MAM: TALK TALK
Tom Mazanec
Friday, October 4, 2148
The sounds of Music Machine's "Talk Talk" fade out.
Dictov: Welcome to Talk Talk, with you host Dick Dictov. Today is the
50th anniversary of the collapse of the United States of
America in the Mammaloid War. What we have planned for today
are any special view points of the war you may have to offer.
First caller:
Caller: One thing I think you should keep in mind is the fact that the
Mammaloid War did less damage to the biosphere of the Earth
than did World War III. In fact, it has been rated 6.71 on the
Belsito Scale, while World War III was 7.31 and the Eta Carinae
hypernova GRB was 6.78. I live, and lived, in northwest India,
and was growing up during the Third World War. Pakistan used
nuclear weapons against my country in that war.
Dictov: And your country used nukes against them.
Caller: We were hit first. And Israel and Islamstan used nuclear weapons
on each other, as well. These weapons put poisons into the
environment which still linger. The Tesla Cannon at least
was not radioactive. I know America was on our side in
World War III, but they spent much of the Twentieth
Century and most of the Twenty-first acting like they
owned the world, and they got what they deserved.
Dictov: I'm glad to hear from someone with the wisdom
to make that evaluation :-> . Next caller:
Caller: I became a clandestine pirate radio operator in 2097.
I operated a station I called "Radio Free Mobius".
The format was based on an old cartoon. Heck, the
Secretary of NMRD even looked like the villain...
fat, bald and a red mustache. He never watched the
old toon classics...probably never even got the joke.
It lasted almost a year...I was surprised I lasted so long.
Later I found out that I was being monitored by the government,
they thought I might be connected to the Underground Airline
or the Friends of Narnia. Finally they just arrested me and
sent me to a Revival Facility. The next week, the _Terrible
Swift Sword_ was launched to the Moon. We were made to watch
the astronauts on 3V as they approached the Moon. They just
cut off in mid sentence. Then the spaceports and cities
started being hit...LA was the first city to go. I would
have been killed if I hadn't been in the Revival Facility.
Of course, in the other two major Revival Facilities,
all the "penitents" were killed at the end of the Human War.
By the way, since humanity started the war, that's what it
should be called. Besides, the mammaloids won. The winner
gets to name the war...it's the Civil War, not the War Between
the States. But what's in a name...my hometown changed its
name from Casper, Wyoming to Moody, Wyoming in 2097.
I never actually spoke with a mammaloid, that's why they
did not execute me for witchcraft. After the war, I made my
way to Canada, and then to Australia.
Dictov: Glad to hear from you. Next caller:
Caller: Hi, D.D. Look, there is something called a Just War.
First, the cause of the war must be just. I grant that
trying to save their lives would make this. Next, the war
must be declared by a competent authority. The moon toons
were government property, so their authority was the
United States government, but since it was that government
that was trying to kill them, I'll give them that for the
sake of argument. Also, the just side has to be more
right than the aggressor. I'll even give the toons that.
And the war has to be a last resort, which I'll also
grant in this case. There has to be a reasonable chance
that you can win the war, which I would not have believed
in '97 but, since they won, I guess I'll have to grant too.
But you have to fight only against military targets, and
*not* harm civilians. 100 million human civilians died
in the Mammaloid War, compared to just 6 million mammaloids.
And you have to stop when you have stopped the aggression,
which the moon toons did not do. They were safe from the
United States when the spaceports were gone, but they kept
on hitting cities that could not threaten them,
even Mecca for Allah's sake, until the country came apart
at the seems and crumbled. On at least two counts,
the war was unjust. And all you need is one count for
an unjust war.
Dictov: Well, I wonder how the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising would rate
on your just war scale...*they* didn't have a couple
secret weapons up their sleeves, so they had zero chance
of winning. Unjust on one count means an unjust war?
Seems a little simplistic to me. But thanks for your input.
Next caller:
Caller: My best friend was a Watermelon Kid. Daniel and his family
were Fundamentalist, Evangelical Christians. He was even
more intense than his parents were. He almost decided to
go to jail rather than be genescanned, even before the
scandal broke. Then, since he had come from a tubewomb,
they didn't even give him the choice. And I was also gestated
in a tubewomb, although I didn't find out until they made
me go for the genescan, a couple months early. Something went
wrong with the procedure, and they had to repeat it a few
days later. I thought that that meant I was a Watermelon Kid
myself...I had nightmares you would not believe. My folks
were conservative Christians themselves, and thought that
mammaloids were demonic. But I couldn't see how Daniel could
be demonic, unless being foursquare for the Lord is demonic.
It soured me on the anti-mammaloid wing of the Church, however.
In 2096 I moved to Canada. Maybe I should have stayed...I
probably would not have made a difference, but if more of
us stayed, maybe it would still be the United States of
America instead of New Zion and Deseret and the other little
nations that are there now. And the US did *not* deserve
what it got! There were millions of good people...they
just did not know what to do when the theocrats took over.
Dictov: I did not happen to live in America. If I had,
I honest to God don't know what I would have done myself.
Next caller:
Caller: I was a Boy Scout in 2098. A real Boy Scout, not one of
those Christian Soldiers. We were on a field trip when
the moon toons began hitting our cities. Both my parents
were in Chicago. They were both killed...my brother and sister
as well. I ended up in a refugee camp, then an orphanage.
Before I got that far, I saw some pretty sick things.
I went pretty hungry, and I at least had an idea of what
to scrounge in the wild. I once saw a woman cooking her
own baby. That's what the filthy furries did to us.
Dictov: You do realize that the famine was partially a result
of America's decision to centralize nanotechnology,
to use the "Feed" instead of the "Seed" approach.
So when the main cities were taken out, the whole system
just collapsed. Tried to get safety, stability and control,
and got vulnerability along with it. Or perhaps instead.
Next caller:
Caller: I lived in a little suburb of Cleveland. We had a priest who
tried to turn 180 degrees after _Imago Dei_, but he just
ended up seeming ridiculous. He was trying to lecture
the mammaloids on their sexual behavior when they had been
often *designed* to be living sex toys, at a time when
the Koŝmarego was already starting. And he made some
suggestion that a male kangaroo mammaloid could carry
something, I don't even remember what, in his pouch.
All I remember is the incongruity of someone trying to
lecture mammaloids on sexuality who thinks male kangaroos
have pouches. And the government put him to death
for advocating witchcraft and demonism, in the final weeks,
when things began getting bad.
Dictov: Being killed for advocating your faith is a good way for a
Catholic to make the Saint grade. Let's hope he makes it.
Next caller - hey, it seems that your avatar is a projection!
For all I know, you could be a mammaloid yourself!
Caller: I have my own reasons for appearing this way. The Papist
Church only gave the toons souls because they wanted to be
on the winning side...
Dictov: At the time of _Imago Dei_ nobody would have expected...
Caller: Hey, I remember those damn naked beasts walking around...
supposed to be people and they didn't even wear clothes -
Dictov: They were forbidden to wear clothes, if I recall correctly.
Caller: Hell right! Who knows what weapons they could be carrying!
Dictov: Did you actually have anything to do with a mammaloid?
Caller: I had a male mammaloid's stick when I was a kid, a raccoon's...
almost a foot long. To think of something walking around
with that bone between its legs is sickening. And no clothes,
but they wanted to be treated like people!
Dictov: Didn't we just establish that -
Caller: And the Jew pigs [THIS VRSPACE CONTACT DOES NOT ADHERE TO THE
2142 VRSPACE PROTOCOLS AND IS BEING DELETED]
Dictov: Sorry about that. This VRspace talk show, like all VRspace
talk shows, sometimes gets pots that are kinda cracked.
Next caller:
DRIZZLE DRAZZLE DRUZZLE DROME
TIME FOR THIS ONE TO COME HOME