The most talented members of mankind, after having eschewed personal political involvement during the benign early decades of the century, began to understand that it would only be through the collective skills of the brightest and most capable humans that any semblance of civilized life could ever be restored. At first the monumental cooperative efforts that resulted were only modestly successful; but they rekindled the fundamental optimism of the human spirit and started the renewal process-Slowly, ever so slowly, the elements of human civilization were put back into place.

It was still another two years before the general recovery finally showed up in economic statistics. By 2147 the Gross World Product had dwindled to 7 percent of its level six years earlier. Unemployment in the developed nations averaged 3 5 percent; in some of the undeveloped nations the combination of unemployed and underemployed amounted to 90 percent of the population-It is estimated that as many as one hundred million people starved to death during the awful summer of 2142 alone, when a great drought and concomi­tant famine girdled the world in the tropical regions. The combination of an astronomical death rate from many causes and a minuscule birthrate (for who wanted to bring a child into such a hopeless world?) caused the world’s population to drop by almost a billion in the decade ending in 2150.

The experience of The Great Chaos left a permanent scar on an entire generation. As the years passed, and the children born after its conclusion reached adolescence, they were confronted by parents who were cautious to the point of phobia. Life as a teenager in the 2160s and even the 2170s was very strict. The memories of the terrible traumas of their youth during The Chaos haunted the adult generation and made them extremely rigid in their application of parental discipline. To them life was not a joyride at an amusement park. It was a deadly serious affair and only through a combination of solid values, self-control, and a steady commitment to a worthwhile goal was there a chance to achieve happiness.