Glory to Our Avalon: Part II



Glory to Our Avalon: Part II is a chapter in When the Cold Breeze Blows Away. In this chapter, the story of how Avalon is founded continues with Rane Gerand made his speech to the officers of the RMS Titanic to begin a mandate so they can rebuild humanity.

Meanwhile, Alexander Pepper is still in Ahch-To, still seeking for some more spiritual advise.

Debuting Characters

 * Rane Gerand
 * W.T. Stead

Returning Characters

 * Alexander Pepper
 * Donald Trump
 * Edward John Smith
 * Grace Walker
 * Harold Lowe
 * James Moody
 * Joe Biden
 * Jyoti Kaur
 * Lana Loud
 * Michael Bloomberg
 * Norman "Super Spesh" Caldwell
 * Rudy Giuliani
 * Stan Lee
 * Su Ji-Hoon
 * Vic Mignogna

Mentioned Characters

 * Higgs Monaghan
 * Michael Dugan
 * Romulus Augustus
 * Tomislav Vlahović
 * Torvivum Zuskelgar
 * Victor Nevarez

Transcript
JUNE 25th, 2042 -- CENTRAL PARK

WE WALKED TO THE destroyed Central Park. It was once a dump for disposed dead bodies that were decomposed by flies, beetles and rats that're lucky to survive the ensuring nuclear onslaught years ago.

"Ya know," said High Captain Smith. "I hate to make some major spoilers about the world's history, but some fortuneteller told me that if we stay on our time -- April 1912 -- you guys will be totally screwed up in the next millennium or so."

"Was it Trixie Lulamoon from Equestria?" I questioned.

"Yeah, exactly," spoke E.J. in agreement.

APRIL 15th, 2042 -- MANHATTAN VAULT, NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES

“Greetings, and welcome to the Manhattan Vault. I know you are unsure what is going on and are probably thinking that what you are seeing looks like a ghost. I assure you it is not. What you are seeing is a projection of a recorded image. I am Rane Gerand, chief director of the Eternity Project. I know this will be hard for you to understand, but I am from the far future, from the year 3924 AD, to be in fact. And to be blunt, this could be the last year of human history. Our world has run out of further supplies of resources, and the people of Earth are fighting over what remains. To make matters worse, you are in a long-gone era in the mid-21st century when nuclear weapons were unleashed upon this dear planet years ago, in which it's to be called World War III. My time is when another worldwide scale conflict did happen again. It's called World War IV, and in the words of Albert Einstein, this can be fought with sticks and stones, and you're here to prevent this upcoming nightmare from happening again. The Eternity Project was created to find a way to save humanity. And we believe we have found it. The science I know will be beyond your understanding, but I will do my best to explain. The scientists of the Eternity Project have discovered the ability to travel through time, and also to travel between alternate worlds. We decided it would not be good to take people from our time, with our divisions and corruption, to try and start anew. No, what had to be done to save humanity was to bring people from our past and place them in a ruined world where many people on it have their numbers dwindling by the day, and I asked Trixie Lulamoon, a female unicorn pony from Equestria, and the finest surviving scientists from around the world to clean up the now-depopulated Manhattan Island with all the advanced Da'at Yichud technology you have -- free from aggressive mutants, radiation, raiders, feral ghouls, supermutants, robots, and even falling debris -- and allow these people to establish a new civilization, and set them up to be humanity’s last great home. We brought the Titanic and her passengers and crew here to be the beginnings of that new civilization not only as a turning point to repopulate the Earth, but also as a push forward to punish those who used too much nuclear weapons as a crime on which sanctions must be imposed on in the name of justice. Remember: humanity survived so many catastrophes, such as the Toba volcano, the Ice Age, the Black Death, the Cold War, the turbulent times of the early 21st century. Now that went up the roof at the end of the Last Day when biological, chemical and nuclear weapons ruined almost everything, leaving us with no choice. As I understand it from the sensors in this room, the captain is not here at the moment. Please send for him, and I will explain in greater detail what all this Vault contains and what we have done to better prepare you for your new home. Goodbye, and good luck.”

With that, the image of the man disappeared. The men in the room looked around, first at where the image had been, and then at Officer Lowe.

“Well men, let's head back to the dock. Looks like we gonna need to send for the captain.”

APRIL 16th, 2042 -- ONBOARD THE TITANIC

As dawn broke upon the horizon, the telephone rang on the bridge. It was the lookouts. The boat from the landing party had been spotted with about half the men that had left. Officer Murdoch went and woke the captain and reported what the lookouts had seen. What you didn't know is that E.J.'s feeling a bit more relieved every damn day since his ship was miraculously saved.

“Tell me when the men arrive. I want to know what they found.”

“Aye, sir. I will let you know the moment they are back on board.” And with that, First Officer Murdoch returned back to the bridge.

Within an hour and a half, the boat was tied up alongside the ship, and the 12 men and Officer Lowe were aboard. Lowe immediately reported to the bridge, and relayed what he had seen to the captain and the rest of the assembled officers, along with Mr. Ismay and Mr. Andrews. When he was done, the men looked at Lowe and at each other, not sure exactly what to think. Captain Smith was the first to speak.

“Well, it looks like I need to accompany Mr. Lowe back to the island.”

“Sir, with no disrespect meant to Officer Lowe, this sounds ludicrous. While I think...” Mr. Ismay was interrupted suddenly by Lowe.

“With all due respect Mr. Ismay, this is the truth. My men can vouch for what I’ve told you. No, I can’t explain it, but I saw what I saw. And the image, whatever it was, some sort of machine, requested to see the captain.”

Smith, who had been focused in thought, spoke up. “I think Mr. Lowe is right. I don’t think he’s making something as outlandish sounding as this up, so I think I should go and see this for myself. Officer Lightoller will accompany me with Mr. Lowe and his men. Officer Wilde, you will be in command in my absence.”

APRIL 20th, 2042 -- ABROAD THE TITANIC

The passengers….the situation that the Titanic’s people now found themselves in had been hard to explain to the 1,300 passengers aboard the ship. The idea that men somewhere in the far future had not only been able to travel through time, but be able to take the ship and her inhabitants to a “parallel world” was mind boggling. The news did little to calm their already anxious nerves. Most didn’t really believe the captain and his officers when they assembled the different groups of passengers by class and told them on the evening of the 16th. However, especially for those passengers who had been to New York before, when the automated tugs came and guided the ship to it’s new dock, many of them recognized the shorelines enough for the reality to start to sink in. One first class passenger, Mr. William Stead of London, had approached the captain afterwards and told him that the concept of multiple universes, or multiverses, was not totally foreign to him, that some of the readings he had done talked about such phenomenon. He promised to try and explain it to as many of his fellow passengers as he could. This was all welcome news to Smith.

APRIL 20th, 2042 -- ABROAD THE TITANIC

“Well gentlemen, let’s vote on it.” said Captain Smith. “All in favor of holding a Constitutional Assembly with equal representation for all classes and the crew, say aye.” Smith, Andrews, Guggenheim, King and Butt all voted in favor, Ismay and Wilde opposed. “Well, the majority is in favor. We will hammer out the details for this assembly and then announce our decision publicly this evening at dinner. Oh, and by the way, make me proud. And so will the supercentarian himself, Michael Bloomberg.”

"Meh," Major Butt said sarcastically. "Might as well ignore those anti-Avalonist dunderheads like Vic Mignogna and Matthew Mercer themselves. Good luck, E.J."

The rest of the morning, the 7 men discussed how the assembly would work. Ultimately, it was decided that there would be 10 representatives from each class, and 10 from the crew. The captain and his full council (consisting of the men present plus all the other officers, which had informally formed the day the ship had docked) would also be present, with the Captain presiding over the Assembly. They would meet on Friday, April 25. They were unsure of just how the ten men would be chosen to serve at first, but Major Butt suggested grouping the passengers and crew by alphabet, and choosing representatives from those groups. They settled on this, and made the announcement that evening at dinner to all the passengers, and had the news told to the crew.

Later, he was met by the spirit of Stan Lee with words, "Your actions are well-known in my book. Excelsior."

APRIL 21nd, 2042 -- ONBOARD THE TITANIC

That evening at dinner, it was announced that women would be allowed to vote in the Assembly elections, and that women could serve as delegates to the Constitutional Assembly.

Meanwhile, Michael Bloomberg is also announced to be in the Constitutional Assembly.

JUNE 25th, 2042 -- MBADINGA MEMORIAL PARK

"So, that's how it unfolds," I said.

"Yep," said High Captain Smith with a pat on my back. "What would happen next's gonna be more kickass than you'll think. Remember that, babe."

"But what happened to the Trump Tower? What happened?"

"Well, we demolished it because Trump had put a greater shame into the hearts of the American people out there. His presidency was so corrupt that they couldn't make America great again. Sure, we detrumpified the city since his rhetoric nonsense left a huge scar not only in New York City, but also in all of the former United States. Damn bastard."

"So what replaced the Trump Tower?"

"Sure, we replaced it with a park with a grave of Joseph Mbadinga whose remains were exhumed from the Gabonese capital city of Libreville all the way to here, in Titanic City, with full honors in a single day before I proclaimed Avalon's existence as proof that we are still here, and humanity is still alive, oh and also on the government of Gabon's behalf. I'm gonna miss this lad so much. That's why we named this open space after him."