the split sophie gell
The Split
The Split refers to the most drastic point of separation in human history. The point in time in which everything split into two and more. Living beings no longer all inhabited the same timeline. It is the point at which humans detached from their point of origin, the only world in which they had ever existed, for a new one. While others were left to figure it out, with few resources left to sustain them. It is the point at which the history of Earth, our planet of origin, split into two trajectories. It is the point at which there became more than one truth.
Up until the day that I first set foot on Earth, there was only one truth that existed. It was a truth that was passed down to me, and all the other children born in space. It was the explanation of how a creature that once was tethered to a planet, could become untethered and continue living. It was the justification of how we could let the world that had sustained us become so sick, and then move on once it could no longer sustain us, leaving a fiery hell in our wake. It was the reason that our families deserved to live on in a new home, to have children, and nutrients, and lives, while others stayed on the dead planet. Of course, this is not how I understood it then.
I was born in 2313 on Rebekah 2. My parents are scientists who work in the energy station. I went to school and college where I studied to be an anthropologist. I am the second generation in
my family to be born on Rebekah 2, my grandparents came her in 2252 during the height of The Split. Growing up on Rebekah 2, there was a history that I knew to be true. It was my history, it was the history of the only world that I have ever known. It was the truth that my parents had lived behind, and the truth of the hell and pillage that my grandparents had themselves been lucky enough to survive and escape. Those who did not survive, and later those that could not escape, were not spoken of in the Rebekahs. Society has a mind to only move forward. “When we left Earth, we left it.” My grandfather said to my mother when she would ask about his birthplace, and later to me. As an adult, I understand this to mean that the grief over the loss of Earth and its inhabitants was too deep a grief to revisit for the generation that left. As a child, I understood it as a request for no more questions.
When the opportunity arose for me to come to visit Earth, I took it immediately. My family was not supportive. They couldn’t understand why I would want to see the ruins for myself. On Rebekah we are taught that Earth had been ravaged by fire and was covered in trash and decrepit buildings. I think I came out of the hope that I would feel some connection. I wanted to see where my existence comes from. I wanted to see trees! (Though I was assured they had all burned).
Conditions of the Research There is a yearly monitoring of Earth’s climate by the Rebekahs. A small craft descends with ecologists who take water and soil samples, and other climate reads. Data has shown that conditions on earth have been growing more favorable over the last 50 years. I proposed an
ethnography on a community on Earth to see if the people living there have contributed to these growing favorable conditions. My proposal was accepted, and I selected the Rintronto colony in Montana as the subject community. The reasons for selecting this community was their focus on sustainable agriculture, and their being a large community of people who have survived in the mountains since The Split, while contributing little to no pollution to their surrounding environment, as noted in data collected by Rebekahs.
In order to properly and professionally conduct this ethnography, I had to push past some of my excitement of being on Earth for the first time. On Rebekah the elementary school lesson plans included a subject on Earth History, such as agriculture, food, technology, and geography. In addition I have spent three months prior researching Earth cultures through archived news articles and saved internet images. This world that I would be entering should not be completely unknown.
Initially I had decided that it would be better for me not to disclose that I came from the Rebekahs, as this could insight a distrust or be an element of distraction. However, the issue of claiming that I was from a place on Earth that I knew less about than the members of the community probably would, was to be decidedly more difficult. Instead, I would be honest about my coming from space with the hopes that it would insight a mutual interest in our differences and sameness.
Communication was made with the Rintronto Colony prior to my arrival, with the understanding that I would stay for 6 months and I would work in exchange for living quarters, food, and cooperation.
Arrival on Earth
The journey to Earth was taken in a Bunoid 6.3 Biocraft, which is the standard vehicle used for bio-sampling expeditions to Earth because it can take the vertical journey from Rebekah to Earth as well as function as a hovering vehicle for the sample collecting work that happens once here. Though it does it’s job, the E.S. scientists believe the craft is outdated, and a good example of how Rebekah has removed much of the funding from the Earth Sciences program. Six days aboard the craft with the Captain, Winter France, and 6 of the Earth Scientists left time for much discussion of the relationship of Earth to the Rebekahs. While some want to uphold our link to Earth as the birthplace of our species, others see Earth as a dead planet that they worked so hard to leave, and want to defund any more investigation into Earth.
One day aboard the ship, I ask what the defunding of the program would mean for the Rebekahs, “Defunding the E.S. program is a major loss, and I think is the start of the final severance of our link to Earth.” says, Mark Mader, a biologist. “There are people who think funding these yearly missions is a waste of time. That it’s money we should be spending to better
Rebekah 2. For me, when I set foot on Earth, I know that it is truly my home. It’s a home that wouldn’t function as a home for me, nor would I know how to truly live in it, but it is my home nonetheless.” I think for many Rebekans, Earth represents a huge mistake and a large remaining example of the dark side of humanity, how are need to consume, killed the only home we ever had. “I think some people just don’t want to have to look back on what we did,” I say, “It’s easier to close the door forever and move on. When you come to Earth do you feel guilt over what our species has done?” Ben Tyke began to answer, than hesitated and sipped his meal. We were sitting in a booth that is midway through the ship. Six seats with buckles for each scientists. Now we are squeezing 4 to one side and three to the other, with the Captain listening from the control panel. “There is guilt and sadness. But actually I think of it as somewhat enlightening. You know, I began this work 25 years ago. Just in 25 years I have seen some changes on Earth that I never thought I would see. The first 10 years on Earth, there were no birds. Then one year we arrive to see 70 crows flapping on the branches of an old dead tree. One year when we came, we stepped out of the ship and it was raining, we actually felt rain, and it wasn’t acid rain like we had been taught in school. It gives me the feeling that we did do so much damage, that’s for sure. But the planet will be able to heal. You know, maybe we just ruined it for ourselves and not for every living thing.”
(A very quick digital sketch to describe the biocraft) The journey was filled with lots of conversations about Earth, and it felt good to be in the company of people who wanted to talk about it. For my whole life I was told not to ask questions and to move on. I could imagine that the six scientists aboard the ship and the captain as Earth-obsessed space children, just like myself.
First Days on the Rintronto Colony
On the morning of the 6th day aboard the ship, we landed in an area that looked like a desert. Dry, flat, the ground underneath felt like it was holding all the heat of the sun and covered the cuffs of our pants in dust. We don’t stay here for long. Once we have reached the ground we climb out to gather soil samples. The captain does some manual shifts to the wings, then we are able to continue at a vertical height of 60 yards above the ground. As we head towards the Colony we gain altitude. Thing start to become greener. Even in the desert I notice some small cactuses, they look dust-swept but I can tell that underneath they are alive. In Montana, I am surprised to see a green river moving fast, snaking through the tops of the mountains. There are
areas where the trees are all gone, leaving only rotting stumps anchored into the ground, but in other places there is forest. The forest never stretches very far, but it exists in patches that come rather frequently as we ascend. Though from Colorado to the Montana Colony is straight Northwest, my contacts request that we come in due West so that the craft does not fly over the Colony. I’m not sure the reason for this, but of course we oblige. We land a mile west from where the colony was apparently located. A man named Maurice was sent to meet me. I give emotional goodbyes to all of the men aboard the ship. I would see them in six months on their return voyage. I notice Ben and Mark with their eyes glued to the window, looking Maurice up and down. Though familiar with Earth from their work, it had always been custom for them to avoid contact with any Earth peoples. I was never given an procedural explanation as to why, but humans from Earth and from Rebekah tend to avoid interaction at all cost. On Rebekah's rare visits to Earth they don’t go to any inhabited areas. I understood that during The Split there were people that were forcibly left behind, abandoned, forever. But generations have passed, why has this attitude continued? As the ship takes off, I stand with Maurice, the first human on Earth I have ever met, waving.
Humanity in Earth and Space
I interpreted the community’s reaction to me to be remarkably reflective of my reaction to them. I felt extraterrestria. Certain interactions backed up this suspicion. During time I spent interviewing children in the classroom, I was told repeatedly that I “didn’t look like an alien.” Probing me to ask whether it was expected that I would look like an alien. “Well the people who
left Earth were like us, like humans. But you were born in space so maybe you would look like an alien? We were born on earth just like humans always are born on earth.” This came from a child named Lou. This was a common idea on Earth that I had never heard on Rebekah. On Rebekah, we were of course, human, transplanted into a new way of life in space, but we would never be anything else. In the Rintronto colony it seemed not to be a question of whether or not we were human but when we would become something else. Explained by Paloma, a farm manager, “To us our humanity is so deeply attached to how the Earth is what grounds us. I mean no disrespect, but humans belong on Earth. During The Split, many people who remained did not believe that our species had the right to move on after the destruction we caused. A lot of our attitude was that we would go down with the ship, so to speak.” As someone who has always felt that Earth was my home, despite never having breathed the air, I didn’t take any disrespect. I did however find these statements to eerily oppose the sentiments that I had always heard growing up. I thought of my family’s dismissal of my constant questions of Earth, to be coming from a place of pain and loss. Hearing this I wonder for the first time if it comes from a place of guilt.
Family Structures One of the most dramatic differences of the Rintronto Colony are the family structures. The whole commune considers itself family, and reproducing is merely one of the many roles played by some members of the community. Just as being a doctor, cook, or farmer, producing children is a responsibility done by those who select that interest. As far as raising the children, the youth live out of a large building, the Children’s Hall, with most of their days spent in school, and engaging with the community in other activities. “It is not that children don’t have parents,”
explains Elizabeth, who has given birth to three of the communities children.“ Though we don’t call them parents, the children in this community have a plentiful amount of adults who care for them, can be role models for them, and are daily facets in their lives.” Arin, a teacher, told me that it gives the children opportunities to select role models that are right for them. “Not only does it foster strong relationships between a child and their peers, but it allows the child to be truly respected as an individual. We encourage differences in the children. When they have a specific interest we really work hard to celebrate them, and even match them with an adult with similar interests.” As someone who was raised in a tight-knit family that can be traced even back to our time on Earth, this was perhaps the most shocking difference. In no way does it seem that the children are missing out on family. The attitude that adults have to children here is extremely warm and caring. I have watched so many adults sitting with children and playing, reading to them, giving tours of the farm and allowing children who are interested, to help, and much more. The more I thought about family structures back on Rebekah, which humorously mimic those of old Earth, while new Earth is so changed, the more I realized how much of that was attached to economics. For us, your children are your responsibility, you have to make enough money to feed them, to cloth them. You have to teach them well enough that one day they will be able to feed, cloth, and care for children of their own. You work very hard, and if there is any value to your name that you haven’t spent on yourself or your children, you kids get to keep it, and so on. “Everybody in the Colony agrees that it is everybody’s responsibility to care for the children in the community. The same is true for the elderly. If someone does not agree with this, they don’t have a place living and working in the community.” A sentence that I have heard rephrased time and time again.
Eating Rituals
Its September 29th, A cold day. I haven’t taken off my coat despite being indoors. I am sitting at one of the dining tables towards the entrance of the dining area. The large blue double doors are on my right, behind me there are three windows. On the other side of the hall are two green double doors and three more windows. There must be around 25 large tables in the room. The hall is filled by people of all different ages. Tonight the 8 and 9 year olds join us in the dining room and are dispersed at tables throughout. The kitchen is towards the right where 8 large pits sit along with utensils, plates, cups for water. I am sitting against the wall, facing the large open area. I have a good view of everyone from my seat. Not every member of the community is here, those who live in the village often cook in their homes, and most of the children will be eating in the Children’s Hall tonight, but most adult member eat at the dining center 4-5 nights a week. On the menu for tonight is brown rice stir-fried with spinach, peas, and beets.. With beans on the side and flour tortillas. At this point I have been on Earth for a month and a half and I am obsessed with the food. I have tasted most of the elements of this food on Rebekah. Hydroponic systems grow are base nutrients which are processed into “Slurries” but there are some used in the education system to grow small quantities of fresh produce. Our diet is largely comprised of these slurries. A liquid that fulfills all of our nutritional needs, and comes in different flavors. Because one slurry is all that is required to fill our daily nutritional needs, it was difficult for me adapt to the way meals are sectioned out throughout the day at the commune. Now that my digestion has adapted meal time is my favorite part of the day, and not
only for the food. There is conversation, the sound of plates and forks clinking, and children laughing and screaming. At my table tonight is mostly elders, except for two 9 year olds and their teacher. On my right sits Anna, who I met the day before. Anna used to be a teacher of the 7 year old group for 37 years, but now works in the senior center. Anna is wearing an old-seeming wool sweater with a hole in the left elbow and A red silk scarf around their neck. Jeans and thick gray socks underneath a pair of sneakers. Across is Luis. A farm worker in their 50s. Luis wears a think navy coat unbuttoned with a shirt on it that reads, “Underwater Subterranea.” They are speaking about a bad storm that could be coming. Anna tells me that the colony was notified by some folks out in Colorado that a bad storm passed over them going North, seemed to be picking up in wind, too. Luis adds that it should hit tomorrow afternoon. “Will the river flood again?” says, Oren, one of the 9 year olds, with tight curly hair and sweater that looks very itchy. “It could.” says Anna, “but it will be the perfect opportunity to test the new dunes! Won’t that be exciting to see if all those seeds you kids planted will help hold the dunes together? And it probably won’t flood anyway, I bet just a lot of wind” Sensing a nervousness from the children, Anna begins to speak lovingly about how they had taught the children’s teacher when they had been just 7 years old. I stand up to refill my aluminum cup. On my way to the faucet I pass two tables of teen-aged youth. They are the rowdier bunch in the hall. After age 13, children are welcome at the dining hall any time they choose, and many take advantage of the opportunity to be amongst the adults, though they do seem to stick together within the larger community. The drinking water faucet is next to the wash basin. As people finish they clear their plates into a compost bin. Then there is a bucket for rinsing, a bucket with soap and sponges, and a bucket with bleach water. Lastly, a drying rack. Where the dishes will remain waiting for breakfast
tomorrow morning. Back at the table, Luis is concerned that the beets will freeze before they are at their full growth. Anna suggests that the beet are harvested early and kept in the cellar. “I love baby beets!” People are now starting to stand up and there is a line at the wash basin. As I wait in line I watch a young adult in their twenties, warmly caution a a small group of 8 year old about the grease left on the dishes they have just placed in the drying rack. “You’re gonna want to make sure these are squeaky next time, or you might hear it from old Indy” they says, cautioning to an older adult who has brought in a new, clean bucket of soap and water. Indy overhears and looks up, “It’s true! I want to see those plates squeaking!” The older kids have begun gathering the 8 and 9 year olds and bundling into jackets for the walk back to the Children’s Ha;;. I wash my fork, plate, and cup. When I return to the table Luis is speaking about a new variety of peas that are incorporated into the meal. It is the first successful beet crop in two years after a “yellowing virus”. Luis has been overseeing this crop of beets and has reported no sign of the virus this year, as it is a new variety. It is chilly so I haven’t taken off my sweater or my coat. I stand up, already fully dressed for the weather outside and wish Anna and Luis a goodnight and leave to my quarters. In is only 7:26 but already dark and I am tired and full.
Days on The Farm
Growing up I was obsessed with the Hydroponics system we had in our school on Rebekah. The curriculum exists in part to educate about agricultural techniques that we had had on Earth, but mainly because the nutrients in Slurries are grown through a huge Hydroponics system. Seeds of different crops, modified to have the highest possible nutrient content, are processed together
into Slurries. For those who prefer solid food, can choose to consume Solids instead, which are just a solid form of the meal. On Rebekah, we see food and our need for nutrition as a problem and Slurries are the most convenient and economical solution. In the Rintronto Commune, It is clear that food is a way of life. From growing it, to cooking it, to socializing while eating it, food represents joy in this community. For insight into the communes highly adaptive agricultural system, I spent some days training with Paloma, a support-hand in the agricultural section of the colony. Paloma is 60 years old and was born on Earth. Paloma’s grandmother was a founding agriculture director who designed the groundwork for the agricultural system in place in the Colony today. Thus Paloma has family ties to this line of specialty. As Paloma showed me how to start seeds in Hanger 2, the colony’s largest greenhouse, I asked about their family’s deep-rooted agricultural background. The grandmother was largely responsible in designing the agricultural system in place in the colony today “Grandma was born in 2183, so she was born into times of mass devastation on earth.” Paloma explained as she dropped two small seeds into tiny containers. “You know, the incredible food shortages and famine that occurred were the result of incredible temperature change and crop homogeneity. My family’s lineage in America has some roots with enslaved africans brought to this country to work in the fields. And though it has been almost 500 years, my grandmother was born in Kansas, her mother was born in Kansas, and our family has occupied the same land for a remarkable amount of time prior to the Split.” O n another day, Paloma had shown me a pocket of photographs kept very safe in small glass frames. They were all very old, having been taken in times when photographic prints were the only way to keep an image. They were posed portraits of her centuries old relatives. The quality of the photographs seemed to mark time, but while the figures changed in the back was
always the same house. The house in Kansas had been in her family since early Black Americans were first permitted to own property. Her grandmother had grown up in that house, and her grandmother’s grandmother. “As people whose livelihood laid in working the land, they were first hand witnesses of the way that the earth began to change. My grandmother came from a family of scientists really. Some were educated and some were not, but they were all dedicated archivists and observers. Each harvest was recorded in detail. The way that each crops success changed with the temperature, the amount of rain. As climate change began to take a more extreme effect, they documented how their crops withheld to extreme weather. To changes of mineral composites in the soil. So with that my grandmother had an incredibly rich record on this lands agricultural history. Yes, they moved out of Kansas to Montana but these resources still gave her an excellent backbone in how to work with land, and to be adaptable. I think after the Split those left on earth really understood that you there is no way to make the planet adapt to us. The only way to get along is to adapt to it. And true farmers and people who work the land know that more than anyone. You can put billions of dollars into machines to seed, to water, to till. But it doesn’t matter if summer comes and the sun burns right through everything. You have to figure out how you’re going to get along. It is about survival.” Though the farm is run in the mind of being adaptable to the Earth in order to be successful, they have several technologies to make this easier. For example, The Seed Generator. Manny, one of the colony’s Agriculture technicians, told me that the generator was invented 10 years prior. “The invention of the Seed Generator came out of the need to diversify agriculture in order to protect the primary food source from famine, disease, and weather related growth issue.” Up until the invention, the technique of diversifying crops had been done manually using Paloma’s family agricultural
records. Using the same records, data was created from which the generator was created on. “The center of this colony is our agriculture. It is our way of life, the key to our survival, and our spirituality.” Paloma tells me as we weed a bed of eggplant one morning in the end of August. “To get to where we are we had to create a new mindset than that of humans living prior to The Split. We see what the Earth can do when she is unhappy, she can end us all. That’s her power, not ours.”
Analysis
The story of humanity is a long story, that is more complex than my family members on the Rebekahs believe. The story of humanity does not leave Earth when we did, and while it follows us into space, it stays with those still on Earth who continue to work the land. When my family left Earth they did not look back. They did not wave goodbye to those who stayed. It was a complete separation. It was “every man for himself”. What I experienced in the Rintronto Colony is so different from that attitude. No one is alone. The community works so that everyone in the community can live and carry on. This is such an important backbone to the community that it has changed what the word ‘family’ means. Included in their concept of family is the Earth itself. As they care for themselves and each other, and are cared for by each other. The Earth cares for them as they care for it. In a way, the same can be said for the Rebekahs, but when we created our environment we did the work to create one that would care for us. The mindset of adaptability, demonstrated by the colony, is a methodology that seems to be working. Without adapting this mindset, I doubt that human life could have continued on Earth. As a Rebekan, I
credit my appreciation for life and humanity to what I saw in the Rintronto Colony. To my family and others back on Rebekah, who have worked so hard to leave Earth, I wonder if they should not return to it to see why they are here. As well, I hesitate to say this. Much of the Rintronto colony’s success has been based upon its ability to stay quiet. I assume this is true for many other Earth communities. Above all, I am interested in how the Rebekans, though they are the human group who left Earth, brought all of the same social orders with them to space to be maintained. While the colonies have done so much reordering. Rebekah was built as a place where we could continue our consumption, our politics, our way of life, but not on our dying planet. We built a home in space that adapts to us. While on Earth they have learned as a community to adapt themselves to their home. So much can change when the balance of control is altered. By learning that they weren’t in control and accepting it, the colony grew into a self-sustaining family that is prepared for whatever is to come. I fear for those of us on Rebekah and our children. In comparison, floating in open space feels quite vulnerable.
Citations Anthony Johnson, Mark. “Wellness and the Black Molecular Future.” Huffington Post. 6 February. 2016.https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-anthony-johnson/wellness-and-the-black-molecular-future_b_9172004. html. Accessed 12 October. 2018. This is a short article that details how the system in place today, environmentally, socially, and otherwise perpetuates black violence even from a molecular level. It names ways that despite this deep violence, black wellness structures such as food, healing, and institutionalizing healing practice, have overcome so many intense struggles. As well as suggest ways to propel this wellness into the future. This is a useful resource for me in my ethnography because I am basing this future around the idea that humans get a chance to start over, and redo things knowing the risks, the violent systems that perpetuated racism and climate change, and being able to change how society functions in order to create a less hostile within human populations and with the planet.
Langwick, Stacey-Ann. “A Politics of Habitability: Plants, Healing, and Sovereignty in a Toxic World.” Cultural Anthropology. 0 4 September 2018. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.14506/ca33.3.06. Accessed 11 November 2018.
This is a really amazing ethnography of a healing garden in Tanzania. Talking about the practice of healing the Earth while healing yourself and the role that plants play in detoxifying our bodies and our soil. Langwick cites Vanessa Agard-Jones and others in this paper. I wanted to take from it the idea of having a mutually beneficial relationship with the Earth, in hoping that I could create a community that develops this, basically post-apocalypse.
Padilioni Jr, James. “Cosmic Literacies and Black Fugitivity.” AAIHS, 20 December. 2017.https://www.aaihs.org/cosmic-literacies-and-black-fugitivity/. Accessed 12 October. 2018. I am including this resource because it focuses on and validates other kinds of literacies that have led to people doing extraordinary things on earth. On earth today we hold an elitists view on how one can be intelligent and successful, and who the people that are these things can be. I think we have lost out on a lot of intelligence by dismissing literacies that are not coming from institutions, that may not be literally reading and writing. The post-split earth society is one that acknowledges different kinds of strengths and intelligences are necessary to have a successful community. Literacy with the earth is especially important, such as stargazing which is discussed in this article.
Stager, Curt. Deep Future : The next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth. New York : Thomas Dunne Books, c2011., 2011. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.purchase.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat02997a&AN=PU R.000366310&site=eds-live. This book, which I have only read parts of but plan to read more of, predicts what the future of Earth will be like, and how that will affect human life. This is useful for me because I have to create an ethnography which details life far into the future and it is helpful to know what that could potentially look like from a scientist’s perspective. Also useful to know in terms of planning the Rintronto colonies way of life, and how that can be successful in a future earth.
This Changes Everything. Directed by Avi Lewis. Klein Lewis Productions Louverture Films. 2015. I am choosing this source because it is about how we cannot reverse nor lessen the effects of climate change because our mode of consumption is so intertwined in capitalism. If we want to help our planet we need a new system. I will watch this film because in my world, they have changed the system through which to live in order to be more favorable to the planet and I think it will help me figure out what that system actually is.