So we have passed a notch in the timeline, one of those rare moments where history pivots on a dime. This nauseous, electric sense of expectant immediacy was there too when the first shots were fired at Lexington, and when the Reichstag was burned to the ashes from which the Nazi phoenix would rise. Nobody wants to think about where we might be headed, choosing instead to tiptoe around discussion of consequence, spouting vague rhetoric of war or peace.
But I was raised on Mad Max and Blade Runner and countless pulpy social dystopia fictions of the sort. My paranoiac narrative-prone mind reflexively races right ahead to 2077 or some other impossibly distant year that, until Sept. 11 blew open the windows of time onto the dark space of the future, would remain contemplatable only through fantasy. We don't have the luxury of fantasy anymore. And so I urge you not to consider this experiment in sketched fiction apocalyptic fear-mongering, but as a worst-case scenario proposal. Its implications should be taken seriously even as its fiction is not.
October-November 2001--With the shaky economy and the population returning to normalcy, the administration maintains its hardline image as troops in the region idle on standby. Widespread support greenlights a missile shield, and other military and surveillance expenditures are contracted out to a large multinational conglomerate. The Middle East cease-fire breaks down.
Dec. 5, 2001--Having planned the first attack for years and knowing full well the extent of U.S. vulnerability, terrorists make a crucially-timed second strike right when the economy is beginning to stabilize. The target is again simultaneously symbolic and crucial to the economy--a theme park is beseiged with an unknown biological agent. Intelligence is quick, but once again not quick enough and the area is quarantined off to prevent the deadly spread. Missile shields and beefy airport security guards fail to prevent the disaster.
Dec. 6-31, 2001--The tourism industry collapses and the markets, right in the middle of Christmas shopping season, panic. Deep recession hits world-wide. Congressional warmongers call for a reinstatement of the draft and lobby to grant the president full power of war. Tensions in the Middle East escalate, provoking a massive terrorist strike on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on the eve of the New Year.
2002--Osama bin Laden is rumored to be dead, but more than 50 terrorist organizations worldwide are revealed to be involved in these attacks. Millions of Americans enlist. The government, now fully hellbent on striking back but without any clear direction to aim, tries to pull the country out of the depression through military spending on a scale unprecedented since World War II. Military presence is installed in every major city. American forces are sent to most Middle East countries as a "police action."
2003--Civil disorder breaks out across the nation as hate crimes and the brutality of the occupying military provoke violent reactions. In the Middle East, terrorism gives way to outright combat between Israeli and American troops and the regional inhabitants, newly united by alienation and forceful antagonism.
2005--Cities have been largely evacuated as people flee to gated communities with armed guards on post. Bin Laden is a dim memory and terrorism is no longer associated only with obscure foreign radicals but anyone who resists the government. A significant portion of the population, including all immigrants, is now classified under "Restricted Civilian." Militia groups wearing the image of Timothy McVeigh on their banners make repeated attacks on Federal buildings.
2006--The New Economy has slowed to a halt, with Internet commerce all but suspended. Complex triangulation between the Middle East, China and remnants of the Soviet Union make nuclear war between East and West a threat once more. A person rises to national attention with his fiery, patriotic and near-logical rhetoric that appeals to a public increasingly afraid of rampant resistance terrorism and newly powerful foreign enemies.
2008--This person is elected president and, after a suspicious fire ravages the Senate building, invokes an obscure emergency clause that allows him full power over the military. Congress and the media are silenced, at first by threats and then by public executions.
2010--The president dissolves the federal government, merging the military together with the enigmatic, all-powerful transnational conglomerate firm that was contracted for military and surveillance technology in November 2001. The new military-industrial monolith assumes an absolute authority and complete surveillance over all persons still living in what used to be America and Europe.
It could be the backstory for any cheesy futuristic blockbuster, and yet I'm sure that most of you aren't entertained. In fact, some of you may be outright offended, finding this doomsday scenario to be in poor taste. I had intended to split this column between worst- and best- case scenarios, only to find that it was clearer and more effective to imagine the worst--and hope for the best. And I don't think any of this is particularly likely; I give it only slightly better odds than I would have given on Sept. 10 if someone bet me the World Trade Center would collapse.
But note that this fiction is just as much influenced by history as it is by 1984. And while I truly don't want to add fuel to the fear-fire, the period for dazed mourning has passed and now we must get up, dust off our clothes and realize the enormity of our generation's potentially defining moment, one that calls for solidarity, careful judgement, and restraint when necessary. Our actions now determine the path of world history for years to come--let us bear that responsibility with wisdom and honor. As we lean out the window and look into the dark future, we must try not to fall.
Greg Bloom, Trinity '03, is managing editor of Recess.
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