THE DISASTERS!
by Vir Cotto
Although there had been indications of environmental degradation as early as the end of the 19th Century, the time known colloquially as “The Disasters” is generally said to have started in roughly 2034-2036. Most historians give the date of June 9th 2036 as the true beginning of the Disasters, for it was on this date that the last natural rain fall occurred in Europe. Despite disagreements over the precise time period of the Disasters, the middle years of the 21st Century proved to be a cross-roads for humanity; a time of death, destruction, chaos and hope.
Vir Cotto is diplomatic attaché to Ambassador Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic. He enjoys spoo.
Global temperatures increased incrementally but substantially throughout the 20th Century, eventually leading to a reduction in the size of the polar icecaps. As ice reflects more sunlight than seawater, the melting of the icecaps served to augment the greenhouse effect of heavy industry and other emissions. Slowly but steadily, the sea levels of the Earth rose, as did the global temperature. Increased air temperatures led to major disruptions of wind and storm patterns.
What meteorologists of the time named a “near-permanent high pressure system,” began setting in over the North and Baltic Seas, cutting off most of Europe from rainfall. As crops failed in both Europe and South Western Asia, a combination of economic depression and food shortages left nearly a billion people in the depths of poverty and famine. In 2038, the Euro collapsed under the weight of runaway inflation; for the average European family in 2038, a loaf of bread cost nearly 10 million Euros. By December of that same year, the American Dollar and Japanese Yen suffered reductions in value as well, crippling international trade.
In 2039 matters became even worse. The rise of sea level throughout the world brought chaos to the coastal cities of countries across the globe. In the United States, the government sought to fight endemic unemployment by ordering massive public works projects at crucial ports from Norfolk to San Francisco. It would prove to be of little effect against the rising waters and increasingly frequent hurricane systems in the Atlantic. The burgeoning Pacific superpowers China and Indonesia suffered enormous human casualties in the wake of the storms and flooding. Official PRC reports estimated the deaths from destroyed dams and dykes, the subsequent flooding and power shortages, as well as the ensuing disease and famines to be nearly 50 million between 2038-2043.
Throughout 2040 and 2041, a world wide economic depression, coupled with rising rates of infectious diseases, mostly malaria and cholera, led to chaos which brought about the collapse of governments from Madrid to Beijing. Governments which escaped from anarchy and civil war still found themselves impotent to provide but the most meager solutions to their citizens’ myriad problems. Even North America, Europe and Japan fell into Third World conditions in regard to health and public sanitation. No exact numbers exist for the death toll, but some estimate that nearly one sixth of the world’s population died during the Disasters.
Though the rise in sea level was less than cataclysmic, it led directly to the economic chaos that crippled governmental power, making the environmental disasters an antecedent to the civil destruction which followed. Though many people called the Disasters “The Second Great Flood,” the true fact of the matter is that the flood did little more than force people from the coastal cities. Geologically, it was of little consequence, but economically, it made hundreds of millions of people homeless, beginning a wave of economic disruption which, coupled with a dramatic decrease in agricultural yields, sent of a wave of depression throughout the world.
By 2043, the Disasters had killed over a billion people, leading to the greatest natural loss of life since the Black Death of the 14th Century. Civil wars spread; in many areas of the world bandits and gangs disrupted what little help governments could provide. At a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in August of that year, the representatives of the world’s 28 nuclear powers voted UN Secretary General David Hewey the authority to do whatever he felt necessary to do solve the problem. Although it was intended as a token gesture Hewey, who had previously served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as the President of the European Union, drew up a plan that he hoped would provide for a solution.
David Hewey’s plan called for the creation of a world wide government, which he named the United Fascist Government, which would act with complete authority. The report made a special case of Venice, Italy. For years, the various governments of Italy had deliberated endlessly on the problem of Venice, but were unable to provide a solution. Although there had been a plan to build movable gates across the entrances to the lagoon in which Venice sat, the myriad governments were unable to ever complete construction. Hewey claimed that this was due to the democratic system, which forced political leaders to attempt to please voters at the cost of real solutions.
On September 11th, 2043, David Hewey presented the UN Security Council with a 12 page document entitled “The United Fascist Government Charter.” It called for a Council to oversee the decisions of a Governor, who would rule the world with otherwise unlimited authority. The representatives of the world’s nuclear powers would form the first Ruling Council of the UFG and would each individually choose their successor. On Christmas Day 2043, the United Fascist Government was formed.
At 2:38 pm, Eastern-Standard time, David Hewey stepped up to the hastily assembled platform on the Main Concourse of Grand Central Terminal in New York City and delivered an a short but stunning address, which, when broadcast throughout the world, heralded the beginning of the Unified Fascist state.
Text of Hewey’s Speech
Creating the UFG: David Hewey outside Parliament
Citizens of the world, I need not tell you of the gravity of our situation, I need not read to you the numbers or names of the dead, I need not tell you that today we stand as witnesses to the death of civilization and the birth of a new dark age. The economic, political and environmental decisions that we have made, and have been made by the previous generation, have backed us into a wall. Right now, self-preservation is the only thing that matters. The survival of our species is the only thing that matters now. No longer can we wonder if our grandchildren will live in a better world, now we must ask ourselves if our grandchildren will even have a world in which to live at all.
There are no simple solutions, for all the simple solutions have been tried. All the simple solutions have failed. All the democratic institutions we have built, that we have loved, that we have fought and died for, have failed us. Failed us miserably, failed us to a disastrous degree. Failed us in every way. The experiment of democracy, the experiment of freedom has led only to our destruction.
Therefore, I offer a reluctant solution. A horrid, but necessary solution. No longer can we bind governments by the chains of popularity, no longer can we allow our governments to please voters at the expense of the safety of our future. No longer can we allow personal freedom more importance than the survival of our world. I need not tell you that these are desperate times which call for desperate measures. The path we are on will lead only to death and desolation; the other path, though it may seem deplorable, will lead us to safety and to survival.
Therefore today, I announce that world-wide military, political, civil and economic authority will be vested in the Ruling Council of the new United Fascist Government, which will rule with absolute authority for one hundred years. I ask this generation to bear the burden, to pay the price for the crimes of their ancestors. This is not fair, but it is necessary if our species is to continue. It is our sacrifice. We must give up our freedom, give up our lives if necessary so that the whole of humanity may endure.
We must not let sentimentality steer us, we must face these Disasters, and we must defeat them. And to do that, we must sweep away the pleasant, yet destructive, ideologies that have led us to this most dangerous situation. We must not give up hope, we must not surrender to despair. We must sacrifice what we can, so that we may survive until the dawn. God save us.
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After his short speech, David Hewey stepped down from the platform to somewhat lackadaisical applause. Though the world had no say, the transition to Fascist government proved to be a smooth one. And, although it would be a quarter of a century more before the Advanced Climate Control Engine would right the Earth’s climate once again, the United Fascist Government and its successor, the United Fascist Empire, gave the people of the world something they needed: hope.
The Disasters would prove to be a crossroads for humanity.From the darkest abyss of destruction Humanity moved upwards into the Golden Years of the U.F.E. A new age of exploration began in the Solar System and beyond, a new time of golden prosperity settled over the Earth for a time. Though over a billion people would die in the span of five years, the new developments in government allowed humanity to take a new course, to perhaps stave off a new dark age.