A Prediction I Made Decades Ago

It was a cold and wet Monday morning in September of 2317 when two men with short and neatly cut hair and wearing dull casual civilian attire stepped off the transit car at the Edison Station in old Northeast Minneapolis. 

Ensign Ian Stuart felt well out of place as he stood and waited for the swarm of students on their way to morning classes at the old Edison High School, to clear the station. 

Ian recalled, with a sense of embarrassment, that he once dressed in a similarly absurd and alien fashion, as the teenagers crowding the station.  He would have felt even more out of place if he and his companion had worn their full naval uniforms. 

Members of the Armed Forces, the Navy and Marine Corps of the former Terran Confederation, were not terribly popular on the home world these days, especially the commissioned officers.

To wear the uniform in public, without being escorted by at least of a squad of Marines, was virtually an engraved invitation to being physically assaulted or killed. 

Ensign Ian Stuart saw that most of the students disembarking at the station wore buttons showing a red line superimposed over the capital letters "ROM," the meaning of the buttons was crystal clear to any civilian, soldier, or able spaceman.

Down with the Rule of Man.

Too bad, Ian thought, the stupid and greedy politicians of Terra, and the voters who put them into office, had clearly demonstrated that they were unfit to exercise any form of political authority. 

A few of the students, most with shaved heads, wore buttons depicting the ancient astrological symbol for Earth, the cross within a circle.  The symbol was used by those who believed in the racial supremacy of the Terrans over all other intelligent species.  Including those humans, such as the Vilani, whose ancestors were dumped by an unknown power on other planets hundreds of millennia ago. 

The Terran Supremacists, like the German National Socialists of the Early Twentieth Century, sought to treat the so-called lesser races as virtual slaves and felt oppressed when their wishes were thwarted.

To Hell with them, Ian thought, to Hell with all of them.

"We should have taken a g-carrier." Said the Ensign's companion. "And a full squad of Marines, sir."

"If we only had one stop to make here I would, Chief."

Chief Petty Officer Barenni stood almost a full head over the Ensign and was more than twice as old.  He was also one of the growing number of ethnic Vilani allowed to join the navy of the Terran Confederation. During the final years of the war against the Ziru Sirka, the interstellar empire of the Vilani, CPO Barenni was a member of the SURFER teams, the elite Surface-Extravehicular Reconnaissance forces of the Terran Navy.  The Chief was now the senior noncommissioned officer on the Ensign's military government team.  

One of the students, a boy wearing a red silken sash and a grotesque and high maintenance style of hair, had apparently caught part of the conversation between the Ensign and the Chief.  The boy turned around and quickly went down the stairs to the ground level. Both the Ensign and the Chief saw this. 

"Let's use the staves on this one, Chief."

"Sir, are you aware of the fact that the other ranks really aren't impressed by displays of studliness?"

"No shit Chief, I'm still using the staff."

Aye-aye, sir."

The Ensign and the Chief both carried a navy issued 11.43 mm automatic pistols with two spare seven-round magazines under their jackets. They also carried surfer-staves, a quarterstaff compressed into a compact unit the size of two D-cell batteries.

The Ensign and the Chief were met at the bottom the stairs by a dozen boys in red sashes and other absurd attire. The gang was posturing as if they were the lords of the transit station and were collectively taunting the two men with accusations of treason and maternal incest.  The closest of the boys presented an open switchblade knife in his right hand. 

Stupid punks, thought the Ensign.Ensign Stuart thumbed the extend button on his staff.  His first blow smashed the punk's right hand and knocked the knife to the ground.  The second blow caused the punk to bend forward and explosively exhale.  The last blow struck laterally across the jaw causing a spray blood and teeth.  The unconscious punk spun around and landed on the pavement with a loud thud.Ensign Stuart had knocked down a second punk when the

remnants of the gang turned and fled from the ground level of the transit station.  Ensign Stuart turned around and saw that CPO Barenni was reholstering his pistol.

"I'm sorry sir, but I heard a police siren."

The Ensign could now hear the sirens of the approaching police grav-speeders.

"No Chief, you were right on that." He replied as he pressed his thumb on the retract switch on the surfer-staff.

"Sir, red wasn't your high school's color, was it?"

"No."  Replied the Ensign.  "If I recall correctly, the school colors at Edison High were Blue and Gold." 

Though there was a history teacher who wanted to change the school colors to Hot Pink and Army Green.

Ensign Stuart looked around and was shocked at what he saw.

The Terran Naval Academy, from which Ian recently graduated, was co-located with the headquarters of the Terran Grand Fleet on a world that was once a sector capital of the Vilani Empire.  Ethnic Vilani as a rule were normally fastidious, even after their liberation by the Terrans.  Whether he was on or off campus, Ian was used to living in a neat and clean environment.  It was not until the Ensign and Chief stepped outside the perimeter fence at Ventura Barracks on Earth that Ian saw litter on the ground for the first time in over four years.  It was a beer can.

The more Ian Stuart looked around, the more strange and alien the world of his birth would appear to him.Trash was scattered all over the floor of the lower level of the transit station. 

The walls had been defiled by urine stains and graffiti. In addition to the crossed out letters "ROM," that were painted on the walls there were also the letters "DTT," which meant "Death to Traitors."  There used to be buttons that read "DTT," but some of the individuals wearing those buttons came down with nasty cases of sudden lead poisoning.  Marines and naval personnel who discharged their weapons in such incidents had the cost of the ammunition deducted from their pay and were quickly reassigned off of Terra or out of the Solar System.

The Ensign and the Chief had their navy identification cards out when the Minneapolis police arrived to clean up the mess.