Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future

200 YEARS HENCE

PICCARBLICK THE AQUAMORPH
The grey-green of deep water is floored by a bed of rubble, sprouting wisps of red algae and sparse fan coral. Rusting steel hulks, caked with sponge and algal growth, jut up in incomprehensible shapes in the gloom. A few fish move slowly in the dark hollows, as the occasional scuffling crab raises brief clouds of sand and silt particles with its pointed feet.

300 YEARS HENCE

HITEK
♥♥♥♥ sapiens machinadiumentum
When biological organs consistently fail, substitutes must be developed. The more vital the failed organs that cease to work, the higher the technical back-up needed. Scientists are already working to produce tissue-based replacements.
As long as the brain functions, it is worth keeping it alive and even if the body has deteriorated.

500 YEARS HENCE

GRAM THE ENGINEERED PLAINS-DWELLER
Gram stands shivering on the dusty plain, not shivering with cold but with apprehension. The spiky grass round about is familiar enough; he has been brought up on a diet of it since he was born, ten years ago. During that ten years, though, all the grass he knew had been grown in the habitat module. He was brought up and cosseted by Family, a group of creatures that saw to his every need and trained him for life outside.
Only in the last two years did he realize that he was not like the people of Family. He was not encased in metallic outer skins, he did not glide along the floor and cables and tubes did not spiral out of him, connecting him to glass and plastic devices and his face! The faces were the only parts of Family that he could see directly, and his was nothing like theirs.

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1000 YEARS HENCE

11 December, 2014 - zavier dylan | 0 Comments

WEATHER PATTERNS AND THE TICS
They laughed when it first started, the farmers and fishermen. They could see that the ocean currents were changing. They knew that somewhere out there, at a great depth below the sea surface, was one of the great ocean-current power-generators that supplied the energy for the Tics. Now the movement of the water had changed and it would not be working any more. How were the Tics going to keep themselves alive now, in their monstrous living suits and their food factories?
Now, however, it is not so funny. The new weather patterns have brought unceasing rain, and the crops have failed. The fish have not come to the river this year, as though they could not find their way to the spawning ground. The bees are in disarray; they cannot see the sun and their internal directional instinct is failing them.
It seems to be happening throughout nature. Every year the birds move north and south at the same time, but not so this year; they do not seem to know their directions. It is affecting people, too. The trading caravans that move between settlements are becoming confused and lost. Men and women admit that they are finding it difficult to find their way along even well-known routes.
Then there are the sicknesses. Diseases that have never been known before are beginning to afflict those who spend their time outside. It seems to be something to do with the sun, which whenever it appears from behind the unfamiliar clouds is harsh and glaring. It burns the skin, and produces growths that do not go away until the victim dies.
The collapse is coming all right just as the farmers and the fishermen have always predicted; but it is not restricted to the Tics. It is going to affect everybody: those who deny nature and those who live with it.