Chapter 12

 

Birth of The Collective

 

 

 

Esalen Institute, CA: 2045

 

Dominic Repaul completed his dissertation, A Model for Sustainability:  A Spacecraft in Solar Orbit, in the summer of 2038. It was heralded immediately as a breakthrough in new thinking.  In 2039, it won a Pulitzer Prize for scientific writing.  With his new Ph.D. in hand, Dom spent a two-year stint at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories working on emerging propulsion systems, then entered astronaut training for the first manned mission to Ganymede. 

 

Seala Repaul embarked on a different, but equally challenging, course.  Receiving her B.A. in Government and International Politics, magna cum laude, in 2037, she immediately entered the Master of Arts in International Commerce and Policy (ICP) at George Mason and received her M.A. in 2038.  After a brief stint on the Staff of Senator Robert Kennedy, III, she returned to George Mason for her Ph.D. in Public Policy.  Thuy Tuam received her B.A. with Seala.  With her father’s help, Thuy started the quasi-nonprofit organization, Coastal Recovery, in 2038.  CoRecov helped combine resources to save cost and reduce social impact when coastal people were displaced by rising waters or repeated storms.

 

The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), combined with private insurance companies and the American Red Cross, had developed a model for disaster relief in the United States in the 20th Century envied by the rest of the world.  The concept was simple:  the largesse of the many would pay for the misfortune of the few.  It worked well—too well.  During the last half of the century, people and business flocked to the southern coasts, seeking warmer winters and the lure of the sea.  Large cities, like Houston and Miami, grew to millions only a few feet above sea level.  It was a mistake. 

 

The gradually rising waters of global warming and increased frequency and intensity of tropical storms combined to inflict blow after blow to low-lying areas.  By 2015, insurance rules were rewritten, FEMA had no funds left to function, and the Red Cross only responded to “class 10” disasters as a way of conserving resources.  As bad as it was in the U.S., it was much worse worldwide.  Port cities everywhere suffered, but Hong Kong, Singapore, and Lagos were hardest hit. All island countries with major cities on the coast were suffering.  CoRecov took on the task of relocating residents to higher, safer ground, salvaging and dismantling infrastructure, and allowing the lowlands to go to the sea.  Wildlife fared better, following the beaches and marshes as they formed and reformed.  Floods were devastating for all.  Laws were passed prohibiting building or rebuilding in flood-prone areas.  The mass migration to higher ground put pressure on croplands.  The Agriculture Reform Act of 2022 made it illegal to build on arable cropland in the United States.  Countries that could enacted similar measures.

 

Seala’s dissertation, Restructuring Government for a Sustainable World, not only became a best seller when promoted by Senator Kennedy, it earned her a Nobel Peace Prize in 2039.  Her ideas were hailed as, “The greatest new ideas in government since Plato’s Republic.”  She was glad she was not compared to Mao, Hitler, or Marx.  She had borrowed from them, as well as Rousseau and Jefferson.  Dressed by a New York stylist for the Kennedys, she did the star circuit for a while.  She was only twenty-two when President Hector Cruz named her Ambassador to the United Nations.

 

In spite of the dire situation in the States, there was still wealth, progress, and development.  Only a few countries fared as well or better—Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and a few smaller countries with resource assets or strategic location and small populations.

 

China and India succumbed first.  The rich and connected fled their countries or to guarded enclaves as the water and land was stressed to the point it no longer sustained crops or habitation.  Starvation, malnutrition, and disease ran through the people unchecked as relief and healthcare systems were overwhelmed.  Areas that had been farmed for thousands of years became poisoned by salts and caustic fertilizers.  Whole landscapes became barren, subject to nothing but mud in the rainy season and dust in the dry.  Ancient towns and villages became ruins inhabited only by insects, rats, and other scavengers as the ability even to bury the dead failed.

 

Africa, already decimated by disease, was next.  Vast areas of the continent became uninhabitable, either for man or beast.  Marginal lands with little or no pure water and over grazing in the Middle East and much of Asia followed. Small wars, waged over the ever-dwindling sources of water and food, raged unchecked as neighbors killed neighbors and the UN was too powerless to intervene.  Mass refugee migrations overwhelmed areas that could not afford stringent defenses.  Many European countries struggled to deal with waves of illegal immigrants from failing regions.  Fiscal prudence clashed with human rights when deportation meant certain death.  Australia was beset with boatloads of refugees to its shores

 

Cults thrived.  The poor disenfranchised banned together in gangs, often espousing some religious affiliation, to protect themselves from the anarchy that reigned in the dead zones.  These cults, often mistakenly believing that they could survive, left en masse from their crowded city enclaves to death as they struggled to exist without food and water.

 

Those on the edge saw that their family savings or good fortune could not save them from the insidious degradation pulling their way of life down.  They flocked together in ultra-conservative political groups lobbying to save them from the onslaught.  The sons and daughters in this predicament would do anything to escape to a better way of life.  Some threw themselves into space exploitation.  Some struggled for academic success.  Some tried any get rich quick scheme that came along.  Some sold themselves away.  Drugs became the great escape.  Return for those who got addicted was rare.

 

Those fortunate to be born where isolation and resources still existed tightened their belts and became more resourceful.  Most new ideas and conservation measures came from, and were used by, this group.  Knowledgeable living and the best healthcare brought them close to the normal human lifespan, 125 years.  They were the first to limit their own populations and understand the limits of Earth.  By 2030, they numbered less than 400 million in a world of 7 billion dying young.

 

The rich fed off the masses and holed up in enclaves under guard.  They developed a whole new concept of first class by traveling in ways  commoners could not afford. Their children, bored and feeling invincible, were the most susceptible to cults.

 

The largest cult, appealing to the most who could afford to belong, were the Saganites.  The Saganites were followers of Carl Sagan, the dead astronomer and popularist of the idea that intelligent extraterrestrials were common in the Universe.  Just as nearly all religions professed, that there was something—out there—larger than us, people needed to believe that there were forces affecting them that they had no control over.  If they could be blamed for our troubles, then we wouldn’t be at fault.

 

During the last half of the 20th century many people saw phenomenon, particularly in the night sky, that they couldn’t explain.  These unidentified flying objects, or UFOs as they came to be called, were thought to be of either government or alien origin.  Proof, other than grainy photos or films, was hard to come by, but legends, based on eyewitness or fictional accounts, grew into conspiracies with widespread support.  The science of Sagan and others fueled the imaginations of science fiction and fantasy writers, and cults developed around oft-repeated legends or points of view.

 

Improved forms of surveillance, information and analysis gradually eliminated the existence of UFOs and little, gray, hairless men, but the science of Sagan, Drake and others grew stronger as understanding of the universe grew and people rallied around concepts like the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.  SETI, as the concept was called, gained widespread support from public and private sources.  Over the years from 1960 to 1992, over fifty independent searches were conducted.  There was skepticism like that of Albert Repaul, that such efforts were too costly and wouldn’t work. Just as NASA was about to begin the most ambitious project yet, Congress stopped funding.

 

When SETI lost its federal funding in the 1993, the Planetary Society, founded by Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman in 1980, and the SETI Institute, founded by Thomas Pierson and Jill Tarter in 1984, began to privately fund what the government wouldn’t.  Celebrities and movie moguls who profited from movies based on the first contact theme were heavy contributors.  Small contributors also helped to keep SETI alive.  Thus, the Saganites grew.

 

When an array of small radio telescopes was shown to provide the same listening power as one very large one, efforts were launched to provide one.  Many plans were developed and scraped until the Allen Telescope Array was finally funded by Microsoft executives and completed in 2002.  A joint effort by the SETI Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, the Allen Array was located at the Hat Creek Observatory, run by Berkeley, in the Cascades just north of Mt. Lassen.  The Allen Array produced an incredible volume of data from a few thousand stars under the Institute’s Project Phoenix until interference from eCom and near space orbital activity began to drown its listening power out near the end of the decade.  The Hat Creek Observatory was completely destroyed by ejecta from the eruption of Lassen in 2019. The site was abandoned., but not the idea.

 

  A six-year campaign to use lasers to try to contact likely prospects was funded in 2001.  Powerful lasers were beamed at likely star systems with the hope that, in time, the signals would cross the great distances involved.  The Arcibo Observatory had been used for a similar, radio-based project in 1992.  These efforts were abandoned in 2009 when Dr. Linus Tobe at MIT proved mathematically that ordinary radio signals, produced for over one hundred years would reach, and be understood by, advanced intelligence, long before the laser beams would reach them.  We were already transmitting.  We had been for a long time.  There was no need to amplify or focus our transmissions.

 

When personal computers on the Internet came into widespread use, astronomers at Berkeley got the idea that idle personal computers could be used to analyze data from radio telescopes for signs of intelligent life.  Seti@home was formed.  By the turn of the century, over two million home computers were cranking out analyses.  While this home-grown effort produced only 3% of the data analyzed, as interconnectivity and computing power rose, the project grew exponentially, about 10% per year.  By 2020, it seemed that whole planet was passively involved.  Computers looked for a sign tirelessly while their owners slept. But, no matter how hard SETI signaled or listened, no one heard.

 

Everything was moved to space.  The success of the Hubble telescope led to larger, digital optical devices with a million times more acuity.  The visual, ultraviolet, infrared, and radio spectra were scanned and analyzed with an obsession approaching religion.  And wondrous it was.  Planets were found in abundance.  Anomalies, too.  The more science found, the more was left unexplained.  Some planets promised life, but none was found.  The distances were just too great to tell.

 

Enter the Reverend Doctor Seti--Savior.  After Seti graduated from UC-Santa Cruz with dual degrees in philosophy and religious thought in 2037, he immediately went to Esalen Institute.  The enclave, still hanging to the cliffs of Big Sur, was suffering financial difficulty and annihilation by repeated earthquakes and landslides.  Using Compton funds Seti got from Anne, and some donations from the sons and daughters of the movie industry he knew in school, he bought land over the coastal range and built a new center for the staff there.  Seti was not only a disciple; he was on the Board of Directors.

 

Seti spent two years in solitude among the redwoods, and then he came out. He entered the University of Chicago to take a doctorate in near eastern languages and civilizations.  As an associate of the Oriental Institute, he learned all he could about the glyphs there, then traveled to Egypt.  He traveled quietly and lightly.  Only Fawzia Hussein knew who he really was and why he was there.  Using his perfect memory, he read all of the hieroglyphs in the museum vaults and in the tombs.  He traveled the Mediterranean countries on bicycle, using his academic credentials and American citizenship to obtain entry, visiting ancient shrines in many countries. Seti’s dissertation, The Crucible of Religious Thought, brilliantly showed that all religions had originated from the Egyptian worship of the Sun, beginning circa. 12,000 B.C.  People were shocked to find that Buddhism, Shintoism, Judeaism, Islam and even pagan religions linked back to Ra.

 

Out of chaos, god had created order and the earth, sun, moon, and stars.  Out of religious chaos, Seti had created order.  Just as the genetic trail suggested, all intelligent beings and intelligent thought came from a single source, most probably in Northern Africa.  All people on the planet were truly one.  All glory to the source of this life, the heat and light of the sun!

 

But there were many suns.  According to Sagan, there were, “Billions and billions …”, of them.  With gravity as their igniter and hydrogen as their fuel, stars were the most common and understood features of the Universe.  Seti was formulating a theory.  To add credence to his theory, he entered Harvard Divinity School.  When he emerged in the spring of 2044,

Reverend Repaul was on the verge of becoming the spiritual leader of the 21st Century.

 

The world was in great need of spiritual leadership.  As much as the United Nations tried to pull things together in the face of dwindling resources and general malaise, religious factions kept tearing things apart.  Religions, feeling a moral obligation to improve conditions, were heavily politically involved.  The morality of the religiously influenced political leadership had long kept the world apart, even as the nonreligious morality of the communist states in the last century had.

 

The Saganites were united and growing.  It was the Saganites that Rev. Repaul sought to lead.  The concept that had led to the success of seti@home and the growth of the Saganites was universal and timeless—when people pooled their resources in a single goal, it was as though their effort was multiplied—the sum was greater than the parts.  The Saganites would understand his theory.  To deliver it to them, he didn’t have to preach it; he lived it.

 

Seti’s theory was simple.  If linked resources could analyze vast amounts of data looking for an intelligent signal, than linked minds could do even more.  Collective thought.  Technology already existed to do it, all he had to do was take the first step.  To accomplish this, he had to return to his source.

 

Albert was in the cabin when the holo appeared.  “Dad, are you there?  It’s me, Seti.”

 

“Hi, haven’t heard from you in a while.   I’ve been wondering where you were planning to go now that you’d been ordained.  Anne’s out by the lake, do you want me to get her?”

 

“No, I haven’t time right now.  I need to reach Dr. Khundi.  Is he still at the Biotech Center?”

 

“As far as I know, he’s still consulting with them.  At 110, he’s a good example of what modern science can do.  Let me get you his private address. … There it is, khundi@jhu.vip.  I always get him there.  By the way, what is it, Son, something big?”

 

“Well, you know how you’ve always said that most differences could be easily solved if you could see the other guy’s viewpoint?  Well, my work with situational ethics suggests that if we have our opponents’ thoughts, the game is over.”

 

“I know I’ve said that.  I learned early, from all those students from other cultures, that, if I listened to them long enough, I could see their viewpoints.  I’ve often thought that if the common people could get together rather than leaders, conflicts would be resolved quickly.  What are you planning to do, wire our brains together?”

 

“Exactly.  But I plan to start with a small, select group of the best thinkers I know, and then gradually let others in.  Do you want to be included?”

 

“I think I’ll pass.  I’m too old to contribute much.  But Dominic and Seala should be.  You know they already seem to have this ability.”

 

“Yes, I know.  But they are allowing access to each other’s memory storage.  What I’m proposing is direct connection to cognition, fully controllable by the individuals involved.  It works, in theory—all I have to do is try it out on a small group.”

 

“Theory is always risky.  Can’t you try it out on Chimps?”

 

“It would be hard to analyze what they were thinking.  This is a job for humans. …. Hi, Mom!”  Anne had just entered the room.

 

“Hi!  You sure are looking handsome! What have you two been up to?”  Anne wasn’t that curious, just being polite.

 

“Oh, we’ve just solved the world’s biggest problem.”  Albert was being his old sardonic self.

 

“Well, I’m glad your through, it’s almost time for dinner.  Seti, dear, I wish you were here to join us.  We’ve got fresh veggies.”

 

“Me, too, Mom.  Oh, Dad, if my theory is right, we will multiply brainpower, too.  ‘Two heads are better than one’ might be more like a factor of 2.5 to 1.  I’m not sure, but it would be an interesting prospect.  Well, got to go.  I’ll let you know how it comes out. … Bye.”

 

“Pretty heady stuff,” Anne remarked as she peeled onions at the sink.  She was already crying.

 

After an exchange of holos with Khundi and review by the Biotech Ethical Committee, Seti arrived at the Biotech Center with two trusted colleagues and friends, the Right Reverend John Jay Hall, Episcopalian Archbishop of New York, and Rabbi Saul Rubinski, Levin Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Chicago.  They held no animosity toward one another and were some of the greatest thinkers around—a good start.  Adversarial people would have to wait.

 

They assembled in a small conference room:  Seti, Rao Khundi, Set’s two friends, three nanosurgeons, assistants, researchers, techs, and other supporting staff.  It was Seti’s kind of room.  He was about to explain what they were going to do.

 

“Ladies and Gentlemen.  You have probably thought of this yourselves.  But I have worked out the logic and believe we are on the verge of a technical breakthrough that is not only possible, it is essential to help us save the Earth.  You have cloned highly viable humans.  You have created viable implants that have radically enhanced human function.  I am the quintessential living proof of your art.

 

Now, I propose a merging of minds, simply put, The Collective.  With implanted transmitter/receivers and direct neural networks to the cerebral cortex, we can connect thought processes anywhere on Earth.  There may be a slight delay in receiving, but our brains can learn to adapt just like they do now to each new or updated implant.

 

Any questions?  If not, I suggest we begin.  There is no time to waste.”

 

There was a cheer and standing ovation.  After a few questions, work began.  It took several months of computer modeling to come up with the right neural connections and programming for brain training.  In the meantime, Rabbi Rubinski and Archbishop Hall received implants and training to bring them to the same level of function as Seti. 

 

Based on what was involved, Seti surmised that The Collective, if it worked, would be a small club for now.  Their effort was, once again, funded by the largesse of Compton money--very expensive.  He shuddered at the thought of only the very wealthy being let in.  Immortals, like he, should be among the first.  By searching eCom, he could have found out how many there were.  He waited, instead for Dr. Khundi to tell him.  He began to think that forming The Collective would be far more difficult than conceiving it.

 

Six months later, after several difficult, halting attempts in training, the three of them relaxed and began communing.  It was better than Seti thought.  It was easy for him to determine whose thought it was he was having.  Unlike a dream, he could turn the others off if he wanted to, or tune into what they were thinking.  Since they were all of like mind, it was pretty boring stuff.  He was careful not to intrude on their private moments.  He expected the same from them, and got it. However, they did seem to have one single thought, “Who are the other clones?”

 

There were forty-seven of them.  At twenty-seven, Dominic was the oldest, followed closely by Seala and Seti at twenty-five.  The other forty-four were mostly from ancient or mummified remains. Dr. Khundi firmly believed that modern medicine, chemicals, and radiation had corrupted the DNA of most industrial age individuals.  Besides, he did not want to deal with living relatives. Seala was an exception he tended to ignore.

 

The clones ranged in age from 7 to 21 and were spread out among 32 families, mostly in the Northeast. Ten were in college. Five had graduated or were in grad school. The average age for starting college was 16. Seti was impressed with the details.  He wanted to include them all.

 

Through Dr. Khundi, Seti was able to reach the immortals and their parents, and ask if they would participate in the experiment. One by one, they came to the Biotech Center and received the necessary implants. The Collective was pleased as each new member finished training and joined them.

 

 

                          

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