DDR Sci-Fi: Unheimliche Erscheinungsformen auf Omega XI

Strange Manifestations on Omega XI

Johnna Braun, born 1929 in Magdeburg. Together with her husband Günther formed an author team, which contributed various literature and reportage, and in the middle of the 1970s began to write science-fiction, mostly as a critique of social phenomena. Some works were banned from the DDR for not towing the party line, but as in most of Sci-Fi, critique can be disguised by layers of fantasy, alien fremdenschock, and invention. An alternative grammar is constructed in Strange Manifestations, where the authors leave out quotation marks, blending thusly acoustic speech with memory and thought processes.

A group of humans who called themselves the Sunflowers had left the earth a long time ago, because no one could understand or tolerate their visionary philosophy on genetic engineering. But they were indeed the best at reshaping humans into fantastic forms, which experiments they continued as colonists of Omega XI.

Now, the earth is receiving distress messages from the Sunflowers, asking for help with an incomprehensible social and environmental collapse, described mysteriously as a “manifestation.” In the spirit of humanity across the cosmos, the international (socialist) space commission decides to send a small mission to investigate.

Using advanced psychometrics, which a socialist space mission is apt to develop for its Soviet aptitude for people power, the mission coordinators choose Merkur Erdenson for his profound skills in improvisation, and Elektra, a skilled coordinator with a tendency to neatness. As the multi-generational socialist space science program could predict, the two become partners during the long mission. They marry once landing on Omega, due to local customs that prevented them from inhabiting the same house under common law.

On Omega, they learn of the radical cultural division between the inbred consumer class, who disposes daily of their complete set of home furniture and wall-coverings, and the genetically modified working class, who sleep in the factories as they constantly re-invent new processes for manufacturing luxury wall-coverings and furniture. In between the two classes is an environment increasingly wracked by toxic storms of chemical off-gassing, caused by constant cycle of blind consumption and waste. 

Although the consumer class numbers less than seventy, they hold power over the working class by manipulating their supply of psychotropic algae derivatives, which they have monopoly over. Due to their inbred nature, the consumers have degenerate senses for the environment and cannot see that their consumption is causing this disaster.

The inbred consumerist leader shows the visitors to a working class factory, whose inhabitants, viewed through protective observation window, act openly crass, pranking each other with industrial tools and creating other silly props.

Merkur improvises a breakthrough to the layers of the working class, to meet them and understand their story. He does this by spontaneously throwing a chair through the glass observation window and jumping down into the factory.

After the working class heals his wounds, they introduce to him their Roburen: genetically modified beings of great stature and simple conscience, who must always lift heavy things or die under the weight of their muscle mass; they never stop working.

Realizing that this manifestation, the need to constantly work, is also causing the toxic storms, Merkur improvises a solution: the workers must learn sports, and he coordinates with Luda, a games expert, a repurposing of the Roburen from industrial tools to epic sport and performance beings. Less manufacturing occurs as a result, and the toxic storms begin to subside.

Back in consumer land, Elektra realizes the importance of empowering the working class. Merkur improvises access to the underground algae deposits which form the base of the creativity drug which the working class needs to survive, allowing them to be independent from the consumerists.

In the end, the “strange manifestations” were never an alien monster, but the devolution of humanity through genetics and technology, that required a creative, human breakthrough to realign, and prevent the consumerist virus from spreading back to earth.

Glossary

• Spontanfigur: in space capsule social engineering, a personal type who leads in unknown situations through improvisation.
• Ergänzungsfigur: the complement to Spontanfigur, one who coordinates operational decisions and keeps the basic mission objectives in focus.
• Modderwind: a deadly storm of toxic gasses that has been destroying forests on Omega XI since the original colonists arrived.
• Roburen: A genetically engineered worker with bulging muscles and a dog snout, who speaks basic language but prefers to focus on manual labor.

Cover by Burckhard Labowski and Regine Schulz