a nuclear back to the future

The Enterprise is returning from delivering supplies to a sector D scientific outpost.

We have received news from the Federation Information Center with a message from Earth. This means civilization on that planet has returned to a level that uses electricity and advanced communications.

Our starship is now moving at warp speed toward that obscure part of the Milky Way where colonists left centuries ago to settle the far corners of the universe.

Earth and its inhabitants were fairly advanced until about a thousand years ago when their leading civilization went into a dark age. Technology regressed while ignorance and superstition prevailed.

Temperatures increased slightly. Misunderstanding and fear spread to key institutions. Governments for some curious reason had the power to dictate energy policy, quite unlike our voluntary associations.

Earth’s political elites leaped at the chance to increase their power over the people. Conventional sources of energy were destroyed while the accumulated wealth of generations was exhausted on impractical and expensive sources of energy.

Earth’s message is coming through. It says: We wish to contact other beings intelligent enough not to have central authority over energy.

Ah, it seems our distant cousins on Earth may have learned their lesson.

Jim Clarkson, www.rsmenergy.com