework it became possible to lend and borrow money, to receive grants to obtain luxuries and special services, to open businesses to form partnerships to form corporations to do just about anything anybody ever wanted money to do for them. The system was not based on anything but the faith of the people. Actually no economy has ever been.
CHAPTER – The Private Sector
Anyone could quit Government service and go into business for themselves or find a job on the private sector. Corporations were springing up right and left. Several Martian corporations jumped in to doing business on Earth. Among those was Super Stores that opened a chain of retail outlets Big Boy Burger that opened a chain of burger outlets and Hour Glass, Inc. that staked out land in Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino areas of the former California and started growing grapes. They reopened the long deserted winery's and started producing wine that they marketed all over the United States, Mars and Arton. The Artonian natives wanted nothing to do with the stuff but he humans on Arton seemed to like it. Hour Glass, Inc. also reactivated a number of breweries in the Western United States. They went in to the manufacture of twelve ounce beer containers and glass bottles for wine. The beer products were sold throughout the United States as well as being exported to Mars and Arton. Even with only six million potential customers, Hour Glass soon became the largest corporation in the three planet system.
Big 7 convenience stores from Mars began to open outlets all over the United States and bought products from other manufactures which they sold on Earth and exported to Mars and Arton. They had over two thousand outlets on the three planets. Martian Wood Products, Inc. began harvesting trees in the Northwest, cutting them into lumber and making plywood that they also marketed on all three planets. In conjunction with their lumber yards they opened hardware stores. Since there were not many companies manufacturing hardware items Mars Wood Products, Inc. started up long abandoned factories and started manufacturing their own hardware and paint products. Soon they were also manufacturing tools. They also had outlets on all three planets.
A few fledgling Earth companies began doing business on Mars and on Arton and a few Arton companies began doing business on Earth and Mars. The Government accounting office expanded the credit's system to make it available on Mars and Arton. It took almost one hundred years before the three planets were consolidated under the one government. The capital City of the three planet system was officially located in San Diego, The State Capital of Earth was in Sacramento. The state capital of Mars was in New Phoenix. The State Capital of Arton was located in Island City, Arton.
The Arton ships and the Dedov ships were beginning to show their age and would soon need to be replaced. The plant where the Arton ships were originally built had been restored to operation. The plans used to construct the original ships were still available. Care was taken with the original now brittle documents and manuals which were all carefully reproduced. Parts were being fabricated, and manufactured. Additional hardware was being ordered. The nuclear drive engines were very difficult but the job had to be done. After much trial and error and testing at the main plant in Bakersfield the shuttles began hauling the pieces into space. Men working in space suits out of the Earth orbiter began to assemble the parts in space.
It took almost twenty years before the A5 had been fully tested and found seaworthy. It took an additional twenty years before the A6, A7 and A8 were on line and the earlier Arton fleet was retired. The A9, A10, A11 and A12 were built to a smaller scale from the original plans used for Mars Runner but carried the more powerful engines of the Arton fleet. These ships replaced the old Dedov fleet that had been making the Mars to Earth run for the last fifty years. Man had equaled his greatest achievement with far fewer resources. It had been feared that the project would bankrupt the economy but in the forty years that it took to build the eight new ships the three planets had all prospered. The ships had been built with a combination of Government and private sector effort. The next major task was to replace all the shuttles and to build and equip domestic aircraft for Arton and Earth. By the time that task was completed they would be well into the twenty fourth century.
When mankind returned to Earth he found an almost limitless supply of electric Automobiles that required only new batteries but in the intervening time most of the cars and trucks on the road had just worn out. The population of the three planets had grown in leaps and bounds everyone wanted a new car. Some of the factories had been destroyed during the war but cars were not built by just one company even before the war. Most parts that went in to cars had been built in Asia, Latin America and Europe. Auto America, Inc was formed. Crews were dispatched around the world to find the machines that had built parts for automobiles. The machines necessary to build a small station wagon were located, dismantled and moved to California. A new factory was built in what had been Orange County. Within three years, while the space ships were still on the drawing board the first new cars in almost 100 years began to roll off the assembly line. Dealerships were set up in all the major cities of Earth and even one dealership in Island City, Arton to market and service the cars. To simplify production and turn out as many as possible as quickly as possible, no changes were made in the hundred year old plans, there were no options offered and they were all painted off white. Within a year the plant was producing almost one thousand cars a day and they were all paid for in full before they were even built. In subsequent years Auto America offered more models, more color choices and more options. Three years after Auto America rolled their first car off the assembly line Detroit Auto Company began making and selling pick up trucks. A new company in Arizona began building and marketing big rigs, the eighteen wheelers which there was also a critical need for. All of these vehicles required tires, in fact the tires on the vehicles that the first Earth colonists found had just disintegrated after a little use. The Government had started manufacturing tires at a plant in the former Tijuana within two years of the landing of the first colonists. The Government sold the plant to one of the first corporations formed. Since that time the plant had tripled in size and a second plant had been opened in Eugene in the former state of Oregon.
All in all, not only Earth but also on Mars and Arton there was a critical labor shortage. Many people were holding down two jobs some were working twelve hour days. Colleges and Trade schools were graduating people in half the time that it took to train people before the catastrophe. Everything seemed to be running twenty four -seven. They only took time off to get married, have babies and bury the dead.
CHAPTER – The wealth of the Former Residents
When the people of Earth Died off most of them left behind the trappings of the things that represented wealth in their society. It is interesting to note that many people who knew that their fate had been sealed and they had only a short time to live spent a good deal of that time in protecting their valuables. They put valuables in safes, safety deposit boxes and on occasion just took them out and buried them. The new people exploring the old cities almost never found rare coins or jewels, just lying around. This presented a real problem for the people of the new society.
Most people realized that such items had no value but they still could now resist picking up a shiny piece of jewelry or a coin for that matter. Many people made a hobby of scavenger hunting or breaking into old safes and strong boxes and removing the contents. As time went by and the new population fanned out around the globe it became more and more difficult to find such items. They generally used welding equipment to get into safes and extract the contents. The items themselves gradually regained some value and people began using them for barter.
One of the mathematicians calculated that if there had been twelve Billion people and they had each had an average of one hundred items of treasure there would be twelve hundred billion formerly valuable items left on the planet. An average of two thousand six hundred items for every person now on the Earth. That did not count the coins that were in common circulation. Since they were being disproportionately allocated to the people that sought them out many people soon accumulated tens of thousands of these trappings.
This is the idea that finally emerged. People were allowed to keep any of them that they wanted to keep. But a committee was empowered to assign a credit value to each item or type of item and almost ten thousand workers were trained as appraisers. Anyone who turned in such items to a central collection point would be awarded the appraised value of the item in additional credits to their accounts. These valuables would then be placed in the vaults of Fort Knox with all the gold that was found there.
Under this system a one ounce gold coin was accepted for five hundred credits. Diamonds would bring about one thousand credits per carrot. Some people started making an effort to locate these items and turn them in others made an effort to find them and keep them for a rainy day while others just ignored the whole proposition. Most elected to just turn in the things they found but didn't go out of their way looking for them. One faction looked at as robbing the dead and wouldn't even pick an item up if they came across it.
At Fort Knox finished jewelery was kept in one location, rare coins in another, finished diamonds in another and gold coins in another. As fewer and fewer items flowed in prices paid rose and the barter value of these items within the economy rose proportionately. Eventually the Government opened Jewelery stores and offered these items for sale to the public. Engagement and wedding bands proved to be very popular.
In this way a planetary reserve was built up and whether the Government realized it or not the credit's became backed by the Planetary reserve at Fort Knox. This made a lot of people feel more secure knowing that their accumulated credits were backed by something.
For the sake of convenience ordinary minted coins were eventually put back into circulation and were sold by the Treasury at the rate of one credit for one dollar in change. Foreign coins not minted by the United States were never put back into circulation but were sold by the jewelery stores, for a nominal price, as souvenirs. Most of the paper money was discriminating but what when sound paper money was found choice specimens were preserved to eventually be displayed in museums. The coin supply lasted for almost two hundred years before the coins became so worn that they were no longer recognizable. At that point the Government started minting new coins in the same denominations but of a new design.
CHAPTER – Medical Care
The Government maintained a network of free medical care facilities. There was one at or near every school. They were all staffed by five full time people and were always open with one or more of the people on duty. Anyone who felt sick or had sustained a minor injury could go to a local clinic and receive free medical attention on a first come first served basis. If the person on duty at the clinic could not solve the problem then the citizen was given a slip authorizing him to make an appointment at a regional clinic. If the regional clinic which was staffed by Family Practice MD's could not solve the problem then the person was referred to one of the local Medical Schools, hospitals or specialists.
If the person did not choose to go this route he was free to make an appointment with any medical practitioner or facility that he wanted but when he did this he knew that he would be charged for the service. Soon there were private health Insurance companies offering coverage for a fee to any person that wanted it. They all had different coverages available for a different fee. Most people used the free public health care system.
There was also a free preventative health care program for people over fifty where they were entitled to an annual physical examination and follow up care once a year for routine cases otherwise as often as the primary health care provider dictated.
Medication was all manufactured directly by the Government and provided to the people as a free service.
CHAPTER – Taxation in the new order
The Government implemented the fairest of all possible tax systems. They simply credited the accounts of people and firms that they owed money to. This, you would think, would have the effect of eroding away the value of credits but it never seemed to have much effect on the value of credits. If a person had more credits accumulated in his account than he had immediate need of he could transfer the surplus to a bank that would pay him interest on those surplus credits. The bank, in turn would loan those credits out to worthwhile borrowers at a higher rate of interest than they were paying the depositor. The individual that was seeking a greater return on surplus funds than the bank was offering could transfer the surplus credits to a corporation that was soliciting additional funds for expansion. In return the corporation agreed to pay the investor a prorated share of the profits of the corporation if any or a prorated ownership in the corporation but not necessarily in corporate management.
Large Government issued contracts for goods and services, in excess of one million credits had to be approved by a Government watchdog committee. If the committee was not one hundred percent in favor of the proposed expenditure then the Government had the opportunity to modify the request. If an impasse developed between the Government and the committee both sides would be given the opportunity to present their side of the issue on public Television before the mater was put before the voters.
Though there was no executive or legislative branches of Government there was an active civil service headed by a civil service commission. The Government then pretty much amounted to the civil service commission who were chosen in the same way that the Supreme Court was chosen.
The Civil Service Commission ran the General Accounting Office, the Department of Public Safety, The Department of Public Records and a number of other public agencies.
The General Accounting Office not only had charge of posting and transferring credits but were oversaw the Securities Exchange Commission, that kept an eye on the Corporations, and the Planetary Deposit Insurance Corporation that kept an eye on the banks
The General Public could challenge the actions taken by any agency. In some cases by circulating a petition and in other cases by filing a civil action. There was a lot more to the Government than that but the system worked.
CHAPTER – The Criminal Justice System
There was no capital punishment. The entire justice system was dedicated to criminal reform and behavior modification. In most cases the punishment fit the crime. Community Service rather than Incarceration was the customary penalty for violations of the Criminal Code. Probation was the custom. The worst violators, the absolute Incorrigibles were sedated, put on a shuttle and dropped off at some remote location thousands of miles from the United States. When they awoke they had no idea where on Earth they were. They were told that if they ever showed up in the United States again they would be put on Moon Base. There had been a special section of Moon Base walled off . Tasteless food powder and running water but only one gallon per day would be provided, inmates would have an air mattress, a blanket and a toilet but nothing else. No one had ever sent to Moon Base. Most convicted criminals just did their public service, followed the advise of their counselor and their probation officer. They attended the mandatory classes and tried to put the matter behind them. If they had been unskilled they were taught a marketable skill and placed in a paying job where they could apply that skill.
The Government ran trade schools that taught useful skills to all unskilled workers that wanted to better themselves. No one needed to live in substandard housing. Everyone was entitled to a Government job that paid the minimum wage. Even people who were pertinently confined to