In my last post I covered how difficult it was for people to assimilate into a new culture. One area that I didn’t mention was the technology because I thought it deserved its own post. It is one of the things that is continually touched on in the second book and also in the follow-up stories I’m writing. In book 2 Cyndora is constantly exposed to new technology and it does become a little overwhelming. To help me write this topic I constantly referred back to stories a work colleague told me. He had a teenage son at the time and the school the son attended had arranged an exchange visit with a school in Kiev, in the Ukraine. This was just after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the declaration of independence of the old soviet states. First his son went and spent a couple of weeks in Kiev with a family there and a couple of months later, they reciprocated, with the class of Ukrainian students visiting England. Even before the teenagers had arrived, the families of those hosting them were given a briefing on what they should and should not do for their visitors. They were told not to buy them things unless in an absolute emergency and that they should prepare themselves to help the children acclimate to UK society. My friend said that he really didn’t envisage a problem at the time and he and his family went off to Heathrow airport to meet the arriving visitors and collect the boy they were hosting. His first indication that all might not run smoothly came as they drove from the airport back to their home; a journey of some 50 miles, during which the Ukrainian lad hung on to the door of the car for dear life, and when questioned, he explained that he was making sure that it didn’t fly open as they drove along. He was used to the reliability (or lack of) of old soviet style production, not western manufacturing quality. I had this episode in mind when Cyndora makes her first planet-fall via shuttle and when she’s worried about air-cars flying over pedestrians, not being used to the reliability of Imperial technology.

Once they got home, the boy was then amazed at how luxurious their house seemed to be with all the various gadgets available, especially the PC that they owned. Then my friend discovered how little clothing their guest had arrived with and, despite instructions to the contrary, immediately took him out shopping for extra changes of clothes. The boy was amazed at the variety available in the UK shops, being used to soviet austerity. I understand from my friend that those hosting the girls had it even worse as they went wild over the fashions and cosmetics on offer. The worst thing was when they visited a supermarket. In this case it was one set below street level and had steps leading down to it. As you descended, it was possible to see down into the store and take in its size. Their visitor stopped halfway down the steps and surveyed the place with a stunned look, finally asking, “Food? This is all food?”

In the west we sometimes forget how well off we are and I wonder how we would react to a society that has even more than we do. Cyndora and Jaydea have to cope with a galactic society that has abundant, clean and cheap energy sources that power technologies such as replicators that provide good quality clothing and healthy food for even the poorest of Imperial citizens. I’ve tried to convey some of this in my writings, thinking back to those tales of my friend’s Ukrainian guest, wondering how the boy felt, and what it was like when he had to return to his own country. It makes me thankful for everything I’ve been blessed with.