Oxygenia

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Oxygenien (original title: "Oxygénia") is a dystopian novel first published in 1974 by the Hungarian author Klára Fehér . In German it was only published in the GDR, in 1977 as a hardcover and in 1985 in the novel . A possible future development of mankind is metaphorically transferred to the planet Oxygenien, the earth itself is only mentioned briefly.

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The novel is set in the future in the year 3069. The earth is a happy place, space travel is an everyday occurrence even for private individuals. The newly married couple Peter and July MacGulliver are on their honeymoon with their small spaceship HUMANITAS and are approaching an interesting-looking planet when they receive the warning call from the nearby FORTUNA-710 space station to stay away from this planet. Before they can turn away, however, the ship is damaged by a micrometeorite and Peter has to disembark to repair it. In doing so, he unwittingly crosses the planet's sovereignty and is brought down to the surface by an unknown technology. Something goes wrong with this transport, Peter finds himself in one of the "operator towns" (see below), communication with his wife in the spaceship is not possible, and it is also hardly possible to communicate with living beings. Fortunately, he wears his space equipment with oxygen supply, which also includes a kind of replicator with which he can produce oxygen and nutrients himself from the substances in the environment. The presence of this equipment ensures his immediate survival and later proves to be indispensable for the Escape Operator City. By chance he meets a local named ON 711 314, with whom he can speak, as he has been transferred from the middle class to the operator town as a punishment. As a result, thanks to the help of a few other native beings, Peter gets to know all three social classes on the planet.

At the end of the novel, Peter and July, who has meanwhile landed on Oxygenia with her spaceship, manage to escape after deliberately setting in motion a chain of events that end the rule of the upper class over the planet and usher in a new era.

The planet Oxygenia

Oxygenia has 12 moons and is an Earth-like planet with oceans and 17 continents, about the size of Australia. Gravitation, temperature, atmospheric pressure and duration of the day are apparently identical to the earth, with a day divided into 20 hours and a year into 20 months or 300 days. A planetary year, however, only corresponds to about 0.8 earth years (the factor can be calculated using the information in the novel). It is inhabited by an aerotropic humanoid intelligent species, for which no self-name appears, but whose representatives are extremely similar to humans.

Oxygenien's story

In the course of the plot, Peter is initiated into the history of the planet. Accordingly, a highly developed, highly industrialized culture has developed, but it suffers from the problem of enormous environmental pollution. Numerous fruitless conferences are held and solutions and ways out are sought, while the environmental degradation continues and residents are already falling ill, until the corporate rulers of the "Oxygen Trust" end these efforts as pointless, you just have to deal with the situation. The wealthy secure building land high on mountains in an uncontaminated area, relocate there and subsequently determine the fate of the planet from there. In the following approximately 1000 planetary years (corresponds to approximately 800 earth years), the actual state that the protagonist gets to know develops.

Oxygeniens social classes

The protagonist first ends up in the lowest social class and experiences all three social classes one after the other. These are:

The bottom layer comprises 8 billion people who live in thousands upon thousands of identical so-called operator cities, Peter only gets to know one representative of them. The air consists only of smoke gases of all kinds, it only contains traces of oxygen. Since the residents are oxygen-breathing creatures, they are reliant on wearing breathing apparatus for their entire life. Because of the special shape of these clumsy breathing apparatus, these beings are called "trunk-bearers" by the two upper classes of society. Even in the identical, windowless, cube-shaped concrete buildings there is only the same hostile atmosphere as outside, so the breathing masks have to be worn at all times. Due to the enormous pollution, natural light no longer penetrates to the surface, a day-night rhythm is simulated by different levels of lighting, there is only a diffuse twilight, there are almost no colors. Oxygen is only available in the form of subliming tablets that are placed in the back of the breathing apparatus. However, work has to be done for these oxygen tablets, dull activities on machines such as B. turn a wheel on the left of the machine three times, then press a middle pedal, then turn the wheel on the right of the machine three times, then start over again. The oxygen fractions that "people" receive for their work are low, they only ensure survival and allow a maximum of one non-working day per week. It is not possible to save oxygen. Food and drinks are served in so-called restaurants by fully automated systems. The pulpy food, which is consumed with a kind of straw, is mixed with drugs that paralyze or suppress all thought processes of the brain and the sexual drive and only allow the functions that are important for survival. There are huge dormitories for sleeping with no privacy and a continuous TV shower projected onto the ceiling, but this is extremely boring and only in black and white. Other items such as B. Breathing masks, shoes or clothing are available free of charge and unlimited in so-called department stores, where there is also a small universal textbook and a game of skill. There is practically no interaction or even social coexistence between individuals. There is no monitoring of the residents, nor is it necessary: ​​if you do not work, you will not get oxygen and die, leaving the cities is theoretically possible, but not sensible, as outside there is only eternal darkness and a hostile, destroyed environment, in addition, the maximum possible oxygen supply is not sufficient for longer trips anyway. There is no exchange between the cities, there are no public transport systems.

Once a year, however, the so-called "Great Spring Festival" takes place, a kind of mating ritual in a cave a little outside the city, in which there is unlimited oxygen as well as intoxicating food and drinks. The drug mix in the food changes in good time in order to reactivate sexual desire, and the permanent television program in the dormitories is becoming increasingly colorful and sometimes accompanied by music. The annual goal of every inhabitant of the operator cities is to experience this "Great Spring Festival" again. Children are conceived during this orgiastic event. At the end of the festival, new breathing masks and clothing are handed out, the residents return to their operator town, and the annual cycle starts all over again - until the next "Great Spring Festival". Women who have become pregnant are identified by automatic scans at the exit of the fixed cave and are taken to fully automatic pregnancy and delivery clinics in the middle-class cities. After the birth and the first few days with their children, they are separated from them at the earliest possible time (when the children are no longer dependent on their mothers to breastfeed), their memories erased, and they come back to the operator cities. The children are now selected through automatic tests, those who do not have any special talent or useful talents also come to an operator city at the age of 6, while talented children receive several years of training in fully automatic schools and universities and thus automatically belong to the second Social class.

In this middle layer , a layer of (necessary) intelligence, there are better living conditions. Their five million relatives, the so-called "ones who remember", live in a total of 15 cities, but there is also no exchange between them. In the cities there are different colored buildings of different looks and artificial bushes, trees and lawns, an inner-city traffic system in the form of treadmills, outside air with at least 5% oxygen content, locks at the house entrances so that breathing masks are no longer necessary inside the building, as well as an already clearly recognizable, natural day-night rhythm. The rememberers are people with special talents who are necessary for research and development. However, their brains are also manipulated, in the course of their training they are operated on and irradiated several times, so that the areas necessary for their task are stimulated, but other areas are suppressed. Social thinking is absolutely forbidden. Everyone has to concentrate exclusively on their field of activity and the existing order must not be questioned, this is already conveyed to the residents urgently during the training. Daily necessities, food and drink are still distributed in fully automated facilities, but in a significantly better quality and greater variety than in the operator cities. There are residential houses for individuals or for couples. Friendships and marriage-like partnerships are possible and permitted, as is sexual contact. However, women are forced to use contraception through food; should a woman nevertheless become pregnant, she is taken to one of the automatic pregnancy and delivery clinics, after the birth her memory is also erased and she is taken to an operator city. Even older people who remember, whose work performance declines or whose brains are no longer expected to be new or useful, come to the memory wiping and then to an operator town. In contrast to the operator cities, there is a control of the residents here: Everyone who remembers receives a personal punch card with which he has access to his house, his workplace as well as the common rooms and the goods distribution machines, and wall-like obstacles occasionally appear on the streets only disappear after evaluating the punch card. The residents are called at irregular intervals by technical systems for brain control using an encephalogram , their punch card becomes invalid at the same time and is only activated again when the test has been successfully completed. Successful brain control is achieved by only stimulating and active areas of the brain that are necessary for work, while all other areas must be inactive. If this is not the case, either new operations and irradiations are carried out or the memory is completely erased and transferred to an operator city.

Outside of at least one city of the remembering there is a colony of renegades in a cave system - remembering people whose punch cards have become invalid or women who became pregnant and wanted to prevent automatic segregation, including their children. They are supported by some sympathizers within the city, who provide them with food and oxygen tablets (for those who remember, these are unlimited). These sympathizers within the city mask their activities from the brain controls with a drug called "deep sleep" that they take immediately before each visit and that helps them focus. The renegades live completely free and without any control or influence.

Everything is controlled by the head office, the top social class, the top 10,000 . This proverbial ruling class is to be taken literally in the novel, as it consists of 100 families with exactly 100 members each. She lives in Oxygenville somewhere high in the mountains. By means of the so-called ion curtain, the two polluted lower air layers are separated from the upper air layer in which Oxygenville is located, so that at this height there is an almost paradisiacal environmental situation. This city is also interspersed with technology, but the fully automatic machines and computers serve to assist the residents here. In this magically colorful utopia nobody has to do physical work and can completely enjoy various leisure activities, such as B. indulge in magnificent balls or the hunt for the animals that only exist in Oxygenville. Some of the top 10,000 are also devoted to economic policy tasks such as production planning and goods distribution. These 100 genders arose from the founders of the Oxygenien Trust about 1000 planet years ago. The highest regent is the king named Benefactor XIII with two sons who lead the security service until the older of them, Prince Recke, becomes king himself. Although there is a hidden system of locks and transport pipes that connect Oxygenville with the other two social classes, an advance of the planetary population to Oxygenville, regardless of whether they are trunk-bearers or those who remember, has not yet been achieved due to the environmental situation.

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