Note: This is written with Arik.
Still holding her mobile device, Moro stands up and shows an image to Hikaru. "We finally have a design for the Charlton flag."
"Charlton finally has a flag?" Hikaru does not think the design is all that thrilling but she's glad that Charlton finally has a flag.
"I imagine we were the but of jokes in the international community for being the only nation without a flag." Moro sits back down and shows the image to Jeanette.
Jeanette looks at the image. "The Star of David and the cross. You're making a bold statement. This begs the question of where does Charlton stand on freedom of religion?"
"There is no state church as stated in our constitution. Charlton has a limited form of freedom of religion. No satanic worship, no hate speeches and no distribution of hate material. A marriage is defined as one man and one woman. Otherwise a person is free to practice what they want to practice. This is the main reason why I'm glad Charlton is such a tiny nation: if a person does not like our laws they can hop into their car and be in the United States in less than five minutes."
"I have a couple of questions. The first question is for the sake of clarification. You don't allow satanic worship; you don't allow the promotion of hatred either." Technically Jeanette made a statement instead of asking a question.
"A law can be enforced without hatred."
"That leads to my second question. How are the laws of your nation enforced?"
"Judges must be impartial. To be impartial, Charlton citizens elect the judges."
"I believe I know the answer to my next question. Who writes these laws?"
"We built Charlton. It's our nation. That gives us the right to write our own laws. To be certain everything was done legally we established and built our little walled nation before America was discovered. If there is a complaint logged against us the only people who have a leg to stand on are the Native Americans."
"Fernando would argue that Charlton is in violation of intergalactic law."
"There is no space council. I don't know why it exists in the time line Fernando talked about and not in this one. Our short-range sensors are not worth a dime . . . that's a slight exaggeration. However our long range sensors are able to pick up the activity Fernando described. There's nothing. Fernando talks about building colonies on other planets and no one is allowed here? Seriously? Why Fernando wants to build colonies on other planets is beyond me. Think about it. If building colonies on other planets is such a great idea, why is everyone coming here?"
"What type of government does Charlton have?"
"It's a constitutional monarchy. Regarding a different subject, there's something I want to show you." Moro shows Jeanette an image of a train. It has three sections and has the drag coefficient of a high speed train. "Though it has the drag coefficient of a high speed train, it's designed for frequent stops, not high speed. It uses a standard gauge rail and runs on a zero point module, the same power source of our ships. Because it runs on a zero point module, we needed to increase safety and security. These trains are air tight. Safety and security systems include a dome shield, artificial gravity, inertial dampeners, sensors, a crash avoidance system, lockout device and a quarantine lockdown system just to name a few. Some systems work best if the train is no more than three sections. The middle section is where we have the power source and controls for all of safety and security systems. For security reasons only authorized personnel are allowed in the middle section and that is enforced with a force field. We have a person in the middle section, trained to handle a number of emergency situations, manning the safety and security systems. This is in addition to the train operator. The middle section has seats for off duty personnel. Those seats can be easily removed to transport small amounts of cargo. The passengers are in the front and back sections. As with other all-electric trains, train operator controls are on both ends of the train. The factory to build them has to be in Charlton to ensure security. We've been using them a while on the shorter lines and they work great; they are designed to run on a
double-track railway. The next time the time line is altered, we will replace the light rail trains with these."
"What do you mean by replacing the light rail trains?" Jeanette asks.
"Working with large settlements outside of Texas, we've been connecting DART and Huston Metro light rail lines with light rail systems in Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Salt Lake City. And we're expanding to places like Calgary."
"That's why you're interested in Canada. You wanted to expand rail roads into Canada."
"That's correct. Of course we've been building train stations in every town, community, important intersections or anyplace people get off and on the train. Expanding light rail systems is the reason we've been working on the infrastructure outside of Texas. Light rail systems need power grids. Highways are needed to fix power grids, build and operate power plants and expand rail lines. Fernando has been complaining about us fixing the infrastructure outside of Texas. The next time we alter the time line, we'll undo all that."
"Even if you replace the light rail trains with the new trains, you'd still be fixing the infrastructure outside of Texas." Jeanette points out.
"No we won't. The next time we alter the time line we'll go back to the 1800s and start building double track railways with the approval of federal, state and local governments of course. This way the only maintaining we will be doing outside of Texas is to our own railroads. Fernando has also complained that we didn't even attempt to stop the meteor from ending up in the Atlantic. We didn't have a plan then. We do now. What the world would be like after you finish writing in your journal tonight would be pure speculation at this point. After this, we would have done all we think we could have done."
"What about World War III and the two and a half billion casualties?"
"We could not stop World War III. We were able to prevent it from going nuclear by disabling every nuclear bomb. We also commandeered every warship and warplane involved. Do you know of anyone in the market for a low mileage aircraft carrier?"
"That must have hurt." Jeanette clarifies what she meant. "I mean that have been painful for the nations that had a navy."
"We could not commandeer every ground vehicle, we had to be selective. With World War III reduced to a ground war, the casualty count dropped down to seventeen million."
"What else happened to cause this apocalypse and what could have been done to stop it?"
"Do you know how to stop an economic collapse?"
"A group of people can be helped in a situation like that. Otherwise, no."
"Do you know how to stop rioters from burning cities?"
"No. What else happened?"
"That's it." Moro answers.
"All of this was caused by a war, a meteor in the Atlantic, an economic collapse and rioters burning cities?" Jeanette asks.
"Yes." Moro answers.
"What triggered the riots?"
"The U.S. government suddenly halted all welfare checks."
Note: To stop the Texas Spirits from making more fixes, Fernando needs to talk to Moro before Jeanette finishes her journal entry tonight.
Edit: How many people would die if the Texas Spirits reduced World War III to a ground war is purely speculative. I decided to base the count on World War I, seventeen million casualties, hence the change.
Jeanette Isabelle and Arik
Pages: 
After Chaos (Read 185272 times)
