Environmental Protection Agency: Strongly opposed, since DoD environmental impact statement shows that proposed military action will cause unacceptable levels of air, water, and ground-water pollution.
The President therefore withdrew her motion to ask the Congress for a declaration of war. “If you people won’t go along with me,” she said, “I can imagine how those chow- derheads up on the Hill will react to my request.”
To: His Excellency Generalissimo Gonzalez
From: General Davila, commander of the Armies of the North
Date: 5 May 2014
Subject: Captured enemy documents
Most revered Leader!
The document above, together with many others, was captured by our shock troops when they reached the city of Washington, capital of the former United States. I believe it sheds some light on the “happy mystery” of why the U.S. crumbled so quickly.
Long Live Greater Mexico!
WORLD WAR 4.5
The plot of “World War 4.5” clearly falls into the area of “the man who learns better.” Except that, in this case, it is a woman who learns.
This story is also a variation of what I call the “jailbreak” plot. The protagonist is doing something that you feel instinctively is wrong, like a convict’s attempting to break out of jail. Yet because the protagonist is sympathetically drawn, the reader wants the protagonist to succeed, even though the protagonist may be doing “wrong” in the eyes of society.
In its original form, the jailbreak story put the reader on the horns of a moral dilemma. You want the protagonist to succeed, yet you know that the protagonist’s success is socially wrong. The “prisoner of war” variation of the jailbreak story removes this moral ambiguity—as long as it is our POWs trying to break out of the enemy’s camp.
“World War 4.5” was commissioned by a group who wanted to publicize the Unix computer system. Unix is a decentralized system that allows great flexibility for the user, in contrast to hierarchical systems that are more rigid.
Now, one of the best ways to generate a story is to ask, “If this goes on . . . what happens?” If some computer systems become more and more flexible while others become more and more rigid, how far can the two systems go? Will they compete? Very quickly I saw that the two competing types of computer systems could be used as metaphors for the two types of politico-economic systems then competing around the world democracy and communism.
The story was written in 1989 when Eastern Europe was in ferment and the Berlin Wall was about to come down. It was not until two years after that the Soviet military attempted their coup against Gorbachev and the Russian people took to the streets to stop them, much as depicted in this story. For months, whenever newscasters asked rhetorically. “Who would have thought that the Soviet Union would collapse so soon?” I raised my hand and shouted “Me! Me!” (Should have been “I! I!” I know.).
Dahlia’s stealth suit is a variation of the cloak of invisibility worked out by Dean Ing in his fine novel The Ransom of Black Stealth One. It pays to read widely. And to have smart friends.
Notice though, that while Dahlia’s powers are formidable, she is still a very vulnerable person There’s nothing more dull in fiction than an invulnerable character. Superman got to be such a bore that his writers had to invent Kryptonite.
Also pay attention to the fact that the protagonist must make the key decision in the story. You can’t have a god lowered out of the clouds to help your harried hero. Not even Cinderella had everything dropped into her lap. with no exertion on her part. The protagonist must make the vital decision, must win or lose on his or her own efforts.
An example from the movies. John Wayne, in The Angel and the Badman puts away his guns and becomes a Quaker. But the bad guys show up to kill him Stalwart John can’t defend himself without going back on his promise to the woman he loves So the sheriff enters the scene and knocks off the baddies. Deus ex machina. Bad fiction!
The protagonist must always face that crucial decision. And make it. one way or the other win or lose. The dilemma facing the protagonist must be real And the choice must be one that the reader feels is a moral choice between right and wrong.
And even when the protagonist makes the morally right choice there must be a price to be paid. Not even the most glorious hero or heroine can escape the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Not in a believable story. You always have to pay for whatever you get.
Because, at bottom all of fiction consists of morality tales In upbeat stories, the protagonist makes the morally right choice and wins the day. In downbeat stories the protagonist makes the wrong choice and loses. In tragedy, the protagonist makes the right choice and gives up his or her life because of it.
What would you call “World War 4.5”?
Deep in the blackest shadow. Dahlia Roheen cringed against the cold concrete wall. Be invisible, she told herself. Don’t let them see you!
Her black stealth suit shimmered ever so slightly in the protective darkness from the overhanging balcony. Its surface honeycombed with microscopic fiber-optic vidcams and pixels that were only a couple of molecules thick, the suit hugged Dahlia’s body like a famished lover. Directed by the computer implanted in her skull, the vidcams scanned her surroundings and projected the imagery onto the pixels.
It was the closest thing to true invisibility that Coalition technology had been able to come up with. So close that, except for the slight unavoidable glitter when the sequin-like pixels caught some stray light, Dahlia literally disappeared into the background.
Covering her from head to toe, the suit’s thermal- absorption layer kept her infrared profile vanishingly low and its insulation subskin held back the minuscule electromagnetic fields it generated. The only way they could detect her would be if she stepped into a scanning beam, but the wide-spectrum goggles she wore should reveal them to her in plenty of time to avoid them.
Still, Dahlia pressed back into the shadows, the old fears rising in her throat like hot acid, the old protective instinct for night and darkness and silence overriding even the years of painfully stern conditioning. But only for a moment. The implanted computer’s clock was running; Dahlia knew she had one hour to succeed—or be subjected to a death more agonizing than any human being had ever suffered.
Getting into the Central Management complex had been easy enough: she had merely joined the last of the hourly tours, dressed in casual slacks and turtleneck, a capacious handbag slung over her shoulder. No one noticed when she slipped into a restroom and stripped off her outer costume. No one could notice her when she stepped outside again, well after darkness had fallen.
Now she clung to the shadows in the Center’s great inner courtyard. She had not come to see what the ecomanagers showed to the tourist crowds. What Dahlia had come for lay deep below the smooth concrete blocks that covered the courtyard’s wide expanse: the central computer complex that governed the management of the Western Alliance’s integrated economy.
There were untiring robots patrolling that vast complex of underground corridors, she had been warned. Cameras monitored by computers programmed to sound an alert at the least sign of motion. Even human guards, grim and well armed, accompanied by dogs whose natural senses had been enhanced by genetic augmentation. And scanning beams.
Dahlia heard her own breathing inside her face mask, quick and shallow with fear; heard her pulse thundering in her ears. Nerves, she told herself. They can’t see you. Not even the dogs can sniff you out. You’re invisible as long as you don’t step into a beam.
