True Blue Aussie Hero’s

On the previous Thursday, a major storm hit Melbourne and Victoria. Janno and Johno had friends up in the Dandenongs, a scenic area and popular tourist destination on the outskirts of Melbourne. The area was known in particular for its National Parks containing cool temperate rainforests home to the world's tallest flowering trees, known as Mountain Ash. These trees averaging heights of 90 metres and circumferences of 7.5 metres.

The Dandenongs, known by the locals as ‘the hills’ is a popular residential area which includes a strong artistic community. The residents were used to the ever present danger of bush fires during Summer, and falling trees would often interrupt power supply, but nothing of the scale of this storm had been experienced by this generation.

The storm had wreaked havoc throughout the hills, ‘tree carnage’ was a common description. The enormous trees falling and destroying houses and electricity infrastructure. Janno and Johno’s friends had now been without power for seven days. Some townships were being told it would be weeks before power would be restored.

Alphy had watched the news reports with bemusement. The Saps were still distributing energy via overground networks. Back on AC (Alpha Centauri) every household had their own fusion-based perpetual energy system, known by the acronym FUCKED (FUSION COLLIDER KINETIC ENERGY DISTRIBUTION).

For a micro instance, he thought the Saps actually had the same system when he overheard Janno talking to her friend up in the hills. ‘How’s your electricity up there?’ She enquired. ‘It’s fucked’ came the weary response.

The concept of dangerous weather was also a novel concept for Alphy. Back on AC, villages were all encased in their own protective shields that made them impervious to the external climate. Given the rapid acceleration of climate change on the planet and the increase in adverse weather events, Alphy wondered if the Saps would be able to develop their own protective shields, in time to insulate them from the inevitable weather catastrophes.

One of the curious contradictions with the Saps thought Alphy, was how at one level how compassionate they were. For instance, during the current emergency in the hills, unpaid volunteers were providing assistance through various volunteer organisations such as the SES and CFA (State Emergency Service and Country Fire Authority).

Whilst in Europe, Biden and Putin were facing off, both having the capability to deliver nuclear Armageddon to the planet. Both sides insisted of course that they had appropriate safeguards in place to ensure nuclear warheads could not be launched accidentally. Alphy was however all too familiar with previous Sap stuff-ups with nuclear facilities, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and more recently Fukushima. The fact that the Saps had evolved a system whereby a single person could initiate a nuclear winter and ultimately destroy the planet, was one of the major reasons AC was still not sure the Saps were worth saving as a species.

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, known colloquially as Scomo was in the UK. Normally nicknames were a term of endearment for Aussies, but judging by the comments of Janno and Johno this was not universally observed. Scomo was in the UK as a G7 observer and had also taken the opportunity to finalise a free trade agreement with Boris Johnson, referred to by Johno as ‘Bozo the Clown’.

'You know what this free trade agreement will result in, don’t you Alphy?’ ‘More bloody Pom’s taking our jobs on extended work visa’s,’ said Johno in rant mode. Alphy was intrigued by the term Pom for those of English heritage. Folklore had it, that it derived from ‘Prisoner of His Majesty’ relating to Australia’s original convict settlement, but this was discounted by linguistic experts. Many instead stated it was an ongoing corruption of rhyming slang, Immigrant to Jimmy Grant to Pomegranate to Pommie to Pom.

In another apparent contradiction, Johno would often address one of his best friends as a Pommie Bastard. ‘Hi, this is my English Migrant friend born out of wedlock,’ Alphy had translated somewhat confusedly, the first time he had heard this expression. Alphy quickly determined that irony was a key attribute of Aussie humour, but curiously found it to be absent in Americans he had met.

Infinite Possibilities (IP), the marketing organisation Johno and Janno worked for, had recently won a new account. Ausnet, the power provider, had been widely criticised for their poor communication regarding restoration times in the Dandenongs. Like the trees, Ausnet’s reputation had taken a severe battering and IP were called in to restore it.

Johno had just finished the video production to be released the following day and was showing it to Alphy and Janno for comment. The scene was a mass choir of liney’s (lines-men and lines-women) with the rain pouring off their hard hats (emblazoned of course with the company logo), surrounded by fallen trees and in the background SES volunteers with chainsaws. The choir was singing a rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Power to the People’ and it was interspersed with pictures of liney’s and SES crews working valiantly in driving rain.

Janno had tears running down her cheeks. Even Alphy had to admire the emotion it was conveying. ‘So what do you think mate’ asked Johno. ‘I’ve taken the Power Pariahs and made them True Blue Aussie Hero’s.’