Interview with Rei - Part 2 of 10

As Steve Fisch and I get the scripts ready to sell Rome's Revolution as a streaming series, he asked me for a lot of background information that I did not have. So I took some time out to interview Rome and Rei. Here is Rei's interview, part 2 of 10.
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Rei: The civilized world had become so addicted to plastics in every day use that nobody considered what happened to them when we discarded them. They did not degrade. They just broke down into smaller and smaller pieces until those pieces were so small, they were referred to as nano-plastics. The nano-plastics were bioactive and caused a whole host of cancers that no one could cure.
Interviewer: That does not seem to be a problem on Deucado.
Rei: Yes, thank goodness. After the Great Dying, it took a thousand years for the nano-plastics to collect in wherever they are now. They’re still out there but at least they don’t affect the population on a day-to-day basis. The bottom line is that we were drowning in the toxic excesses of our unchecked population growth.
Interviewer: And that was why you created the Ark program?
Rei: I didn’t create it but yes, that was why it was instituted. There was a very good chance that Gaia was going to wipe the planet clean and we wanted to make sure the human race survived. Somewhere.
Interviewer: Please do not take insult with this question but why? Why was it necessary that the human race survive? Clearly you had demonstrated that you could not be entrusted with the stewardship of a planet. Why go somewhere else and start it all again.
(Rei takes a deep breath)
Rei: That’s a great question. You have a valid point. But let me ask you a question back. If you had a child and it did something terrible, horrible, but it wasn’t on purpose. Would you put that child to death or would you teach it to never do such a thing again?
Interviewer: Oh, yes. I see. You are saying your civilization was still in its infancy and it could learn from its mistakes.
(Rei nodding)
Rei: Exactly. Look at our beautiful world here. Look at Helome. Even look at the Earth, it has mostly cleansed itself. Mankind has learned. We’ll never repeat those mistakes again. (Rei laughs) We get to make all new mistakes now.
(Interviewer laughs)
Interviewer: So what was it about your life specifically that made you decide to abandon your home world and fly to the stars?
Rei: my life wasn’t so bad. My parents were really good people. They gave me a nice home and good education. But you’d have to be blind to not think the Earth was doomed. They were building a dome over the town where I grew up but that dome could only hold out Category 6 hurricanes. There weren’t even half-way done when Category 7s started to bust out. There was even some discussion of Category 8, planet-sized storms. It was just temporary. And nobody had any money…
Interviewer: Money. I have heard of it. What was it used for?
Rei: back then, we didn’t have infinite free energy so money was the agreed upon currency of exchange that measured the value of something produced. Like you would make something with your hands, instead of having a molecular sequencer build it. That thing you made had value to somebody else. So they gave you money in exchange for the thing. You could then take that money and buy something else that was of value to you. And so on.
Interviewer: I understand the concept. So why was it that you did not have any?

Tomorrow, part 3