Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "pandemics"

Coronavirus and Tales of Future Passed

Written by Dr. Wesley Britton

Very quickly after the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic began, I realized everything had changed for writers of futuristic fiction, especially all of us who have written post-apocalyptic stories. For one matter, before this pandemic, virtually everything we put into future-set stories was completely speculative. We based what we created on projections drawing from the best research we could find. Now, we have a baseline to work from, drawing from international experience on virtually every level: medical, economic, political, religious, environmental, sociological, and very personal, certainly psychological.

Before COVID-19, there was a deep well of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature we can now consider for comparisons between fantasy and reality. Stephen King’s 1978 The Stand or Michael Crichton’s influential 1968 The Andromeda Strain were examples of a genre grammaticizing virus outbreaks resulting from alien incursions, scientific accidents, as well as deliberately released terrorist attacks or war gone amuck.

From Atomic Age giant monsters to wayward comets to 21st century walking dead, we got cautionary tales about what might happen if we don’t do this or don’t do that. We were warned that humanity could pay a heavy price for ecological neglect, scientific carelessness, or unawareness of what weaponized plagues could be released if we’re not carefully watching groups willing to put our planet at risk to reach their nefarious goals.

Of course, a much older tradition goes to The Book of Revelation where Armageddon is what God has had in mind all along. Distinguished authors who have dealt with fictional pandemics in particular include Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley, who published The Last Man in 1826; Jack London’s 1912 The Scarlet Plague; Richard Matheson’s popular 1954 I Am Legend, and Gore Vidal’s 1978 Kalki.

I thought of all this when I watched the horror of coffins of unknown people being dumped into mass graves in New York. That was something I had used as a fictional trope in my futuristic Return to Alpha (2017) on an earth impacted by climate change as well as waves of weaponized plagues released by Islamic terrorist groups. One question at the core of my novel, and many others by other writers, is how would humanity handle post-apocalyptic life? Few such novels in a very wide genre paint optimistic portraits. Humans tend to largely revert to barbarism, or at least primitive tribal communities often cut off from the rest of the world led by powerful men with women as slaves or near-slaves. Deadly competition dictates who gets what resources. Frequently, our reliance on technology is reduced as in Machine Sickness: Eupocalypse Book 1 by Peri Dwyer Worrell where nearly every material on earth with any petroleum polymers from shoes to computers to transportation of all kinds breaks down. One word sums up what many futurist writers envision: grim. One recent example of such unrelentingly dark forecasting is Maxwell Rudolf’s The Arkhe Principle: A post-apocalyptic technothriller (2017).

Now, we are going through an experience that changes everything. Writers will now have to touch what COVID-19 did as it impacts all of human history like nothing since World War II. To paint a believable future, the COVID-19 virus will have to get at least a passing mention in futuristic fiction as it will be a serious turning point in earth history.


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Subscribers to Wes Britton’s newsletter will get an exclusive scene in the upcoming edition written for a post-apocalyptic short story featuring detective Mary Carpenter. It follows the ideas expressed in this “Coronavirus” essay describing how COVID-19 has affected earth – with a surprising twist at the end.

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More on Return to Alpha:

https://drwesleybritton.com/books/ret...

More on Alpha Tales 2044:

https://drwesleybritton.com/books/alp...

In the coming months, we're going to be touting the upcoming release of Return to Alpha in a brand-new print edition. it's the 6th stand-alone saga from the Beta-Earth Chronicles. The book is especially timely as it features our planet in a future time after climate change has afflicted our world as well as waves of weaponized pandemics.

It's a stand-alone tale as it introduces a new cast of characters not seen in the first five books of the series. How would we on Alpha-Earth react to the news that there are other earths in the multi-verse? Not as happily as you might thing.

The passage below sets the stage a bit. It's an interview with the aliens in a fictitious news article:


The Jamaica Daily Messenger
Special Edition, Monday, March 4, 2044
By Noel Fleming
Photograph and Video Gallery by Tara Clemens

Exclusive: First Interviews with First Aliens to Ever Land on Earth

Humankind has always wondered if we were alone in the universe. In all those planets in our galaxy and beyond, shouldn’t we expect to someday encounter other forms of life?
And what about other universes where perhaps other kinds of humanity might live on parallel earths?
Last Monday, revelers at the Doctor’s Cave Beach in Montego Bay were the first to see a strange, triangular spaceship with two bulbous pods attached to it drop from the skies. (Photo and videos attached.) It carried six beings claiming to be from not one, but two such parallel earths.
At first, witnesses thought they were seeing some sort of Hollywood stunt to promote a new movie. “Two of the creatures that came out of that ship,” Rose Leiter of Saratoga, FL, reported, “looked like Klingons or Wookies or something. Very believable make-up.”
Raoul Esperansa of Santa Clara, Cuba, had a similar reaction. “I think everyone thought we were watching some sort of staged show. Then the police came out and handcuffed the strangers and everyone began to worry. I think most of us were relieved when the bomb-bots scooped up the satchels on the beach. Perhaps we’d just seen some very inventive terrorists get arrested before they could do any damage.”
In fact, officers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force very quickly apprehended the six aliens after four of them made attempts to introduce themselves to the crowds on the beach. After determining the situation was more appropriately the jurisdiction of the Military Intelligence branch of the Jamaica Defense Force, the aliens were placed in their custody and taken to the JDF’s headquarters in Kingston.
Within hours, JDF investigators conceded the stranded spacecraft had extra-terrestrial origins. A spokesperson for the scientific branch of the agency, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Messenger, “There’s no way the materials used, the construction design, or the control boards in that thing came from anywhere on our planet. We have so much to explore and test to find out how this thing ticks. Assuming we have the authority to do what we need to.”
Not certain of the legal ramifications in this unprecedented situation, Barrister William Anderson was asked to interview and represent the apparent aliens if they so desired. After consulting with his clients and the supervising officers, Anderson pointed out that while ignorance of the law has never been a legal defense, visitors from other planets should not be expected to know the proper procedures of acquiring entry visas and passports. At his insistence, all charges against the six were dropped.
The aliens’ main request was to be able to speak to the press. So Anderson contacted the Messenger and arranged for the most historic conversation in Earth’s history.

Table-Talk with Aliens

So yesterday at around 10:30 a.m., Anderson, Photographer Tara Clemens, and this reporter were ushered into a dining hall at the JDF headquarters. There was no shortage of armed bots surrounding everyone. Because of an invisible quarantine-shield dividing the room, all our voices would be sent and heard through the imbedded microphones and speakers in the long laminated table in the center of the hall. We felt in no danger even though we were among the very first to meet Jamaica’s most unexpected guests.
At the table, six figures sat together, clearly waiting for our arrival. Like the beach witnesses, my eyes were first drawn to the identical pair that indeed reminded me of old movie creatures like Klingons or Wookies. As readers can see in the attached photos, the aliens, apparently named Hamed El and Hamed Le, looked nothing like their companions. Instead, their bulging foreheads, large protruding jaws, and gray skins illustrated by colorful natural blotches in stripes, streaks, and splashes very much looked like a Hollywood creation.
As we took our places across from the aliens, the youngest of the four normal appearing beings spoke up. “I see your interest in our pilots. Before you ask them anything, please know they don’t understand English. I act as their translator. Also know that, as many have asked before, they can’t tell you much about how our ship, the Marivurn, works. By deliberate design, the builders didn’t want the pilots to know things that might prove dangerous in Alphan scientific hands. On top of that, when we landed here, they erased and destroyed all the memory banks in the Marivurn operating systems. For the same reason.”
“And that reason is,” a yellow-eyed, dark-skinned beauty added, ”is that on both our home-worlds, Beta-Earth and Cerapin-Earth, reckless scientists tried to duplicate multi-verse jumps at times the deities didn’t permit. On both planets, terrible, horrible consequences resulted. Thousands died on both earths. So we brought nothing to tempt anyone here to try to do the same.”
Curious to learn how these visitors knew such perfect, crystal-clear English, I was astonished with what I heard. According to the dark-skin girl, four of them were from the same family, sharing the same father. And they claimed he was originally from our planet. He had taught them English, they said, as something of a private family code as no one else on their home worlds knew their father’s language.
Studying their faces, I could see a slight family resemblance. But as they claimed to have different mothers, they were all distinct in appearance.
To my far left sat a rather handsome, strongly built man who introduced himself as Malcolm Renbourn II. Twenty-four years old, the oldest of the group, he said his father was Dr. Malcolm Renbourn of Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Forty years to the day before their arrival in Jamaica, Renbourn said his father had been ripped from Alpha-Earth, transported to Beta-Earth, and began a life “that’s a rather long story.”
Next to him sat the yellow-eyed, chocolate-skinned Kalmeg Renbourn, clearly from a different mother. Twenty-three years old, the second oldest of the group, she said her mother had been bonded to the Renbourn tribe due to the will of Olos, the goddess of Beta-Earth. “My mother was the prophesized gift from my country, Balnakin, to Tribe Renbourn as part of the reconciliation between my people and the Renbourns. Again, another long story.”
Beside her sat the other female of the group, an attractive, demure sixteen-year-old girl who called herself Olrei Renbourn. “While I was born on Cerapin-Earth, my mother was from Beta. She was one of the five Betan wives who came with father to Cerapin twenty years ago when our tribe had a new mission, to make Cerapin-Earth aware of the multi-verse. As we keep saying, another long story.”
Finally, I was introduced to Malcolm Renbourn III, the one who had claimed to be the translator for the pilots. His skin also had the colorful markings of the big-jawed twins. “I am the one half-Cerapin of my family in this room. My mothers were a pair much like my Hamed friends here. On our planet, many humans are pairs who share, you probably didn’t know, their minds, thoughts, and physical sensations. Other Cerapins are like me, nams they call us. Nams are single-bodied humans once branded defectives and outcasts. Until father and Tribe Renbourn changed all that. Guess what? Yep, another long story.”
When I asked why this Renbourn family had so many mothers, I heard another astonishing answer.
“On Beta-Earth,” the one called Malcolm Renbourn II responded, “for as long as we have recorded history, we suffered from the ancient curse we called the Plague-With-No-Name. For millennia, that plague killed three out of four male babies their first year. So it shouldn’t be surprising our tribal structure was based on polygamous bondings of a husband and usually three or four wives. Come to think of it, I know of no other family with nine wives like father had.”
“There was a reason for that,” Kalmeg said. “Father’s main mission on Beta was not only to make our planet aware of the multi-verse and spread Alphan knowledge everywhere, but to create numerous Alpha-Beta bloodlines. For many years, doctors hoped our genetics might contain the cure for the plague. That didn’t happen until Malcolm II over here. His genetics are something unusual. But that too is a story for another day.”
Was this mission repeated on Cerapin-Earth?
“Not quite,” Malcolm III answered. “Our planet is not polygamous. As we have a serious over-population problem, that isn’t our practice. I know father wasn’t expecting to take on any more wives. My mothers, however, rather, ah, made it impossible for him to resist their, ah, charms. While I have quite a few brothers and sisters on Cerapin, Tribe Renbourn’s main mission, other than spreading knowledge of both Alpha and Beta, was the championing of nam rights like we mentioned before.”
And what is your mission here, I asked.
“To bring awareness of the multi-verse to Alpha-Earth, of course,” Olrei answered. “And awareness of the power of all the deities, Olos, Cerapin, and your god father called Jehovah or Allah or whatever name you prefer. We will have much, very much to share with you about the deities. I don’t know if anyone told you, but we brought with us rather extensive records in many formats with so many details of life on Beta and Cerapin-Earths. They’re on what we call skil-pads, but we don’t know how successful your people will be unscrambling the texts and pictures on our technology. We certainly hope you’ll be able to open them so you’ll have so much knowledge and information to share with Alphans everywhere.”
Are you planning on creating your own polygamous families?
The four Renbourns laughed. “No, while we are open to finding mates,” Olrei replied, “we have no directives to introduce any of our customs to Alpha-Earth. Nothing like that at all. But we’re going to be here for a while.
“Unless the deities do something different we don’t know about, no cross-versal window will open for another twenty years. That seems to be their pattern. We’re going nowhere. And before you ask, no one else is coming after us. No one can.”
“Other than sharing my home planet with you,” Kalmeg added, “I certainly don’t know of any other missions. Before we boarded the Marivurn, neither Malcolm II nor I had even ever met the Cerapin Renbourns. Every conversation we’ve had has been here, wherever here exactly is.”
What future plans do you have?
“You tell us,” Malcolm II shrugged. “Since we’ve been here, we’ve been in rather restrained protective custody. Our only real plans are to talk to any reporters that want to interview us. We hinted at many long stories to tell. Well, we’re willing to tell them. We’re eager to share all of them. On behalf of my family, let me invite you to return, Noel Fleming of the Messenger. We’ve got stories for you that would fill books. On two earths, they already have.”