Nova Europa
This is my Psychology Essay I wrote for my final project for the class. I thought I'd post it, because so many people have been asking to read it. I apologise for the hasty ending, but I was trying to make a deadline while at the same time not giving my Psychology teacher too much to read! *g* I am aware that there are many Orwellian themes and parallels, but for the most part they are unintentional, and I tried to stay as original as possible. The name of the European Minister, Jean-Baptiste d'Orvilliers, is also not meant to be any sort of reference to George Orwell. Although it has been brought to my attention that this also has some similarities to an episode of the Twilight Zone episode "The Bookworm," all resemblances are merely coincidental and were not intended. On this note, however, the telescreens and the political slogans were inspired by those used in George Orwell's 1984.
Biological personality M1505 sat at his desk in the cramped third-floor office littered with papers, food capsules, and soiled linens. His robot, R1608, was broken and he had sent her via long-distance shipping to a repair facility in Dortmund, but, probably due to the limited availability of supplies during wartime, the factory had failed to send him a substitute. It had been over a week since he had sent her in, and he was beginning to wonder if he would ever get her back. The mess didn't bother him so much. He could live with that. It was her companionship that he missed. Even though she wasn't human, she had been programmed with the exact personality of his mother. He was beginning to feel just as lonesome and desperate as he had felt when his mother, the last human with whom he had had contact since the start of the Great Social Experiment, was waving him good-bye as the Euro-Officials drove him off to his assigned apartment near Frankfurt am Main. The visit had been his last compulsory social encounter ten years back.
R1608 had comforted him during the first several months of the experiment, gleefully singing many of the same songs his mother had once sung as she systematically finished each day's housework. She had also given him words of comfort at the start of the war against the Turks. M1505 had been afraid of war ever since he was a small child, when there was a terrible war between what is now the North American Confederation and the Persian Free Republic - a war that not only killed many North Americans and Persians, but also many Europeans and Central Asians as collateral damage. M1505 could no longer remember seeing the industrial suburbs of his hometown of Berlin burn as a combined force of Persian and Arab warplanes littered their payload of incendiary smartbombs onto the smokestacks of the factory where his father had worked, though. The memories were an enigma to him within a year of the disaster. That evening he and his mother received a letter of condolences signed with the seal of the European Minister, Jean-Baptiste d'Orvilliers. M1505 was too young to understand his mother's bitterness at the time, but now he was beginning to feel the same way, even though he couldn't remember why. No, he thought to himself, the New European Government will protect me; these feelings will pass once R1608 returns.
Of course war was now a completely different matter from the barbaric bloodbaths of M1505's childhood and before. The accessibility of atomic power worldwide was so widespread that it would be practically impossible to have a traditional weapons-war without annihilating all life on Earth, biological and robotic. War was now much more cunning - a series of political underminings and diplomatic maneuvers interspersed with copious propaganda to rally the biological population behind the cause. The robotic population, of course, couldn't resist by nature, so they didn't need to be convinced.
Just then, a ringing came from the monitor on the paper-covered desk. It was one o'clock. A message flashed across the screen: KRAFT DURCH EINIGKEIT; Strength through unity, one of the many war-slogans of New Europe. The New European government in Strasbourg had set up a network in all the provinces throughout the country, from Portugal to Belarus, that would send propaganda through the omnipresent telescreens to the biological population every hour on the hour. Other messages included, "Only united shall we succeed," "New Europe will protect you from harm," and "May God crush the heathens."
Apart from the hourly propaganda messages and assignment notifications, it seemed as though Strasbourg wanted as little to do with him as possible. There was no national television, no press, no direct communication between anyone, as far as he was concerned. M1505 didn't mind this so much, though. In fact, he was quite content with his life now; his life before the Great Social Experiment had been much too chaotic. Life was now much more peaceful - much more worth living. Of course he was not permitted to go out or have any contact with any of the other biological personalities in his apartment complex, but at least he had something to live for. Every day he would complete his little tasks that were assigned to him by the screen on the desk, with R1608 doing any housework that needed to be done, and upon accomplishment, he would receive a food capsule from the chute right next to his sofa. If he completed all that was assigned to him before four o'clock each day for a month, in addition to the food capsule, he would find another capsule with new linens he could wear and showers of approval from R1608. Of course it was pointless to wear anything, but it was the idea of a reward that motivated him to get his work done early. Still, he found it silly that the reward happened to be new linens, seeing as no one would see him, save for R1608, and she didn't care either way. Robots could feel no emotion.
The term "robot" was coined by the Czech writer Karel Čapek and is based on the Slavic root meaning "to do work" - the Czech word robota actually refers to physical labour. This is exactly what robots were used for in New Europe; they were slaves to their assigned biological personalities. Most biologicals were assigned robots programmed with personalities of the opposite sex. The logic behind this being that each biological personality would have a companion who would be able to provide him or her with platonic emotional support. But robots were emotionless.
M1505 looked at the clock even though he knew from the message what time it was. He figured he had best finish that day's assignment up, which was to sort names into groups based on some information provided about each name's background. He sat down at the telescreen on the desk and touched where there was a little box with the word ANFANGEN inside. A list of names appeared. The list seemed to be rather haphazard, consisting of a series of digits all proceeded by the letter M for Mensch, the German word for human. He had no idea who the names were or why he was sorting them. He didn't really care, either. All he knew was that they were to be put into groups based on similarity to one another by using his finger to select and move each name and that the largest group was to be filed under category K while all the others were to be placed under category Y. Once he had sorted the groups, he touched the box that said FORTFAHREN to continue to the next screen. All he had left to do was to fill out some personal information, identification number, addres, and so on. He pressed the screen where it said BEENDEN. A piece of paper containing a summary of that day's task printed out and presently he heard a clunk coming from the chute.
He walked over to the chute to gather his food capsule. He found a packet of jam, two slices of bread, cheese, dehydrated apple slices, a packet of water, and a protein cube. He carried the capsule over to his desk and began to nibble on the hunk of cheese when he heard a low rumbling noise off in the distance. It ceased briefly, but he could soon hear it again, stronger than before. He put the cheese down and looked around, searching the apartment for an explanation. Gradually the rumbling grew into a roar and he could see his papers falling off the desk and the windowpanes shaking. A stream of memories flooded back to him: his mother's worried face as she told him to go to the cellar, the shaking of the house as warplanes bombarded the suburbs, looking in horror as he saw his city go up in flames, the signed letter of condolences... M1505 began to panic. he started to desperately look around his apartment for a way out. There were no doors; he had been essentially sealed inside his apartment. The only way out was through the window, but the windows were practically unbreakable, being made of plexiglass three inches in thickness. Besides, he thought to himself as he cautiously peered down to the street below, I wouldn't survive a fall from the third-floor anyway.
A loud explosion that shook the whole apartment sent him into a fit of panic. He started to run frantically around his apartment, looking for some way out. Another explosion made him fall over. Now the screams of other inhabitants of the apartment were audible. Some bits of plaster started to fall from the ceiling, leaving a network of cracks across the smooth, blank surface. He stood back up, wiping his forehead. He was bleeding. Another blast sent him hurtling headfirst into the wall, knocking him unconscious.
***
When he awoke, all was silent. M1505's apartment was barely recogniseable for all the debris and chaos - the plaster in the ceiling and walls was cracked and much of it lay in shards littered all over the floor. His hair was almost white from all the plaster that had fallen from the ceiling. He got up, brushed the white specks of plaster from his clothes and looked around his apartment for a means of escape. There was none to be found. There was a smouldering stench in the air, which he realised was coming from his smashed telescreen. A feeling of despair came over him upon seeing its smoking ruin on the floor. Without this, not only was his food supply essentially gone, but he also had no means of contact from anyone. Calm down, he thought to himself, R1608 will make all this better.
He couldn't understand what had happened. It couldn't have been a bombing raid, yet when he looked out the window all he saw was the red, dying remains of a city. No more skyscrapers remained. As far as he could tell, all of the buildings in the immediate area had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Just his building remained. IT had been a shame, too. All of the other ones had been spectacular buildings. The skyscrapers in Frankfurt were the oldest and the envy of all New Europe. Now they lay in twisted heaps on the city's belly.
Suddenly, M1505 heard a knocking coming from the other side of the wall. He jumped when he heard it, frightened of who (or what) it might be. The knocking ceased. M1505 breathed a sigh of relief. The knocking resumed again, this time becoming louder before stopping. It was coming from the far corner of the room. M1505 went over to see what it was. He stood at the corner, apprehensive of what it might actually be. The knocking resumed. This time M1505 responded by banging on the wall with his fist. He heard a voice on the other side, but had difficulty making out what it said. He pounded the wall frantically with his fist, beckoning the voice to speak louder. The voice repeated itself, louder, but still unintelligible. M1505 yelled with his own voice, "I can't hear you! You'll have to speak louder!" Just then, an ominous, metallic sound came from the other side of the wall. Whoever was on the other side was hitting the wall with something very hard. The already decrepit wall trembled and dropped even more chips and plaster shards. The hammering continued for several minutes. Suddenly, a piece of wall flew out, narrowly missing M1505 and the head of a hammer was visible in the wall. The anonymous hand on the other side pulled it away and put his lips up close to the hole. "Who are you over there?" the person asked.
"My identification number is M1505," came his response. "What is your identification number?"
"Mine's Stefan," responded the person on the other side of the wall. His response quite surprised M1505, but Stefan seemed to think it rather normal.
"You actually have a name?" asked M1505 incredulously.
"Yes, I do," Stefan replied. "Now give me a hand knocking this wall down and I can tell you more."
M1505 picked up the hardest thing in the room he could find, which was the metal chair before his desk, and walked over to the little hole. "Step back," he warned Stefan before striking the wall. The chair proved quite effective in widening the hole. Within minutes the hole was large enough for Stefan to crawl through, dust himself off, and sit comfortably on the sofa.
"Now," began Stefan,"You're probably wondering why I still here; the others have been evacuated. I refused to leave because this is my home. The city is empty, save for you and me. You also are probably wondering why I have a name and you don't." M1505 looked on in apprehension. He neither liked nor trusted this unfamiliar man. "After the Amero-Persian War over ten years ago, the New European Government ran tests over the populace to see how most people responded to the disaster. You may remember taking such tests in your primary school. The tests were meant to separate those who would suffer from PTS disorder - that's post-traumatic stress disorder, mind you - and those who would be able to remember the events, but still move on with their lives. Well, folks like you tested positive for susceptibility to PTS, so to prevent suppression of the memories, the government decided to separate you from the rest of society; somewhat freudian beliefs, but no matter. There, they would be able to remind you well of the war, while at the same time using you as labour for the current war with the Turks. Their propaganda system proved to be quite effective in motivating you to work for them, even without the contact of others. Your kind was assigned mostly the menial jobs, such as sorting deportation lists for the Muscovite refugees, nothing major."
"Wait," interrupted M1505, "how do you know all this? Why weren't you selected to be separated?"
Stefan smiled smugly. "I passed the government tests. The memories fo the war weren't as traumatic for me as they were for you."
"Then why is there actually an arms war? I thought war was only propaganda now. We can't have an arms war without complete annihilation."
"Well," said Stefan, "after endless propaganda wars and political battles on the floor of the New European Parliament, Jean-Baptiste d'Orvilliers decided to legalise the use of non-nuclear powered weapons. Apparently, as one would now notice, it is necessary to spill blood to resolve some conflicts. But tell me, I'm fascinated to hear about you. What was life like all alone?"
"I wasn't completely alone," began M1505.
"Really?" interjected Stefan. "I'm fascinated."
"Well, I had my robot, R1608."
"She broke, I suppose," said Stefan.
"How did you know?" M1505 asked.
"Oh, I saw her box being shipped out the day you sent her to Dortmund," replied Stefan. "I doubt you'll ever get her back. The government probably intentionally deprogrammed her when they legalised the weapons war. They figured they could use them for spare parts in the war."
"No... That can't be," gasped M1505 in horror. He wrung his hands around Stefan's neck, "Tell me it isn't true!"
But Stefan gave no reply. He tried to speak, but only a gasping, sputtering nose came from his vocal chords. He flailed a few moments as M1505's hands grew tighter around his neck, his face growing a rather sick shade of purple. And then, nothing.
M1505 loosened his grip. Stefan was dead. The only human with whom he had had contact in years. The only other human in the city. M1505 sat in his room, alone, as he had always done during the days of the Great Social Experiment. He was totally alone in an empty ruin.
Biological personality M1505 sat at his desk in the cramped third-floor office littered with papers, food capsules, and soiled linens. His robot, R1608, was broken and he had sent her via long-distance shipping to a repair facility in Dortmund, but, probably due to the limited availability of supplies during wartime, the factory had failed to send him a substitute. It had been over a week since he had sent her in, and he was beginning to wonder if he would ever get her back. The mess didn't bother him so much. He could live with that. It was her companionship that he missed. Even though she wasn't human, she had been programmed with the exact personality of his mother. He was beginning to feel just as lonesome and desperate as he had felt when his mother, the last human with whom he had had contact since the start of the Great Social Experiment, was waving him good-bye as the Euro-Officials drove him off to his assigned apartment near Frankfurt am Main. The visit had been his last compulsory social encounter ten years back.
R1608 had comforted him during the first several months of the experiment, gleefully singing many of the same songs his mother had once sung as she systematically finished each day's housework. She had also given him words of comfort at the start of the war against the Turks. M1505 had been afraid of war ever since he was a small child, when there was a terrible war between what is now the North American Confederation and the Persian Free Republic - a war that not only killed many North Americans and Persians, but also many Europeans and Central Asians as collateral damage. M1505 could no longer remember seeing the industrial suburbs of his hometown of Berlin burn as a combined force of Persian and Arab warplanes littered their payload of incendiary smartbombs onto the smokestacks of the factory where his father had worked, though. The memories were an enigma to him within a year of the disaster. That evening he and his mother received a letter of condolences signed with the seal of the European Minister, Jean-Baptiste d'Orvilliers. M1505 was too young to understand his mother's bitterness at the time, but now he was beginning to feel the same way, even though he couldn't remember why. No, he thought to himself, the New European Government will protect me; these feelings will pass once R1608 returns.
Of course war was now a completely different matter from the barbaric bloodbaths of M1505's childhood and before. The accessibility of atomic power worldwide was so widespread that it would be practically impossible to have a traditional weapons-war without annihilating all life on Earth, biological and robotic. War was now much more cunning - a series of political underminings and diplomatic maneuvers interspersed with copious propaganda to rally the biological population behind the cause. The robotic population, of course, couldn't resist by nature, so they didn't need to be convinced.
Just then, a ringing came from the monitor on the paper-covered desk. It was one o'clock. A message flashed across the screen: KRAFT DURCH EINIGKEIT; Strength through unity, one of the many war-slogans of New Europe. The New European government in Strasbourg had set up a network in all the provinces throughout the country, from Portugal to Belarus, that would send propaganda through the omnipresent telescreens to the biological population every hour on the hour. Other messages included, "Only united shall we succeed," "New Europe will protect you from harm," and "May God crush the heathens."
Apart from the hourly propaganda messages and assignment notifications, it seemed as though Strasbourg wanted as little to do with him as possible. There was no national television, no press, no direct communication between anyone, as far as he was concerned. M1505 didn't mind this so much, though. In fact, he was quite content with his life now; his life before the Great Social Experiment had been much too chaotic. Life was now much more peaceful - much more worth living. Of course he was not permitted to go out or have any contact with any of the other biological personalities in his apartment complex, but at least he had something to live for. Every day he would complete his little tasks that were assigned to him by the screen on the desk, with R1608 doing any housework that needed to be done, and upon accomplishment, he would receive a food capsule from the chute right next to his sofa. If he completed all that was assigned to him before four o'clock each day for a month, in addition to the food capsule, he would find another capsule with new linens he could wear and showers of approval from R1608. Of course it was pointless to wear anything, but it was the idea of a reward that motivated him to get his work done early. Still, he found it silly that the reward happened to be new linens, seeing as no one would see him, save for R1608, and she didn't care either way. Robots could feel no emotion.
The term "robot" was coined by the Czech writer Karel Čapek and is based on the Slavic root meaning "to do work" - the Czech word robota actually refers to physical labour. This is exactly what robots were used for in New Europe; they were slaves to their assigned biological personalities. Most biologicals were assigned robots programmed with personalities of the opposite sex. The logic behind this being that each biological personality would have a companion who would be able to provide him or her with platonic emotional support. But robots were emotionless.
M1505 looked at the clock even though he knew from the message what time it was. He figured he had best finish that day's assignment up, which was to sort names into groups based on some information provided about each name's background. He sat down at the telescreen on the desk and touched where there was a little box with the word ANFANGEN inside. A list of names appeared. The list seemed to be rather haphazard, consisting of a series of digits all proceeded by the letter M for Mensch, the German word for human. He had no idea who the names were or why he was sorting them. He didn't really care, either. All he knew was that they were to be put into groups based on similarity to one another by using his finger to select and move each name and that the largest group was to be filed under category K while all the others were to be placed under category Y. Once he had sorted the groups, he touched the box that said FORTFAHREN to continue to the next screen. All he had left to do was to fill out some personal information, identification number, addres, and so on. He pressed the screen where it said BEENDEN. A piece of paper containing a summary of that day's task printed out and presently he heard a clunk coming from the chute.
He walked over to the chute to gather his food capsule. He found a packet of jam, two slices of bread, cheese, dehydrated apple slices, a packet of water, and a protein cube. He carried the capsule over to his desk and began to nibble on the hunk of cheese when he heard a low rumbling noise off in the distance. It ceased briefly, but he could soon hear it again, stronger than before. He put the cheese down and looked around, searching the apartment for an explanation. Gradually the rumbling grew into a roar and he could see his papers falling off the desk and the windowpanes shaking. A stream of memories flooded back to him: his mother's worried face as she told him to go to the cellar, the shaking of the house as warplanes bombarded the suburbs, looking in horror as he saw his city go up in flames, the signed letter of condolences... M1505 began to panic. he started to desperately look around his apartment for a way out. There were no doors; he had been essentially sealed inside his apartment. The only way out was through the window, but the windows were practically unbreakable, being made of plexiglass three inches in thickness. Besides, he thought to himself as he cautiously peered down to the street below, I wouldn't survive a fall from the third-floor anyway.
A loud explosion that shook the whole apartment sent him into a fit of panic. He started to run frantically around his apartment, looking for some way out. Another explosion made him fall over. Now the screams of other inhabitants of the apartment were audible. Some bits of plaster started to fall from the ceiling, leaving a network of cracks across the smooth, blank surface. He stood back up, wiping his forehead. He was bleeding. Another blast sent him hurtling headfirst into the wall, knocking him unconscious.
***
When he awoke, all was silent. M1505's apartment was barely recogniseable for all the debris and chaos - the plaster in the ceiling and walls was cracked and much of it lay in shards littered all over the floor. His hair was almost white from all the plaster that had fallen from the ceiling. He got up, brushed the white specks of plaster from his clothes and looked around his apartment for a means of escape. There was none to be found. There was a smouldering stench in the air, which he realised was coming from his smashed telescreen. A feeling of despair came over him upon seeing its smoking ruin on the floor. Without this, not only was his food supply essentially gone, but he also had no means of contact from anyone. Calm down, he thought to himself, R1608 will make all this better.
He couldn't understand what had happened. It couldn't have been a bombing raid, yet when he looked out the window all he saw was the red, dying remains of a city. No more skyscrapers remained. As far as he could tell, all of the buildings in the immediate area had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Just his building remained. IT had been a shame, too. All of the other ones had been spectacular buildings. The skyscrapers in Frankfurt were the oldest and the envy of all New Europe. Now they lay in twisted heaps on the city's belly.
Suddenly, M1505 heard a knocking coming from the other side of the wall. He jumped when he heard it, frightened of who (or what) it might be. The knocking ceased. M1505 breathed a sigh of relief. The knocking resumed again, this time becoming louder before stopping. It was coming from the far corner of the room. M1505 went over to see what it was. He stood at the corner, apprehensive of what it might actually be. The knocking resumed. This time M1505 responded by banging on the wall with his fist. He heard a voice on the other side, but had difficulty making out what it said. He pounded the wall frantically with his fist, beckoning the voice to speak louder. The voice repeated itself, louder, but still unintelligible. M1505 yelled with his own voice, "I can't hear you! You'll have to speak louder!" Just then, an ominous, metallic sound came from the other side of the wall. Whoever was on the other side was hitting the wall with something very hard. The already decrepit wall trembled and dropped even more chips and plaster shards. The hammering continued for several minutes. Suddenly, a piece of wall flew out, narrowly missing M1505 and the head of a hammer was visible in the wall. The anonymous hand on the other side pulled it away and put his lips up close to the hole. "Who are you over there?" the person asked.
"My identification number is M1505," came his response. "What is your identification number?"
"Mine's Stefan," responded the person on the other side of the wall. His response quite surprised M1505, but Stefan seemed to think it rather normal.
"You actually have a name?" asked M1505 incredulously.
"Yes, I do," Stefan replied. "Now give me a hand knocking this wall down and I can tell you more."
M1505 picked up the hardest thing in the room he could find, which was the metal chair before his desk, and walked over to the little hole. "Step back," he warned Stefan before striking the wall. The chair proved quite effective in widening the hole. Within minutes the hole was large enough for Stefan to crawl through, dust himself off, and sit comfortably on the sofa.
"Now," began Stefan,"You're probably wondering why I still here; the others have been evacuated. I refused to leave because this is my home. The city is empty, save for you and me. You also are probably wondering why I have a name and you don't." M1505 looked on in apprehension. He neither liked nor trusted this unfamiliar man. "After the Amero-Persian War over ten years ago, the New European Government ran tests over the populace to see how most people responded to the disaster. You may remember taking such tests in your primary school. The tests were meant to separate those who would suffer from PTS disorder - that's post-traumatic stress disorder, mind you - and those who would be able to remember the events, but still move on with their lives. Well, folks like you tested positive for susceptibility to PTS, so to prevent suppression of the memories, the government decided to separate you from the rest of society; somewhat freudian beliefs, but no matter. There, they would be able to remind you well of the war, while at the same time using you as labour for the current war with the Turks. Their propaganda system proved to be quite effective in motivating you to work for them, even without the contact of others. Your kind was assigned mostly the menial jobs, such as sorting deportation lists for the Muscovite refugees, nothing major."
"Wait," interrupted M1505, "how do you know all this? Why weren't you selected to be separated?"
Stefan smiled smugly. "I passed the government tests. The memories fo the war weren't as traumatic for me as they were for you."
"Then why is there actually an arms war? I thought war was only propaganda now. We can't have an arms war without complete annihilation."
"Well," said Stefan, "after endless propaganda wars and political battles on the floor of the New European Parliament, Jean-Baptiste d'Orvilliers decided to legalise the use of non-nuclear powered weapons. Apparently, as one would now notice, it is necessary to spill blood to resolve some conflicts. But tell me, I'm fascinated to hear about you. What was life like all alone?"
"I wasn't completely alone," began M1505.
"Really?" interjected Stefan. "I'm fascinated."
"Well, I had my robot, R1608."
"She broke, I suppose," said Stefan.
"How did you know?" M1505 asked.
"Oh, I saw her box being shipped out the day you sent her to Dortmund," replied Stefan. "I doubt you'll ever get her back. The government probably intentionally deprogrammed her when they legalised the weapons war. They figured they could use them for spare parts in the war."
"No... That can't be," gasped M1505 in horror. He wrung his hands around Stefan's neck, "Tell me it isn't true!"
But Stefan gave no reply. He tried to speak, but only a gasping, sputtering nose came from his vocal chords. He flailed a few moments as M1505's hands grew tighter around his neck, his face growing a rather sick shade of purple. And then, nothing.
M1505 loosened his grip. Stefan was dead. The only human with whom he had had contact in years. The only other human in the city. M1505 sat in his room, alone, as he had always done during the days of the Great Social Experiment. He was totally alone in an empty ruin.