Twin Paradox Book One

Chapter One: The Great Collapse of 2028

November 15, 2020 King Everett Medlin Season 1 Episode 1
Twin Paradox Book One
Chapter One: The Great Collapse of 2028
Show Notes Transcript

In this first chapter we meet Coraline (Cory) Redmann, a famous journalist who is host of a weekly news magazine broadcast worldwide by the government-controlled "Global Broadcasting Network".  The Year is 2086 and Cory is about to take the stage for yet another installment.  

Ten years earlier, Cory made a name for herself with her controversial expose'  entitled "The Great Collapse of 2028", wherein she detailed the events leading up to the implosion of the American credit-based economy and the subsequent downfall of the West.  It gained her instant notoriety, paving the way for an outstanding career.  Only twenty-three at the time and fresh out of journalism school, she'd managed to put together a shocking five-part documentary on how an entire financial system (not to mention way of life) vaporized  overnight, leading to chaos in the world's major cities, dissolution of the world's banking system, and the death of millions worldwide.  Flashing back to Part One of her 2076 expose', we learn how it all came to pass forty-eight years earlier.  

Hello, and welcome to my second podcast series, I'm King Everett Medlin.  This one's going to be called Twin Paradox and it is based on a SciFi trilogy I wrote under the same name using the pseudonym Purple Hazel.  Twin Paradox follows my first podcast series entitled Deathwalker Colony, which is now a full length novel available for purchase on Amazon.

When I set out to write Twin Paradox four years ago, I wanted to create a realistic and believable world only one hundred years or so in the future.  Rather than devising (or assuming) technology that would be barely conceivable given known scientific principles, I tried to take current developmental theories and apply them in my story.  It wasn't terribly difficult to find such theories.   

Today, in 2017, mankind is working feverishly to move our species from the Digital Age into the next great era of human achievement.  Researching potential new advancements was quite easy, even given the scope of this epic science fiction trilogy which begins in the year 2086. 

In this first book of the Twin Paradox trilogy, the reader learns of our current society's eventual collapse ... and rebirth.  How the major cities of Earth plunge into anarchy.  How the American credit-based economy comes crashing to the ground, bringing an abrupt end to a system that essentially goes back to 1971.  Here, the reader learns of the sad end to a way of life most all of us living today would dearly miss.  

 And yet, the resilience of humanity once again shines through.  A new world order is established.  Mankind recovers.  New technologies resolve most of the problems still facing the world's dominant species.  That being said; the growth of the world's population leads to yet another ominous threat:  that the world may not be able to feed itself within another century or two.  This inevitability prompts the best and brightest to once again gather together and propose solutions; leading to the ambitious space mission I describe in my story.  

Twin Paradox is about three pairs of identical twins (all orphans), separated from each other, and with one from each set recruited into the Earth's international space program.  According to scientific theory, if one individual from a set of identical twins were to travel through space at or near the speed of light for an extended period of time, they will likely return to Earth only to find their brother or sister has aged significantly faster.  Thus, as part of a bizarre social experiment, scientists decide to place the three youths on board an intergalactic spacecraft and observe the results.  Their lives are then monitored, along with the lives of their siblings back on Earth.

Twin Paradox is a SciFi trilogy encompassing three full length novels; all of which will be read in their entirety over the next sixty weeks.  In this first book, simply called Twin Paradox Book One, the reader learns of their development into young adults - both the three bright youngsters brought in to become astronauts, as well as the three twins left to eke out a difficult existence back home.  Book Two of the trilogy goes on to tell the exciting tale of their return to Earth many years later.  Book Three will detail what ultimately becomes of them once they've been reunited with their now much older, yet otherwise identical siblings.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Twin Paradox.

 

Part I:  Collapse and Aftermath 

 

Chapter I:  The Great Collapse of 2028

 

“You’re on in five minutes Miss Redmann,” stated a very rushed studio producer as the reporter sat in a raised director’s chair.  It was about time for her makeup artist to finish dabbing facial powder to her foundation and send her into the production area for her weekly news show Worldweek, which was now in its ninth season on GBN Global.  Ratings had been stellar ever since she’d taken over the nearly decade-long news magazine at the start of the 2086 season.

Coraline “Cory” Redmann had certainly paid her dues as a cub reporter and then a local news anchor, working in small markets throughout Canada.  Her groundbreaking exposé, “The Great Collapse of 2028”, which had detailed the tragic fall of western economies back when she’d been an energetic young journalist, fresh out of college in 2076, had grabbed the attention of network executives when it first aired on Canadian Ultravision.  Soon she’d found herself being highly sought-after and the big-shots at GBN were calling her up to the “big leagues” of international broadcast journalism.  

She certainly had the pretty face, lovely curves, and tough street savvy to rise through the ranks!  Now at 33, her bright, peppy smile, hard-nosed interviewing style, and buttery, resonant studio voice had won her quite a following.  Her show’s popularity on Sunday nights following the last of the weekend sports broadcasts had made it a staple in North American homes.  

“The Great Collapse” was a five-part series she’d written and produced while working for a small outlet news station in Rochester, District of New York.  It became a media sensation when the independent broadcast of the series on the worldwide “macronet” stirred up immediate controversy.  The global government had long sought to suppress knowledge of this dark period in human history, and at the very least had directed public school systems and history book publishers to provide a more sanitized version of what took place during those terrible months following the overnight implosion of the American financial system.  Yet the stubborn young reporter strove to delve more deeply into the past and dig up long-buried details including eye-witness accounts from people who were mere children or young adults at the time.

In the summer of 2028, tensions among working class citizens in the former United States of America were at an all-time high.  Five decades of liberal policies had left (what was at the time) the world’s strongest consumer economy in shambles.  Living standards had been drastically reduced due to the gradual conversion of American labor into a primarily service-based economy.  The perception among many was that the once-great American middle class was disappearing completely, never to return to prominence.  

Radical change was necessary, yet the status quo continued to be maintained within the American legislature.  Nothing ever moved – creative solutions or suggestions would be swiped away like flies from a picnic table.  Even revolutionary concepts proposed by respected citizens that might gain traction among the electorate would be dissected, diluted, and discredited by that very same political machine whose ultimate survival depended upon maintaining the ongoing malaise.  Reformist candidates came and went.  The best and brightest came forward with their warnings and suggestions.  Everyone agreed with them too, in part if not completely.  

Yet the stagnancy of America’s two-party democratic system, which discouraged radical change at the risk of social turmoil, quashed any effort to correct the downward spiral.  Reform in government spending would mean loss of entitlements to the poor or elderly.  Belt-tightening by American businesses would mean a temporary reduction in spending power for those stably employed.  Thus, resistance to change was stubbornly entrenched.  No one wanted to give up their lofty over-leveraged lifestyles.

What’s more, any threat to the removal of entitlements from the “public trough” would doom any politician’s chances for reelection.  No one would yield.  Everyone fought for their little piece of turf - until the entire system teetered on the verge of systemic collapse.

All that was needed was a trigger; and with Americans’ demonstrated propensity for self-centeredness and greed it was quick in coming.  It didn’t take long and when it did, once again everyone – from all levels of educated society – could see it coming just like two speeding locomotives mistakenly routed onto the same track for a deadly collision.  

The culprit was Credit Default Swaps, and these complicated investment instruments (along with the market created for their distribution) was just as precariously devised as the absurdly over-grown mortgage-backed securities market had been back in the early 2000’s.  Money center banks holding trillions upon trillions in corporate debt; usually in the form of long-term corporate bonds, would issue insurance policies on those portfolios to large investors who would paid premiums to those same banks betting on the likelihood of their default.  

These “Derivatives” (or “Swaps” as they were called) were also tradable, therefore with each threat to a corporation’s financial fortunes, the value of the Swap could fluctuate and therefore be traded sometimes at a premium to its original purchase price.  It was nothing more than a high stakes game of options trading.  Betting on a crash that was all but inevitable and not long in coming.

The collapse, when it finally occurred, was epic in its scope.  International confidence in the American economy vaporized overnight, right along with billions in cash from the world’s money markets, literally freezing commerce in its tracks.  There was no bailout possible from the US Treasury this time.  Panic was widespread as investors fled like herds of terrified sheep and no amount of intervention on the part of securities exchanges could stop the outflow of capital.  

It was the last hurrah for the American financial system and proved to be an indictment of its three-part government system as well; which had maintained a careful equilibrium of checks and balances so effectively since the end of the Civil War, yet stymied much-needed reform at the risk of political backlash.  It all came tumbling to the ground like the Roman Empire centuries before; and when it did, the results were devastating … at every level of society.

On the day of the market crash, large institutional investors attempted to withdraw trillions in funds, causing the entire world economy to seize up like a human body experiencing a stroke.  The Fed became insolvent within days, and shockingly all the major banks failed within a year.  This was due to the threat of major corporations defaulting on their corporate debt, which prompted panicky investors in Credit Default Swaps to try and cash in their securities (essentially “file claims” on their policies).  

Thus when the stock market cratered in early 2028, and corporations began missing debt service payments during the months following, the value of these derivatives skyrocketed and there was once again a run on the world's money markets as major banks had no way to afford liquidating them - while desperate investors began clamoring to redeem these now illiquid securities.  For months the world’s economy languished in a state of suspended animation.  Those were very dark days indeed.  

It affected everyone.  Cars couldn't run because people couldn't buy gasoline without cold hard cash.  Debit and credit cards ceased to function; groceries could not be purchased without cash either.  Prices soared for food as well as basic necessities.  Paychecks couldn't be redeemed because banks had suddenly been forbidden by “The Fed” from permitting large withdrawals.  Only five hundred dollars per diem could be accomplished and to do so folks stood in line for hours waiting for a teller window to open up at the local bank.  

Companies closed, jobs were lost, and common people began to panic.  Worse, the government could not make its food stamp and social security payments.  Therefore, the millions living in poverty (supported by the nation’s swollen welfare system) fell into desperation.  There’s an old saying that there are only nine meals standing between mankind and anarchy; and the speed with which this 1906 prophecy from Alfred Henry Lewis came true was both swift and terrible when it suddenly came to pass. 

Stores would go out of business; then be looted by roving gangs or rioters.  Public insurrection followed.  Entire communities were compelled to band together and share resources with families now out of work and facing foreclosure.  Neighborhoods in the inner city became war zones as hoodlums raided homes and killed or brutalized anyone attempting to resist.  Suburbanites began forming local militias to defend themselves.  Anyone who had a working car or truck plus a gun to defend themselves was immensely valuable to their community – not to mention a target for attack.  This also became true of people who possessed large stores of food.  Therefore, some neighborhoods resorted to forming foraging parties to go looking for supplies of nonperishable food items in an effort to survive.  Domesticated pets often became that night’s dinner, or so the stories went.   

“Stray cats and dogs … those became a delicacy in our neighborhood,” said one withered old man interviewed by Cory in her exposé, “and when we ran out o’ them, we learned how to trap squirrels and rabbits instead … whatever Mom and Dad could figure out just to put meat on the table.” 

In the inner cities it was far worse.  Gangsters in urban areas would take over a grocery store and sell off its stock of packaged food to hungry city folk.  Out in the suburbs or smaller cities, local militias would seize a grocery outlet and ration its inventory based on dire need.  Inevitably, atrocities and exploitation occurred.  Women sold their bodies to feed their children.  Elderly people and those with infirmities perished by the thousands from an inability to acquire needed medications.  Illness became almost a death sentence as the government and local law enforcement sought in vain to reestablish order.   

In only a few months, hundreds of thousands died.  The U.S. military focused on major cities mainly, especially on the eastern seaboard.  However, things would never return to anything like normal because in the meantime the federal government was for all intents and purposes insolvent.  “Dollars” were valueless within a year and anything the government could do to try and reestablish some sort of stability to the economic system failed miserably.   

Meanwhile in other parts of the world, insurrections turned into full scale revolutions.  Weakened third world governments were overthrown or supplanted by regimes hostile to the west.  Islamic radicals rose-up in the Middle East, installing religious theocracies in place of liberal democracies which had been propped up for decades by financial support from the now bankrupted west.  Nations fell.  The entire world seemed to spiral into a new Dark Age. 

For her controversial report back in 2076, only 58 years following this terrible disaster, Cory Redmann interviewed people throughout both the former United States and Canada who’d seen it firsthand.  Mere children at the time, many recalled the horrors of those first few months when desperate families found themselves unable to feed their children, unable to travel, unable to work, and unable to get cash to buy groceries, gasoline, or pay their utilities.  

There were power outages, sometimes for days at a time, and people resorted to heating their homes with wood-burning stoves or fireplaces (often devising makeshift furnaces out of 55-gallon drums and cutting holes in their walls to attach a chimney).  That winter families moved out of bedrooms into the only room in the house that had heat.  Faulty craftsmanship often led to smoke inhalation or fires, which broke out quite commonly during those times.  Death was prevalent.  Entire families were sometimes killed accidentally then buried in their own backyard only to have their homes looted for food and firewood.  Nevertheless, acts of heroism and compassion were just as commonplace as cruelty and brutality.  North Americans banded together, when and wherever they could, in order to survive. 

Determined suburbanites rallied to defend their communities.  Bartering for goods and services replaced cash transactions.  Most stores and shopping centers were shuttered by that point anyway, yet citizens found other ways to make do.  Abandoned vehicles would occasionally be pushed or rolled into the street only to be turned onto their sides in order to form barricades to keep out raiders.  These roving bands of outlaws and thugs preyed upon defenseless neighborhoods and often relied upon stolen bicycles for transportation unless they could find a car with a little gas in the tank.   

Communities no longer able to count on law enforcement patrolled their own streets and hastily developed systems for citizen defense so to catch thieves, often lynching them from electrical poles as a warning to other would-be transgressors.  The crisis brought out both the best and worst in folks, driving desperate, hungry people to create whatever mayhem or ingenious solutions necessary just to make it through another long, cold night while their world disintegrated around them.   

Police were both ineffective and largely unavailable during that bitterly cold winter.  Gasoline could not be shipped without providing armed escorts because gangs of raiders were attacking tank trucks in an effort to capture fuel supplies for the black market.  Police cruisers could no longer acquire fuel, and besides, police officers employed by cities and towns felt compelled to take their firearms and return to their homes to protect their families.  The National Guard weren’t much help either.  Nor was the army. 

As Cory learned from survivors, the government prioritized military assets for quelling urban unrest, seeking to contain the mean streets of American cities before venturing into the countryside to reestablish order.  But it was more deadly and desperate than simply patrolling city thoroughfares and displaying force in an effort to discourage looting.  No, the vaunted U.S. military was rapidly embroiled in a battle against its very own urban citizenry - whom the military felt compelled to cordon off inside their own communities until unrest and rioting had finally died down … sentencing those desperate souls within urban areas to misery and death unless they could somehow find a way to escape before military units completed their encirclement.  It was brutal but effective.  Once a city was deemed a “quarantined area”, as one interviewee described it, there was no way out.   

“You either joined up with the nearest gang and sought their protection,” as one haggard old man said in his interview, “or boarded up inside each night and prayed for morning.”  He then went on to describe in graphic detail venturing out in the early morning with his father, stepping over dead bodies in the street to forage for food. 

“Even the comin’ of springtime ‘n warmer temperatures didn’t make things any better,” he went on to say.  “Epidemic came next.  Hundreds of thousands perished.  Dead folks ever-where.  Everywhere you looked.  I’m an old man now … still have nightmares about it.” 

They died from outbreaks of cryptosporidium, a parasitic disease that causes dehydration, fever, stomach cramps, and diarrhea.  Millions fell ill from contaminated water fed from abandoned treatment plants; and when folks began dying, people soon began hoarding bottled water, then trading it for goods and services just like currency.  In major cities which had to be quarantined due to the outbreak, this ironically became yet another way to restore order as those foolish enough to consume tap water months after the contaminations occurred, succumbed to the disease and either died or became bedridden.  Cities were like ghost towns, post-apocalyptic in many ways, leaving them paralyzed so that military units could finally enter and suppress the last of the raider bands who controlled the streets. 

Only by June of the following year did the worst of the disaster seem to be subsiding.  The military were finally able to leave major urban areas and establish order out in the suburbs and small towns.  Estimates of the dead and permanently maimed were never released by the government of course, but most who’d survived would claim years later, as Cory found, that the numbers were likely over a million people wiped out by the months-long debacle.  And when it all came to an end - when order was finally restored - what was left of the once-great nation called the United States slowly began to crawl out of its months-long nightmare … into a world that no longer viewed it as influential, or for that matter relevant.   

Indeed, 2028 would always be remembered as the year the world’s mightiest democracy finally fell.  The Glory Days of the old “USA” had come to an end.

This concludes tonight's podcast of Twin Paradox Book One, Part One, Chapter One:  The Great Collapse of 2028.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Watch for episode two which I'll be posting very soon.  

By the way, I wrote Twin Paradox books one, two, and three, four years ago under the pseudonym Purple Hazel and it is still available for purchase on Amazon.  You can download and read all three books if you like; or if you prefer, simply listen in as I read them in their entirety; all sixty chapters.  Each week I'll be posting a new episode with a brand new chapter from this epic SciFi trilogy.  

Also, and don't forget, my latest full-length novel ... Deathwalker Colony ... is available in E-book format and can be downloaded today on Amazon.com.

I'm King Everett Medlin.  Thanks for tuning in.

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