619 – H.G. Wells’ Things to Come

Take a journey with us as we visit the past future history of Everytown, as John and Eugene look at H.G. Wells’ Things to Come. Synopsis It is Christmastime in 1940 Everytown.  Life at this joyous time of year goes on as it always has, with people laughing, shopping, enjoying the panto, and being with their family and friends, but there is an ever-present reminder that Europe is re-arming and that war seems on the horizon. At the home of John Cabal, he, his wife, their three children, grandfather, and friends Harding and Passworthy,  the celebrations are first ruffled by Cabal’s pessimistic musing about mankind’s inevitable march towards war.  Passworthy, the optimist, assures him there will be no war, and even if there were a war, war is not the end of progress; war spurs progress and innovation.  The second interruption in the war which starts that very night with a sneak attack, bombing, and later gassing of the city. Cabal and Passworthy are called into military service.  Cabal leaves his wife and children, while his wife wonders if it is fair that they brought their children into the world. The war drags on, and, true to Passworthy’s words, weapons technology, such as tanks and planes, are spurred forward. In a dogfight, Cabal shoots down an enemy aviator.  Cabal lands to rescue the downed pilot, but his plane is full of lethal gas, and it’s leaking out.  The two pilots both have gas masks, but when an unprotected child arrives, the enemy gives up his mask for the child.  Cabal rescues the child and leaves the enemy a gun so that he may kill himself rather than succumb to the gas.  Before he performs the final act, he sees the joke that he was trying to gas that child and her family in the first place and that maybe he’s already killed her family, and yet he sacrificed his life to save her. The war continues, and now civilization begins to decline.  In 1966, after 26 years of war, a new pestilence struck, a plague called the Wandering Sickness.  It is highly contagious and 100% fatal.  Victims, just before they die, get up and start wandering, sending the other survivors running away in terror. Harding, a research doctor, tries to find a cure, but he lacks the equipment to succeed.  One man, Rudolph, has a plan; he orders people to shoot the plague victims on sight.  By 1970, half the population has died from the Wandering Sickness, but the disease has finally burned itself out – perhaps because of the culling, perhaps not. Richard Gordon is what’s left of Everytown’s Air Force.  They have a dozen planes that will not fly because they do not have the knowledge or equipment to repair them, nor have the fuel to fly them. That’s not good enough for The Boss, Rudolph, now the warlord chieftain of Everytown and wager of perpetual war against their mortal enemies, the Hill People.  He wants his planes, and he wants them now, and he doesn’t like Gordon telling him it’s impossible with the resources they have. And then a plane appears in the sky.  Not an old, falling apart bucket, but a new design.  Aboard is an aged John Cabal.  He is arrested but generally doesn’t fuss about that.  He goes to see his old friend Harding and meets Gordon.  He tells them that he is with a group of what’s left of the engineers.  A brotherhood of efficiency, the freemasonry of science.  Harding and Gordon like the sound of that. The Boss is less thrilled with what he perceives as a threat.  Cabal as much as tells him that his organization, Wings over the World, is building a new world order of builders, but they will not abide by war and warriors, and they will clean up the world. The Boss puts him under arrest as a hostage so that his people won’t attack. The Boss is sick of technology; he feels that it has brought the world no good, though he does still covet having a working Air Force so he can destroy the Hill People.  He demands that Gordon get the planes working.  Gordon makes the case that, with Cabal’s and Harding’s help, he might be able to get the planes working.  The Boss allows it, but when Gordon gets a plane aloft, he flies it straight to Basra, were Cabal’s base is. Wings Over the World launch an aerial attack on Everytown.  The bombard the town with “peace bombs” which puts everyone to sleep, and then they send in the paratroopers.  The only casualty: The Boss, who dies with his way of life. Back at Basra, Cabal gives his plan for the world: Aggressive peace, excavating the eternal wealth of the Earth, and the fruits of science. Time moves on, and great engineering feats vacuum the mineral wealth of the planet, fabricate, and build massive cities for the new world.  One such city is Everytown, now the seat of world power. The 2036 and a descendant of John Cabal, Oswald Cabal is the leader of the world.  He pursues a restless, never-ending pursuit of progress for mankind. But, like all periods of human history, there are those that oppose progress.  In 2036 it is Theotocopulos, an artisan who wants progress to stop now.  The current symbol of that progress is the giant space gun being built to launch two people into space.  The two volunteers are Cabal’s own daughter and the son of a descendent of Passworthy.  Passworthy also thinks this is madness and does not want his son to go.  He is somewhat sympathetic to Tehotocopulos’ arguments. Theotocopulos goes on worldwide radio and tries to rally the masses into a rebellion.  He succeeds, and they sort towards the space gun.  In a race against time, Cabal gets the two astronauts to the gun and launches them into space. Cabal and Passworthy watch the ship fly on. Cabal explains that mankind can go on always progressing, always striving, and always exploring forever, and ever or he is just an animal that lives and dies without meaning.