March 15. 2352

Okay, battle plan.

Step 1 - Head into the city.
Step 2 - Don't die.
Step 3 - Find survivors.
Step 4 - Seriously, don't die.
Step 5 - Grab useful stuff, food preferably.
Step 6 - Find a secure place. Also don't die.
Step 7 - Move research.
Step 8 - Fuck knows.

Not a great plan I admit. It's better than scratching my arse and blaming the rats.
I am hoping that the inner city went less to shit than around here. Maybe communities formed together and while they can't restore the city power, they may have created an adaptive civilisation. I mean it's a city for fuck's sake. Thousands of people are in there. This has been going on for months. They can't all be brain dead or loot happy still can they?

Supplies limited. I have enough for a couple of days and I need to find more when I'm out there. I have no way to record my experiences so I am going to have to report everything I can remember as soon as I come back.

So this is stage 1. I am heading into the city to check for food, survivors and shelter.

Seriously. Don't die.

March 14. 2352

Okay, this is insane.

What am I even thinking? Of course there are survivors. I almost got killed by them a couple of months ago.

I mean anyone with common sense would have joined up with whatever raider party offered them their lives.

That's it isn't it? This is to be the new society. Gangs or tribes of scavengers and once they run out of supplies they are moving on and eating each other.

So that makes me the anomaly, the weird one. The not works well with others guy.

Ain't I such a special fucking snowflake?

Not being content or brain dead enough to get so wrapped up in watching every single HomeWeb Video that I lost basic human function when it was turned off, I am also not smart enough to think of establishing or joining a basic society until 3 full fucking months after I last saw another person.

So basically I expect to saunter up to what? Some basement or bunker in the middle of the city that every single other person that I have now established is smarter than me, has not found or looted but it contains the last remnants of humans that have done what I did? Hidden away and only got food and water to survive bit by bit?

And I do what exactly? Tell these people of my epiphany? "Behold Shadow Clingers of the Past Society, I have travelled far to aid you in restating the human race. And to do that I am compiling a journal that documents the history of our government so that when you restore the world back to our former glory, you don't make the same fuckups this time around. Oh and P.S what you are doing hiding away is fucking stupid."

As fucked as that plan is, at least if I do that I'm not bitching about not trying.

I may even get to bitch about how it didn't work.

March 13. 2352

So I have been outside.

It's not what I expected. I don't know what I expected. Noise I guess.
I thought gangs would be camping outside the house, or in the streets. I thought the city would be on fire. The skyline forever changed by the raided buildings being destroyed. The constant rabble of starving ones or raider groups killing each other. I guess I watched too many Pre Unity movies.

The skyline is still there. Not that I went out and looked at it a lot before. Still, nothing looks out of place. It's just quiet.

I feel like I am the only one here. There is no one else on the planet, just me.

That's silly. If no one else exists, where did everything come from?

No. There are starving ones and raider gangs and there is still no power. Why is there no power? Why is the city not lit up at night? It's so quiet and peaceful and nothing has happened so why is there still no power?

What he hell is going on? Where did the President go? Where are they hiding him? Do they have power there? What could have caused this? Was it a mistake? Was it deliberate? Who could have done this?

I don't know why the world is the way it is.
I have to find someone I can talk to.
I can't keep doing this.


I need to know.
I need to know that I have a purpose.
If the gangs don't give a shit and the starving ones are all thats left then why should I even try?

I have to find other survivors

March 12. 2352

Ok I have tried.
At least as far as the first few streets but it's a start. I got more food supplies as well.

I have had a chance to look over what I have written in the last couple of months and I have realised I always refer to food as a generic thing. Looking at Alison's journal and comparing it to mine is starting to make me realise the differences in our cultures. I mean, I knew from the moment I picked it up it was from somewhere strange but I never expected someone from my history to seem so alien to me.
And now, I am thinking that this process is pointless in the long run. I mean here and now I know everything that I'm saying will make sense to a survivor, but a few hundred years from now it may be complete gibberish.
 Not that I've seen any more survivors.

Is this it? Am I the last of my kind? The last of the 24th Century layabouts? Everyone I have seen have either been so dependent on our technological wonders that they have lost all reason and human behaviors and are no more than animals, or they are content being lawless brutal scavenger gangs. Sometimes I can't tell them apart.
And if these are the new societies that will shape our future, is there even a point of my work?

Yes. There is a point and I made it before. History had ruthless groups like this before but we overcame it then. We can do again. It will just take time. I have to stop doubting myself.

Food now is a lot different to 300 years ago. I assume the processes are the same however in getting it. At lease I hope so.

Animals and crops were grown to be food. That I believe is the same as now however back them human workers would ensure the animals were killed and cut into foodstuffs. Now, like everything else, it's HAB bots that oversee the process.
The main difference I have noticed in the history books and Alison's journal is that back then, while many foods were sealed in aluminium cans, meats were not. I can only assume this from the entries but I think that's correct. Like this -
"Dinner was massive. Should get a smaller turkey next time."
The only way that makes sense to me is if the turkey meat is not in a can.
Am I over thinking this?
Every meal I can remember eating came from a VacuSeal Can, that had been designed to keep all foodstufs  edible for 100 years. That technology came into commercial use in 2221 so it's impossible she was referring to a smaller can.

I am over thinking this. Anyway, I have more cans.

March 7. 2352

I can’t do it.

I don’t mean leave the bunker for food, I have some now. I mean try to find other - for lack of better term - survivors.

When I leave the bunker, the research stops. I leave all the datapads and journals here. I can’t risk losing any of them and they are safely locked here.
But out there, all I can focus on is survival. Get food, keep safe, stay hidden, avoid the raiders at all cost and the staring ones even more so.
Also, the local food stores are now stripped bare. The pickings were slim at best before, but now everything is gone. So now I have to travel further to find food, make the journey back to the bunker to continue my work and if I manage to do that, by the time my food runs low, no doubt raiders and starving ones and who knows what else will have picked all those stores and houses clean, if they haven’t already and I need to look further.

This is starting to look hopeless. How can I find survivors when I can barely keep myself alive? How am I going to find food when I’ve seen whole gangs camped out in buildings until the supplies are gone and then just move on?

I need a new safe house. I haven’t seen anywhere round here that is safe but maybe further in the city I can get in somewhere. I don’t even know if there is anywhere safe to hide in the city. Probably not. It’s probably 10 times worse than here. And if I do find somewhere, I need to move all the research there as well.

I need a lot of luck.
Perhaps I should look up how to ask those all seeing deities of Alison's time to help make this work.

Couldn’t hurt right?

March 3. 2352

I can't do it.

I can't leave the bunker. Not yet.

Every time I try to leave I freeze. I can see the faces. Every single one, as clear as day. The ravenous hunger in their eyes. The more I think about it the more I'm sure they didn't even know I had food. In fact I think they saw me as food.

I can't leave, but I’ll starve if I stay here.
I'm dead either way.
For two days I have tried to go looking for more food and every time I do, those fucking raiders pop back in my head, taunting me.

What if I don’t outrun them this time? What if they get me? Will they kill me quick? Will they torture me for fun? What if I make it back here and they are still behind me? Will they leave if I close the door in time? Will they just camp out in the rest of the house knowing I’m there? Will they try to break in? What if I don’t close the door fast enough? Will they destroy the journals? Erase my research? Stop all my work? Destroy everything I’m trying to accomplish here?

Is it even worth it? I mean, who is going to read this? No one reads now. No one cares now. Hell I don't think anyone cared before anyway. In a few generations no one is going to give two fucks what happened to us, to me. It will just be forgotten.


I don't know that. Not for sure anyway. Maybe I’m going stir crazy being shut up in here all day. Is that why I’m hesitant to leave? What if there are other people like me? Doing the same thing I am. I mean surly I’m not the only one to think of this, right?

It doesn’t matter now. Not while I’m just hiding here asking myself what if questions that I will never know the answer to unless I go.
I need food and I need to know if there are any others.

March 2. 2352

I don't know if I am hearing things and paranoid, or someone is nearby and I'm paranoid.
Maybe it's Alex returning to his now ransacked house.
Maybe he will come to the hidden bunker that has been my squatter hole for past 3 months.
Maybe he will kill me.
Or maybe it's the rat that just ran across the floor.

Research. Every day it's more research.
Why isn't Alex here to explain all these terms that Alison used in her journal, since it's his stupid notes I'm using? I mean why the hell is she wearing glass on her face? Isn't that dangerous? I only found out today what a cell phone was because I needed context when she complained about app permissions on her cell phone. I mean I know what a phone is. I did sign up for HomeWeb Tech History but I got as far as converting speech to electrical signals to go through cables and I fell asleep. So I had to search through 12 datapads to find out about cell phones.
 
They were devices that were used to talk to people before the internet came along and, the more sophisticated the technology got, the more stuff these things could do. When social media appeared, these phones were able to run a condensed version of the website on them so naturally the social media companies decided to put in stipulations that allowed them access to people's cell phones, including;
          Access to their memory chips that held contact information for their friends.
          Access to photographs if there was a camera built in.
          Access to their actual communication components.
So their conversations, their data, their private life could be used by a social media company for whatever reason. And there was no point complaining because you agreed to let the program do that. Yet people complained all the time.
This is confusing.

This would be so much easier if the HomeWeb service was still active. When the Unified World Government collapsed, all the Government run services shut down. Well I assume so considering I can't access the HomeWeb network and haven't been able to get online to that or anything else since this whole mess started.
Perhaps the service is fine and the HAB bots that maintain it have shut down.
Perhaps protesters or looters destroyed the Data Storage buildings or the servers inside.
Perhaps this is an elaborate experiment and the Government hasn't fallen, and services have only been turned off in the city to see what happens when people think there are no more laws.

That wouldn't surprise me. Perhaps it was that fucking rat.
I think I have been reading Alison's journal too much. A lot of her writings seem to be based on anger at the political leaders of the world. I don't know. I should take a break.

My food is running low again but I don't want to go out looking. I don't want to go through that again.
When I'm here, I can pretend it never happened. I don't know what the fuck is going on.

I don't know.

March 1. 2352

It was supposed to be freedom.

Power to the people, say what you want, read what you want, create what you want. Be recognised for your talents. Be appreciated for who you are.

It was a lie, and everyone believed it.

When social media became the hip thing, everyone jumped on board. Everyone was too blinded by their shiny new toy to see the truth.
Of course it's easy for me to say all this, I have 300 years hindsight. Yet it worries me that this record I am writing, this log of histories evolution into what my society became, is pointless. I mean the corruption and control back then was no different than it was 5 months ago when the government was still in power. It has taken us 300 years to say no more and yet I have seen leaders and followers emerge already. I have seen the ones that couldn't survive without their comforts. I have seen the ones that became mindless savages and I have seen the ones that retained themselves.
There are still leaders and followers.
And looking back, it is clear what social media was - a machine for creating compliance and money.
Give me your name, your address, your age, and tell me what you like to do, say, watch, hear and with whom and I will sell that information to companies that will advertise their wares to you that we know you like, because you told us. In return, I will give you a platform that allows you to announce to the world whatever you want.
So we believed this was a fair trade. We could express outrage of world atrocities. Shame our leaders when they did us wrong. Vent our anger at any unjust or unfair moment in life.

Then what?

The earliest big social media campaign I can find is also the template for all that followed.
No HAB 2127, the tax hike protests of 2133, the No More Watching campaign of 2310 and all the rest. They all follow what is now known as the Kony 2012 campaign.
All these campaigns had massive interest, huge impact on social media sites, with clear goals and a deadline to complete an objective and they all failed. They got people to complain and moan and state opinions and agree that something had to be done, but when it came time for those supporters to go and physically show support, to actually show they were trying to achieve something, those millions of supporters became thousands, some even less than hundreds.
And nothing was done.
No follow up when it collapsed, only the odd complaint here and there before it became a punchline on a HomeWeb forum then forgotten.

Because what the government found out in 2012 was that as long as the people have somewhere to complain, as long as the internet, HomeWeb, whatever we called it then or now, let us unload our feelings and opinions about a topic and express a solution for someone else to create then we feel we have achieved something. We feel we have done our part and hope the problem will now go away.

We go back to being compliant.

February 27. 2352

I think I have been alone for most of my life.

Perhaps I have always known that. Perhaps it helped me to survive.

I realise I have not fully explained how our way of life came to be. I will attempt to do this now.

After President Nyakio's term ended around 90% of the population was moderately wealthy.
This was due to the stocks in Robotics soaring faster than previously ever heard of. Everyone jumped on the market and somehow it never crashed until 2126 when President Nuro took office. Whether luck, intuition or just hatred for the new President, stockholders bailed. The few that remained were either not fast enough to sell or too blinded by money to care and bought all they could. That was a mistake. His announcement to privately own the HAB robot company and to replace all current robots with HAB bots single handily destroyed the robotics market.

The President's next move against the population would to make them volunteer to stop working.
The 10% who were left with nothing were given the most minimal government help at getting back on their feet. However anyone that had a job was heavily taxed and any company that employed people were similarly taxed. This tactic gave companies the motivation to replace human workers while the people felt they had enough money to not bother working anyway.
10 years after the HAB bots had been perfected and with 50% of the population unemployed, Nuro's policy changed again. Now the companies would be taxed no matter what was working there, although the tax for human workers was still more than the rate for bots.
With more and more people being laid off because of the tax hikes and the once rich population now poor from overspending with almost no sustainable income for 10 years, the template was complete.

Laziness gripped the globe. Recreation was the goal. What we call HomeWeb is the evolution of what Alison called The Internet.

The Internet was a means of communicating, nothing more. From what little information I can gather about its creation, it was decades before computer networking was available globally. Businesses tried and failed to create stable network markets but through perseverance and learning from mistakes eventually they succeeded.
The success of established brand sites gave aspiring entrepreneurs hope. Unfortunately with all the conventional markets already taken by the experts, new ideas had to be formed.

Social Networking is born.
The world is doomed.

With shopping from home popular, the concept of spending time with friends without having to actually go anywhere seemed the next logical step. Luckily the realisation that people can get almost the same experiences without having to go anywhere took generations to set in although some came to it faster than others.
With this budding mind set beginning to grow, and the social networks doing everything to keep as many people using them as much as possible, I must ask, was there ever any alternative?

Every day more and more information was added to the Internet. With better technology came more and more options. Almost immediately worldwide fame was within grasp as anyone could now show off any skill they did or did not have. Stardom, once the reward of the determined became Internet Stardom. Less polished but more sought.
This "Me me me" culture was eventually the catalyst for the Unification of Earth.

February 21. 2352

With work being reduced to a hobby, the Unified Government appeared to become figureheads.
Education was gone, replaced by home schooling that eventually became HomeWeb learning. Parents taught their children how to talk and type because that was all they needed. If you wanted to learn more then you looked it up on HW. That was my life.

I found the name of the owner of the journal.
Alison.
She tells of how excited she feels as she anticipates seeing her friends. This concept confused me. I did not understand why she would be excited. I was never excited when I saw my friends. The next entry made me understand.

They met in person.

My social normal was to see my friends via VideoChat. My life was TV, HomeWeb and eating. Perhaps that is why I was so horrified when I saw the starving ones. I could easily have been one of them. Is it my calling to write this?
Is that why I survived?
I wanted this to be a professional account but I cannot. I must document my thoughts.

I am alone.


How long can I survive?

February 18. 2352

The History of the Last Civilization.

In the 2200's there was political unrest. The leaders of each nation on the planet were bickering over employment. History tells us that over 300 years ago the same arguments were being made over resources.
The 300 year old journal records a time when oil was reported to be scarce.

Oil was the main fuel in everything. Engines ran on refined oil, vehicles were used in business as well as privately owned. The emissions from these vehicles were polluting the environment. Trees were being cut down for wood and paper making. The reports said that the planet was being killed by humans and that the leaders of that time made minute token attempts to change with no real plan to save their world.
Whether the reports were true or exaggerated to cause panic is unclear, however it caused change.

2106 saw the first world president elected - Jane Nyakio. It was under her leadership that hydrogen replaced oil as the main fuel of engines. She oversaw the replanting of national forests and the world cheered as her administration produced 20 years of peaceful prosperity.
Engines were now fuelled by hydrogen, the world's paper was 100% recycled, 90% of manual labour was undertaken by robots. The bliss didn't last
20 years of peace became 80 years of laziness.

Against public opinion President Nyakio's term ended in 2126. The people argue that since it was a new position and that the 1st President had performed so well then she should stay in office. Their appeals were ignored and political candidates appeared in droves. Feeling betrayed the people refused to vote so the decision was made that the former President would choose their successor.
Worldwide outrage for this decision brought destruction.

The 2nd Unified Earth President chose instead of appealing to the masses, to turn his back on them. Under Sero Nuro's term, unemployment benefits were at the absolute minimum humanly possible while robotic workers were used in 99% of the manual labour jobs but they were not part of the office or service workforce. When Human Analogue Bots were perfected in 2130 that changed.
Within 6 months of perfection HAB bots had 5% of worldwide office jobs. By 2140 the figure was 50%. By the time the next election came around, 90% of the human population were unemployed.

This became the standard. Generation after generation were content to allow robots to do the most basic of jobs while the government was content to heavily tax the companies for using robotic labour and return 10% of those taxes to public funding. The world took the next 80 years off work. Only 1% of the population was in employment and those were Nation Leaders, The Presidency and to maintain the HAB robots. Robots that were so well made that they almost never broke down.
This was our paradise.

But nothing lasts forever.

In 2206 President Gene Rail initiated a program to reassess the planets resources and workforce, or so he said.
Under this new plan currency would no longer be necessary. All resources would be rationed. Basic food, clothing, medicine, entertainment and utilities would be provided to everyone while extra rations would be awarded to anyone who replaced a HAB bot in the workplace. The higher priority the job, the more the rations awarded. Initially the response was over 80% of the population, however once people realised exactly what entailed in the basic rations, such as VisionScreens and HomeWeb that number fell to almost 25.

So began the civilization that I knew as normal.