War. Civil War. Murder. Torture. Exploitation. Oppression and suppression. And always lies, lies, lies. Always in the name of progress, and equality and development and democracy.
The main ideology all over Shikasta was now variations on this theme of economic development, justice, equality, democracy.
Not for the first time in the miserable story of this terrible century, this particular ideology - economic justice, equality, democracy, and the rest - took power at a time when the economy of an area was at its most disrupted: the Northwest fringes became dominated by governments "of the left," which presided over a descent into chaos and misery.
The formerly exploited areas of the world delighted in this fall of their former persecutors, their tormentors - the race that had enslaved them, enserfed them, stolen from them, above all, despised them because of their skin colour and destroyed their indigenous cultures now at last beginning to be understood and valued... but too late, for they had been destroyed by the white race and its technologies.
There was no one to rescue the Northwest fringes, in the grip of grindingly repetitive, dogmatic Dictatorships, all unable to solve the problems they had inherited - the worst and chief one being that the empires that had brought wealth had not only collapsed, leaving them in a vacuum, but had left behind false and unreal ideas of what they were, their importance in the global scale. Revenge played its part, not an inconsiderable part, in what was happening.
Chaos ruled. Chaos economic, mental, spiritual - I use this word in its exact, Canopean sense - ruled while the propaganda roared and blared from loudspeaker, radio, television.
The time of the epidemics and diseases, the time of famine and mass deaths had come.
On the main landmass two great Powers were in mortal combat. The Dictatorship that had come into being at the end of World War I, in the centre, and the Dictatorship that had taken hold of the eastern areas now drew into their conflict most of Shikasta, directly or indirectly. The younger Dictatorship was stronger. The older one was already in decline, its empire fraying away, its populations more and more in revolt or sullen, its ruling class increasingly remote from its people - processes of growth and decay that had in the past taken a couple of centuries now were accomplished in a few decades. This Dictatorship was not able to withstand the advance of the eastern Dictatorship whose populations were bursting its boundaries. These masses overran a good part of the older Dictatorship, and then overran, too, the Northwest fringes, in the name of a superior ideology - though in fact this was but a version of the predominating ideology of the Northwest fringes. The new masters were clever, adroit, intelligent; they foresaw for themselves the dominance of all the main landmass of Shikasta, and the continuance of that dominance.
But meanwhile the armaments piled up, up, up...
The war began in error. A mechanism went wrong, and major cities were blasted into death-giving dusts. That something of this kind was bound to happen had been plentifully forecast by technicians of all countries... but the Shammat influences were too strong.
In a short time, nearly the whole of the northern hemisphere was in ruins. Very different, these, from the ruins of the second war, cities which were rapidly rebuilt. No, these ruins were uninhabitable, the earth around them poisoned.
Weapons that had been kept secret now filled the skies, and the dying survivors, staggering and weeping and vomiting in their ruins, lifted their eyes to watch titanic battles being fought, and with their last breaths muttered of "Gods" and "Devils" and "Angels" and "Hell."
Underground were shelters, sealed against radiation, poisons, chemical influences, deadly sound impulses, death rays. They had been built for the ruling classes. In these a few did survive.
In remote areas, islands, places sheltered by chance, a few people survived.
The populations of all the southern continents and islands were also affected by pestilence, by radiations, by soil and water and contamination, and were much reduced.
Within a couple of decades, of the billions upon billions of Shikasta perhaps 1 percent remained. The substance-of-we-feeling, previously shared among these multitudes, was now enough to sustain, and keep them all sweet, and whole, and healthy.
The inhabitants of Shikasta, restored to themselves, looked about, could not believe what they saw - and wondered why they had been mad.
Report by Emissaries TAUFIQ, NASAR, and RAWSTI, MEMBERS of the SPECIAL INVESTIGATORY COMMISSION into the STATE of SHIKASTA, PENULTIMATE TIME.
SUMMARY.
[This was the first mission sent to the planet from Canopus since Johor's visit at the Time of the Catastrophe.]
1 We have thoroughly surveyed the northern hemisphere, and have had meetings with the representatives of Sirius, both those stationed here, and visiting. We have also encountered Shammat's agents, without their knowledge.
2 We confirm reports by our visiting and indigenous agents that there is an unexpected development. All over the northern hemisphere are a race of "little people," which is how they are referred to everywhere. Blood, tissue, and bone tests suggested Sirian origin, and Sirian representatives confirmed they originated from experiments by Sirius as far back as the epoch of Johor's visit at the Time of the Malalignment. A great part of the northern hemisphere has been covered by ice. This process has locked up more of the Shikastan waters, and water levels have sunk, and dry land has appeared where none was, making bridges between landmasses and islands, facilitating the movement of these "little people" everywhere. Sirius confirms their extensive presence on the two major southern continents and the smaller southern continent. These "little people" can be no more than a span in height, and at their tallest are not more than four spans. They are of various types, ranging from squat, heavy, and physically very powerful to slight, exquisite, and beautiful even by Canopean standards. The former extreme tends to dwell underground in caves, caverns, and subterranean places of all kinds, sometimes very far beneath ground, to the extent they may seldom or never see the surface at all. They are skilled in mining, smelting, surveying. They produce and use iron, copper, bronze, gold, silver. The more delicate types live in and with vegetation, understanding the uses of plants, or are adapted to water and its properties, or are creatures of fire. All shun the larger inhabitants of Shikasta to the point that in some parts they are already the stuff of myth and legend. But in some places a link has been established and maintained, even to the extent of exchange of information and commodities. These races have in our opinion little or no evolutionary potential. They dwindle in size and numbers and most have already transferred themselves - not to Zone Six, where they are not at home, but to Zones One and Two.
3 Because of the pressures of the polar ice masses so far south, there have been extensive movements of the two stocks we are interested in. The Giants, established mainly in the mountainous and plateau areas of the main landmass, spread out towards the east, and emigrated to the Isolated Northern Continent in large numbers, over the new ice bridges. There they flourish. They are now two-thirds of their former height. They live about two thousand years. Their life-spans and their stature both lessen fast.
The Natives, who were settled farther south and farther north than the Giants, have crowded in on areas the Giants left empty or sparsely settled and have also emigrated southwards everywhere, even to the extent of establishing themselves over the northern areas of Southern Continent I. They, too, are losing height, and are two-thirds of what they were in Johor's time. They live about eight hundred years. As with the Giants, their life-span and stature dwindle rapidly.
4 There is now mating between these two races, which produces a physically improved type, sturdy, healthy, but above all adaptable, able to withstand extremes of climate, to sustain themselves on any diet and to fit themselves rapidly to sudden and drastic changes. For instance, they are living adequately on the very edges of the ice cap. Their mentalities are not better than either the Giant or the Native stocks, but are ingenious and - again - very adaptable, within the limits, of course, imposed by the limited ingestion of SOWF by the planet.