The First 12 Step Recovery Group in Space

Had some cool ideas today. On the brink of despair I lay down and listened to soothing celtic music and in seconds I found myself writing the outline for a triology of longish stories (ten thousand words each)

The first, "May You Live In Interesting Times" is about a American Military Commander walking through a ruined Shanghai wondering how to begin the Chinese reconstruction in the late 21st century when the Chinese will fight whatever he suggests.

The wise solution he arrives at is to put not one but TWO confucian bureaucracies in place, each in competition with one another and each competing to get the brightest minds. Then he brutally gives the Communist Party loyals two choices: either go to New Australia and build in the desert the New Water Cities based around the giant desalination plants, or work in minimum labor jobs in the slums of Shanghai.

The second, "Oxymandias" features the same commander who is informed of a space elevator being built in Western China secretly. The commander decides to occupy the space elevator from space downwards so that the Russians, Kazakhstani and Tibetans will not grab it in the meantime. However he underestimates the brutality of Central Asia.

The Tibetans seize the ground complex. The Russians destroy the Tibetans, and then the Kazahkstani, damned if they'll let anyone benefit, cut the space elevator free and the American military force in space is set adrift. Human stupidity wins out, so they believe, except the Americans ingeniously manage to anchor the space elevator in Florida keys, sacrificing their greatest heros in the process, and so they gain the benefit of the first space elevator themselves.

The third story in the series, "The First 12 Step Recovery Group In Space," shows a world addicted to biotechnological drugs on earth, drugs in the water and soil which make people content with simple, desireless, buddhist-style lifestyles. Only madman desire to leave the planet for the dangers beyond.

But after yet another accident in space puts the dozy, addicted world below in jeopardy, a group of addicts decides to go into Recovery together and become the first permanent and sane settlers in space. Their democratic, constructive, supportive spirit triggers a mass migration of recovering addicts into space, who are happy to be discontented and discomfited so long as they are free of addiction. Simultaneously on earth a death-cult emerges which wipes out millions of addicts who partake in it.

So I sketched these ideas down while I lay on the bed. I reread the poem Ozymandias by Shelley, and re-read the Serenity Prayer, which I have posted in my Crowbah blog, and laughed at my own conceit of 12-Steppers in space.