As Shana shifted her hips on the couch, I regained my focus on the real world. I had always been immersed in visuals, as most men are, and with this new 'screenless' videowall I was off in la-la land almost completely when the action started. "Turn it down sweetheart," she said for the millionth time in our marriage.
"Of course sweetie," I began, "volume down." I announced to the voice activated Central Server with speakers in our ceiling. The sound faded, as did I. The narration gave way to my own memories of the images scrolling across the wall. The Videowall behaved similarly to a true hologram, but had a depth that did not create true 3d. It was designed for viewing from one angle and giving the look of three dimensions.
Technically, it displayed 3 images only millimeters apart, but altered colors and to give the appearance of foreground, background and shading of objects. It was much more affordable than Tru-Holo, and it was the standard for my class wealth here in PONY. Turns out that true economic freedom and unabashed capitalism was not the best choice for PONY as an economic basis. After the early years of chaos and voilence, and our ongoing wish to grab only the most wealthy companies and individuals as PONY supporters, we learned a valuable lesson. A bullet kills a rich man with the same force as a poor man. The only difference is the trial afterwards. The rich man's death will provide distributed wealth to many people, from his heirs to his attorneys and accountants to his benefactors and servants. The death of a poor man would cost the city money.
In the Principality of New York, in 2021, the class system was voted on and enacted. It is not the 'caste' system used in Imperial India in the 19th century, it was the class system which only categorized an individual on a case by case basis. The class just extended and simplified all sorts of things from tax brackets to entitlements to access to "standard" consumer items. The brilliant idea that people had to qualify for everything from home electronics to licenses to travel and have children had seemed communist or despotic in the beginning, but it really just ended up creating a meritocracy. If people need to be successful in agreed upon criteria in order to enjoy certain things, then they would either work hard for it for the common good, or live with what they have and thumb their noses at those with more.
It took about 10 years to really settle into this class system, but all products and services were standardized and people learned to either live with their lot, or work on a personal level to improve. Most of all, tying back to our Videowall, no credit would be available to purchase things outside your class standards. Not only did this save PONY from the economic depressions that have ravaged the USA since the secessions, but it allows manufacturers to spend only the correct and efficient amount on product development and much less on advertising. Imagine if you would a product that was developed just for the segment of the market that was allowed to buy it. How perfect would it be designed? The cost would be contained because advertising budgets would disappear.
In PONY there were 12 classes of people. All of the them had the same rights and representation, but they had different categorical access to amenities. Everyone could have a car, but not everyone could have a BMW. Everyone vote, run for office and hold any public office, but only certain classes could attain certain ranks in public organizations. Your class was not determined solely by income, or heritage or anything in particular. A complex computer algorithm would produce your class designation.
In fact, lower classes had tremendous benefits for attaining a comfortable and secure life. They got free healthcare, free transportation and cheap loans for approved purchases. People of higher classes were expected to pay higher taxes, donate time and money and contribute to collective projects with innovation and dedication. In return, they could live in the nicer neighborhoods, drive the luxury cars and get travel visas to see the rest of the world. They would also gain access to PONY officials, which allowed them to speak more often to the government.
New York had 7 million people, spread through 12 classes. The top classes had very few people. Some claimed that the 12 class, the top class, only had 12 families. That had never been proven. However, if you exponentially increase the number of people as you go down from 12 to 11 to 10 and so forth, you would get pretty much the distribution of people in PONY. Classes were not set, in your lifetime you could ascend and descend, with some caveats about descending, many times.
I had been in class 7 my whole time in PONY. Just in the Upper Middle and hanging on for 20 years. Class 7 was a sweetspot, and occupied the first rank in the upper levels of access. We had a very large contingent, and we had champions in classes 8 and 9 to keep the benefits rolling. The Videowall was one of our major victories. Class 6 had no such luck. They were stuck with single flat screens and ambient sound, not targeted 3D sound like we had. In addition, class 7 could go apply and recieve a trip permit to almost anywhere in the world, but not at the best times. Shana and I had recently gone to Israel for 75th anniversary.
The Middle East had drastically changed since PONY was created. We were welcomed to New Jerusalem and toured the old city without sight of a machinegun or uniform. Since the collapse of OPEC, the governments of the Middle East had to stop hoarding money and living in totalitarian regimes to protect that money. Once the money had to be fairly earned by having a productive society, hatemongering wasted away as a fiancially unviable export. Nuclear plants popped up all over the Middle East withing a decade and basically, everyone had a threat so large to terrorist attacks, detente was established. Now more years later, those societies forgot what was the possible gain for breeding terrorists and selling hate to the rest of the world. Now the West still buys energy from the Middle East, it is just by way of oil, it is Megawatts.
On the Videowall an image of Stephen Bronkhurst come up. He was one of the founding fathers of PONY. He begins orating about the "Enlightened Society" that is his dream for the New York Principality. His speech was so smooth it was hypnotic. Stephen was a lawyer from Staten Island. He spoke at a rally in 2014, in July I think. He hit the scene right when everything was looking really dark. He saved the city in my mind. Although I was always a dramatist when describing that first 2 years. People thought that there might have been hundreds of saviors, Stephen Bronkhurst was my Roosevelt, Churchill and Clinton all rolled into one.