Whose life is the most important?

Who should live or die?

We have grown up with the thought that we are all important, and I am still talking about my culture, I don’t know enough about other cultures to make sweeping statements. However, there are rumours of double standards, even here in our so called civilization there is a debate about whether everybody has the same rights to life or choices in their own care.

There are rumours of some elderly and/or disabled, not being given the same treatment in hospital as the young and abled. Arguments on the very premature and even the right of having children. Choices being made, without our consent, on the rights which  individuals / society have over our lives. I believe the consensus would be, that we are all entitled to live. This idea of the equality of all persons is relatively new in our history and has been hard fought for. It flourishes now in this land in a climate of certainty and social cohesion.

But in a climate of uncertainty and anarchy, what then? In the Sefuty Chronicles what would those settlements decide when it comes to making choices of food distribution. Back to the basics of survival.

If food is limited, should people who cannot, or will not, pull their weight in the manner of work, be looked after by others. The old, infirm,or very young, for instance?

Are all children wanted, should population controls be put in place, a limitation too how many or when they are allowed to be born?

If food is limited who should receive rations? Are women as bearers of children and so the future, worth more than men with their strength to provide protection and work the land?

Just how many children are needed to keep a population stable, when each year' rates harvest , illness and accident rate is uncertain?

How many of the old with the knowledge and skills are needed to pass on valuable information?

There comes a point in this scenario I set up in The Sefuty Chronicles, when some kind of population control is needed. I had many isolated settlements, no interaction with others, closed societies abandoned by any kind of central government. But all with a history and culture of modernity behind them. How in the extremities of survival would they choose?

How would they divide, first the food still in homes and shops, second what they can provide for themselves?

 To the men because they need the muscle power, 

to the women because they need to be healthy to nurse the children, 

 OR

to the children for their successful growth?

I remember, decades ago in the 60s, when TV showed pictures of a famine for the first time, hundreds of bone thin refugees, having made their way to a camp for help. Pictures of starving babies being lovingly cared for. An angry refugee male arguing that it was madness to feed the babies, the young adults needed the food, what use to a dying society to have well fed babies? What use was a baby, what could they do? Nothing, until years had passed. It was shocking to hear yet even then in my youth I could understand his logic and anger I cared for children, it was my chosen career for decades and what he said was against every fibre of my being, but I could understand.

Some societies in a famine will abandon the child (anathema to us) but, it does actually make sense, if you keep adult men and women alive more babies can be conceived when the famine has passed. If you keep children alive and let the adults die the baby on its own won’t survive. This chicken and the egg again. Other societies have many children, as an insurance against old age and infirmity, someone always there to help you stay alive.

So decisions about food divisions and population control would be be needed in my dystopian world. It is not sensible to trust to luck against natural disasters. 

Children apart, what happens to the sick, injured and old. What worth do they have? If the sick cannot work or contribute to survival are they abandoned/killed - if an injury is not so great, does everyone else carry them until they are back working alongside again? The old, are they useless mouths,a repository of knowledge and advice or cherished parents? Do our modern ethics, so hard won over the centuries, or our ancient religious beliefs, get used as our guides, or would they be abandoned to the even older instincts for self survival.

I thought long and hard about these choices, came up with a few variations for different communities. Impossible to know how any of us would react to supreme extended disaster We all hope we would maintain our moral standards.

Would we?

Could we?

How would you decide?

Is it Future History?: I need a genre

 Editing The Ancestor’s Tale, the fourth in the series is a little late, you may think, for me still to be wondering what genre The Sefuty Chronicles should be slotted in. I myself have no care - I dislike labels with a vengeance but I do realise that for many folk this categorisation is essential. So my search has been continuing off and on. I lost last year for any kind of sensible work therefore picked up the research this year and maybe just maybe I have discovered where Ellen and her companions belong. At last.

Of course I maybe wrong.

I had wandered through dystopia and apocalyptic and reluctantly decided they were not quite right, had been rubbished when suggesting romance or historical. There are further sub division I have discovered, including soft sci-fi. This interested me as 'anthropological' and' social' sci fi was included, the feminist side of it I discarded immediately as in my world women are still having babies(they do fight sometimes) and men are still fighting( they are nice people as well) - The Chronicles are a story based on reality. But society, anthropology? yes, now I was creeping closer. The Chronicles are very much about how societies manage their affairs, cope with the ever present dangers of life. This didn’t though completely explain the books. I kept these new genres to one side for the moment and continued wandering through layers and layers of Wikapedia- I’m afraid none of my books seem to bother with these genre labels - Wikapedia has a great deal to say on the matter of genres , many a happy hour can be spent exploring.

Where has this exploration led me? I went back to the ‘topians. The list of authors published under this genre included many I had enjoyed in the past. Had I been influenced by such as Huxley, Orwell, Wyndham, Ballard and Atwood? My world is certainly difficult to survive in, food security is poor, physical security the same. I always call The Sefuty Chronicles hopeful dystopia - there is no sub division for that!

However a newish sub division has crept in, ‘neutropia’ = a world which is neither terrible nor perfect , such as Brave New World. Well not a bad book to stand alongside - I kid, I kid:) Another sub division is ‘eco-dystopia’, a dystopian world caused by some ecological disaster rather than political, war etc.

I could live with either, but I am still thinking that ‘topia isn’t really the full picture, what of the history? the romance?

Further investigation just this month has uncovered a few more possibilities. There is a sub genre called Future History - now there a concept to juggle with. Wikepedia is at pains to point out that if one writes in this genre there is a possibility the story will end up as Alternative History if a different reality overtakes. I personally (though I don’t expect to be alive in 2100s) wouldn’t be at all displeased to find my doomsday scenario turned out to be Alternative History, after all I would be alongside George Orwell. 

I rather fancy Future History for my Chronicles, after all they are not only set in 2160s looking back at the events of 2111, they are also set in the Archives; the relevant source materials are letters, interviews and diary extracts, and the events being examined are being written up as History publications. Yay, Yay, - knew it was historical:)

So is it a Future History, eco-dystopian with a love story or two weaving their way through? I suppose I could drop the romance description and stick to calling it a love story, after all it is love in some form or other which drives the tales. Love between man and woman but also love for children, country, between soldiers, between friends.I cannot drop the love

Is eco-dystopian a good description, well eco-neutropia would be better, as I have said there is a great deal of hope and optimism mixed with the dreadful life. I’m not sure any of the other  ‘topians really capture it.

Then I found an even shorter sub divion Cl-fi(c) = climate change related fiction:)I like this a lot, not only does it draws away from science fiction and dystopia's, the label does not pin a tale down to being Apocalyptic - climate change might not be sudden, not always bad for everyone. Cl-fi may be a recent name but of course it is not new fiction, Ballard was writing about climate change before the issue had a name(early 60s). Further reading of cli-fi and future history and neutropia is needed and I will report in the future. However for the moment I am happy with these labels.