Page 66 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Operation KNEECAP

need to decorate your conceit with a lot of hardware and current
jargon from electronics and space exploration. That will get the kids
excited—and their elders. Once you go beyond the cutting edge, it
doesn’t matter how sharp your knife really is, as long as the blade is
shiny when seen dimly through the haze of suspended disbelief. But
you said you had too much material here for one story: you may
want to end it with KNEECAP backfiring, but the earlier elements
of that meeting and the quest for their missing notes are what
would keep me hooked on the story.”
The nail in the coffin was provided by Fred Feghootsky, always
in the spotlight as chairperson and the longest-running unsuccessful
writer in the Daemons.
“I have to tell you folks that I had a very similar idea, and gave it
up, specifically because it was too unremittingly grim. In my story,
the world was almost totally populated by the Tippers, who
cynically and short-sightedly push the planet toward irreversible
climate or chemical change, and the Breeders, whose unremitting
demand for more stuff serves the Tippers’ greed and stupidity. I
further divided the environment into the heliosphere, source of free
non-polluting energy, and the combustisphere: vegetation above
ground that can burn and fossil fuels below. The coal, oil and gas
are exploited by Tippers unable to relax their death grip on the
controls of an industry itself too deeply embedded in the global
economy to be slowed down. So, I too, saw the only way out was to
sabotage and permanently cripple the whole thing, all at once—
again, by a cabal, and without starting a nuclear holocaust. The
method has already been demonstrated by government agencies
using cyberwarfare: software viruses taking down heavy equipment
and huge facilities. And it really could be done! I’m sure of it! But I
knew the story looked too much like a fairy tale requiring a magic
sword to slay the dragon. That is all I have to say about it.”

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