Throw Back The Little Ones
Jan. 31st, 2013 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talonkarrdeIt was always a van with a satellite dish on top, though few knew what that concave disk meant anymore. It would appear and those in the fields would stop their work, knowing the menace what it represented. Sometimes it simply drove by, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Sometimes it didn't; sometimes it stopped, the doors would open, and someone would be taken.
It wasn't a scene, as crazy as that may seem to you and I today; often, those people came back to their towns and families, returned in the middle of the night by means unknown. Only rarely was someone taken permanently — and if they were, a bonus was paid to the family by a member of the Party, who took great pains to explain that he or she was taken away for the betterment of everyone. They would be missed, of course, but it was such a routine occurence that it was simply accepted.
Ludicrous, you think — those people could never be replaced, by any amount of money. But in the fifty years that this practice had happened, only one person objected. One person, who himself had once been taken into the vans when he was young.
-
Solidarity had controlled the Earth for a long, long time by now — it had been centuries since they overthrown the previous government and installed themselves as the righteous replacement. It was a populist movement at first, rallying the people against the excesses that the previous capitalist government had allowed, and espoused a platform of returning back to common roots, of hard work triumphing over money, of justice being applied to all instead of just the poor and powerless. Their ascension was a surprisingly mostly-bloodless coup, one that resulted in an almost instant redistribution of money, raising the living standards of everyone — perhaps that's why it was so successful.
There were downsides, of course — the crusade against class disparity came at the cost of technology, which were painted as tools of the elite to keep the common people down. The vast majority of the educated were forced into manual labor roles in the fields, as a way to have them experience the backbreaking hard word that existed outside of the ivory towers they had come from. And like the Cultural Revolution of Old China, those who had been downtrodden and ignored and forced to live on pennies a day eagerly supported the leaders that gave them what they needed for free and cast down those who had kept a boot-heel on their necks. The system stabilized quickly, and working in the fields and manufacturing plants became mandatory for all, even as the progress of science as a whole slowed or outright stopped and anything more than trade education became seen as wasteful.
It was, in a strange way, almost the Marxian utopia that had been long seen as impossible — half a millennia after Marx had been alive.
But it is often the solution to one problem that becomes the cause of the next, and Solidarity itself changed as time passed and leadership was given from one General Secretary to the next. Each one made a change small change here — outlawing universities — and a small change there — requiring longer hours in the fields — and slowly but surely, it became something vastly different than what it was; it became something, though no one would acknowledge it, like what it overthrew. But it was more powerful, for information was far less free then it had ever been. And then, it became more powerful still, as one of the General Secretaries made another small change: he instructed a small group of Party leaders to see what of the old technology could be used for the benefit of the party.
And so the vans were born, fifty years ago.
-
Ralk had been taken when he was twelve; he had always been more outspoken than the rest of his peers, more curious, and in a strange way, more alive. While others simply worked through their shifts from day to day, never thinking of more than just the next, Ralk always wanted to know more about what was out there. He remembered caring and feeling for his friends and family, and he was confused when no one seemed to feel the way he did.
When he saw one of his friends being taken into vans for the first time, when he was ten, he burst into tears — and was shocked when one of the cloaked men pointed to him, murmuring something that he couldn't hear; they never interacted with anyone but the person they were taking. A year later, though, it was him that they came for.
The experience was hazy, especially with the distance of time. They drugged him, Ralk remembered, but he was lucid enough to hear words, here and there. Emotional sensitivity and response to stimuli and not quite high enough to be a problem, and more he didn't understand, but at the end of it, all Ralk knew was that they dropped him off within walking distance of his village, without a scratch on him.
Only eventually did he learn about what the criteria was for termination, and only eventually did he become one of those who fought against Solidarity, working in the vans themselves, spreading the rebellion through those who were taken but returned. Only eventually did he become the leader who brought down the government that was, hundreds of years ago, all for the common people that they now ruled over.
But that is a story for another time.
---
A/N: I wanted to try something sci-fi but also drew from history, and sort of came upon the idea of a communistic government that slowly rotted from within, changing from something that was originally for the people and by the people into one much more dystopian. The big idea in the story is that the government has the technology to selectively prune the most empathetic people from the communities that they lived in, essentially practicing a form of eugenics where people become more and more like sheep. The balancing act, of course, would be that they couldn't prune all the people, but only the significant outliers. The others they would had to return, or there would be a destabilizing effect. And then, of course I started writing, and this turned into way more than a short story, an unfortunately had to cut it off somewhere, and this felt right.
Sorry if this doesn't have too much action in it — I hope the worldbuilding at least gives you something to chew on!
Sometimes it didn't; sometimes it stopped, the doors would open, and someone would be taken.
It wasn't a scene, as crazy as that may seem to you and I today; often, those people came back to their towns and families, returned in the middle of the night by means unknown. Only rarely was someone taken permanently — and if they were, a bonus was paid to the family by a member of the Party, who took great pains to explain that he or she was taken away for the betterment of everyone. They would be missed, of course, but it was such a routine occurence that it was simply accepted.
Ludicrous, you think — those people could never be replaced, by any amount of money. But in the fifty years that this practice had happened, only one person objected. One person, who himself had once been taken into the vans when he was young.
-
Solidarity had controlled the Earth for a long, long time by now — it had been centuries since they overthrown the previous government and installed themselves as the righteous replacement. It was a populist movement at first, rallying the people against the excesses that the previous capitalist government had allowed, and espoused a platform of returning back to common roots, of hard work triumphing over money, of justice being applied to all instead of just the poor and powerless. Their ascension was a surprisingly mostly-bloodless coup, one that resulted in an almost instant redistribution of money, raising the living standards of everyone — perhaps that's why it was so successful.
There were downsides, of course — the crusade against class disparity came at the cost of technology, which were painted as tools of the elite to keep the common people down. The vast majority of the educated were forced into manual labor roles in the fields, as a way to have them experience the backbreaking hard word that existed outside of the ivory towers they had come from. And like the Cultural Revolution of Old China, those who had been downtrodden and ignored and forced to live on pennies a day eagerly supported the leaders that gave them what they needed for free and cast down those who had kept a boot-heel on their necks. The system stabilized quickly, and working in the fields and manufacturing plants became mandatory for all, even as the progress of science as a whole slowed or outright stopped and anything more than trade education became seen as wasteful.
It was, in a strange way, almost the Marxian utopia that had been long seen as impossible — half a millennia after Marx had been alive.
But it is often the solution to one problem that becomes the cause of the next, and Solidarity itself changed as time passed and leadership was given from one General Secretary to the next. Each one made a change small change here — outlawing universities — and a small change there — requiring longer hours in the fields — and slowly but surely, it became something vastly different than what it was; it became something, though no one would acknowledge it, like what it overthrew. But it was more powerful, for information was far less free then it had ever been. And then, it became more powerful still, as one of the General Secretaries made another small change: he instructed a small group of Party leaders to see what of the old technology could be used for the benefit of the party.
And so the vans were born, fifty years ago.
-
Ralk had been taken when he was twelve; he had always been more outspoken than the rest of his peers, more curious, and in a strange way, more alive. While others simply worked through their shifts from day to day, never thinking of more than just the next, Ralk always wanted to know more about what was out there. He remembered caring and feeling for his friends and family, and he was confused when no one seemed to feel the way he did.
When he saw one of his friends being taken into vans for the first time, when he was ten, he burst into tears — and was shocked when one of the cloaked men pointed to him, murmuring something that he couldn't hear; they never interacted with anyone but the person they were taking. A year later, though, it was him that they came for.
The experience was hazy, especially with the distance of time. They drugged him, Ralk remembered, but he was lucid enough to hear words, here and there. Emotional sensitivity and response to stimuli and not quite high enough to be a problem, and more he didn't understand, but at the end of it, all Ralk knew was that they dropped him off within walking distance of his village, without a scratch on him.
Only eventually did he learn about what the criteria was for termination, and only eventually did he become one of those who fought against Solidarity, working in the vans themselves, spreading the rebellion through those who were taken but returned. Only eventually did he become the leader who brought down the government that was, hundreds of years ago, all for the common people that they now ruled over.
But that is a story for another time.
---
A/N: I wanted to try something sci-fi but also drew from history, and sort of came upon the idea of a communistic government that slowly rotted from within, changing from something that was originally for the people and by the people into one much more dystopian. The big idea in the story is that the government has the technology to selectively prune the most empathetic people from the communities that they lived in, essentially practicing a form of eugenics where people become more and more like sheep. The balancing act, of course, would be that they couldn't prune all the people, but only the significant outliers. The others they would had to return, or there would be a destabilizing effect. And then, of course I started writing, and this turned into way more than a short story, an unfortunately had to cut it off somewhere, and this felt right.
Sorry if this doesn't have too much action in it — I hope the worldbuilding at least gives you something to chew on!
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no subject
Date: 2013-02-01 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:10 am (UTC)Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-01 01:06 pm (UTC)This did feel like a good place to end it, too.
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Date: 2013-02-08 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-01 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 06:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-03 04:37 am (UTC)Which is my way of saying that I thought this was done very, very nicely, and in a way that has left me thinking. I really like your work.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-02 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-03 03:03 pm (UTC)I also like how you explain your process at the end. I enjoy reading about the thoughts that go into a piece or how the finished product ends up different than you had intended, which is what happened to me this week.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-03 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 12:44 am (UTC)Funny how the power-hungry are so quick to get rid of the 'smart' people and the people who ask questions... generally also the people who can make a country or a culture great.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-08 01:17 am (UTC)