James walks up to Miranda's front door and rings the bell. A frame wait for her to open the door whilst he's looking around. Then she opens the door looking really good.

James: Wotcha.

Miranda (simultaneously and with a big beam): Hiya.

Miranda: How you doing?

James: Oh you know. Hanging tough.

Miranda: Dyou want to come in and order a bus?

James: Er, well. I've got this car (pointing at the small vehicle a couple of metres away from them on the road.)

Miranda: For just the two of us? (He nods.) Oh you sweetie. I'll not impose the ordeal of being scrutinized by my mates just yet then. (Turns 'round and shouts) See ya.

Girlies (stiffled): See ya.

They walk out to the car.

Miranda: I haven't been in a private car for ages.

James: OK Puter.

The door to the car opens, they walk inside and sit in large comfy seats facing eachother.

Miranda: God this is ace. It must've cost you a fortune though.

James: Da, I wouldn't worry about that - I charged it to you.

Miranda laughs.

James: Where are we going then?

Miranda: Er, I don't really know. Shall we start going into town and make out minds up on the way?

James: Sounds good. Puter?

A screen somewhere within James's eyeshot prints up 'Cool.' The car starts to move out into the road and travels (about 30 mph) into town.

Miranda: Well where do you normally go?

James: We normally hit the Arms.

Miranda (remembering): Oh yeah!

James: But I seriously wouldn't advise it. Hey what about Crusts?

Miranda: The place with all the armchairs?

James: Yeah, why not.

Miranda: Kay.

James: Kickin'.

Frame of embarrassing silence (maybe two if you want to be really embarrassing!)

James: I saw your article on the news. At least I think it was yours.

Miranda: Expect to have me reporting did you: I'm pretty junior there really, that's my most important work to date. They made me alternative representative because they don't really place much importance on it! Well, that's not really true I know quite a bit about alternatives, my sister went alternative and left home when she was 19, I think I was 16 then. I go up and stay with her quite a lot. When I started to get more than just a day a week off school to go and work they gave me a special responsibility for alternatives. We were the first but other agencies have got representatives now you know.

James: Yeah? There's been a real run on alternatives recently hasn't there.

Miranda: Yeah. I suppose when our society really got going, almost everyone was excited by it. But now it's 'The System' I suppose people like to rebel against it.

James: Yeah. What's going to happen about Gensim 'n that then.

Miranda: Probably not much. Well, I think that their land allocation are going to look into trying to keep better tabs on where alternatives are. But you know, being alternative means that you don't want everyone to know everything about you. The last thing you want is someone spying on you to see where you're living. But it's still ridiculous that no one official knew that there was a house there.

James: Yeah.

Frame wait.

Miranda: Have you applied for Progen?

James: Nah, I didn't fancy it really. Galavanting off to colonise new planets. Spending your whole life partying, that's no way to carry on is it? You can't go round life enjoying yourself!

Miranda (with a certain amount (sorry no SI units) of disbelif): What?

James: Oh, alright then. Yes. Yeah, me and everyone else in the world bar three. You one of them?

Miranda: Not me. Nah, I love the idea of being one of the chosen few. It's sort of like a master race. Take the world's most intelligent and healthy people, and force them to interbreed. You'll get to know everyone on the whole of the ship in the ten years getting to Nalengua. You'll know all the gossip in the whole of your universe.

Miranda: I don't expect to be chosen though really, not with all the odds stacked up against you like that.

James: Someone's got to be chosen, I don't see why anyone else should be chosen over me, so why not?

Miranda: I wish I could be as confident as that.

James: Oh not another woman always putting herself down?

Miranda: Well you know? What if you did get picked though. You'd have to leave everything you've ever known for good. I don't think I could handle that.

James: Lots of people move a couple of thousand miles away, it must be pretty similar musunt it? I suppose they've always got the option to come back though. It's not really the same when you're up against the laws of Physics.

Oh, and by the way they've arrived at Crusts now, and during the course of the next couple of sentances they: get out of the car; go up to the bar; go and sit down in a snug little corner. Just I thought I'd tell you now like so I don't disrupt the flow. Right?

Miranda: That's another thing. Imagine being the first people to actually travel in time significantly. After ten years on Progen they'll be at Nalengua 300 light years away, and the Earth will be 300 years older.

James: Yeah, well they're going to be travelling at as good as c for most of the time, so they'll hardly age while they're travelling. You must have done some Physics at school? What's really bloody odd is lover's limit.

Miranda: Yeah, dyou understand that?

James: Nah, not really. I prooved it mathematically at school, but I don't think anyone has got a real concept of it. What do ya want then?

Miranda: Milk please.

James: Two pints of milk please.

James coldly to authorize payment: Puter.

Miranda: Yeah, Maybe not. I certainly don't.

Both laugh a bit.

James: It'd be nice to know all the real details about Progen wouldn't it?

Miranda: There's a lecture you know. Yeah, I think it's in Bourn parish church. 'The most exciting time in History' or something.

James: No?

Miranda: Yeah. Next month. I'm pretty sure I saw it somewhere.

James: Shall we go? Or do you want to see how it goes tonight before you commit to a second date!

James immediately starts to go a bit red.

Miranda: Well I was hopeing to see you again before next month.

This does nothing for the colour of James's face. Take a frame pause why don't you?

Miranda: Come on then. You know all about my job, what about what you do then eh?

James: Well I'm a technical geezer for Medialock. What a cracking name eh? Really makes you want to trust them with almost all your belongings, sounds so safe. Anyway, I'm one of the team that sort out hardware/software problems.

Miranda: Yeah? I've never had much of a clue about hardware really.

James: Well, most of what we call hardware isn't really hardware. You start of with a big block of hardware that you can configure to be whatever you want really. You buy in other peoples designs for, say a screen interface, and all you get is a whole load of ones and noughts. In general you get your processors, chuck whatever peripherals you like on them and blow your circuit. Sometimes you need some analogue stuff, but you make it digital as soon as poss really.

Miranda: That sounds really interesting.

James: God yeah, it's ace. I'd really like to do some design work though. There's not much chance for it though. Almost everything's already been designed and all we have to do is to make small alterations to stuff. It gets you thinking sometimes. That's pretty good fun.

Miranda: Yeah, it must be like that when you get to make suggestions for vetoes at our place.

James: That must be great. So much power.

Miranda: Well you only get that power if people respect you. If you start up a vendetta against a company or something, and people don't think it's justified, then no one takes any notice of your suggestions and you become a bit of a lame duck. Mind you, I've got a few years yet until I start getting onto veto committees.

James: It's all so grey, like some people think a company only gives money to schools that don't do enough physical activity so they don't buy products from that company, but other people think it's not that important to have so much sport, so they deliberately buy from them. It all evens itself out really doesn't it.

Miranda: Yeah, mostly it does, but when something's so important that most people think it should be addressed, sales dramatically fall and the company almost always springs into action. Mind you that doesn't happen as much as it used to though.

James: What new vetoes have you got coming up then?

Miranda: Hard to say. There's some more stuff on the GIT conglom not contributing enough to education. The public's starting to get a grip onto that one now. That was a scoop to start off with for us you know. They'll react soon. It must be getting a bit too hot for them now.

James: Oh dear. I had some Space dust today. That's GIT isn't it.

Miranda: Exploding sweets & Co's GIT alright. Naughty boy.

James: I can't do without me Space dust though, I'd die. I don't take any of their buses now though.

Miranda: Well, we'll let you off then. Just this once mind. You don't really like that Space dust do you?

James: Me and Dill've been on it on and off since school.

Miranda: You're mad.

James: Yeah. We went to a free school. You know, the one's where there's loads of stuff going on and you do what you like. So you and Dill just sit on the climbing frame all day watching everyone doing their Maths and French eating Space dust.

Miranda: You can't have done. You must have learnt loads at school to be doing what you do now.

James: Yeah, I suppose so, but it went in phases. You know, you'd spend three weeks getting really into Physics and covering what most people do in a year. Then just as suddenly as you got into it, you'd get bored with it and go and sit on the climbing frame eating Space dust for a bit. Then you'd get really into music for a month and not do any more physics for ages. It works though, you remember things like that, and you make so much progress if you've done the basics of a subject just a couple of weeks ago.

Miranda: Bright boys seem to be able to do that. It's not fair.

James: Yeah, we're pretty lucky really.

Miranda: What music did you do?

James: Oh, dance music really. We just used to go around sampling farts, and speed them up to use for treble, you know. Monotonous bass, monotonous treble, get Puter to randomly choose some quotes and play them and repeat part or all of them randomly. We'd then spend the whole of the next couple of days just dancing in a music room to it. (Chortle chortle.)

Miranda also chortling: You really are mad aren't you. I bet you do really odd evening classes don't you?

James: No. I'm doing a really interesting one at the moment actually: Diesel freight engines.

He pauses to let her laugh.

James: Medievil history. It's ace, they're all held in different churches around the place. They're really great. I mean, you go there for raves and lectures and that, and they all look very grand, but going around them when there's only a small group of you there's smart. The leader insists on turning the heat off and using candles. She explains what society was all about really well. It all revolved around the church. Hey, you know when people stopped going to church?

Miranda nodding like a dog stuck to the back of a bus: Yeah.

James: Well, they stopped using the churches too. I suppose you can see it to a certain extent, I mean the people who inhereted such ace buildings wanted them to be used exclusively for worship as it was supposed to be holy ground and that. They blamed everyone else for not financing the repairs they needed.

Miranda: Yeah. Another milk?

James: Cheers. I'm off for a slash.
 

C/D 2 Dill and James Hit the big C
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Veiw from inside the gents. The bog door opens (following on confusingly from the last scene - for the bonehead who's reading this rubbish anyway, cos he thinks that we're still dealing with our lovely couple's first date.) As James staggers through the door towards the urinal make quite clear that he's not the sober man we left talking intellectually to his prospective. Just as he reaches the end urinal the door slams open behind him and Dill is there with quite a smile on his chopper.

Dill: You're trying to pretend that birds aren't horny any more and Miranda's the only one for you aren't you.

James: Da ya git. It's just that those firm, ripe breasts are just too well rounded for me.

Giggles all round. Dill stands on the No 2 toilet seat in a trap and pisses on the bog roll which gradually doubles in size.

Dill: 'F ya rask me, they were headed straight for our seats. What the bloody 'ell er we gunna do?

James: I think we can answer that question in two ways: on the one hand we could saunter up to them, we'll buy them a drink, they'll buy us a drink. Nik off round their place and it's shag city.

James, still pissing at the end of a row of five urinals, moves to the other end of the row in four sharp steps as he flicks his piss onto the next pisser during his speech.

James: Or, on the other side of the spoon, we could go red as we ask for our jackets from under the seat, and zip off round Miserable Git's for a boogy and see if there's any beaver down there gagin for it. There won't be, and we'll spend the rest of the night convincing ourselves that those birds in here were after us.

Now turn to veiw Dill who's now completely upside down with his back to us, facing into the shitter. His feet are holding his whole body weight on the wooden arch over the stall's entrance. These toilets not only flush, but as most customers prefer to have their arse washed with warm water and then blow dried (stops the skid marks), such facilities are incorporated into the John. Dill has opened the toilet seat and has started the arse washing process, but is trying (and generally failing) to wash his hands in the bowl.

Dill (slightly muted): That sounds stupid. LETS DO IT!

Dill drops down onto his hands and springs up. James turns round still pissing and puts his dick into his pouch.

James: Dah, can't be bothered to wait.

They nick off downt disco. I do hasten to add that there is no one else in the John at the time, but you could put the Queen mum (or at least a photo of her) in there if you're in a good mood.
 
 

Design your own disco (Miserable Git's) cos I can't be bothered (and they all look the same anyway.) If your production has sound then give it some hardcore techno cos that's kickin'. Or you could have some euro-industrial, or some sounds more contemporary to your production. Or you could just put some real rubbish on. Dill and James are getting on down together on a semi full dance floor. You can stuff this scene (as you can any scene) full of your fashion ideas. Maybe have two separate fashions highly represented with different subversions for blurks and birds. Dill and James don't conform too closely to either fashions, but they don't look like gits.

Dill: I'm pissed.

James: Eh?

Dill (shouting): I said, the acoustics in here are fantastic!

Much laughing and dancing all round.

James: I'll tell you wot though. I'm right pissed I am. And that's quite true actually.

James makes a time out sign or something stupid. Dill turns around and starts walking towards some seats with James following him. Dill does a 'Classic British Comedy' 'Trip, trip, recover recover, repeat much more than is really funny' routine on the way back to sort their beers. Couple of frames of them drinking and looking at people dancing. Maybe a nice beaver walks past and only Dill follows her past while James stares straight through her.

James: Miranda's got a really nice face. I don't know, it's not the sort I'd have thought I'd have gone for, but it's really nice.

Dill: She got any sisters then?

James: Yeah, I think she's an alternative in a commune near Lough.

Dill: Oh eye? They're all goers aren't they alternatives.

James: Apparently, they don't serve people in pajamas (laughs around a tad). No, apparently, so Miranda was saying They're just normal people like you or I that just steal and sleep around a bit more than normal people. (Giggles.)

Dill: Smashing. So if I was to leave a tenner hanging out me back pocket. I could rub past her, catch her red handed, and chastise her. Mind you, I might just dechastise her while I'm there. Did you, er, chastise Miranda last night then eh? Eh?

James: As you're well familiar, I don't tend to boast about my more than active bedtimes.

Dill: So you've not lost the big V then ?

James: Well, err, no.

Dill: You want to go out with her sister. Apparently... No, no. Apparently she's a bit of a goer. So the street says any road.

Frame stareing at the dancers (James), beavers (Dill).

Dill: Any road, I don't care what you say. If she's not got any sisters, lets split it.

They get their jackets and leave. Miserable Git's customers get a bit of a shock as the sound packs up. You can even tease the other customers by showing the DJs obviously chatting and mouthing (naffly): we've lost the sound. But you're not as much of a git as I am. Or are you?

Anyway by now the boys have walked an indeterminate distance, but probably under 17 miles, one of them notices a 'To Let' sign. Make it as subtle as you like so Joe Public doesn't realize the critical nature that that sign will play in the rest of the story. They circumnavigate the building and any adjoining buildings casing the joint and discussing (without us hearing) which is the easiest stroke funnest way up the building to where the sign is.

They start round the back (off the street). Follow their progress as they try to get to the sign. Here's 'a couple' of suggestions for obsticles.

i. The top of a fire escape with a drain pipe next to it just within easy reach. Then a window with a metal grid over it just within easy reach of the drain pipe on the other side of it. You can climb onto a flat roof from the top of the grid.

ii. A large chimney along the top of a pitched roof is always a bit tricky if you have to commit all your weight to your hands and the unknown condition of the stack as you shuffle round with yer legs dragging on the slanted roof.

iii. Sliding down the edge of a pitched roof to a pillar. Then using the base of the pillar to lower themselves down to within three or four foot of the roof below.

iv. Dill can lower most of his body down the side of a pitched roof, but holding all his weight on his hands and shoulders bent over the pointy bit. The other one of our smashing pair mounts Dill and lowers himself down Dill's body. When James gets to the bottom of Dill (his feet not his bum), Dill is struggling to hold all of James's weight on his feet, and is trying to pull his toes up. When James straightens his arms. His feet can just touch the three inch high concrete gutter. So he lets go of Dill, natch. A few frames stood up having a breather, then James lays back onto the angled roof with his feet firmly in the gutter. Dill then stretches his arms and lets go leaving James to hold his weight and lower him to the gutter.

v. Use window sills and peaks over the tops of windows (who knows what they're called) to overcome slight overhangs. Why not go for a right angled corner with the outsides of the walls on the inside of the corner (like a reflex quadrilateral in school), plonk a couple of windows there so you can have a foot on both windows. Add an overhang and you're laughing.

vi. If you think I'm going to give you all the obsticals then you're even sadder than I thought. If it's your type of thing, get six pints down you and get up a roof with a mate. Use all available ladders and natural foot and hand holds - you'll be amazed how easy it is. Include a couple of you're own, real obsticles. Of course you don't have to do this bit cos it's not strictly part of the creative process, but it's a bloody lot more fun than sitting there making cuts in potatoes and sticking lentils to the paper with golden syrup, or whatever you artists do.

vii. Getting up can require a leg up and treading on shoulders to get the first one up. Once up, he lies down with his arm hanging down. The other one must climb up his arm to get to the flat roof.

When they get to the To Let sign James pulls out a thick black pen. Dill takes it from him, bowing to say thankyou. He writes the 'i' in it as elaborately or plainly as you like. James has the critic's eye. He gives it stern critical appraisal for a frame before giving Dill the nod and receiving the pen. The actual To Let sign may be in a tricky place that needs care getting too.

James has a piss on the roof and Dill leaves a turd. They then decend, job done. I wouldn't be bothered showing too much detail of them getting down cos I'm getting bored already. Just include the last obsticle.

When they hit the floor they both take a look at there hands that have a nice red glow, and walk off as if nothing has happened.

For the duration of the climb don't bother with telling Joe Punter what they're saying (if anything). Try to take some frames from just above their heads so that you can see what they see, to give the sensation of height. Even though they're six pints down, they don't act too pissed. The drink seems to releive them of all the fear that would normally lead to fatality, but the height seems to have a sobering effect stopping them stumbling around on the roof. Even though they were stumbling around when they saw the sign, and stumble off once they've got back to the ground.
 

C/D 3 Lecture
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The lecture is being given in a parish church. Seeings as this is a lecture the bubbley sort of word saying thing you do in comics might not be too appropriate cos there's going to be hundreds of frames with this geezer in a pulpit. Beings as this is a lecture it does stand a remote chance of getting a few visual yawns, you could look at what the congreation are doing (probably not sleeping). Do what you will, but I would point out that any English parish church is probably the most impressive object in the whole village, just thought I'd mention it.

Why are we bothering with Progen? What's the point of it all? It's very easy to say logically that there's no point and we should never have worried about it all and should cut our losses now. If we'd never used all this manpower, and kept our most productive members of society we could each have had an extra hour in bed every week. Makes you think doesn't it. But using the same logic, what's the point in living? The only thing that stops you committing suicide in that frame of mind is the fact that it might hurt. But that's a stupid way to look at it. We all know why Progen is so important. It's the whole world exploring and having fun. It's interesting, who doesn't spend ten minutes each day talking about or thinking about Progen. It's just such a romantic concept.

The sun is about half way through it's life as a main sequence (normal) star. In five billion years it will turn into a red giant and will expand so much that it's diameter will be larger than Mars's current orbit. We and all Earth's life will have to leave the nest before the Sun does this. I suppose we could all go off and live on Titan in a totally enclosed box that protects us from the extreame weather. We could probably do pretty well at it and not feel too claustrophobic, mind you I'm sure we'd get a bit naffed off with such little gravity. Who knows, that or something similar may well be the fate of a group of our decendants.

Progen has given the whole population of our era a sense of adventure. That's something we don't encounter too often. If we're travelling around, the bus never gets the wrong route, and it always knows where it is. If we do want to know where we are (and I'm always surprised how few people actually do,) then there's always a screen nearby to tell us everything we want to know. Even when you go out up big hills with your mates and just a map and a compass, the path has been so well made and well used that even in thick fog or snow you can always tell when you're about to leave the path.

Progen is not just a publicity exercise to try and pursuade the population that society is really working. It is a part of every one of us. The sole purpose of man, just like all animals, is to pass on our genes and keep our race alive.

If you dismiss the habiation of the Moon and Mars as propaganda, then the serious search for man's second home started over six hundred years ago. Fifty six probes were sent out in all directions from Earth. However, over half of them were sent inwards a bit to our nearest spiral arm of the galaxy which contains the greatest density of stars. Each probe was looking for a planet with about the same gravity as Earth, and a large amount of water on it. All of them were propelled in much the same way as Progen will be, effectively travelling at the speed of light for the majority of their journeys - we'll come onto that in a little bit.

And of course everyone knows that we found Nalengua. I know that it doesn't really matter how far away Nalengua is once it takes more than a lifetime to get a reply to any mail you send them, but it really is remarkable that it is as close to Earth as it is: only 300 light years away. And that it wasn't found by going into the spiral arm, but out towards the edge of the galaxy.

Nalengua is blessed with water, gravity of 9.75 (just less than Earth's) and even an atmosphere of nitrogen. It has a more constant temperature over it's surface due to its rotation giving a sixteen hour day about its axis. This axis is more vertical than Earth's, reducing the severity of both summer and winter. The axis is vertical in relation to it's orbit around Apollo (Nalengua's 'naffly named by the press' slightly larger equivalent of the Sun) which is more circular than Earth's orbit around the sun, but is slightly longer taking 403 Earth days. The surface temperature at the equator's of both planets is about the same, but as Nalengua is slightly smaller than Earth it's poles are much warmer and the water probably only just freezes there.

On the whole, it's all very good conditions to grow plants. Which is very fortunate as it's not going to be too easy to grow stuff there. We only have a very little amount of information on the planet. In fact it seems amazing to me how much we do know about it. I mean, the probe that sent back all this stuff was travelling past it at as good as the speed of light, and flashed across the whole of Nalengua'a orbit in under eleven minutes. All the range of tests were done at the same time in the split second that the probe got really close to the planet that looked most promising. Other tests carried out over longer distances corroboarated the data. There can only be one planet in each solar system that is the right distance away from its star to support life. So even though we've got a fair amount of knowledge about our first colony, we don't really know enough to tell which plants will grow there.

Progen will take seeds from a very large range of terrestrial plants, some of which we hope will adapt fairly well to extra terrestrial life.

Nalengua is dull and uninteresting. When we start getting good at colonizing planets we can try harder ones which will turn out to be much more beautiful than Nalengua, and maybe even Earth although they'd be doing well to do that. But for the moment a boring one will be more than enough trouble for us I'm sure.

Anyway, well before we start worrying about all that, we've acutally got to get there. Onboard Progen, right at the top, there's a lightweight fusion reactor. This provides all the power for use on board, and drives the accelarators.

The two accelarators force electrons and positrons down the two two metre diameter shafts that run down the whole length of Progen. By applying a force to the particles in the accelarators, not only do they get accelerated by the applied force, but also Progen is slightly accelarated by the force. Overall, the sum of all the forces that each slightly accelarate Progen, add up together to constantly accelarate the ship at about 10 metres per second per second. That's artificial gravity to you. Pretty cool. Just a couple of statistics to throw at you: the 1km long, one thousand tonnes ship needs to be accelarating 15 million amps worth of electrons and positrons to maintain gravity. To stop a fair few watts of power being constantly generated in the Progen population due to the electric field caused by the current flow, the positrons travel down a central shaft, while the electrons travel down a cylinder which completely shrouds the positron beam like a coaxial cable. The fields from both beams cancel eachother out with this arrangement. I don't know why they bothered really: no one could complain of being cold as everyone would spend the next ten years of their lifes with truely central heating!

(Polite laughter from the punters.)

One point we should look at is where these electrons come from. Over Progen's ten year journey fifty tonnes of electrons will have been chucked out the back. What's happened to all the protons and neutrons then? Are they in an a hundred thousand tonne pile at the front of Progen, trying to get away from eachother? Well hopefully not, cos the whole of Progen weighs orders of magnitudes less than that.

Under certain conditions, photons (small packets of light) can be encouraged to spontaineously split into an electron and a positron. Pretty lucky eh? They're then forced apart, accelerated down the ship, and then attract eachother and combine back to form another photon round the back making a beam of light just like in all the old sci-fi films. Of course there's no shortage of photons, there's loads of them constantly being passed between electrons and protons in atoms to keep them together. Obviously if you just take them away, then the electrons fly off, but the boys in Tech. have sorted that one out, and given us a limitless source of photons. All we need is the power derived from the reactor to generate them.

Progen is shaped like a long tube, with six long tubes around it's outside. These are the Exploratory Modules or Exmods I to VI. Although they are called exploratory, they are really only there for emergencies. Some of them will be left in orbit around Nalengua, some may be used to search for other suitible homes, some may even be sent back to Earth in case of severe problems onboard Progen. Each Exmod is itself a miniature version of Progen with a diameter of only 20 metres but the same length. They are completely self contained with accellerators and reactors, a small population could be sustained almost indefinately in each of these. However, they will hardly be used during the intended mission, only providing Progen with the extra power it requires to accellerate the extra mass of the Exmods.

Once at Nalengua, Progen will have to fall bottom first onto the surface of the planet using parashutes, cussions and some rockets to brake the fall. Progen will then become Nalengua's first skyscraper and sureing it up will be the populations first task. Rockets along the side of Progen will be able to stop it from falling over for the first week. Thereafter, the guyropes they errect in the noxious atmosphere during the first week will be all that holds it up.

OK, the first problem to overcome though is that of actually getting to Nalengua, three hundred light years away, in ten years without travelling at thirty times the speed of light. This actually isn't as much of a problem as you might expect.

When you apply a constant force to an object, in this case Progen, it carries on accellerating until it gets close to the speed of light, when oddly enough, the force applied appears to add mass to the object rather than to make it travel faster. Other effects of travelling this fast are that time seems to slow down, and would you adam and eve it, distances get shorter! Now that doesn't mean that everyone on Progen walks around thinking, God my leg feels really heavy, I'll take it dead easy getting to work, bleedin heck, I'm there already! They feel and are exactly the same as they've always been, and the same as we do now.

(There's a quite good - though I say so myself - explaination of why relativity is so odd just before the end in K/O-c 5.1 if you can wait for it.)

As you should all remember from school this is called relativity, and because it's all relative it works the other way around too. In other words the distance that was 300 light years, becomes ever smaller as the ship gets closer to the speed of light. This is how the journey time comes down to ten years, taking into account the fact that Progen stops accellerating for a couple of hours half way there to turn round and start decellerating so that it doesn't get to Nalengua, and then knock it out of it's orbit because it's just a huge lump of momentum, and loose it for Man forever!

Now's a nice time to just mention how accessible the rest of the Universe is. Nalengua is just round the corner to us in terms of the Milky Way (our galaxy.) The diameter of the galaxy is 100,000 light years. Using Progen, this distance could be covered in just sixty years, arriving there at no velocity. Sound impressive? Well not next to the next one, lets go the whole hog the most distant quasar. This is the furthest thing from us that we know about in the Universe at about fifteen billion light years. No trouble that only takes eighty years to cover in Progen. But from Earth's point of view, it's travelling at 0.9 the speed of light and Progen'll be basically travelling at it. So we'll have to travel ten times that distance to actually catch up with it. That will only take an extra ten years (to travel the additional 135 billion light years!): you'll have to wait ninety eight years, less than a lifetime, to travel across the whole of the Universe. Mind you, Earth won't have much of a point of veiw when you get there cos it'll be long gone as will the Milky Way as we know it. You'll only be eighty eight years older, but the Earth will be 150 billion years old, and as it's only 4 billion now (it's only 15 billion years since the big bang!), that's quite some time.

In fact, a word of warning should be asserted much more strongly than I have ever heard it said. How the Universe is going to evolve over such periods as 300 billion years no one really knows. We know that almost every heavenly body that exists now will be long gone by then, but what will be left? It could be much more of the same, or these first 15 billion years could be the height of it's activity and it's residue after 300 billion years may be very different and even unable to support life. We stand the quite serious possibility of wasting the whole of the Universe: missing it whilst we've been out galavanting, come back and find nothing there. This line of thinking is seriously underdeveloped, and no doubt you'll be hearing much more about it in the years to come.

So, absolutely nowhere is out of the reach of man, and we will colonise everywhere possible. Even completely unsuitable places. That's when man will start mutating and all those sci-fi monsters come true. Well, only to a small degree. Evolution only really gets a grip with populations in which a large proportion of the population die without passing on their genes. When undesireable genes are passed on by a population that can support members that would have problems coping otherwise, rapid evolution ceases. There's a pretty high chance that along the way life of some form or other has evolved elsewhere, maybe even some as advanced as ourselves. The solar system is quite young though in terms of the Universe, and it may be that we are the first life in the Universe, or that no other life has had the time or been forced by evolution to become advanced in our sense of the word.

The only way to keep everything all nice and simple would be to stay on Earth, and make sure that all your ancestors do. But that just isn't going to happen. People will travel and the Universe will become very diverse. The way see a really odd world is to get your grandparents to nik off to the other side of the Universe and then send you back home when they get there. Earth and rest of the galaxy will be in it's early billions of years since Uma and Upa left, and the whole of the place will be seething with mutations and interbreeding. Should be a pretty cool place to live. Imagine a ship comes in from a far off planet, bringing with it all the last hundred years culture from that planet. Some of that stuff is bound to be superb. The whole galaxy and beyond will become a serious centre of excellence. New ships coming in could bring with them new knowledge from thousands of years of research. They must have done some pretty good stuff in all that time. Then again that information might render an entire industry obsolete and a whole generation might get all depressed and start thinking 'What's the point?'

The problem that man used to be obesessed with was that of policing the universe. It would be completely impossible to keep a check of where everyone is and that they're not doing anything offensive. One concept that was very fashionable at one time was the sex planet, where no one ever wears anything but underwear, and sex is the general greeting. Sod shaking someone's hand. Murdering people you didn't like too much wouldn't really matter, cos you could just literally disappear never to be seen again.

The whole concept of having to keep an eye on people to stop them doing anything wrong is very hard for us to perceive, but the sheer volume of detective stories from the early days of television bears me out. Man at that time seemed to assume that you had nice people and nasty people, and it was just how certain people were. I know it seems remarkable now, that they didn't realize that all of the 'nice' people were the ones who'd been fortunate with their education and careers, and that almost everyone else had had a problem somewhere along the line and just didn't get any help with it. Once we'd got the idea of helping people get the right jobs and the right housing and everything, we, as a race, were laughing.

I don't think we really can appreciate the thrill of being part of the process that rendered every democratic government redundant. It is easy to look down on the people who lived in those large scale democracies as being simple, but they weren't. It's true that cartels existed for almost every product in the marketplace. An unwritten and usually undiscussed, but none the less understood agreement to keep prices high. The main competition for things like toothpaste and washing powder was from other 'Big Brand' products made by the same high profit making companies. Fashion at that time was generally to buy products with alot of money behind them. Also it was fashionable to buy the most expensive products too, in the same way that tribesmen used to try and have well rounded bellies to display their wealth and well being. At that time most of the world still had an essentially working class mentality. Even much of what was called middle class then still wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to get one over all the others. But a core of what we'd now look back at and call middle class, did exist. It is this slowly growing group that made the real breakthrough eventually.

It's worth pointing out that fashion in clothes and music in the UK were well ahead of their time relative to the other parts of their culture and the rest of the world. Different styles of music and clothes had a rapid turnover, like many of our products today. It was cool to be into things today that others would be into tommorrow. Just like almost everything else now. But it was a catch 22 situation because their labour force was used to working at one job for all of their lives, not just working for two years handmaking green laces, and then moving on to designing an electronic friend that you keep in a pocket with you, and evolve a different language with. I understand that's what our kids'll be playing with soon - bless them.

It is also true that the majority of the population belived that democracy was the ultimate social structure, but that was really because they thought that the concept was written in stone like E = mc squared. They never really thought too long about it. We shouldn't be lulled into rejecting them as lesser beings, they were the same as us in every way. They were simply sheltered from the knowledge and questioning culture that we take for granted.

If they heard a word on the TV that they didn't understand, they couldn't simply ask the screen what it meant. Several minutes would be spent looking it up in an encyclopeadia if you were lucky enough to have one close to hand, if it was comprehensive enough to contain it, and of course, if you could spell it. They thought they were the ultimate society and couldn't see what was infront of their noses as much as we can't. They didn't lack vision either. I doubt very much that if their society was filled with our population we'd change anything.

They were very creative. Too creative maybe from our point of veiw, only leaving a few scientific odds and ends to pick up. Everything they did leave us to discover is so complex that we all wonder if it is worth the lifetime's effort of a whole generation of scientists in that field to marginally push back the frontier of the unknown one inch more.

Try to imagine working for a company all your life, only having a say in political debates every four or five years, and then only having the choice between one group of veiws covering the whole spectrum of politics, and the opposite veiw on every contentious issue. Yes, yes we laugh at it now, but at least there was fairly widespread debate amoungst the people for whom the system worked for, and surprisingly often good was done.

Now say you as this working man, has a fit of conscience and decide to use the position of power that he's gained through hard work over the years. He takes the hard desision to let his company share the philosophy of almost all of it's employees, and make the company's wealth and the Earth's resorces sustainable indefinately. Now this is quite a step forward for the generation that were brought up to think that all companies should be run completely selfishly, and justify this by pointing out that to do anything else would jepodize jobs and the needs of the employees to feel safe was very important. Well they got that bit right, but they just didn't make the logical extrapolation to other company's employees and the unemployed and society in general.

In order to sustain the company's wealth (and the resources it was using up) it was inevitable that this bloke's prices should rise making it significantly more expensive than an equivalent product next to it on the shelf at the supermarket. Not this time to sustain some fat MD, but to buy raw materials from a supplier that doesn't exploit his workers and their land.

Now although there were economists around at the time, most of them were not very good, and economics in general at that time was in it's infancy as much as medicine was when they used to drain the patient's blood, and make them eat expensive foods (taking a cut for themselves) and then force them to throw up. So economists took little notice of peoples' consience in their analysis. Unfortunately the population thought that economics was like democracy, and that economists knew what they were employed to know. So everyone totally underestimated their own consumer power thinking what does a lifetime of me spending a quid every week on that make any difference. And anyway I quite like it, and there's no decent altenative so my standard of living would drop if I worried about that.

When our hard working businessman found his sales slowly, but surely increasing, that first spark of real power is seen. Before you know it all the companys are forced to adopt a similar philosophy, or even a slightly different one to corner a neich in the conscience market.

Soon enough our little man and a couple of his local mates who are also incharge of local businesses that are doing quite well decide to intervene in a local education dispute where the government aren't providing the education that the parents want. So our companys provide a school for their employees and everyone in the locality, many of whom are customers. Not only is this great education, but it's great PR too. All the locals now go out of their way to support the companies that are supporting their kids, and everyone else who cares particularly that education should be dictated by the parents buys those companys' products.

Then exactly the same happens to local transport, sport, entertainment, refuse collection and recycling. One by one all of the government's responsibilities are taken from them until all that is left for them is to open fe/te\s, wave and make speeches.

As we've always 'voted' every day by choosing our goods, not just by the price, but on the company's philosophy, we can't appreciate how the population felt as power was slowly given over directly to them. The surge in global well being is so hard to properly realize now. At the time, the same people who had one say every five years on every political issue grouped up together, could now become outraged en mass and have action taken immediately on a specific issue. And they did, alot, not like now. The whole structure of government was rapidly shifted to become part of the conglomerate cooperatives that succeeded companys and conglomerates.

It is fairly well acknowledged that happiness depends on one's expectations. No one era has ever had happier or sadder people overall. But this must have been beyond almost everyone's wildest dreams, and hence quite a way past their expectations. This really must have been the most exciting time in the history of Man.
 

C/D 4 Dill's wacky weekend Suggestion
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James is in his office at the drinks machine. He puts his mug with a wacky message on it into the machine, like you do.

James: Coffee or else.

Machine: Charming.

James: Have you only got a vocabulary of one word? Any abuse I give you you always give us a 'Charming' and then cough me up me black coffee. How about giving me tea or choclate every now and then? And try and get a larger reportoire. Might as well get you doing something all day.

Machine: Oh man. I'm only on 75 bps man. Don't bring such a downer on me.

James: Well, see what you can do.

Machine. OK. Oh, and Dill's on the dog. I don't suppose you'll be wanting it here so you'd best nik off.

James: Nice start. Keep it up.

James then makes his way to his desk, passing by a teeny crowdette around someone elses desk. They're all looking at a window on the desk's screen. James walks onto the frame, looking as he passes them, and then walks off the screen. Frame of them still watching. Then James walks backwards onto the frame again in a sort of double take fashion.

James: (About to say something, but it just doesn't make it past his lips.)

The bloke on the screen is the geezer who's photo gradually came through from the Moon earlier. He's introducing his family and the whole lunar scene in general on a full bandwidth video and speech channel.

Loony: ...and this is my wife, June, and John and Jackie our lovely Moondoggies (their kids.)

James: (Does it again!)

Bloke: Oh James! Just thought I'd tell you, we were finding that we couldn't get all the network management info that we needed down the negligable bandwidth allocated on the lunar link. So we uped it a tad. You don't think they'll mind do you?

Frame pause. Followed by Bloke starting to titter. James can hold it no more and erupts into a serious cackle. A couple of frames of laughter if you like, incorporating James crawling to his desk. Literally if you like. If you like.

James: Yo Dill ma man. What's shakin'.

Screen bursts into life with the boy Dill centre stage.

Dill: Well, the world nature trust are getting a tincy budget cut. Er, but nothing else's changed: Jo Smith-Clarke has still got the largest breasts I've ever seen.

James: I see. How about seven twelves?

Dill (quick as you like): Eighty four. Smart!

James: I'm sorry, it's seventy three. Just ask the world nature trust.

Both of them fall off their seats simultaineously and then get up.

James (with a hushed voice) : Anyway, I thought I'd told you not to ring me at work.

Dill: Yeah, but I thought I'd best tell you what you're doing this weekend.

James: Oh aye?

Dill: You're going to go quarters on a Hurse on Thursday night right at the end of the week. Make a beeline for Margate. Take two Dracs cash out of the first bank that we hit. Then go onto the next bank westward along the south coast, put those two Dracs into it. Do the same at the next pair of banks but with three Dracs. Then five, seven, eleven and all the primes. We're going to do the whole thing at fifteen, 'cos Hurses can go that slow and everyone offers some respect. Oh yeah, and you've got to hire the costume as well. Sod B&Bs, we've all got coffins to sleep in! All in all it's going to be yet another ridiculous weekend to augment our nice little collection.

James: I don't suppose you'll be drinkin' much will you?

Dill: That's the really wacky bit. We're not touching a drop all weekend!

James: What?

Dill: Oh yeah. I remember, Greg's appropriated a casket and we're chucking it in the 'Deep Sleeping Quarters', and going to start drinking before breakfast each day.

James: You complete geet. Why can't you pick a weekend that I'm not rebuilding the great wall of China for such a corker?

Dill: She's not got you doing that has she? Tell her who's boss and that beer's much more important than beaver.

James: Dah, wish I could. She'd only cut my rations though. Oh git. And I haven't been out with you lot for ages.

Dill: We, er, could kill the missus for you. Would that help?

Continue the conversation, but with no actual text of what they're saying.

James thinks: What is it with having a bird? You stop being an individual, you stop bieng and doing what you want. I feel I need to tell her when I'm not going to be with her rather than when I am. That's all part of our contract I suppose. But why is it that when I have the real extreames of enjoyment I'm with the Lads? She's basically replaced Dill almost directly. We used to spend most weekends together and a couple of times in the week. But it's different, it seems more like a social obligation seeing Miranda so much. I used to see Dill so much for purely selfish reasons, that marriage was because we had a really good time together. Then again there's hardly any of the hard put downs which really hurt every now and then. And I suppose there's room to develop and go onto kids, even let my personality change which is out of the question with Dill. That relationship requires both of us to remain fairly stable - if we change we grow away from eachother. I suppose it's just maturing into caring. Caring for what? Caring for Miranda by written or unwritten contract so that there's someone there to care for me when I need it? It's funny how me and Dill used to always talk about the inevitability of our eventual break up, and here we are past that now. Well I never got shag city with Dill did I? God! I suppose that's the real beauty of a gay relationship: best mate and lover rolled into one. What about those people that say that there best friend is of the opposite sex. Sad people. They are obviously confusing a best friend with the friend that you're closest to. They've obviously never had a best friend, they're really sad gits.

Dill: ... so I says to him, I says 'you can't watch Dogbreath without me!'

He waits for a response.

Dill: Well I thought it was funny. Two fives!

James: Ten.

Dill: Trickster. Right then you boring geet, must dash - nothing to do.

James and Dill together: Ole/.

And both push the button to hang up together.
 

C/D 5 Wall holiday
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Scene in the bedroom of a bed and breakfast in some mountain region. Miranda is nearly ready for the day repairing dry stone walls, but James is still fluffing around.

Screen: James. Your old nag's on the dog.

James (at screen): Mum?

The screen comes to life with James' mother.

Mum: Hello James.

James: Are you alright Mum?

Mum: It's your Great-Grandma.

Now concentrate on Miranda going into the bathroom. She's heard the conversation so far, but now talks to the screen.

Miranda: Henry. Can you get us a motor to take us to the bottom of Pen-y-gent like yesterday. Make it a taxi. As soon as you can after James gets off the phone. OK?

Screen: OK, but it'll set you back 197 sobs.

Miranda: That's cool.

She then touches up her mascara on for a frame or two. When she hears James sign off she quickly goes to him and hugs him.

Miranda: Still want to mend walls?

James: Yeah, it'll give me something to occupy me I suppose.

Miranda: I've ordered a taxi. It'll be here in about four minutes. Best get these on (handing him his boots).

They leave the B&B and walk onto the levatating taxi. There's 360 degrees of circular vision and a glass roof too.

Miranda: All in Henry. Lets go.

They just sit for a short while, holding hands and looking at the mountains. Eventually ...

James: Nanny's calling it a day.

James: That's such a hard decision to make.

His eyes glaze over and he gradually starts to cry as he talks. Miranda is a good listener. Being genuinely interested, but not interrupting. Just letting James's outflow go wherever he wants it to go. He's looking out of the window as he talks.

James: What criterion do you use to decide that really you've given all you're going to give to society, and now the taking has gone past what you consider reasonable? You want to die now with the same dignity that you've lived your whole life with. How do you know that you're not going to get better? I suppose it's obvious to you as it is to everyone else. I know it's for the best, but having to loose someone ... I'm being selfish. Thinking of what I'm going to loose at her time.

Frame pause to look at the countryside.

James: It's been arranged for Thursday. Only the local family are going to be there. (Frame pause.) She always liked me in particular you know. I don't know why. I suppose I should ask you that eh?

He turns to look at Miranda, and smiles as if to say 'I'm alright really,' with tears streaming down his face as he tries to wipe them away as best he can.

James: She wants me to live in her place when it's all been sorted. Somehow she knew I was after a place, I suppose you told her.

They look at eachother and sort of let a sypmathetic snort out of their noses simultaineously. A sort of laugh, but they're both a bit upset for that.

James: Mum reckons she wants you to move in with me there. She thinks that you go mad when you get a bit of independence, I suppose she thought that Grandma and Grandpa could keep an eye on us. They've looked after her for long enough, they'll not notice a couple more years.

The taxi pulls up at the bottom of the hill and they get out.

Miranda: Cheers.

James: You get on really well with her don't you? I think she just wants to push us together. Reckon you can face it?
 

C/D 6 Euthenasia
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James and Miranda arrive at James's Grandmother's house. She opens the door and kisses them both.

Inside.

Grandma: Quick cuppa?

James: I'd love one.

Miranda: Yes please.

They walk off into the kitchen. Frame with no one talking.

James: How is she?

Grandma: Pretty weak, but quite happy I think. Corse she's pleased to get out of hospital, and the amount of people who've come to see her is amazing. Don't spend too long with her 'cos she gets very tired, and the doctor's coming round in a couple of hours.

Cut to the Great-Granny flat, with the old lady sleeping in an arm chair. The knock - knock on the door doesn't stir her. James opens the door and pokes his head round.

James: Hello Nanny, it's James.

She stirs and he goes up to her, kisses her, takes her hand and sits down in the seat next to her. She really seems to be grasping him as hard as she can in her frail condition.

Nanny: Is that James?

Each word she says is a real struggle, but she enjoys talking to James and doesn't worry, but each word takes time to enunce.

James: Yes that's right. How are you feeling?

Nanny: Great. Has Miranda not come?

James: Oh, she's having a cup of tea with Grandma.

Nanny: Why have you left her out there? I want to see her. It's my day isn't it?

James: Well, she thought we'd want some time alone.

Nanny: Nah, go and get her.

James (letting out a laugh): Alright.

He leaves. Frame pause with the door open. They come back together.

Miranda: Hello Nanny. It's Miranda.

They kiss and now Nanny sits holding both their hands tightly with Miranda kneeling next to her, and James facing them both straight on.

Nanny: Hello Miranda. He's let you in now has he.

Miranda: Yeah, bless him!

Nanny: He's not all that bad really is he? What's happening then?

Miranda: Well we're going off to see Bluffer play down the arts centre later.

Nanny: That's the band with your friend in isn't it?

James: Yeah, that's right: Fred.

Nanny: Their a bit wishy washy for me. I like music with a bit more oomph!

James: But ambient stuff's really kickin' at the moment.

Nanny: Kickin'!? What about Christmas, are you having it together somewhere, or with the family?

Miranda: Has he not told you? We're going off to Japan.

Nanny: No. I always seem to be the last to get all the news. Is she a Twoer? (To James.)

James (now with tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat): No. She'll have to go won't she.

Then he starts crying.

James: I'm sorry.

Nanny: Come here.

Sort of a one sided hug, then he sits back down again.

Nanny: Try and be happy for me, I'd like to see you happy.

Nanny: First, first - their the worst! I can't believe we used to sing that when we were kids.

Miranda: Twos, twos - a load of poos!

All laugh a bit.

Miranda: Yes, we're hopefully swapping with a couple in Kyoto. Can't wait.

Nanny: I'd watch out for him, he always fancied himself as a Samuri, have you seen that photo on Grandma's sill?

Miranda: Yeah. Great isn't it?

Nanny: What about Progen then?

Miranda: Well James is still in the running.

Nanny: And you're not? Well to be honest, I think it's more a thing to be proud of for society rather than for yourself. It can't be much fun stuck on a ship for the best part of your life. I think it'd probably be a mixed blessing being picked. Looking forward to moving in then?

James: I don't really want to say yes. I'd hate to feel I'd forced you to do this by pushing you out of your home. But yes, it'll be nice for us to have a place together.

Nanny: It's alright James, I'm not going to want to change my mind, you haven't forced me into it. But if it keeps you happy, if I do have a change of heart, I won't hesitate to make you homeless! I've had a really good time this last week. Ever since I made my mind up. The pain seems to have gone away a little and I feel so relieved. Life was starting to become a real burden, and all that weight's gone now. Your Grandmother was starting to spend too much of her time looking after me. I am a real burden to her now. She's going to help me tonight, that's the last she'll have to do. It's a hard decision to make, but sometimes you've got to make a decision. You'll have to make a hard decision sometime. Now I've chosen to die. My life has seemed so full, I look back thinking what fun it all was. When you move in think of me as you remember me, not as I am now. And don't be worried about me dying in your room. Think of me as someone who's heart is still with you.

By this time tears are flooding down both of our hero's faces (and our reader's (sic - Ho ho) too on the train as they read it.)

Nanny: Come on lets have a hug.

Nanny (while hugging Miranda): Enjoy this flat, it's pretty cool.

James (Whilst hugging. Muffled): I love you Nanny.

Nanny: I know. You too. (Louder) Now wipe those tears away before you go.

They leave without saying anything or looking back.

Nanny: Enjoy the gig.

Outside they hug eachother.

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