The SCS Living-Eye Surveillance Computer (mid-1970s)

Unfortunately, there's only scant reference to SCS (Scarfolk Clinical Security) in our archives. All we have is a screenshot from one of their television commercials and a page from a pamphlet given out by family doctors in the mid-1970s.

In 1973, SCS caught the government's interest when it claimed that it could combine and reduce the state's annual budgets allocated to the war on crime, censorship, organ donation and breakfast catering.

As you'll read below, the company proposed that reluctant citizens physically participate in the state surveillance process. Though the scheme was voluntary when it began, it quickly became mandatory.

 

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However, in 1976 the scheme suddenly collapsed and SCS went into liquidation. The company had already collected the initial 17,001 eyes that were required to run its living-eye surveillance computer, when it realized that it had neglected to invent an eye-to-computer adapter cable.

The now redundant eyes were returned to their donors with a complimentary display stand (actually, an egg cup with 'thank you' painted on it) and a letter that read: "Be proud that you can look yourself in the eye in the knowledge that your eye was once the nation's eyes and ears".

"Democracy Rationing" Public information poster (1970)

Chirper was an early computer network that allowed people all over Scarfolk to communicate with each other via short messages called 'Chirps' in 140 characters. It was allegedly created by a psychic and telepath called Warwick Webb who lived in a caravan to avoid detection. Chirper let people discuss social issues, vote on them almost instantaneously and deliver the results via telex to the council without needing to go through swathes of red tape.

Democracy no longer needed to be something that only occurred only once every four years on election day; users on the Chirper network could freely interact with political issues twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and they no longer needed politicians to represent them.

The council was unnerved. It had already spent millions on town planning that prioritised impersonal, widely-dispersed concrete conurbations, which discouraged people from leaving their homes and mingling on the streets where they could share potentially dangerous ideas. Chirper bypassed this plan and permitted mass democratic interaction on an unforeseen scale.

When a Chirping campaign snowballed, pressuring the council to reduce the dose of truth drugs in the water supply, the council had enough and closed down Chirper. They couldn't control it.

The council warned that democracy could collapse if average and below-average people were permitted to "exploit it willy-nilly for the benefit of themselves and others". "Democracy", a council spokesman said, "can only work if it is protected from the whims of the people. Democracy can only be preserved if it is governed by self-appointed leaders who decide when and how it should be applied. It should therefore be subject to cuts. For this reason, and for the good of society, we propose that the next general election be postponed for at least 16 years."

Below is a Democracy Rationing public information poster from 1970.

SIDA (Serious Infant Dental Assault)

Although there were genuine cases of children fatally biting people in 1970s Scarfolk*, historians now believe that there were far fewer incidents than was originally thought.

It is now believed that the government exploited the widespread fear of SIDA (Serious Infant Dental Assault) simply to silence children. The state had spent millions of pounds indoctrinating adults into accepting its prescribed view of reality, but children, who were yet to be intellectually and emotionally conditioned, were prone to asking questions. Even a simple enquiry could undermine an adult's strictly-controlled psychological servitude and set him back years.

Children up to the age of seven had to wear a muzzle, which was provided by the Notional Health Service, and when they were old enough they were fitted with special safety dentures which were made from lead. So heavy were these dental implants that children found it virtually impossible to open their mouths, restricting them to only uttering a word or two.

The scheme backfired when a group of muted children naturally developed telepathic abilities and tricked the county's dentists and orthodontists into boarding a mysterious black bus, which was never seen again.

*In 1971 six year old Kimberley Twix accidentally ate two members of her family, a social worker and the arm of a special forces soldier who was dispatched to contain the hungry child.