(no subject)
I realized why George doesn't have a firm personality: he doesn't have a backstory. And he didn't have a backstory because I was too chicken to make up any more details about my dystopian future, so I couldn't really come up with a life story for him. But this morning while I was trying to fall back asleep and take advantage of NOT having to work for once in my life, I started actually working on it, and this is what I have. It may or may not ever be mentioned throughout the series, but it's nice to know what I'm working with here.
Okay, so I had to make some outlines about what kind of society we're looking at here and what turned it into a dystopia, ie what I want to condemn, and I settled on nationalism. The internet provided such blurred boundaries and united people so much that there was backlash from some conservatives, and within a few generations is was being outlawed, dismantled, et cetera. Countries who were worried about preserving their culture began to close their borders. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation USA attacked. America launched religious wars (marketed as wars against the breakdown of traditional values) against Europe, which, united under what had once been the European Union, had already closed its borders to other continents. Individual countries began breaking out of the Union and closing THEIR borders.
George is an American from a forward-thinking family (with ancient Creole roots) who sent him to England to get his bachelor's degree (his family wanted him to be free of the oppressive theocracy of the United States and England was the only European country that had never joined the Union, thus the logical choice for any "radical" family to send their child to or flee to given the political climate), but a few months after he arrived America declared war on Europe and he found himself trapped there, cut off from his family with no means or desire to return home. Without much money, he dropped out of university and took a custodial job at an elementary school. He kept in touch with his student friends, mostly anarchists who did whatever they could to help him keep a low profile and from being deported.
His friends were part of a group called "the Resistance", which was essentially a form of Underground Railroad without the slavery aspect--they helped refugees cross from Dover to Calais or, more often, the other way around. France was the US's first target in the war since it was the first country to become completely Nationalist to the point of revoking ALL religion, even Catholocism, which the US found tasteless and, as a theocracy, considered it a personal offense. Due to strained relations between the two countries, the French language had not been taught in English schools for a few generations, thus George's dodgy knowledge of French from his Creole family was often utilized by his friends in the resistance.
One day his friends brought him a young woman named Mona. She had been freed from a political prison along with a lot of other descendants of Muslim immigrants, but unlike the others Mona hadn't been imprisoned with her mother or sisters and didn't speak any English. The Resistance couldn't figure out what to do to help her, so they sent her to George, whose French wasn't as good as they thought it was. His clumsy, heavily-accented attempts to communicate were the first thing to make Mona smile in months.
Refugees were sometimes housed by members of the Resistance for weeks as they tried to find a way to integrate them into English society, but for Mona and her lack of English things were more difficult. George eagerly offered that she stay with him, and of course the two fell in love and you know how it goes. She helped him with his French and he helped her with her English. They worked together at the elementary school, Mona lovingly tending the flowerboxes beneath the windowsill and offering to do the indoor work while George mowed the lawn and cleaned the bathrooms. They came back to the little groundskeepers cabin at the end of each day in their work clothes and changed into their pyjamas before cooking dinner together listening to a record from George's ancient vinyl collection (he's a hipster). They didn't have the opportunity to talk about a formal marriage, but in the tense religious/political climate of the day it wasn't a tranquil topic, plus neither of them were legal English citizens. They didn't worry about having kids because there were so many little ones around them all day at the school that they didn't need any of their own--plus money was very tight as Mona wasn't even a real employee with a salary.
Of course things turned to shit years later when the war finally began to spread to England and a lot of illegal immigrants were being dragged out of their homes and deported. George's American accent had been noticed by a parent at the school who tried to turn him in, but when they arrived at the groundskeeper's cabin he had sneaked into the school building to find a new book in the library. It was Mona that they discovered in the house and, as she obviously wasn't English, it was Mona who was dragged away. George never saw her again.
Funding for public schools turned to funding for the war, and soon even George's elementary school was closed down. Squatters and refugees broke the windows and took up residence in the classrooms, so George remained in his cabin. Things got really dark for him in that period: a few times he even turned in some of the refugees squatting in the school for the cash reward just to buy food. The Resistance had been broken up long ago and most of his friends had been imprisoned or forced to fight for England, so he had no way of looking for Mona that wouldn't endanger his own status.
The health upgrade was invented and sold at a shockingly low price; and infant mortality rates plummeted. There were hungry mouths to feed everywhere but nothing to give them. George couldn't sleep at night due to the sounds of crying infants who had been abandoned outside the refugee camp in the school. The worst part was when the crying was suddenly muffled, then went silent. He didn't have the heart to leave his cabin even to find food. When there was light in the room, he read over his same books. He muttered to himself and to Mona in French. He heard rumors from the refugees that there was talk of setting the death penalty for even the smallest crime. He knew in his heart that Mona had already been executed--he hoped she had been executed, because if not she had starved, which is a much slower death. He was ready to die too until one day a skinny, freckled ginger woman knocked on his door and asked if he was the groundskeeper of the elementary school. She introduced herself as Dr Nathalie Storm, and told him that he could have his old job back when she converted the school into her private home and laboratory. He agreed lifelessly and watched as the refugees were turned over to the government, as the school was repaired by workers who almost certainly were illegal immigrants, and as the "walls" were built: a concrete dome that enclosed the entire school.
They paid him and he went back to his job, only working and eating mechanically, asking himself every night why he was still fighting to stay alive. He barely noticed Dr Storm's weight gain until the baby was born. Little Julian was shoved into his arms almost instantly after he entered the world. He had the same wide brown eyes as Mona, or so George imagined.
The language upgrade was released the year that Sophie was born, and when his boss offered him a free upgrade he was horrified at what she had done. It was through language lessons that he and Mona had fallen in love! It was because of his knowledge of French that he had found work with his friends in the Resistance and had met her in the first place!
By the time Julian learned to talk, the war had run out of funding on all sides. There was no money left to bring soldiers home, and no one in the country they had been invading wanted to employ them. A few cunning groups had managed to make a profit in all this time--among them Dr Storm, inventor of human upgrades--but everyone else was borderline penniless. Laws couldn't be enforced. Government and country passed from reality into remembrance.
It had been twenty years since Mona had been taken from him when George was sent out to find a playmate, or a "control child", as Dr Storm called it. When he saw the scrawny boy with the frazzled black hair and shocking blue eyes he recognized the misunderstood look of a person who has lost hope, the same look he had seen on Mona's face the day his friends had brought her to him. It took years for George to teach the boy trust and bring out his smile, but he worked patiently with him just as he had once worked with his unofficial wife. He had these three kids now, and for the first time since he was a young man--and he knew he wasn't anymore--he smiled as he drifted off to sleep each night.
Okay, so I had to make some outlines about what kind of society we're looking at here and what turned it into a dystopia, ie what I want to condemn, and I settled on nationalism. The internet provided such blurred boundaries and united people so much that there was backlash from some conservatives, and within a few generations is was being outlawed, dismantled, et cetera. Countries who were worried about preserving their culture began to close their borders. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation USA attacked. America launched religious wars (marketed as wars against the breakdown of traditional values) against Europe, which, united under what had once been the European Union, had already closed its borders to other continents. Individual countries began breaking out of the Union and closing THEIR borders.
George is an American from a forward-thinking family (with ancient Creole roots) who sent him to England to get his bachelor's degree (his family wanted him to be free of the oppressive theocracy of the United States and England was the only European country that had never joined the Union, thus the logical choice for any "radical" family to send their child to or flee to given the political climate), but a few months after he arrived America declared war on Europe and he found himself trapped there, cut off from his family with no means or desire to return home. Without much money, he dropped out of university and took a custodial job at an elementary school. He kept in touch with his student friends, mostly anarchists who did whatever they could to help him keep a low profile and from being deported.
His friends were part of a group called "the Resistance", which was essentially a form of Underground Railroad without the slavery aspect--they helped refugees cross from Dover to Calais or, more often, the other way around. France was the US's first target in the war since it was the first country to become completely Nationalist to the point of revoking ALL religion, even Catholocism, which the US found tasteless and, as a theocracy, considered it a personal offense. Due to strained relations between the two countries, the French language had not been taught in English schools for a few generations, thus George's dodgy knowledge of French from his Creole family was often utilized by his friends in the resistance.
One day his friends brought him a young woman named Mona. She had been freed from a political prison along with a lot of other descendants of Muslim immigrants, but unlike the others Mona hadn't been imprisoned with her mother or sisters and didn't speak any English. The Resistance couldn't figure out what to do to help her, so they sent her to George, whose French wasn't as good as they thought it was. His clumsy, heavily-accented attempts to communicate were the first thing to make Mona smile in months.
Refugees were sometimes housed by members of the Resistance for weeks as they tried to find a way to integrate them into English society, but for Mona and her lack of English things were more difficult. George eagerly offered that she stay with him, and of course the two fell in love and you know how it goes. She helped him with his French and he helped her with her English. They worked together at the elementary school, Mona lovingly tending the flowerboxes beneath the windowsill and offering to do the indoor work while George mowed the lawn and cleaned the bathrooms. They came back to the little groundskeepers cabin at the end of each day in their work clothes and changed into their pyjamas before cooking dinner together listening to a record from George's ancient vinyl collection (he's a hipster). They didn't have the opportunity to talk about a formal marriage, but in the tense religious/political climate of the day it wasn't a tranquil topic, plus neither of them were legal English citizens. They didn't worry about having kids because there were so many little ones around them all day at the school that they didn't need any of their own--plus money was very tight as Mona wasn't even a real employee with a salary.
Of course things turned to shit years later when the war finally began to spread to England and a lot of illegal immigrants were being dragged out of their homes and deported. George's American accent had been noticed by a parent at the school who tried to turn him in, but when they arrived at the groundskeeper's cabin he had sneaked into the school building to find a new book in the library. It was Mona that they discovered in the house and, as she obviously wasn't English, it was Mona who was dragged away. George never saw her again.
Funding for public schools turned to funding for the war, and soon even George's elementary school was closed down. Squatters and refugees broke the windows and took up residence in the classrooms, so George remained in his cabin. Things got really dark for him in that period: a few times he even turned in some of the refugees squatting in the school for the cash reward just to buy food. The Resistance had been broken up long ago and most of his friends had been imprisoned or forced to fight for England, so he had no way of looking for Mona that wouldn't endanger his own status.
The health upgrade was invented and sold at a shockingly low price; and infant mortality rates plummeted. There were hungry mouths to feed everywhere but nothing to give them. George couldn't sleep at night due to the sounds of crying infants who had been abandoned outside the refugee camp in the school. The worst part was when the crying was suddenly muffled, then went silent. He didn't have the heart to leave his cabin even to find food. When there was light in the room, he read over his same books. He muttered to himself and to Mona in French. He heard rumors from the refugees that there was talk of setting the death penalty for even the smallest crime. He knew in his heart that Mona had already been executed--he hoped she had been executed, because if not she had starved, which is a much slower death. He was ready to die too until one day a skinny, freckled ginger woman knocked on his door and asked if he was the groundskeeper of the elementary school. She introduced herself as Dr Nathalie Storm, and told him that he could have his old job back when she converted the school into her private home and laboratory. He agreed lifelessly and watched as the refugees were turned over to the government, as the school was repaired by workers who almost certainly were illegal immigrants, and as the "walls" were built: a concrete dome that enclosed the entire school.
They paid him and he went back to his job, only working and eating mechanically, asking himself every night why he was still fighting to stay alive. He barely noticed Dr Storm's weight gain until the baby was born. Little Julian was shoved into his arms almost instantly after he entered the world. He had the same wide brown eyes as Mona, or so George imagined.
The language upgrade was released the year that Sophie was born, and when his boss offered him a free upgrade he was horrified at what she had done. It was through language lessons that he and Mona had fallen in love! It was because of his knowledge of French that he had found work with his friends in the Resistance and had met her in the first place!
By the time Julian learned to talk, the war had run out of funding on all sides. There was no money left to bring soldiers home, and no one in the country they had been invading wanted to employ them. A few cunning groups had managed to make a profit in all this time--among them Dr Storm, inventor of human upgrades--but everyone else was borderline penniless. Laws couldn't be enforced. Government and country passed from reality into remembrance.
It had been twenty years since Mona had been taken from him when George was sent out to find a playmate, or a "control child", as Dr Storm called it. When he saw the scrawny boy with the frazzled black hair and shocking blue eyes he recognized the misunderstood look of a person who has lost hope, the same look he had seen on Mona's face the day his friends had brought her to him. It took years for George to teach the boy trust and bring out his smile, but he worked patiently with him just as he had once worked with his unofficial wife. He had these three kids now, and for the first time since he was a young man--and he knew he wasn't anymore--he smiled as he drifted off to sleep each night.