All Comments on 'The Humper Game Pt. 07 Ch. 14'

It has been a long and quite enjoyable journey..... far better for the path taken than any hope of joy at the destination!

A great read! I thoroughly enjoyed the deeper dive into their religious journey.

Good story. I’ve already said the retales to others of their past experiences were a bit drawn out. Still, worked.

Would like to hear the ending of this....the reason for the foretelling.

I agree with Fseries that I would like to have seen where this all led. Much of the reason I carried on reading to the end was because I thought you must have a particular end in view. I don't know whether you did/do, but unfortunately you did not reach it. It stops but does not reach an ending.

Two people commenting here, and more who sent feedback, want to know of events many years later. If I managed to write the whole thing, I doubt it would be enjoyed (or even read), and the people who want it probably won't see it. However, for my own use, I'd made notes, and I've expanded them a little. Here's the result. (At least in preview, it looks like some formatting has been lost.)

<u>Here are bare notes on the events which relate to Ellen’s vision. I do not expect ever to write the long epilogue this would have to be. This is only to show what I have (and have had) in mind. Too much would have to be filled in, and it’s too much that would be very public in the real world, and nothing of the kind will happen. (I hope and believe so, anyway!) Moreover, there are some <i>big</i> unanswered questions about <i>how</i> this might happen.</u>

<u>I admit up front that one bit of what I’ve been imagining pretty clearly derives, in my thinking, from Knebel and Bailey’s book <i>Seven Days in May</i>—that is, from my reading of it almost sixty years ago, when it was fairly new. I never saw the movie, so that had no impact, and I’ve forgotten almost all of the book—but one aspect of the plot has remained with me over all that time, and my imagination of the political maneuverings that the epilogue would require has its origin in my vague memories of that book.</u>

This is set to take place in the spring intersession break of 2040, about twelve years after the end of the story—that is, after Phil’s and Ellen’s return to the island. That means almost all of the students, and a lot of the staff, will be absent. This would be approximately the last week of April.

Avi has been in a high school in the US (location unspecified). He finished it in three years, and additionally garnered enough college credits to enter as a sophomore. This is in the DC area, where he has been living with his grandparents. During summers and available time during university terms, he has an internship with a data-management company which is a government contractor.

Bella is a senior in high school on the island—eighteen years old, of course. She is there partly because sex ed is now optional. OK, this definitely goes beyond the contract Phil and Ellen agreed to. Reason: in the wake of Phil’s critique of the sex ed program, changes began (per Mary Miller/Miles, in Part 7). After many years, between Avi’s entry into high school and Bella’s, sex ed was made somewhat optional. Many details would need to be worked out on this. There is a fellow student, a boy who also grew up on the island. (Working name: Joey.) He and Bella were living with their families during that week, naturally, but assigned a project to work on together during that time. They already had known each other well, and had been rather ahead of their classmates at the beginning of high school. At the time described below, they were outside and away from their homes because they were taking a break from their assignment—except that they were discussing it as they walked around.

There is a group within the US government—not limited to the government—that has political objectives which they feel can’t be reached as things are, and they have come up with a plan. Some members of the military have been brought into this conspiracy, in particular. The plan is to have another nation (never specifically named, or maybe given an entirely fictitious name) send a small naval expedition—two ships full of soldiers—to the island and take it over. They are to prevent communications with the US and the rest of the world.

The island (including the school) has close ties to the US, but is in international waters, and most Americans are ignorant of its existence, including the school. The invaders’ plan is to take control, then present the world with a <i>fait accompli</i>. They anticipate that this will produce serious political disorder in the US, with demands on the one hand that the US government and military Do <i>Something</i>—and on the other hand that they do <i>nothing</i>, that doing <i>anything</i> would simply be “imperialism”. The other nation has been promised, by the American conspirators, that the US will not intervene—but the actual plan is that the US military will go there in force, and then simply sit there pending negotiations.

This is designed to lead to an attempt to impeach the president, which is expected to go nowhere—at which point military units that haven’t been sent off to the island will take charge in Washington, claiming that treason has been committed and declaring martial law. (The whole story sketched here is how this was prevented—none of it actually happens.)

Early on, Phil manages to contact Avi. (This is one of the things that needs explanation that I don’t have ready!) Not much information is available at that point, but Avi brings his grandfather (Bob) into it, as well as passing it along via contacts he’s developed through his employer.

Bella and Joey, who are of course still on the island, are spotted and captured to provide information. They don’t, of course, know anything special, and aren’t inclined to cooperate anyway. (They do know a good deal more about the island than the average student there, but nothing about security, arms, etc. Phil doesn’t talk about his job any more than Bob did his.) They are brought onto one of the two ships for questioning. While there, they are left alone, and manage to escape and hide on board. (Some minor emergency has come up elsewhere on the ship, and the soldiers who have them in custody are ordered away to deal with it.) They discover that there is a self-destruct device present, so that the invaders can avoid capture. They manage to set it to go off at a later point, and when darkness has fallen they escape from the ship and make their way to shore. (Details, details. Sigh) Behind them, the ship they were on blows up.

Peter happens to see Bella and friend taken prisoner, and passes this on to Phil. What comes of this I don’t know. Something has to! (And something would!)

The officers of the other ship assumes that the explosion indicates that the US is attacking, and the ship retreats from the island, heading for home. They leave behind the soldiers who have occupied the island. There aren’t really that many of those.

At about this point, before they have proceeded very far, an expedition from the US arrives. This is much earlier than the invaders had expected anything to happen. The information Phil and Avi were able to pass on has caused that. The officers in command press the panic button, blowing up their ship to prevent capture. With a minimal number of US soldiers going ashore, the rest of the invaders are found and taken prisoner.

I think we learn afterward that the invading nation had better intelligence than the US conspirators had realized, and were aware of their planned putsch. They hoped it would trigger civil unrest enough for a full invasion of the US. (Hence their own secrecy regarding who is in charge on their end, and the provisions for thoroughly scuttling their ships.)

My thinking is that this prevents not only a civil war in the US, but also a war with a foreign enemy—not quite World War III, but something pretty major.

<u>This is a bare sketch. One thing that writing the main story has taught me is that fleshing out such a design takes very much longer than one would think, and results in a much longer story than imagined. For that reason and many others, the epilogue will never be written.</u>

In length and scope. Covers an unbelievable amount of territory - sex, religion, philosophy, what “matters” at various points in one’s life. Breathtaking. And still it would not have been complete if the author had not added his own comment describing the vision we had anticipated for probably 50 chapters. And like the best authors do, it is just implied/sketched out so we need our imaginations instead of it all being spelled out for us. The vision sounds like an episode of Mission: Impossible, by far my favorite formative tv show.