The Settlement 47, somewhere on Saturn’s moon: Titan. In the year of our Lord: 2080.
Four months have passed since the colonization of Titan. There have been thirteen settlements on Moon, twenty nine on Mars, and there have been five on Titan so far. The last two colonizations had resulted in two world wars, but due to “The Treaty of 13”, there would be no war to follow this settlement at Titan. But the Fifth World War will be due by the expiry of the treaty, on Thirteenth January, 2089. It is an unavoidable fact. All the power blocs have accumulated enough weaponry to claim it in future which might be a devastated Titan. There are six of them right now, the Northern, the Southern, the Eastern, the Western, the Central and the Imperial.
There are many common men who have volunteered to go to the new settlement at Titan in spite of the poor facilities there. Out of the five settlements on Titan, the latest of them is the Settlement 47, and the man in charge of that small world is Christian. It is the only settlement of the Imperial Bloc on Titan. The other four belongs to the Northern Bloc, the most powerful military force in the whole of Earth, against who the Eastern and the Southern has formed an unofficial alliance which might be official with the next world war. This alliance is already planning on a possible future colonization of Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. The Northern Block owns eight out of the thirteen colonies on Moon and twenty three out of the twenty nine colonies on Mars. As the rest owns one each on Moon and Mars, the Central Bloc owns one extra on the latter.
In the fog, and under the light, sat two people in silver outfits. There were guns, books and a few gadgets which shows low battery.
“We are not really the ones supposed to be here, I guess” remarked Zachary, the chief medical officer.
“You are one of them, my friend, it is just me who doesn’t belong here” said Christian with a big frown on his face.
“There are no places of worship here, and building one is out of the equation. There is nothing more of the green world out here, not even a part of what remains on Earth. There is also nothing to be done”.
“I thought religion and spirituality might be the least of your concern here. Now, I do wonder if they sent you here so that you could be taken out of those fixed set of beliefs”.
“They are not just a set of beliefs; and I volunteered to be here. I had even volunteered to go to Mars, but I was a minor then, and had to fulfill the promise to my parents”.
“May be you did. But they still manipulated you into it, for you don’t know the corporate world nor do you know the government. You are just that typical everyman character who knows nothing about what happens behind the scenes. This is just the beginning – wonder how much of a dystopia our world will be, after fifty or sixty years; if there is something left of our world by then. The Northern Bloc already has enough firepower to destroy all the three Settlement planets along with Earth”.
“It is because you are into all of these as an employee. I believe that we will be saved. We might not live long enough to see it, but humanity will find its salvation one day; whoever is left to find it”.
“The one thing I have always been sure about compared to most of the other things; it is easier to convince a corpse compared to you. But I respect that, for there are only a few people left who got opinions of their own, and that number has been going down. Soon, there will be only puppets in a dystopia on a hundred percent dead world”.
The Pathfinder machine breaks the conversation, as it arrives from under the canyon after doing the usual check for unidentified life-forms. There is nothing new to report on its long list of descriptions about the large number of turns it had to make. Christian considered it a waste of power at a time when the settlements were trying hard to keep the lights on. But he had to obey the orders.
Christian made his routine checks on the machine. That was the only thing he enjoyed during his stay there. He has been an expert mechanic right from his childhood, as he repaired his own hover-car, never giving it to the workshop. Zachary had his own problems in the medical fields, as the atmosphere of Titan had something infectious about it, always creating more than one abscess on the body.
The storm alert started blinking. It was the time to get into those titanium-hybrid abodes and have some rest. This resting was such a major thing in their life, that they found it an important event of the routine. There was always the option of exploring more and more, as the next settlement was too far away from them. But there were bots assigned to do the same, and the local exploration was the job of the Pathfinder. A regular journey through the surface of Titan was not healthy enough for a normal human being.
It was in such a world that Christian spent his life. There were just the books on technology and gadgets short of power to keep him company, along with a good number of people who failed to share his interests. Most of the available power had to be used by the machines for the exploration of the surface and underneath the planet in a consistent struggle to keep the settlement safe from any unidentified organism or infectious disease. There were mistakes made on the Moon and Mars, and the experts on Earth were being extra careful during this settlement. To add to it, the Imperial Bloc has been new to the Titan surface, and the experts predict it a colossal task for them to keep themselves working there, with absolutely no help expected from the comparatively well-settled Northern Bloc colonies.
As a representative of everyman who had too much love for nature, God, poetry, art and all the things of a beautiful past, the world was never enough for him. It is out of the situation where the world becomes not enough, that rebellions occur. As long as Christian is considered, there was such a thing already boiling in his mind and soul. He was denied both his spiritual and intellectual satisfaction, and his aesthetic sense had nothing to be satisfied.
To be continued…
Tennyson
The Divine Epic 