You Who Come After

Vault Of The Ages, Chapter 3.

Words engraved on a bronze plaque on a wall inside the Time Vault:

"TO YOU WHO COME AFTER: THE WORLD IS ON THE EDGE OF THE FINAL WAR, THE WAR WHICH I THINK WILL DESTROY ALL CIVILIZATION AND HURL MAN, IF MAN SURVIVES, BACK TO SAVAGERY AND IGNORANCE..." (p. 40)

It continues...

Many sf works, including several by Poul Anderson, are set during recovery from a nuclear war. This plaque reminds me of an episode in the live action Planet of The Apes TV series. Someone finds a video beginning with something like "We, the scientists, greet you..." The video introduces a store of scientific knowledge, like the Vault, but a gorilla general destroys it. The ancient knowledge is dangerous. It is taboo in Vault...

The scientist who composed the words on the plaque did not record his name. Ronwy thinks that he wanted to be thought of as "'...the whole human race...,'" (p. 41) bequeathing knowledge. If I were in his place, then I also would prefer anonymity. I would not have created all the knowledge that I was transmitting.

At the end of Alan Moore's V For Vendetta, Evey can unmask the dead anarchist terrorist, V, but does not because who he might have been is greater than who he is. Or something. If I were Evey, then I would want to know something about the individual who had been V while at the same time remembering that the public image and the legend were always greater than the individual who had created them.

In this post, we have compared a novel, a TV episode and a comic strip. The sky is the limit.

See also:

V On Stage

Dredd And V

Who Are No 1 And V?

Dredd And V III (I can't find a II)