Reading the Future in the Future
WARNING: This blog contains some spoilers of Where Liberty Lies, though nothing that should undermine your enjoyment of it.
Every culture through time has an obsession with predicting the future and I predict that will be the case for future societies too. The reason is obvious. What an advantage it would be to know how things turn out, to make decisions with the confidence they are the right ones. In the past, entrails may have been the medium for seeking such knowledge. Closer to our own age, we upgraded to the less messy crystal balls. Science has crushed much of the mumbo-jumbo, but in the blurred edges where fantasy still has oxygen, it has given birth to the concept of time-travel. Fiction has exploited this to the full with many a memorable story. To my knowledge, science’s current position is travelling forward in time is theoretically possible but going back in time is not. That somewhat scuppers hope of being able to read the future as there is no channel for sending word back. However, the desire to do so persists and clairvoyants still thrive, exploiting the vulnerable and susceptible, while speculative fiction authors continue to pen their vision of what will be.
In Where Liberty Lies, set in the distant future after the collapse of global civilisation, the people of Parodis are beholden to the Unumverum. It was written by their ancestors to capture all of value from the past to help shape the uncertain future, guiding them away from the mistakes that brought the world to ruin. Within our own history, it was quite a common practice for long-lived kings to write to their eldest son and heir offering a guide on what to do and what not to do once they succeeded to the throne. To me it seemed natural that a society may do the same if one world was lost and a new one was born out of chaos. Bewildered and stripped of confidence, people would seek both guidance from a better time and a hand to hold while floundering in the dark. Such a guidebook would inevitably take on a spiritual role within that new society, forming the bedrock of their life, warning of dangers to those that stray.
We have similar books today, written millennium back but central to our culture and providing guidance and lessons on how to live our lives. I, of course, refer to the books of the great global faiths or, in the godless world of communism, something like Mao’s Little Red Book. Interestingly, as well as drawing on the past to provide direction, they are not without a nod to the future too, full of prophets and prophecies. There are promises of what will be to the loyal followers of the faith. So, I concluded, would not the passing of generations morph the Unumverum beyond its original purpose into a prophetic book? Under the careful stewardship of the Honry Scholars, practitioners of the ancient tongue of the book’s authors, the Unumverum is studied and interpreted. For every crisis Parodis faces, the book can be called upon to guide them out of danger, just as it did during the time of collapse. The age of science is over. Its legacy lingers but in a murky solution of superstition and ignorance. The Unumverum becomes the glue holding society together, providing hope, confidence and light during the new dark ages.
Well, that’s just the thoughts of a speculative fiction author. For confirmation, please check with your local clairvoyant.
Nathaniel