Power Tower Hour

In the darkest hours of July Ninth, adults scurry around hiding fluorescent tubes on top of the ventilators or along the agriculture domes, at the base of the wall, and so forth. Starting noon the next day, children race around to see how many they can find. Come 11 pm on July Tenth, Nikola's Birthday of course, we switch on the giant Tesla coil. Everything lights up, wonderful show, the children who came the closest to getting the right count gets a prize, and then we kick in some fog machines and lasers.

That would be the only time of the year we actually turn on the giant electric transmitter atop our home. But not the only reason of course. Its a symbol. There are more efficient means of getting electrons from one place to another, we probably wouldn't have wanted a series of Wardenclyffe Towers around every city for various reasons. But the point remains.

For over One-hundred and Fifty years now, we have had the ability to make free electricity rain from the sky. And that, is awesome.

In fact, the greatest limit on what Humans can do is humanity itself. We could have made changes to our bodies and lives that would have eliminated the need for nano-vac in the first place, but that was too "expensive", or "controversial".

The Silbervogel was conceived in world war two. NASA's 2046 space plane? Pretty similar, just with detail improvements so it actually works - Sänger kinda underestimated the heat of reentry for one. We had track launched payloads, with giant lasers super-heating fuel from beneath for thrust. Russia finally got a Mars base together, and a couple others followed, but by now we should have city sized orbital habitats made from materials we mined out of the Trojan asteroid fields.

Power armor - thirty percent of the modern army - 1950s novel. Electromagnetic Rail-guns - US patents in 1919 and 1922.

I could list these things for days, but I think you get the idea. It people clinging to old manufactured  ideas like religion, privacy, or the sacred form of the human body that are the biggest stumbling block. Our failures and disasters are not so much malicious intent, as mere not foreseeing all the consequences.

So that big AC transmitter up there? That is a reminder that the human condition can be transcended. However this whole crazy time with aliens and reanimates pans out, one thing must be for certain. Trying to restore the old world is a step backwards. We're not going to put the old governments back up just so they can turn around and pass laws limiting what we can do. Hell, they've already overstepped what should be an election year and still call the same man president - how can we respect those who won't even follow their own constitution?

Don't take this as me reveling in the misfortune of the billions who, didn't make it to this day. Far from it. But this is the shake up we needed, like how recovery from the black plague helped with workers rights and the revolution of cities and guilds. Like a plant pruned back before winter, we can grow to greater heights. Stop living on past glory and make something new.

Nothing I can say about our appreciation for life without boundaries or gods besides ourselves is going to change most minds. We're going to come off as new age hippies or atheists inside a giant rabbit warren playing with gene-splicers and creating new Frankenstein Monsters while refusing to help rebuild. But remember, once Alice got through the rabbit hole, she found a most interesting place. Stick around for tea, and learn just where we're going.