In 1970, Camil Samson, leader of Ralliement créditiste du Québec (Social Credit1), delivered a memorable campaign promise:
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Union Nationale has brought you to the edge of the abyss. With Social Credit, you will take one step forward.”
Sadly, the voters of Québec did not then deliver to Samson’s party a majority of the seats in the Assemblée nationale du Québec. We will never know if he could have delivered on his promise.
Of course, fictional visionaries have been far more successful in delivering the abyss…
Fire in a Faraway Place by Robert Frezza (1996)2
In A Small Colonial War, Lieutenant-Colonel Anton “the Veriag” Vereshchagin and the surviving soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 35th Imperial Infantry delivered a measure of order to troubled colony planet Suid-Afrika. The arrival of Vice-Admiral Saburu Horii’s Second Imperial Task Group Suid-Afrika imperils peace. Horii’s task is to maximize United Steel-Standard profits extracted from Suid-Afrika. Anyone who gets in the way, including the 1st Battalion, will be crushed.
The conflict develops not necessarily to the Second Imperial Task Force’s advantage. This leaves the 1st Battalion with a problem: how to deter further attempts by Imperial Japan to bring Suid-Afrika to heel? The answer is straightforward: deliver to United Steel-Standard on faraway Earth a sincere, unambiguous expression of Suid-Afrika’s disapproval. This message will scatter corpses across Tokyo, implode the Japanese stock market, and leave USS’ towering skyscraper headquarters in ruins.
To be honest, I am not sure jamming a finger into the eye of a vast, overconfident, ignorant empire while leaving that empire’s industrial base intact would have the long-term effect Suid-Afrika wants.
Metropolis, directed by Rintaro and written by Katsuhiro Otomo (2001)
Duke Red cares nothing for the social strife caused by the displacement of human workers by Metropolis’ robots. What matters to Duke Red is that Metropolis should transition from a great power to the dominant power. Once the Duke’s Ziggurat is finished, the rest of the world will submit to Metropolis’ rule.
Befriended by plucky boy detective Kenichi Shikishima, Tima believes herself to be the young woman she appears to be. In fact, she is a robot, the key to Duke Red’s plan. When the horrified Tima discovers her true nature, she acquiesces to the Duke’s scheme with one minor alteration: Rather than ruling the world, Tima will ruin it. (Again, see footnote 2)
I think the lesson here is that would-be global rulers should study elocution, or failing that, issue clearly-worded written instructions to avoid issues exemplified by Tima mishearing “rule” as “ruin.” Yes, I’ve seen the relevant Mitchell and Webb sketch.
Apocalypse Seven by Gene Doucette (2021)
University student Robbie wakes to find himself alone in the Harvard dorms. He goes out to search and discovers a seemingly empty, strangely decrepit city. After some strenuous effort, Robbie finds Carol, Bathany, Touré, Paul, Win, and Ananda. Otherwise, humanity appears to have vanished.
Something plucked the seven out of the early 21st century and dropped them into the 22nd, where they learn that something eliminated humanity in 2040. Or rather someone did. That someone’s plans have not quite come to fruition, and the Apocalypse Seven still have parts to play.
The Apocalypse Seven deviates from standard apocalypse fiction in unexpected ways. Rather than hypercompetent demigods, the survivors are surprisingly ill-equipped to survive in a world unlike any with which they are familiar. They compensate for this by demonstrating an extraordinary tendency to cooperate to ensure that everyone lives. Nobody mutters “lifeboat rules” even once!
Kingdom: Ashin of the North, directed by Kim Seong-hun and written by Kim Eun-hee (2021)
Seongjeoyain village is targeted for destruction during the Imjin War. Most of the inhabitants are brutally murdered… but not Ashin, who survives. Ashin is determined to get revenge for her people’s massacre. This will be a difficult task for one woman.
Fortune smiles on Ashin in the form of the Resurrection plant. Properly applied, the plant brings the dead back to life. Or at least, the plant restores activity. Ashin alone cannot possibly punish Seongjeoyain’s killers. Ashin at the head of a legion of flesh-eating zombies is an entirely different matter…
Ashin of the North is a TV movie that serves as a prequel to the Kingdom television show, in which the innovative deployment of the Resurrection plant to extend the life of an ailing king makes life in Joseon-era Korea much, much worse than it really was.
Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 13 by Ryōko Kui (2023)
(Translated by Taylor Engel) The Winged Lion has simple goals, seemingly easily fulfilled. In exchange for granting mortal wishes, the Winged Lion consumes mortal desires. While this leaves the mortals hollow shells without even the drive to feed themselves, that is not a problem for the Winged Lion… as long as there are more mortals.
Early in its sojourn in the material realm, the Winged Lion lacked the experience to foresee the outcome of some wishes. Thus, when a mortal wished for the apocalypse, the Winged Lion delivered. In the long, hungry years that followed, the Winged Lion resolved to be more judicious about granting wishes. Any future apocalypses would be on the Winged Lion’s terms.
In the Winged Lion’s defense, it’s an extradimensional victim of an ill-considered summoning. Its regrettable tendencies are adaptations to an utterly alien plane of existence. This does not make it less dangerous, but understanding why it does what it does helps mitigate the danger it poses.
These are only five examples of visionaries who, having decided to bring about catastrophe, succeed in doing so. SFF abounds with characters with similar achievements. Some, like Greg Stillson, I’ve mentioned before. Others may not have been so lucky. Feel free to mention your favourites in comments below.
- Social Credit seems to have withered on the vine in the US (although I believe it informed aspects of Beyond This Horizon). In Canada, various federal and provincial Social Credit parties survived until the 1990s, some enjoying considerable success. ↩︎
- Trigger warning for both Fire in a Faraway Place and Metropolis: Some Americans, and particularly New Yorkers, may want to skip down the list to Apocalypse Seven, as both Fire and Metropolis inadvertently echo 9/11 in ways some readers/viewers may find extremely unpleasant. It’s hard to say which will be more upsetting: that Fire’s version (from 1996) is depicted as heroic, or that the Ziggurat’s destruction is shown in loving detail, accompanied by Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” ↩︎
“To be honest, I am not sure jamming a finger into the eye of a vast, overconfident, ignorant empire while leaving that empire’s industrial base intact would have the long-term effect Suid-Afrika wants.” – this was exactly what I thought after reading the book.
Yeah, that was a strange musical choice in Metropolis (2001).
The very smart guys who invented the Weak Force Intermodulation Projector AKA the fission blanket in Kube-McDowell’s Emprise only wanted to end threat of nuclear war. Unfortunately, they also ended the threat of nuclear power just as oil ran out. Cue a long depression until new power sources could be secured.
Wait … in In A Small Colonial War, “Imperial Japan” is an interstellar power? is that one explained, in terms of the point of departure?
Because, well, 1945 and all that …
There was a nuclear war, Japan sat it out or at least was the least damaged, Japan become the world power, and then they decided they rather liked the sound of Imperial.
Even now, the English translation of the title of the head of state is emperor. The web tells me that Empire of Japan aka Imperial Japan is used for the Meiji period (1868-1947).
This led to me wonder what the current official name for the country is (translated into English). The web tells me that it is State of Japan.
James Blish’s Black Easter delivers, not just any old apocalypse, but the canonical one.
I seem to recall Jerry Cornelius triggering an apocalypse at least once, but the details escape me now.
Apocalypse Seven sounded interesting, so I borrowed it from the library. I enjoyed it, but couldn’t buy the premise that none of the characters realized until quite a ways along that they weren’t in their own time. Even if physical calendars were completely a thing of the past, there should have been a lot of clues from room furnishings, clothing, and technology. The characters were trying to use things they found such as phones and personal computers, and a couple of decades make a big difference there. I’d also expect that styles in clothing and automobiles would be pretty different, given the time elapsed between when the characters “vanished” and when the disaster struck.