Rama II

The years preceding the rendezvous with the first Raman spaceship in early 2130 had been an extraordinarily stable and prosperous time. After the world recovered from the devastating cometary impact near Padua, Italy, in 2077, there was an entire half century of moderate growth. Except for a few relatively short, and not too severe, economic recessions, living conditions improved in a wide range of countries throughout the time period. Isolated wars and civil disturbances did erupt from time to time, primarily in the undeveloped nations, but the concerted efforts of the global peacekeeping forces always contained these problems before they became too serious. There were no major crises that tested the stability of the new international mechanisms.

Immediately following the encounter with Rama I, however, there were rapid changes in the basic governing apparatus. First, emergency appropria­tions to handle Excalibur and other large Rama-related projects drained revenues from established programs. Then, starting in 2132, a loud clamor for tax cuts (to put more money into the hands of the individuals) reduced even further the allocations for needed services. By late 2133, most of the newer international institutions had become understaffed and inefficient. Thus the global market crash took place in an environment where there was already growing doubt in the minds of the populace about the efficacy of the entire network of international organizations. As the financial chaos contin­ued, it was an easy step for the individual nations to stop contributing funds to the very global organizations that might have been able, if they had been used properly, to turn the tide of disaster.

The horrors of The Great Chaos have been chronicled in thousands of history texts. In the first two years the major problems were skyrocketing unemployment and bankruptcies, both personal and corporate, but these financial difficulties seemed unimportant as the ranks of the homeless and starving continued to swell. Tent and box communities appeared in the public parks of all the big cities by the winter of 2136-37 and the municipal governments responded by striving valiantly to find ways to provide services to them. These services were intended to limit the difficulties created by the supposedly temporary presence of these hordes of idle and underfed individ­uals. But when the economy did not recover, the squalid tent cities did not disappear. Instead they became permanent fixtures of urban life, growing cancers that were worlds unto themselves with an entire set of activities and interests fundamentally different from the host cities that were supporting them. As more time passed and the tent communities turned into hopeless, restless caldrons of despair, these new enclaves in the middle of the metro­politan areas threatened to boil over and destroy the very entities that were allowing them to exist. Despite the anxiety caused by this constant Damo­cles” sword of urban anarchy, the world squeaked through the brutally cold winter of 2137-38 with the basic fabric of modem civilization still more or less intact.

In early 2138 a remarkable series of events occurred in Italy. These events, focused around a single individual named Michael Balatresi, a young Francis­can novitiate who would later become known everywhere as St. Michael of Siena, occupied much of the attention of the world and temporarily fore­stalled the disintegration of the society. Michael was a brilliant combination of genius and spirituality and political skills, a charismatic polyglot speaker with an unerring sense of purpose and timing. He suddenly appeared on the world stage in Tuscany, coming seemingly out of nowhere, with a passionate religious message that appealed to the hearts and minds of many of the world’s frightened and!or disenfranchised citizens. His following grew rap­idly and spontaneously and paid no heed to international boundaries. He became a potential threat to almost all the identified leadership coteries of the world with his unwavering call for a collective response to the problems besetting the species. When he was martyred under appalling circumstances in June of 2138, mankind’s last spark of optimism seemed to perish. The civilized world that had been held together for many months by a flicker of hope and a slim thread of tradition abruptly crumbled into pieces.

The four years from 2138 to 2142 were not good years to be alive. The litany of human woes was almost endless. Famine, disease, and lawlessness were everywhere. Small wars and revolutions were too numerous to count. There was an almost total breakdown in the standard institutions of modern civilization, creating a phantasmagoric life for everyone in the world except the privileged few in their protected retreats. It was a world gone wrong, the ultimate in entropy. Attempts to solve the problems by well-meaning groups of citizens could not work because the solutions they conceived could only be local in scope and the problems were global.

The Great Chaos also extended to the human colonies in space and brought a sudden end to a glorious chapter in the history of exploration. As the economic disaster spread on the home planet, the scattered colonies around the solar system, which could not exist without regular infusions of money, supplies, and perso

By 2143 only a very few hard core colonists remained on the Moon and Mars. Communications between Earth and the colonies had become inter­mittent and erratic. Monies to maintain even the radio links with the outly­ing settlements were no longer available. The United Planets had ceased to exist two years previously. There was no all-human forum addressing the problems of the species; the Council of Governments (COG) would not be formed for 6ve more years. The two remaining colonies struggled vainly to avoid death.

In the following year, 2144, the last significant ma

By 2145 the struggling world had managed to see the importance of some of the international organizations neglected and maligned at the begi