Writers and young adults who have read JAK-73 chasing freedom ask if the events in the background are real or simply fiction. All of the backcloth details used in JAK-73 have a base in fact/s adjusted and/or added to for the storyline. Such details in the script are few; their meaning adding depth.

 

Yes, anyone can worry. If that is you, stop reading here.

 

If you do read on, know that many worrying ideas do not come to be. And also know that many of the examples that follow are already history.

 

I worked on such issues for many years. I learned how to ‘switch off’ and not let them worry me into a frazzle. I also learned that we can all do something, however small, to improve our world.

 

** Become informed and speak out about issues

** Talk face to face to people in a place where you and they feel safe and comfortable

** Sharing broadens understanding

** Understanding helps put matters in better perspective

 

Here’s one very simple lesson I learned.

A long time ago, I rode a bus to work each day and two drivers took turns driving it.

Driver One had a sour-face and grumpy personality.

Driver Two was a happy chap who greeted everyone with a big smile and warm words.

Most passengers exited the bus at its terminus.

Driver One did not look at his departing passengers; most of them getting off with troubled faces.

Driver Two gave smiles and happy farewell words to his smiling passengers.

It was a simple but powerful lesson. A smile can brighten someone’s day and lessen their worries. Who knows how much more fruitful the happy passengers were that day and how positively their happiness affected those around them. Like a stone thrown in a pond, positive ripples can spread and spread.

Jean

 

If you are happy so far, read on. You can stop any time if you become uncomfortable.

 

Bites of information used in the backcloth to JAK-73 chasing freedom …

 

** World Government as a concept has been ‘out there’ since the time of the Bronze Age and Egyptian Kings. It still has supporters today. See https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/.

 

“I reason the World Government took over my life without my agreement. It fed me, yes, but in return for what it wanted,” said RON-49.

 

** ID Chips. GPS in a car helps drivers find a location. Ankle bracelets with a GPS-enabled chip allow individuals to be located and tracked. An ID Chip implanted under the skin of a human subject can be 100 percent accurate and broadcast information like a cell phone. Linked to a satellite it can identify a real-time location to within 3 metres/10 feet, sometimes less.

 

“We cut out our ID Chips, toss them onto that lot, and send more of the cliff down on top of them. That way, lad, we can’t be traced.” So says RON.

 

In this 21st century an Iranian Kurd refugee, Behrouz Boochani, was detained on Manus Island for six years by Australia. In an interview on Q & A (New Zealand TV on 13 November 2022) he said detainees’ names were not used. They were given a number.

Behrouz Boochani now lives in New Zealand and has won a prize for a published book.

 

** Depleted Uranium weapons have been used in war zones since the 1990/1991Iraq/Kuwait War although using depleted is misleading. Uranium is chemically toxic and radioactive. DU is radioactive, emitting alpha particle radiation.

The most used 30 mm DU bullet is almost solid DU with about 1% titanium and 2% molybdenum added to strengthen the alloy. Studies say between 10 and 70% of fired DU becomes micron-sized DU oxide aerosol particles vaporised on impact into a toxic dust. The dust can affect a population including an unborn foetus.

Depleted Uranium has a ‘half-life’ of 4.5 billion years. One half-life is the time taken for half of unstable DU atoms to undergo radioactive decay. Ten half-lives of 4.5 billion years are needed for a DU source to be considered safe. Current assessments of Earth’s age is 4.543 billion years; one of the ten half-life periods.

 

“Gran said my father died after exposure to depleted uranium dust.” So says RON.

 

** Drugs are used globally in some prisons and military camps where those in charge want a large number of people to conform to specific instructions and behaviour without questioning them. It is suggested Adolf Hitler used fluoride and other drugs to subdue concentration camp internees in World War Two.

 

“These days, an Administration in each State controls Workers with drugs in the guise of Nutrient Pills to keep them submissive and manageable.”

 

** A pathogenic agent is a bacterium, virus, or other micro-organism that can be passed on by contact with skin, faeces and body fluids, contaminated surfaces, and by airborne particles.

The ‘H5N6’ virus in JAK-73 is fiction. H5N1 is one actual avian (bird) influenza virus. Subtypes of influenza A viruses affect people; e.g. H1N1 and H3N2. 18 hemaglutinin subtypes (H1 to H18) and 11 neuraminidase subtypes (N1 to N11) identify viruses.

** Coronaviruses normally infecting animals can evolve, make people sick and become a human coronavirus. Examples are 2019-nCoV and SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. See https://archive.cdc.gov/.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome corona-viruses affect human respiratory systems; those organs and tissues that help you breathe. These viruses may pass from animal to human and from human to human.

** COVID-19’s mortality rate is 3.4% estimates the World Health Organisation (WHO). The official names COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 were issued by the WHO on 11 February 2020.

** MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 had about 35% of patients die.

** SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) 2002-03, had 14% to 15% die; up to 50% for those older than age 64. The New England Journal of Medicine reported analysis showed SARS was not closely related to any known human, mouse, bovine, cat, pig, or bird virus.

** A desired mutation can be introduced into a known corona-virus to create a new virus. Experts say it shows how easily new viruses can jump species in the course of genetic engineering experiments to produce a virus that self-replicates (reproduces itself).

Released into the environment, a genetically engineered gene is irretrievable. It cannot be recalled.

 

** Influenza, a common viral infection, can be deadly. Estimated deaths are greater than from COVID-19.

** HIV, Ebola and Marburg viruses have an estimated 90% fatality rate if untreated.

** Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (v. CJD) a human prion disease equivalent to Mad Cow Disease, 100% fatal.

** Smallpox is officially eradicated; samples kept in containment in Russia and the USA. In 2001, researchers used genetic engineering technology to insert a gene into a mousepox virus to create a cousin to smallpox.

** Cholera untreated can be fatal within hours. It exists in Africa, S.E. Asia and Haiti.

** Bubonic plague spreads to humans via fleas on rodents. This ‘Black Death’ of the Middle Ages killed millions in Europe and elsewhere. Today, cases reported around the world are usually in single figures.

 

** Aerial drones come in many sizes. In October 1998, the New Zealand Herald published an article about a drone the size of and resembling a bee that flew like a bee.

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** Volcanic ash. Mount Ruapehu sits south of Lake Taupo in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island. It erupted in 1995 and ash travelled north-north-east to the Bay of Plenty. Seen from a window in Tauranga, it passed over Te Puke to the east as a wall so dense and so dark you could not see into it.

The Taupo Eruption of 186 AD is claimed as the most violent eruption world-wide in the last 10,000 years. Scientists say all of New Zealand received at least 1cm of ash. Areas near Lake Taupo were buried in 100+ metres of pyroclastic flow; a scorching hot flow that spread up to 90 km from the vent. You can see layers of deposited volcanic ash sitting in roadside cuts on the Desert Road.

** Supercomputers today can perform over a hundred quadrillion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS); a huge improvement on the earlier million instructions per second (MIPS). Half a century on, the iAmIT computer in JAK-73 chasing freedom is conceivable.

 

** Features in JAK’s binoculars are known or in development; military and medical wrist watches likewise.

 

** Catastrophes

 

“As I grew from boy to man, the world was struck by catastrophe after catastrophe.”

 

** Crop failure can be from a natural disaster, insect plagues, plant diseases, and/or warfare; folk can starve.

** Civil Wars kill soldiers and civilians also die; starvation often the cause.

** Famines may be caused by natural means, or be manmade by poor food distribution and poverty.

** Enforced starvation can be and sometime is used as a political tool.

** Floods can take many lives.

** Nuclear power plant accidents at Chernobyl (Russia) and Fukushima (Japan) emitted radioactive material that caused contamination, cancers, deaths and birth defects.

** Half a century into the future, what temperatures can we expect? A 2003 heat wave in Europe caused 30,000+ deaths in France, c. 7000 in Germany, close to 4200 in each of Spain and Italy, and 2000+ in Britain. Also reported were adverse social, economic and environmental effects, forests burned by fire, water ecosystems and glaciers affected, and less agricultural production.

On 11 August 2021, Sicily recorded 48.80C / 119.840F, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe.

On 13 January 2022, Onslow, on Western Australia’s coast, reached 50.70C / 123.30F; an unofficial figure that is the hottest temperature on record for the Southern Hemisphere.

In 2024, Earth experienced its warmest day ever on 22 July when the daily global average temperature reached a new high, at 17.160C (62.90F), according to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) data.

 

Remember … We all have a ‘backcloth’ to our lives. In JAK-73 chasing freedom it is fiction that just happens to be more dramatic than for most of us. Forget your worries. Be happy. Keep smiling and brighten your day!