A Visitor to the Future - 125 - The Vote
I listened intently as Gatecrash began to teach me about the First Forum, their account delivered with a compelling tone that made me realize that while they mainly taught chemisty, they'd probably be very good at teaching history too.
_
It wasn't called the First Forum to begin with. One of the quirks of the Union of Mars - and the early Consortium, too - was how they loved long names for everything important. Did you know one of the first names for Eru Ilúvatar was a hideous acronym that takes an entire lungful of air to say? It was silly! No, when I first heard of it, it was still the Cera Dara Centre for Diplomacy and Communication. That was about two years after things had wrapped up. I was around when the talks were going on, but too wrapped up with my own issues to really pay attention. I studied it after, when I got to attend school.
Let me paint the picture for you as best I can. It was five years after the last shots of the Multisphere wars were fired, and it was a time full of challenges. Even though the worst aftershocks of the Multispheres were over, many people weren't content, and the Consortium's metrics showed it. A lot of the things we take for granted today just didn't exist. The Biodev Breakthrough hadn't happened yet - in fact, there was a massive shortage of skilled medical personnel. Governance and the right to audit were non-existent, and in the transitional period most things were being dictated from Mars, which was really problematic - the Union's parliament was how the Consortium was being governed at that time. Add to that the limited number of Arbiters available and things were tense, to say the least. But there had also been some important wins too. The abolishion of slavery - both of humans and CIs - was the biggest - and yes, I'm biased there. Calorie and maintenance equality were now also guaranteed by the Consortium program - food poverty and CI obsolescence were rapidly becoming threats of the past. Free public schooling was back, mostly delivered remotely, and junior apprenticeship programs were disbanded - teenagers got to be teenagers again. Finally, and I think crucially, the Infranet was made available to everyone who had a computing device - and more were being manufactured and handed out daily. The old corporate networks were no longer the only way to get information, and groups of people who hadn't freely communicated in decades were now able to do so. The Jovian moons in particular really benefitted from that.
You could best describe the time as fragile. And fragile was as good as it was going to get, because the parliament of Mars were at their limit. Did you know that the Union of Mars only narrowly voted to commence military action against the Multispheres? It's true - and a large part of those swing votes were only given because of a binding agreement that a free, fair vote would be given to all those forcibly put under the watch of the new Consortium - giving them a choice whether to remain or leave. The ruling party put it off for as long as they could - five whole years. But one day there was an Infranet announcement, that in three months anyone over the age of 15 would be given a vote. It was to be a simple majority vote - nowhere near as sophisticated as what we have today.
Anyway, First Forum - right. I could dress this up with some of the reasoning that was used at the time, but let me put this simply. The First Forum was made to impress people. It had all the bells and whistles - fully automated service buildings, transport links, luxury apartments - the Consortium's leader at the time wanted people to vote to remain, and was willing to put every single resource that they could into achieving that goal. Their metrics showed discontent - so they wanted to win over as many people as possible. Whether that's ethical or not is for history to decide. The First Forum was the Consortium's attempt to dazzle people.
So imagine this, you sign in to the Infranet one day and this announcement appears. There's going to be a public vote on the future of the Consortium, and anyone who wants to discuss this will be able to do so, in person, at the Cera Dara Centre for Diplomacy and Communication, which will open in one month, and has a maximum occupancy of fifteen million people. And guess what, it's located in the middle of the Sahara desert, one of the most inhospitable locations on Earth.
There was a lot of confusion at first - people thought that the announcement had been mistyped, or that it was a joke - there was no way that a facility of that size could be built out there.
_
I decided to interrupt, realizing where this was going, "I'm guessing that the Consortium's drones proved otherwise?" I asked. It was easy for me to make the connection - the sight of my own house being built before my eyes had made a lasting impression. I only had to imagine scaling that up - drones rapidly assembling skyscrapers, streets - even the covering that extended above the jungle-like plants.
"Yes!" said Gatecrash, as we walked past more plaques and flags, "This was the first large-scale planetary project to use that technology. The abilities of the Consortium program were expanding by the day back then. And the first automated drone-craft were used to ferry the visitors too."
I looked around myself, suddenly aware of how quiet it was in this spacious room. There were three other people in the building, two engaged in conversation and the third was sat at an easel, making a painting of the space with exotic colors. "Can this place really support fifteen million people, though?" I asked. The indoor jungle and skyscrapers may have been impressive, but they didn't seem densely packed enough to sustain those numbers.
"It used to," replied Gatecrash "They've reclaimed a lot of it over the years - especially since the last time I was here. There's not a lot of point to maintaining a space that no-one uses. It seems like only the culturally important buildings, like this one, are what remain now."
"What's so special about this one, then?" I asked.
"It's the first. The first building of the First Forum - and it's where the countries and remaining corporates had the vast majority of their discussions about staying with the Consortium. All the Ambassadors and Relationship Managers of all those countries talked about how they should split up the solar system when the vote was over, and the Consortium was gone. It's funny to think about."
"How so?"
Gatecrash smiled and laughed before responding, "Because what they wanted didn't matter at all, and most of them didn't even realize it. They spent months here, debating the intricacies of an idea that would never come to pass - a lot of them were the same corrupt politicians and corporates who had benefited from the old system, absolutely assured of their own power. They were so wrapped up in the power that they'd once held that they didn't realize that the thousands of other buildings in the Forum were filled with average people, whose own debates and discussions at the Forum were just as important as theirs."
"Because it was a direct vote," I said, making the connection. "They were really that oblivious?"
Gatecrash shrugged, "Maybe I'm over-exaggerating a little. For obvious reasons I don't think too highly of them. There were definitely some dictators who stayed in this room in a state of denial long after the vote had closed. If you watch the projections back, you can actually pinpoint the moment that each of them realized they were now irrelevant - any chance they had of clinging onto power was gone."
"How close was the vote?" I asked.
"There were 82% in favor of staying. 18% who wanted to leave. A landslide victory."
"So the First Forum made a big difference?"
"Hah, no, not at all!" laughed Gatecrash, "People weren't so easily bought. It was a nice gesture, and I think it says a lot about the Consortium, but after-vote surveys showed that people's minds were made up even before the announcement of the Forum."
I rubbed my forehead in confusion, "Then why was the ruling party of the Consortium so worried about the outcome of the vote?"
Gatecrash's eyebrows raised as they explained, "Remember the metrics that I was talking about earlier? They were being used to gauge the discontent in the population. They were Mars metrics. The Consortium was being way too harsh on itself. The people of Mars under the Union and early Consortium were used to a functioning, well-maintained democracy. The rest of the solar system had way lower standards after decades of abuse. Caloric equality and free public schooling alone might have been enough to secure many people's votes. The lack of exploitation, atrocities, or debt abuse from the Consortium probably helped a lot too - and that was only what was available today - the Consortium's roadmap, freely available on the Infranet, was talking about expanded educational programs, rights to privacy, solving the medical personnel gap, and so on. All basic things to a citizen of Mars, but life-changing to someone who had spent their life as little more than a corporate pawn."
"Did anyone think that it seemed too good to be true?" I asked. That had been one of my first reactions to people's claims about the Consortium.
"For sure. There were communities, cities and habitats that popped up, all refusing to have anything to do with the Consortium. But they were in the minority. Arbiters spent the decades after the vote working on those relationships. As for the rest, actions speak louder than words," said Gatecrash, "The Consortium had promised caloric equality and delivered it. They'd promised free public schooling, and they'd delivered it. And in the years after came the right to audit, Governance, post-scarcity, and then Bio-development - it's very hard to argue with those sorts of results."
"Post-dependency," said a voice from behind us.
I glanced around and suddenly saw the tall frame of Stamos Eliopoulos, who had approached us without me realizing. He wasn't looking as sharp as the last time I'd seen him, slightly hunched forward with his curly beard a mess. His eyes were bloodshot and his clothing slightly ruffled - he seemed to be blinking a lot.
"Sorry," he said, voice slightly hoarse, words rough, "I didn't mean to suprise you. Philosophers call our period of time post-dependency. We're no longer dependent upon natural processes to live - whether they are our own, or those of nature."
"Stamos," I said, "Are you feeling alright?"
As if to respond, he yawned loudly, holding one hand to his mouth, "I am very sorry," he said as he loudly exhaled, "I fell asleep on my desk. I'll be well in a minute - it's good to see you both - and Gatecrash, an unexpected surprise but a welcome one. Hopefully you can help me out too. Come with me - I have a workspace upstairs. And crethica. Lots of crethica."