Rebuilding After Big Brother: A 1984 Story
- Thread starter DrDerp
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- 1984 nineteen eighty four
Birthright Trip
Le Havre, France
Nadia used to be scared of the place her mother came from. Oceania was a place bereft of joy, where hidden eyes watched you every second of every day. The face of Big Brother haunted her nightmares growing up. But as she and her siblings got older and they got more used to a UN controlled Britain, their curiosity grew with each passing year. Now, they waited for their parents to come down the breakfast table where a pamphlet was laid down. It was advertising guided tours around London. Her older brothers, Cyril and Max as well as her younger sister Jeanette were all standing her the table.
Nadia and rest of the children in her family were half British on the mother Ada's side. She and three other Outer Party members fled across the Channel in a boat in 1995 out of sheer desperation, landing on the outskirts of Le Havre after two days at sea. After nervously approaching the locals for help, they were given housing while being questioned by French intelligence about what they'd escaped. The revelation that there was no war hit all everyone in her mother's group hard.
Ada took to learning French with gusto, eventually landing herself a job with the port authority. She met her future husband Mathias during a Bastille Day celebration, marrying him two years later and creating quite the respectable brood.
Their mother looked at the pamphlet before passing it to Mathias.
"Are you suggesting we take a vacation there?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Lots of people are going," said Max. "Our family's got history there. It's a part of us."
"It doesn't have to be," Ada replied. "If you want to go with your father, that's fine. But I won't be going."
"Mom..." Jeanette said somberly.
"There is nothing for me in Britain. The others and I fled because we wanted to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. In France I found a better life. It is here that I found your father, it is here that I had a family the Party couldn't touch, and it is here I shall rest. This is the place I truly started to live."
"And it's here that you've found such a fulfilling sex life." said Cyril. His siblings looked at him, shocked. Ada raised an eyebrow. Mathias put a hand on a hand on his wife's shoulder and kissed her cheek. Ada giggled.
"You should be happy your mother is so lively. It's the reason you even stand here."
"I know," Cyril said. "I heard you and mom while you were in the middle of making Jeanette."
His little sister smacked him on the back of the head. Ada blushed.
"I do admit, we could've been quieter."
Nadia used to be scared of the place her mother came from. Oceania was a place bereft of joy, where hidden eyes watched you every second of every day. The face of Big Brother haunted her nightmares growing up. But as she and her siblings got older and they got more used to a UN controlled Britain, their curiosity grew with each passing year. Now, they waited for their parents to come down the breakfast table where a pamphlet was laid down. It was advertising guided tours around London. Her older brothers, Cyril and Max as well as her younger sister Jeanette were all standing her the table.
Nadia and rest of the children in her family were half British on the mother Ada's side. She and three other Outer Party members fled across the Channel in a boat in 1995 out of sheer desperation, landing on the outskirts of Le Havre after two days at sea. After nervously approaching the locals for help, they were given housing while being questioned by French intelligence about what they'd escaped. The revelation that there was no war hit all everyone in her mother's group hard.
Ada took to learning French with gusto, eventually landing herself a job with the port authority. She met her future husband Mathias during a Bastille Day celebration, marrying him two years later and creating quite the respectable brood.
Their mother looked at the pamphlet before passing it to Mathias.
"Are you suggesting we take a vacation there?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Lots of people are going," said Max. "Our family's got history there. It's a part of us."
"It doesn't have to be," Ada replied. "If you want to go with your father, that's fine. But I won't be going."
"Mom..." Jeanette said somberly.
"There is nothing for me in Britain. The others and I fled because we wanted to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. In France I found a better life. It is here that I found your father, it is here that I had a family the Party couldn't touch, and it is here I shall rest. This is the place I truly started to live."
"And it's here that you've found such a fulfilling sex life." said Cyril. His siblings looked at him, shocked. Ada raised an eyebrow. Mathias put a hand on a hand on his wife's shoulder and kissed her cheek. Ada giggled.
"You should be happy your mother is so lively. It's the reason you even stand here."
"I know," Cyril said. "I heard you and mom while you were in the middle of making Jeanette."
His little sister smacked him on the back of the head. Ada blushed.
"I do admit, we could've been quieter."
How on Earth did they manage to cross the Channel without getting gunned down by Oceanian coast guard patrols?
I mean yeah, it's not impossible, but given the level of control Oceania had over its citizens, it's crazy that they let a bunch of Outer Party members slip through their fingers. Winston and Julia should have tried it, would have made for a less soul-crushing read.
The Channel coast is hundreds of miles long and there are "quieter" stretches where it may be possible to launch a boat at night - after all, it was a smuggler's coast for centuries.
We hear of the occasional "escape" from North Korea in OTL - in Oceania, assuming the relentless indoctrination hasn't taken its course, how could or would you escape?
First thought is this was "sanctioned" by the Inner Party - perhaps there is someone higher up who is carefully orchestrating the occasional escape in exchange for money and the opportunity to score points off political rivals - after all, such an escape, though it wouldn't be publicised, would still be hugely embarrassing for the Party.
Second thought - could Outer Party members have access, via unofficial channels, to contacts of "people smugglers", an underground network who, for a price, would facilitate a planned escape, perhaps by making sure those concerned were simultaneously re-assigned to work nearer the coast, perhaps ensuring shore batteries turned a blind eye and the escape boat would be quickly found by the French Navy once it crossed into international waters, etc. All this would need contacts within the Outer and Inner Parties who could be supplied with some of the "finer things of life" not normally available in Oceania.
It seems impossible, given the amount of surveillance, for any individual, however well planned, to get away. Such an escape would require months if not years of planning and co-ordination.
In retrospect, I should've put a lot more thought into this chapter. I was inspired by stories of North Koreans defectors fleeing on 'ghost ships,' that sometimes appear in Japan. I didn't consider the finer details of what goes into such escape attempts. I looked at the width of the English Channel and felt that the group was small enough to evade detection (to an extent anyway.) I also heard about two East Germans who surfed to Denmark in the mid 1980s.
I think you guys should consider that the inner party's mass surveillance is solely focused on the outer party and themselves
They want to make sure no internal members of the inner party want to deviate from the lets-be-tyrants-forever program and no member of the outer party get funny ideasz literally, even thinking of replacing the inner party is thoughtcrime
They dont care about the proles at all, there may be one camera or telescreen here or there but the party believes the proles are a mass of powerless, mindless individuals who cannot organize themselves without help of the middle class(the outer party) and without a history to look back on will never revolt
So proles occasionally escaping the island through beaches and such is something I think the party couldnt care less about, most of them will drown anyway and in the inner party's view a few escapes do not matter in the great scheme of things, heck they dont even believe these escapes exist due to their doublethinking solipsist view of reality where everything is the way they imagine it to be and therefore all their efforts must be dedicated to breaking the outer party and to some extent themselves so that they can keep that up, not wondering where a few "worthless" proles went
They want to make sure no internal members of the inner party want to deviate from the lets-be-tyrants-forever program and no member of the outer party get funny ideasz literally, even thinking of replacing the inner party is thoughtcrime
They dont care about the proles at all, there may be one camera or telescreen here or there but the party believes the proles are a mass of powerless, mindless individuals who cannot organize themselves without help of the middle class(the outer party) and without a history to look back on will never revolt
So proles occasionally escaping the island through beaches and such is something I think the party couldnt care less about, most of them will drown anyway and in the inner party's view a few escapes do not matter in the great scheme of things, heck they dont even believe these escapes exist due to their doublethinking solipsist view of reality where everything is the way they imagine it to be and therefore all their efforts must be dedicated to breaking the outer party and to some extent themselves so that they can keep that up, not wondering where a few "worthless" proles went
They're not proles though, it said 'Ada and three other Outer Party members'
It's possible that naval patrols in the area would be limited or potentially non existent as the inner party (Whose innermost members must surely be aware of the outside world) would probably want to keep Oceana's military presence in the channel limited to reduce the risk of its military personnel in the area from finding out the truth by simply looking across the water to the bright lights of northern France.
It wouldn't surprise me if the southern costal regions of England were actually depopulated and the area placed under military control under the pretext of guarding against a potential invasion from Eurasia/Eastasia (Delete as appropriate depending on who Oceana has always been at war with/allied to this week). Potentially the only human inhabitants could be soldiers (would the military have been comprised of inner or outer party members or proles?) located in bunkers guarding areas away from the coast with no one actually in or even within sight of the Channel in order to prevent anyone becoming aware of certain facts that could be regarded as thoughtcrime.
Don't worry about it - that's why this place exists. Not to be negative but to offer constructive ideas to improve and enhance the writing.
The basic premise is really good and @flasheart is right on the money here. It's quite likely there would be a "dead zone" perhaps ten miles inland from the Channel - the haunted ruins of Brighton, Folkestone, Dover and the rest adding an edge to the atmosphere as they rot, frozen in time from the "Great Migration" of the early 60s when the Party forcibly cleared everyone to the north.
Perhaps the Isle of Wight remains as a prison camp for undesirables (pretty much as it is in OTL to be honest). The Oceania Navy lives in Portsmouth and Southampton but is forbidden from sailing more than 12 miles out to sea - they are told French attack submarines will sink any Oceania ship venturing beyond the 12-mile limit. Further down the coast towards Dorset and into Devon, the coastal strip is closed up to just five miles inland. Periodic Army and Navy patrols move up and down the coast but smuggling occurs particularly in South Devon and North Cornwall from Ireland.
Winston does leave London at least twice in the book, both times to meet Julia. The first time he's on a train with a family of Proles, the second time the site of an atom bomb attack.
Patrols would arrest someone who couldn't explain their presence, but not shoot them out of hand. More likely they'd be handed over to the thought police for a trip to Miniluv.
There are clues that it's all a sham, as in the week leading up to Hate Week, more rocket bombs than usual fall in London. Another one is the way that they find that they've switched sides, that their enemy is their ally and vice versa, and the Goebbels analogue whipping up the crowd never misses a beat.
I'd also argue that all the records exist in some form, as the photo that Winston recalls is miraculously pulled out during his "reducation"
The Proles are monitored, as there are sleepers hiding in plain sight marking down the more intelligent, those that could form dissident groups, and having them disappeared.
Patrols would arrest someone who couldn't explain their presence, but not shoot them out of hand. More likely they'd be handed over to the thought police for a trip to Miniluv.
There are clues that it's all a sham, as in the week leading up to Hate Week, more rocket bombs than usual fall in London. Another one is the way that they find that they've switched sides, that their enemy is their ally and vice versa, and the Goebbels analogue whipping up the crowd never misses a beat.
I'd also argue that all the records exist in some form, as the photo that Winston recalls is miraculously pulled out during his "reducation"
The Proles are monitored, as there are sleepers hiding in plain sight marking down the more intelligent, those that could form dissident groups, and having them disappeared.
Hmm, possibly with friendly assistance by the French? Quite possibly there's a low-level war going on in the Channel (and Irish Sea) where anti-Oceanian forces will intercept patrol craft attempting to interfere with escapees once they're outside territorial waters. I used something like this as part of the background for the EDCverse (where the UK went 'fascist' in the '30s). There was even a TV series....
True. The East Germans who escaped by balloon come to mind.
Actually, that might be a plausible avenue to escape Oceania.
"Yes! We finally did it!
We made escape impossible and now within the borders of this island we shall break humanity-
Wait is that a fucking balloon?!"
stirlingdraka
Donor
I`ve just found this wonderful story. My favourite parts are the Culture Shock and the Girls Gone Wild.
Girls Gone Wild was really fun to write. I have quite a few ideas about how the Party controls sex drive and some of the connotations. For Culture Shock, I imagined the Party having no just written and rewritten historical records, but they would've completely ravaged British culture. This effort would've pretty much put all other 'Year Zero' campaigns to shame with how thorough it was. Nothing would be spared either extreme modification or outright destruction. Sherlock Holmes, Shakespear, even nursery rhymes. To someone who lived through the Cultural Revolution or the Cambodian Genocide, this situation would be horrifyingly familiar.
Pangur
Donor
I`m pretty sure I can see where the idea for Patrol Boat came from!. I now very curious about EDCverse