THE OLYMPIAN POPULATION REDUCTION

With the guidance of Hermes and his caduceus (Episode 10 of the Lymp Duhdashian series)

The charter yacht crew noticed that Olympia Duhdashian was a different woman once she set foot on Antigua. She was laughing, relaxed and barefoot. She squatted in front of the beach huts and helped to string tiny shells and beads onto ear-rings for one of the vendors. She got up and danced when the sun set and the guitarists began to strum. It was almost impossible to recognise the stiff, superior British woman who had hired them in Miami.

Antigua has something that won’t fit into words. It isn’t wealthy but it is joyful and infectious. Lymp had left her iPhone on the yacht and did not even think about what she was missing on Tiktok or Instagram.

The following day, as arranged, a tiny fishing boat hailed the sleeping yacht crew with a blast from a horn. Two laughing islanders helped Lymp aboard her hired yacht and, after a quick breakfast, the two vessels slowly headed out towards the horizon.

The journey to Khan’s Island seemed shorter than Lymp remembered. An unfamiliar excitement was coursing through her veins when she spotted Girlfriend’s dolphin pod playing and chasing in the wake of the leading boat. Lymp grabbed her binoculars and searched the nearby island beaches for Khan’s oddly shaped boat as they approached to anchor just offshore. The stillness, broken only by the occasional flights of frigatebirds, was deceptive. Lymp knew exactly where to focus and closely surveyed the tangle of mangroves and seagrape trees. Nothing moved.

Taking the small rowing tender, Lymp and a member of the crew went ashore and headed up the beach towards the hidden driftwood shack where Lymp had first met Khan. It was deserted. Signs of a recent meal were visible on the rock table and so Lymp sat down to wait. She sent the crew member back to the yacht.

Hanging on a driftwood branch in the shack were her flippers and snorkel, just begging for a return visit to the coral reefs. Lymp was doing just that when Khan’s boat rounded the rocks and rode a wave onto the beach.

Khan was unloading his catch of fish as Lymp walked out of the water towards him.

“It is amazing how the sea keeps delivering the same lost luggage!” he quipped, grinning widely. “What brings you back to my humble abode, Lady Olympia?” and he threw a flamboyant theatrical bow.

“Well, it isn’t your scintillating wit or charm!” retorted Lymp, removing her flippers and snorkel. “I have brought you a present!” she teased and Khan feigned shocked delight. They hugged amid the fish and flippers, then made their way up to the shack.

“You are invited to dine aboard my elegant vessel. Do you have a tuxedo?” Lymp asked, gesturing towards the yacht at anchor just offshore. Khan looked down at his fish-skin swimwear and said “Oh yes! I will get Jeeves to run an iron over it forthwith!”

That night, Khan amused the yacht crew with his unpolished eating habits. He had a tendency to speak with his mouth full and make wild gesticulations with food in his hands. He was afraid to grab the wine glass, it looked far too fragile so he asked for a coffee mug and transferred his wine into it to save the embarrassment of smashing something so pretty. The crew absolutely loved him, fish-skin clothing and all.

“When do I get my present?” Khan demanded to know, like a five-year-old at Christmas. Lymp went to her cabin and returned with the 58-page document about Fusion Torch technology which she had printed on the turquoise superyacht. Khan’s eyes widened. “You listened!” he gasped in absolute amazement as he leafed through.

“It is not being developed, Khan!” Lymp pointed out. “They have been stalling and underfunding and…. well, you know the score….” but her words fell unanswered.

Khan was reading.

Two hours later Khan flipped the pages back to page one and noted the report date. “September 2013?” he queried. “So they know what it can do, but they have sat on it all this time?” His incredulous expression was a sad sight. Lymp explained how little information was available online and how suspicious that was. “I would not be at all surprised if the Olympians have already built it for themselves, somewhere remote…. maybe Antarctica?” she speculated.

Khan was impressed. Olympia Duhdashian was not quite as naïve as he had assumed. He began to read aloud:

“Start with the simple rate of biological energy usage for the human body, about 100 watts (as sustained by eating a standard 2,000 calorie diet). Assuming a hypothetical pre-fire civilization in which everything is done by human muscle, the power employed to sustain the “economy”—the power of labour—is only 100 watts per capita. Compare this with the growing per capita power usage throughout the history of the United States.

At the time of the nation’s founding, the wood-based economy provided around 3,000 watts per capita, a thirty-fold increase over the muscle power of a fireless society. Then the widespread use of coal throughout the economy increased the power per capita to over 5,000 watts by the 1920s, and the implementation of petroleum and natural gas brought this to over 10,000 watts by 1970—100 times the per capita power of our hypothetical fireless society.

With each succession, the previous fuel base declines as a power source (allowing it to be used for things other than combustion, as wood is used for construction, and petroleum should be used for plastics and related non-combustible products of the petrochemical industry).

Following the post-World War II developments, nuclear fission power was fully capable of sustaining this growth rate into the 21st century. In a conservative estimate based upon previous growth rates and the potentials of nuclear power, this should have brought the U.S. economy to a level in the range of 20,000 watts per capita by some time before the year 2000. By then, assuming the nation had maintained a pro-growth orientation, as fission power was becoming the dominant power source, the beginnings of applied fusion power should have begun to emerge.

With ocean water becoming an effectively limitless fuel source for fusion reactors, the U.S. economy would have been on a path to an energy flux density of around 40,000 watts per capita, and beyond, in the first generation of the 21st century, four times the current value of 10,000 watts. Again, this would not simply be more power for the same economy, but a fundamentally new economy.” Khan lifted his gaze from the page and added, looking at Olympia, “Precisely as my father predicted!”

He resumed reading one more paragraph:

“However, this natural growth process was halted with the takeover of the anti-progress environmentalist movement, a shift, then, which sent the economy on the direct path into the attritional collapse being experienced, now—a collapse process accelerated by imposing policies which lowered the energy flux density of the economy.”

Khan’s demeanour darkened. “This was not an accidental change,” he declared “but resulted from the top-down strategic intention of the Olympian Black Nobility and their damned totalitarian empire. They have explicitly and openly operated a policy to reduce the world population to less than one billion people.”

Image: The winged sandals of Hermes, Olympian Messenger God and guide for souls from mortality to the afterlife. His main symbol is recognised worldwide and used by pharmaceutical medicine. It is the caduceus. The significance of which, in the population reduction agenda, should never be ignored.