There won't be any revelations yet - not dreaming of them. This time the dream was of a sci-fi nature.
I was a guest on an Old Believer (sic!) planet of strict morals.
The rule of the Old Believers leads to disastrous results. The harsh theocratic regime allows for very few contacts with surrounding worlds - only out of necessity. As a result, the small population suffers from hereditary diseases caused by a lack of genetic exchange with the population of other planets. Due to the ban on high-tech, people do not have normal medical care, and most illnesses are not treated at all, except for useless prayers. Any deviations from the norm are forbidden, as are non-church works of art: music, books, and so on. Due to attempts to "destroy consumer society" , "live in harmony with nature" and "not yield to demonic temptations" like TV and computers, the overwhelming majority of the population lives in hard labor and poverty, mostly engaged in agriculture. The maximum level of technology allowed for use - primitive tractors and harvesters without electronics. But even those are unavailable to anyone, since they are imported in tiny quantities from other worlds, and therefore cost insane amounts of money, which a planet where high-tech manufacturing and tourism are forbidden simply doesn't have.
So, bearded priests, fly agarics and herbs instead of medicine, hypocritical morals. A nasty little place, needless to say. But a group of very young guys manages in deep secrecy to assemble a spaceship, in order to get as far away as possible from the obnoxious moralists. I accidentally happen to be in the loop about what's going on, but I don't believe that the young rebels will manage to pull off their scheme. I myself usually hang out with a young girl holding a fairly high post as an economic administrator. She is plain and homely-looking, of average height, skinny, and with a short haircut. She was allowed to have short hair as an exception for her flawless behavior and managerial talents. The girl is usually sad and and rarely smiles, since she possesses high intelligence and understands that her planet is rotting away. Knowing perfectly well what is happening in her hometown, she guesses that her younger brothers and friends are trying to leave the motherland, piecing together something like a small courier sloop from spare parts. Overall, she is loyal to the regime, but gradually becomes disillusioned with it. In the end she helps the conspirators do what would have been impossible without her support - finish building the ship, using her position to get the necessary equipment. By the time I show up on the planet, the ship is theoretically ready for departure. But no one from the secret circle knows how possible it is in practice, because no one possesses the necessary knowledge and piloting skills.
The conspirators drag their feet, risking exposure, they lack the resolve to cut all ties and risk their lives for a nebulous future. Perhaps they didn't even plan to leave the planet in reality, and their plan is merely a utopian protest against the obnoxious religious dictatorship. But the tough and practical administrator girl made possible what for them was an unattainable dream - finishing the ship. And dreams made reality can be more dangerous than any other threats.
It all ends unexpectedly - the planet is attacked from orbit by Orthodox religious fanatics, using wide-area plasma bombs. The young rebels, under the pressure of circumstances, decide to leave their homeland, for there are only a few hours left until the destruction of all life on the surface. I try to persuade the girl, to whom I've already managed to grow attached, to fly with us. Leaving the planet via the official spaceport is not possible - even if we get there, it will surely be destroyed by one of the first strikes. And I have a good idea of what awaits everyone who stays behind. With great difficulty, almost by force, I manage to drag her onto the ship. In the few hours we still have at our disposal, we manage to prepare it for departure. One problem remains - the pilot. None of us knows how to fly a spaceship in manual mode. By a stroke of luck, the vessel, consisting of a multitude of disparate parts (those that could be procured) has a modern navigational computer. The NavCom possesses a direct cyber-interface, allowing people possessing one to establish direct contact with the machine, which significantly facilitates and simplifies the control of complex processes. The cyber-interface is declared by the local Church to be the greatest Evil after cloning, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence, and therefore the poor conspirators recoil from me in horror when I plug a jack into a concealed socket behind my ear. Had its existence become known to the local authorities, I would have been executed on the spot - without trial or investigation.
Unnoticed, we take off and successfully leave the atmosphere. The attacking forces, in their contempt for the "primitive" and "inferior" faith, cannot even imagine rebels going against the regime, nor the existence of any other spaceships besides the few official ones. And the planet itself has no weapons capable of shooting down a departing spaceship, for that would require the use of complex electronics and computers.
A few dozen minutes after our departure, the planet's surface is covered with a uniform layer of raging fire. Even the ruling elite has no chance to survive - only deep rock mineshafts would have provided shelter from the distributed plasma explosions, scorching the surface of the planet to a depth of dozens of meters. But the agrarian-pastoral system was not planning to wage planetary-scale warfare. As a result, the entire population was wiped out, and there were no citizens beyond its borders.
Out of an entire civilization, only six men and one woman survived - the traitors of their planet. On a flimsy shell with a barely functioning life support system, they will make it to the nearest station, where they will become refugees without citizenship or property, doomed to forever remember their homeland drowning in fire.
Dream
2006-05-13