SW09: December 2009 #2: The Book of Ends

[Scott Eiler]

The Book of Ends, or,  What Have We Learned This Year?   Commentator:
Wyatt Ferguson.

There are giant tankers in the Atlantic, and swimming M&M-shaped
robots that threaten to interfere with them. The Book of Ends uses the
robots to instruct how to avoid injury, and it's funny.

    * ... The Trillions have landed in El Jadida, on the mid-coast of
Morocco. This ship is not from Mercury; the ship there spiraled into
the Sun along with its host planet. This ship is new to the Solar
System. The immigrants are coming, despite the failed colonies. Two of
their colonizer robots roam the world to prepare the landing points.
There used to be five robots, but three of them ran into damage early
on.
    * The Trillion have started using their robotic tech to mine
Earth's oceans. Their small robots look like M&M cartoons, only
they're white.
    * They've started training their colonists to interact with
Earthlings. Their instructional video uses the robots to show all the
ways people can die here. They called it "The Book of Ends". Someone
got that video and put it on YouTube. It's a hit. (18 Dec)

This time of year, I usually try to tell us what we've learned. The
Trillions and their enemies have tried to trump our species. But we've
survived. Indeed, things have barely changed so far.

    * The Earth day is now 23:45 hours instead of 24:00, so mornings
creep up. As a species we seem to want longer days, but we seem to be
used to days that are too short. So far, people cope by resetting
their watches every morning.
    * For the moment, the Earth is closer to the Sun than usual.
Everyone's celebrating Summer in December right now. Next year, we'll
see what happens when June and December are both out near the orbit of
Mars. We might need an old-Earth 365-day calendar alongside a new-
Earth 520-day one. Mayas did that, so there's precedent. I sense a
really big holiday coming along in 520 days... that is to say, June of
old year 2011, New Year's Day of new year 2.

I'm much like The Trillions, because I have my own Book of Ends. Back
in 2004 I saw a doomsday scenario where 2011 was important. The world
has changed in ways we could never have foreseen, but doomsday seems
to be on or ahead of schedule.

Now, how's the rest of the world reacting?

    * The Russian Federation wasn't keen on cooperating with The
Trillions. Oh well. Malcolm Dunevoy, ally of Russia but enemy of The
Trillions, now resides in Russia in the New Russian style. Russia 2010
looks to be much like U.S. 1870, only with spaceships and Russian
mafia to help the robber barons thrive.
    * Iranians are officially as obnoxious and disregarding of civil
liberties as ever. But they quietly released and exiled their
imprisoned superhumans during the approach of Planet Iv. The rogue
nation of Tuvalu also loaned their superhumans (mostly pirate
vampires) to the world survival effort.
    * The rogue nation of Vojvodina was not at all confident in their
planet's survival. They've dropped off the face of the Earth! They're
probably not back in the realm of dreams; Vojvodina's status came from
dream personnel expelled from there. Best guess is, their leader the
Vojvodar took them through the Siege Perilous, back into time to the
glory days, just to kick more Turkish ass.
    * Other time travellers are kind of stuck, because they don't have
a new target programmed yet. The old target led straight to Pancho
Villa. They're waiting for a new target until they see what the
Vovjodars do to history now.
    * Adolf Hitler, having time-travelled himself the hard way, is now
a city councilman in south Nashville, Tennessee. Reportedly he fits in
nicely with the constituency there.
    * Mary Mystery is about as powerful as ever. Unlike most women,
she didn't sacrifice her power for piddly stuff like saving Earth.

Next year we'll see how well Earth survives when it goes out toward
Mars and the crops don't grow. Let's hope we get some comic-book super-
science going - and for once use it to save us all.

---

Author's Notes:

This tale is available at http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2009/trillions.htm#ends
.  It is my annual year-end summary to the ongoing Superhuman World
series.  During the next few weeks I will add hyperlinks to many
stories that it references, but the summary itself should not change
much.

Merry Christmas, everyone.