Vaughn's Sea Protocol

Meg March was mortified.  The turn of the century was coming, and she had nothing to wear to Annie Moffat's party.  She personally could care less about it being 2199 - soon to be 2200 - especially as she knew that wasn't the true turn of the century.  But no one else cared to hear it, teenagers just wanted to have fun.  Not that at 16 it wasn't time to at least start thinking about being serious, but still, there had to be more to be serious about then boys and parties, right?

Wrong, as far as Annie's crowd was concerned.  They had not only invited her to the party, but to the two week Winter Solstice break leading up to it, and with some reservations from her mother, she had accepted.

Meg had always been a studious girl.  It was rare in these days to be raised by just one parent, but her father was away in the Belt, a med-admin for the Solarian forces trying to bring the secessionist miners to heel.  Though some had opined, perhaps even correctly, that he was really just taking this as a great opportunity to be away from his rather domineering wife.  Meg's mother was an anachronism, a throwback to the matriarchal late 21st century, certainly not an embracer of the modern Ladyist movement, where women were to be gracious and sedate, as of old.

One of Meg's sisters, Jo, taking after mom, was chomping at the bit to want to make real decisions when she reached adulthood at the still far off age of 21.  But not Meg.  She had every desire of finding the right man, and by not later than 18 as was socially nearly required, and leaving the hard work of controlling and such to him.  What use had she of vast lunar-based pantographs or dysonish solar interceptors?

What she was concerned with, besides Annie's party and her lack of appropriate attire, was her school report on Vaughn's Sea Protocol.  She had had to get special permission from the teacher to even do it on that subject, and he had only grudgingly let her, afraid that it indicated some kind of dark side to her that she'd even want to speak of the subject.

But it really only indicated Meg's soft side.  She had cried at the history lessons on the genocide of the Midianites at the hands of the Jews.  And the Native Americans at the hands of the Western Europeans.  And the Congolese at the hands of the Belgians.  And the Armenians at the hands of the Turks.  So naturally had she been down for days when first learning of how Earth lost roughly 99% of it's population in the early 22nd century.

Not so oddly, others in her class hadn't been much phased by it.  After all, little of the terrible tragedies of history made much of an impact on people.  It was far away, and long ago.  Hard to get upset by people so long dead.  Even when it was 9.9 billion people, each who's only crime was to not be in the wealthiest one percent of their nations.  Also, Vaughn was regarded as a hero.  Some eyes had rolled when she made it clear she was going to be one of "those" kids who like to criticize whatever others hold dear.

Meg walked into her closet, nude, and sat down.  Instantly an image of her, completely solid and real looking, appeared in front of her.  She idly made finger gestures that directed the house AI to put various clothes on the model of her.  Meg sighed.  Each outfit was good - everyone's outfits were good - but none were "great".  She gave a rueful chuckle.  She was supposed to have been one of the inheritors of the brave new world that had no poor in it.  But instantly, long before she was born, the remaining one percent divvied itself again into classes, so that nowadays, the quintillionaires could look down at the trillionaires.  

And the March family had but a few trillions.  Her father's control of tech and mech was paltry compared to the fathers of most in Meg's class.  He would, when the war ended, get a substantial bonus in the form of control of more pantographs - where he could have say in what they created out of the raw material of the Moon - and some of the dyson discs that harvested sunlight.  He'd exercise more raw industrial power than even the wealthy nations of the 20th century did.  His income was already higher than that of the GDP of the American Empire at peak.  But even the greater reward to come for his military service would not put him in the league of the spoiled crew at the school her parents barely managed to send her to.

Unlimited energy, unlimited robotic labor, unlimited pantographs - there was no adequate way to describe to a person from the past how rich each person was now.  It would be like a rich American of the 20th century trying to explain his televisions and control of a local factory to a King of the 6th century who lived in a dirt floor stone "castle".

She picked out the best dress of the bunch.  An old tarlatan.  By old she meant last month, but in an age where fashions changed by the week, she knew she was in for some embarrassment.  She sauntered out, her wristband projecting the outfit around her.  Given the photonic make up of it, she had asked her mom once why they could not easily afford new each week like the other girls.  Her mother than gave her a boring lecture on Intellectual Property and what the penalties for illegal downloading were.  

Her report was laying on the bed.  Meg was a slave to the Lavender and Lace movement popular among teen girls.  Where they supposedly used old fashioned lavender colored paper and other things believed to have existed in the 19th century.  Except the paper was just a hologram that her estylus could mark upon.  An estylus that was shaped to look like a quill pen.  Or what the designers had thought was a quill pen.

"With an increasing number of 'wealthy wunpers' (as the resentful masses had took to calling them) finding it more comfortable to join the seasteading movement, and as such turned into a veritable new nation of the super rich, living in isolated splendor in the Pacific, it became feasible, or so Edward Vaughn theorized, to contemplate how to make the shift from human labor - or 'poor power' - to robotic labor.  What was for certain was that the poor, who literally outnumbered the wealthy wunpers by 99 to 1, would not go quietly."

"Some proposals were that they all be put on welfare, a Universal Income.  Others advocated out right sterilization.  Others, more humane, a partial declining of them, limiting them to one child per couple for a few generations.  Fantastical notions of colonizing the galaxy with lifeships stuffed with the masses were also proposed.  Edward Vaughn thought all of it was nonsense.  A hard and cold man, he figured that only a clean slate would do."

Meg looked up from the paper.  A clean slate, all right.  His plan, brilliant in it's diabolical simplicity, was to have some bioengineers at his own corporation create a virus that was 99.9% communicable, had an incubation of 15 days, and then a lethality rate so close to 100% that it was just gave as 100%.  And lethal it was, within 48 hours after it first manifested as massive diarrhea with a high fever.  

Then he simply released it.  He notoriously asked permission of no one, nor confided in anyone.  His operatives released it in every capitol on Earth, every major city.  And many not so major.  They had plenty of time.  Each operative went to a dozen cities.  And he had dozens of operatives.  None of the operatives knew what he was doing, each had been unknowingly infected and sent on what they thought were fact-finding trips.  

And it was also a massive overkill, for those unknowingly infected in each city were busy travelling to and fro, infecting far more than his operatives could.  Each contact was a new victim.  And for those 15 days, nothing happened to draw any attention to anyone or anything.

Then near the end of that, on day 13, he gave his operatives the cure.  Which for them, was being killed and tossed in the plankton vats, to be "recycled".  The real vaccine had been given out surreptitiously, in the water supply of the vast seasteading nations that now numbered 72 million out of the 100 million who comprised 1% of the wealthiest of Earth's 10 billion people.  The other 32 million, he had sent private communiques to on the 13th day warning them of what was about to take place.

He knew they could do nothing in 48 hours to stop the Plague.  The Plague was so fast, and so lethal, that "the Plague" was all it was ever called.  No fancy name, no "Black" this or "Spanish" that or "Avian" the other.  It took four or five days past his warning for the first wave of the masses to die - and in that time, most of the 1% "on land" did agree to the terms for the cure.  Not all.  But most.  It was easy to justify.  Take the moral high ground and die, agree that Vaughn's Sea Protocol was sound and live.  

It took another two or three weeks past that, as the population had been infected at different times, but within a month, Earth was a ghost planet, save the 72 million wunpers of Oceania.  And the twenty million or so of the elite scattered about the globe, who were now making arrangements to emigrate to Oceania.  And the inevitable 200,000  of the masses who were naturally immune, who were truly scattered about, across 200 plus nations, and tens of thousands of cities and towns.  Taking the United States as an example, this worked out to about one survivor per county.  

Meg gave a shudder.  This was like when the Spanish had brought infection to the Western Hemisphere, killing off 98% of the Native population.  Except that at least the Spanish hadn't intended that.  And the 2% of the Natives had some centuries to try to rebuild - not enough, they still lost in the end, but they almost grew back.  Not so those in the bottom 99% who found themselves wandering about in the now empty lands of the world.

Meg gave another shudder.  She couldn't go off for this Solstice vacation, not with so lousy a wardrobe!  But she couldn't not go, everyone who was everyone would be there!  Why did her parents send her to a school where she could not hope to keep up fashion wise?  Oh, she knew, her parents wanted her to have the same advantages as these upper middle class kids had, they didn't want her to be stuck in the middle classes like they were.

Her mother, old fashioned to the core, had instilled some virtues in her.  Meg drew upon those now, and told herself that it didn't matter what they thought, she'd dress as best she could and hold her head up high!  School days wouldn't last forever, and then they'd see if she didn't land herself a nice beaux!  Meg said and said and said those words.  But like the archaic poem from Dr. Zeus, "I said 'em, but I lied them"! 

*************************************

School was out for Winter Solstice!  Where had the month gone?  Now it was the morning when she'd depart with Annie Moffat and her friends!  And her wardrobe, a month old before, was two months old now!  Her mother had calmly told her that it was wrong for her to try to be pretentious!  Pretentious!  She was trying to be accepted, not outshine anyone!  But goodness, it would be good to not be noticed as so poor for once!

At first it seemed her fears were unfounded.  The Moffats took their daughter and Meg and all their friends on their yacht, which was powered by the new quantum flux engines, that made use of particles flickering into and out of normal space.  It let them get to Lunopolis in hours, even if 16 of them.  As Mr. Moffat fumed, that hardly cut any time off the trip at all, but if they had gone to Mars the differential would have been noticeable.

Meg was just glad to get to visit the great pleasure palaces and skyflies of the Moon.  Viewing them was one thing, actually being there to experience it another.  While these girls went here almost every other month, for Meg this was only her second visit to the Moon, the first when she was 8.  

All the girls were wonderful, and the adult chaperones were kind.  No one seemed to mind her poverty, and she spent a pleasant week and a half enjoying all the sights and dinners and flying on special wings!  Till one evening when she was standing on the other side of a statue of Edward Vaughn, and noting the glowing praise of him wrote on the plaque, she overheard two of the female chaperones.

"How old is she?" said a voice.  "16 or 17 I should think", said another voice.

"Old enough, then, and her parents smart enough to send her to a school where she can meet a boy above her station."

"Yes, Mrs. M has made her plans, I'm sure, and the daughter seems presentable enough to catch her a catch.  Not my Charles, of course."

"Of course!  Nor my Tanner!  But some boy with less attentive parents than you or I will no doubt become smitten!"

They passed out of hearing at that point, but Meg's cheeks were burning all the same.  She had been raised not just in a poorer household, but a morally purer one, and while she wasn't trained up in the worldly cynicism that she had just heard, she still understood it's import.  She knew she was expected to find a suitable husband in school, or from among the brothers of her friends in school.

Hearing it so baldly made it seem almost shameful, though.  As if it would somehow be more proper for her parents to send her to a poorer school, and she deliberately pick a boy with as little going for him as possible!  As if her family could not read and learn from the Protocol, too!

"A citizen's worth is measured by his percent control of the total output of humanity.", so Edward Vaughn had wrote in his Sea Protocol, and so the world had took to heart.  While Meg's heart might break over those who had been sacrificed, the world largely knew him as a hero who had saved humanity from over-population and social unrest.  The Protocol not only shared the plan of "culling", but contained governing instructions and practical wisdom.  

Meg was suddenly struck by an epiphany.  She was heir to the Vaughn Sea Protocol, same as everyone else alive today.  By what right would anyone, even her parents, keep her from striving to reach as high as she could?  Sympathy with those downtrodden, sure.  But to identify with them so much that you would make deliberate enemies out of those above you?  Those who could aid you?  Those who might aid in lifting you up, or letting you have opportunity to work your way up?

Meg resolved to not be embarrassed any further by the truth.  And the truth was, her parents did want better for her, in some ways, and there was nothing wrong with that.  But it was also true that they also fuddy-duddily wanted her to retain some kind of "poor think" morality, where it was somehow more "wholesome" to be poor than rich!

But she was getting old enough to pick and choose from what her parents had tried to teach her, and that kind of reverse snobbery was what she would jettison first.  This would aid her, she realized, in getting that silly chip off her shoulder that made her act up in stupid and socially self-destructive ways.  Like writing needlessly inflammatory school reports!  

She left the statue and went back to the main area, and danced with several of the boys there, and even Mr. Moffat, who declared her "lively".  Maybe some didn't feel comfortable with her there, but she was not going to sacrifice her happiness to their choosiness.  Vaughn had also said, "Our children deserve a chance to rise.", and Meg intended to find a husband with as high a level as Mr. Moffat's.

Several days later, the New Year's Party was upon them!  The party was not on the Moon, but on the luxurious yacht that was en route back to Earth.  The girls were in the Changing Room, getting ready for the party, and various dresses were flickering on and off of them, all to their delighted squeals of mutual admiration.  All but Meg.  Observing her sitting quietly, in a neutral gray smock, Annie asked her, "What are you wearing to the party this evening, Meglet?"

"I suppose I shall wear my tarlatan.", Meg replied, privately happy to be called a nickname, however silly it might be.  She saw Annie and the other girls exchange glances, and her cheeks started to flush, even in spite of her resolve to feel no more shame.  "Oh, dear no, you mustn't!  Look dear, we get it, we do, but we're all friends here, and you need to let us be your friends!  It's nothing to us for you to borrow one of our dresses, do let us do this, you'll make us all so happy!"

Meg graciously and with relief agreed, and realized that after all, this was what friends were for.  They were not bad people, not truly snobby, just aware of the worth of their parents, and the expected worth they were training for.  Nor had they ever snubbed her, as some could have.  They saw that her parents, while poorer, were at least trying to give her a better life, and by Meg's own friendliness and courtesy of late, they could see that she was striving to be better.

And this in spite of her past rudeness in teasing about Vaughn!  For Meg knew that she'd been a bit strident about his "crimes" as she had called his actions.  And once when a teacher had tried to point out that those were different times, and he had to be judged by those times, not our more enlightened times, she had sniffed rudely.  But still they had tried to reach out to her, still they had tried to include her.

That had to count for something.  Maybe, Meg thought, being critical of the past was itself a form of snobbery.  She could have no real idea of what it was like back then, when people only lived to 80 or 90, and 1/10th of the world could still suffer starvation.  Where crimes went unpunished as there were no surveillance systems monitored by AIs 24/7.  Where there were real chances of mobs of the uneducated masses rising up to dispossess those elite who truly were the creators and producers of such good as was to be found in the world.

So Meg let them dress her up and doll her up.  And even accepted a make up program that put facial highlights on her, so her eyes glowed more blue, her cheeks glittered and her lips looked like liquid silk.  It felt good to live it up, and she even imbibed in stem-jolts a few times, when the others did, and felt the rush of expanded consciousness that she'd heard of, but never experienced.

A slight down note was to be had when she overheard a man say to another, "I had wanted you to meet this poor friend of Annie's, she had seemed more sensible, but I see now they've turned her into another vapid clotheshorse."  But she shook her head.  Really, who cared what some old chaperone had to say?  How condescending that he had liked her when she was plainly dressed and speaking ill of the Founder of the Modern Era, but disliked her when she achieved the approval of the others?

Meg spent the rest of the party having a wonderful time, and as her friends remarked admiringly, she really was the belle of the ball!  Still, when she got home, she did feel the need to 'fess up a bit.  She contacted her teacher and over the phone apologized for her rather militant criticism of the Vaughn Sea Protocol.  And asked if she could not have a chance to re-do it, if she could get it to him before school started again.

He said, "Meg, I'm gratified to hear that.  I know your mother has some odd views, but I always had thought that at least they'd had the good judgment to send you to us.  It hurt me to see you trying to throw that away in some needlessly provocative stance on issues long over and done with.  Of course you may re-do it!  I will look forward to reading it!"

Meg thanked him and went in to her home.  Her mom asked how the trip went.  As did her sister Jo.  She looked affectionately upon them.  She loved them dearly, but they'd not understand.  "It was great, but I'm glad to be home!", she said, the first half of that true, the second half a kindly intended lie.  Their relieved looks told her she was right to have lied.

Meg went up to bed, and reviewed the various boys she had met.  One named Ned had seemed a particularly likely catch, father a big wheel in control of various enterprises on Venus, and Ned kind of vague and easily smitten.  Certainly he'd been eating out of the palm of her hand.  Could she land him before his parents got back from Venus?  

Making a finger motion that directed the AI to call him, she thought contentedly, "I'll find out!"