THE ECODICTATOR

PITCHING THE STORY

Cording, anchorman of the very successful and interactive TV-Show GLOBAL OBSERVER, covers all sorts of environmental conditions in a radical context. During his 100th broadcast Cording proclaims twelve basic rules for a fictious ecodictatorship as the only means to avert the threatening ecocide. On the same evening an attractive woman pays him a visit. She claims to have knowledge about a gigantic foodproject of the GENius Holding Cie. with adverse effects on human health. A 16 million Euro deal commissioned by the NATO means a lot of SCP, gen-manipulated SingelCellProtein, the base for mass-produced factory food. She promises to come up with the evidences until the next show.

Shortly after her visit Cording is assaulted in his flat and abducted. The abductors demand the information alledgedly handed out to him by the GENius Cie. Because he is not in the possession of said papers, the truthdrug he is injected by the masked man with a snakering doesn’t take the desired effect. Cording slips into the very dictatorship of the near future which functions in accordance with exactly the rules he has so vehemently propagated in his show.

He experiences what it means when citizens are taken hostage by the State. To his surprise Cording realises that he is being dealt with in the ecoditatorship as martyr. He is the everpresent ecohero in this ubiquitous propaganda State of the year 2045. Twelve Constitutional Laws as formulated by him regulate dreadful daily routines of the people.

Cording goes into hiding. He joins the “democrats” who live in subterranean caves in the old forest. They raid state depots regularly for energy, food and medicine. Cording becomes their leader. He teaches his new friends in empty office towers the use of vintage computers. Under his guidance they form efficient guerilla troops to inflict heavy damage on State utilities.

During his odyssee through a strange new world, it proves hard for Cording to comprehend its radicalism and absurdity. He meets Iris. She bears an astonishing resemblance with the lady who has told him about the GENius scandal. Iris as an “official” belongs to the writing team “XENIA speeches” at the Ministry for Information.

XENIA, the omnipresent virtual icon of the ecodictatorship, an artificial holographic figure developed by psychologists as “re-educator” reaches every household via datalines. Her rhetoric punishment messages (“lessons”) flickering from electronic screens all over the country are duty for all citizens while in reality Iris is being used in the editors room and privately by Information Minister Heiland.

When State Security identifies Cording during conspicuous activities, investigating authorities are hampered by a dilemma: the ergometric profile of the State enemy #1 equals that of the ecohero Cording to the hair. It is impossible to issue a search warrant on the man to deliver him to the informers and proscecuters. Our ecohero is ruthlessly hunted by Heiland’s men and yet they let him escape.

Iris comes to Cording’s rescue when dire need arises. They fall in love. As his conspirative accomplice, secret lover without hope for permanence, she can only protect him as far as her powers reach. She supplies Cording with important hardware and information from inside the Ministry. She grants him a glimpse into State secrets. He learns about the State administered all-embracing food manipulation with its origins dating back directly to GENius in 1999. He should have put a stop to their practice in his TV-Show.

Cording and Iris feed provocative messages into the public video network. They break the news about plasma based foodstuff, nurishment for all people and at the same time switching off their ability to criticism. Cording is apprehended by GreenHelmets, is waking up from the narcosis like from a dream.

He comes to in a roadside ditch, arrives somewhat befuzzled and late in the Television Studio, his mind in complete disarray. Before his evening broadcast he receives the lady who had told him about GENius only yesterday. She had been his lover in a not too distant future. Cording listens to her breathless assurance that she had secured the evidence. He turns her down by thanking her, arrives on the stage to revoke in the course of his show the Constitutional Laws which he had postulated just yesterday. The audience goes mad and reacts with catcalls.

Later, Cording meets the lady in a café. He proposes marriage to her with a gesture fashionable under the ecodictator. She reacts with cristalclear laughters and
a gesture only Iris knew.

>>> FIN <<<