The mission to stop Muzak, the precursor to streaming entertainment – specifically Netflix – didn’t go as planned. Shall I start at the beginning? Or perhaps the end, which feeds in an endless loop to the beginning.
It begins/ends/begins with the dystopian future, which we all know awaits us as a species.
The Director has become aware of the early 21st century documentary
Travelers. This is a problem. If the public at large learns that these attempts to alter the future aren't in fact fiction, non-fans of the show will surely try to intervene, if only as fodder for their Facebook friends, thus endangering the mission. Which is: no more dystopia. Capeesh?
Approximately a century before Travelers finds an audience eager to see if the gang can get out of their latest scrape,
George O. Squier [pronounced Square, so you can say it right in your head] is/was hard at work on “a system for the transmission and distribution of signals over electrical lines which was the technical basis for what later became Muzak, a technology streaming continuous music to commercial customers without the use of radio.” Wikipedia is very useful to the Director, who is rewriting it all the time.
History records that Square (it’s just easier to type, my finger keeps hitting the 'e' first)
no relationsuccessfully entertained Staten Islanders by transmitting music over electrical wires on January 1st, 1920. Actually history doesn't record it, or if it does I can’t find it, and anyway the date can’t be trusted due to constant interference with the past by the Faction, so we’re going with it. [Note that the Unix epoch won't begin for another 50 years, which is why this post is misdated.]
The song Square chose for this demonstration of his inventive genius was Al Jolson’s
You Ain’t heard Nothing Yet, a snappy welcome to the roaring twenties. It would be such a hit that he'd easily coast into his patent, paving the way for his future commercial successes.
The plan
is/was to substitute the phenomenally popular ragtime singer’s ditty with one of Queen Victoria’s favourite dirges, of which there were thousands to choose from, so thoroughly disenchanting the listening audience that Square’s personal stock would fall low enough as to never recover. Muzak would die an early death; Netflix would, in theory, never have a chance to be born, the creative partnership with Showtime therefore unable to yield the forbidden fruit that is Travelers.
The first hurdle to be overcome was transferring the consciousness of an operative to a time before smart phones, GPS, and social media – a premise necessary to establish an exact time/place of death for the host body and provide a dossier of information sufficient to allow for a successful transition. Initial attempts relying on educated guesswork saw the Director adopting a hit and miss approach which actually caused The Great Depression, an oopsy everyone is forbidden to mention at risk of a Very Grumpy Director, which often leads to petulant mind wipes.
Eventually success was achieved by possessing a stockbroker about to leap to his death, despondent over his failure to invest in the relatively recent invention of the fortune cookie. (Future history is full of such ironies.) The stockbroker, a vain and flamboyant man, had hired a skywriter to say his goodbyes to the world; this was captured on daguerreotype by a photographer who was really into retro. The not-exactly-decisive moment, along with very yellowing newspaper clippings from dystopia's voluminous morgue, was apparently enough for the Director to go on, being the Director and all.
Long story slightly shorter, using his business connections the stockbroker was able to insinuate himself into Square’s affairs and hire a Victorian DJ from Radio 2 to inaugurate this early version of Muzak with the dirge. Surprise surprise, dirges would actually be quite popular in the immediate postwar period. “Paint it Black” proved a hit with the Staten Islanders, and history remained unchanged except that The Rolling Stones would later cover the song to the consternation of mental health care professionals.
1994
The
heart of Travelers is arguably Marcy, supposedly played by MacKenzie Porter. Born in 1990 and raised on a cattle and bison ranch near Medicine Hat in Canada, “MacKenzie” began studying piano, violin and voice at age four, according to disinformation planted by the Director in a stopgap measure to erode confidence in the documentary’s verisimilitude until a permanent solution can be achieved, ie, no TV show to begin with.
though that would mean one less bike on a wall for bike-on-a-wall-spottersIn reality Marcy is of course played by Marcy, traveler #3569, clearly breaking
Protocol 2 along with the rest of the cast. This never would have happened if the Director wasn’t such a cheapskate; actors in successful shows have a much better standard of living than hospital X-ray technicians. And did you think FBI agents inhabit
interiors out of Architectural Digest? Please. The occasional handout by historian/sure-thing gambler Philip doesn’t cut it.
has a thing for interior designersAs Operation Squier failed in its objective, the new mission is to deter “MacKenzie” from being seduced by the limelight by bigging up the attractions of bison, therefore ripping the heart out of Travelers and rendering it DOA. Not only does this not work, it helps elect Donald Trump, which is still affecting the future in unforeseen ways except for the fact that it remains a dystopia. Here’s how:
Bison aren’t as attractive to a young girl as, say, horseys. Thus it falls to traveler #1931, aka fellow Canadian William Shatner, to make the Director’s vision so.
Through his agent, Shatner obtains an early draft of
The Horse Whisperer, due to be published soon. He tries to convince the author to change it to The Bison Whisperer, offering standard Hollywood blandishments such as a co-producer credit on Star Trek Generations, hoping to sway MacKenzie in the direction of animal husbandry when she gets old enough to appreciate the acclaimed film (in which he naturally would star in place of Redford, exponentially increasing its appeal). The mission suffers a setback when the author demurs.
”I see people in medicine hats”A messenger then informs Shatner to buy up most of Medicine Hat, like Kim Basinger put
a small Georgia town in her shopping basket and Bruce Willis would pump that Die Hard cash into
Haley Hailey. Surely his star power would make
The Gas City shine bright enough to dazzle an impressionable young mind otherwise given to thoughts of wanderlust.
The scheme attracts investor interest from south of the border, which Shatner welcomes, being leery of draining his own coffers to convince MacKenzie (who remember, doesn’t even exist – the grand plan can get very weird that way) to stay. Unfortunately for businessmen, trade and investment between the two countries is still thwarted by red tape. The clamour of frustrated investors becomes such that it is heard in Washington DC, helping to push the free trade movement into its great victory: Nafta. American agribusiness moves in on the family ranch, making MacKenzie's father an offer he can't refuse, and it's goodbye Medicine Hat anyway.
Trump of course will go on to create such a negative buzz over free trade in the 2016 elections that he'll be propelled into the White House. QED.
