After the Great Green Reset wiped out civilisation back in the 2020s, the surviving humans on Earth had returned to caves - mostly because tents kept blowing away in the renewable-powered storms. And so, in the year 3399, the last thinkers on Earth gathered for the Annual General Meeting of the Great Cavern Roundtable (an actual, literal round table - thank the ancestors for inventing the wheel).
Many earthdwellers had moved to Mars on the Musk MAGA crafts captained by the legendary High Commander Trumpasaurus and Captain AD Vance. Mars was now a thriving planet and people ate good food, lived in wondrous things called " houses " and chatted all day long on a thing called Starlink, devoid of interference.
Unfortunately, Earth had banned access to the broadcasts and of those that remained, many people had been wiped out by a virus called " Wokeness. " The virus caused functioning brain cells to dissolve into a puddle of swamp slime and procreation was severely limited due to the number of people who didn't know what a woman was so they killed all the babies just in case they were female.
And so it was that the few remaining living creatures on Earth convened their annual general meeting to work out what should be on the agenda for the next year.
A hush fell over the Great Cavern Roundtable as the oldest caveman, Urg, scratched his beard and looked around at his fellow inventors. “First, we invent wheel. Big success. Then, we invent fire. Also good… except for Ogg’s eyebrows.” (The crowd chuckled as Ogg rubbed his still-patchy brow.) “Now, what next?”
Gorok, the cave's resident thinker, who had recently upgraded from animal skins to a primitive loincloth of stitched-together moss, cleared his throat. “I say… we think bigger! I heard some weird ideas about… something called 'electricity.’”
“Electric-who?” grunted Mog, who always looked suspiciously at Gorok whenever he came up with new-fangled ideas. “What are we going to do with this ‘electricity-thing’? We barely got the fire going without burning down the cave.”
But Gorok was not easily discouraged. “They say it’s like fire… but even faster. It could power… things!”
“Like… what things?” Urg squinted, looking skeptical. “We got food. We got rocks. We got fire to cook food and light to see rocks. What more do we need?”
“Well,” Gorok thought hard, scratching his head, “if we could harness this power, we could get something like… uh… like fire, but with less burning. And maybe even use it to warm things up, like coal does.”
Now, at the mention of coal, the debate took a heated turn. “Coal? We got lots of coal!” Ogg said enthusiastically. “I like coal. It’s, uh, easy to find, not too bright, just like Mog.”
Mog growled but decided to let it go.
" Oil is good. " said Mog. "We got plenty of that."
Gorok had heard of this thing called oil. "Maybe we could use oil to make something that could let us use these wheel things? We could call them cars."
The Cavemen laughed. " Wheels just round things. You got rocks in head. "
And so they decided to invent a game show instead.
Suddenly, a wise elder walrus waddled into the meeting. He’d heard talk of changes that might affect his seaside home. “What about wind?” he asked, whiskers twitching. “I heard about these things called wind farms. Big spinning things in the ocean. Not sure about them… they make waves that throw off my rhythm.”
Their ruins still lay in his home from the great global reset many eons ago. He wanted none of that again.
And that’s when the Whale swam up to the shore, surfacing with a deep, booming voice that echoed in the cavern. “Oh please! Offshore wind farms? What a nightmare! They messed with my sonar! All I heard is ‘whir whir whir’ when I was trying to navigate! How was a whale supposed to get any peace?”
The cavemen nodded respectfully; the whale was a well-known local figure.
Even the birds agreed. They hated the stories passed down to them of the great killing monsters of old Earth.
“I’m with the Whale,” came a voice from the back, where a colony of wombats had gathered. “All this talk of wind farms and solar stuff is fine until they clear out half our burrows to put ‘em in.”
“Yeah!” a turtle chimed in, slowly inching forward. “If I have to look at one more piece of cleared land, I’ll scream… in about a week, once I get close enough to the edge to see it.”
The animals' complaints made the cavemen thoughtful. They hadn’t considered the consequences of filling up the land and seas with big structures again, especially since they weren’t even sure how electricity worked yet.
Even the birds agreed. They hated the stories passed down to them of the great killing monsters of old Earth.
"What about sun? It be big on energy. "
The owl swooped in and hooted : " Solar panels would need thing called lithium and, apart from that, no one has reinvented China yet. "
“Maybe Gorok has a point,” Urg said, patting Gorok on the back. “But maybe we stick with what we know. Last I checked, nobody here knows how to make these… solar panels.”
“Yeah, and where do we even get lithium?” muttered Ogg.
Mog shrugged. “Never heard of it. Is that like a shiny rock?”
“Probably,” Gorok agreed.
" There is gas. Lots of gas! " said Urg.
Mog laughed and said " Me think that you just farting Urg! "
Gorok nodded wisely.
He was starting to like the simplicity of coal, gas, oil and the occasional burst of fire.
The council ended with a unanimous decision: fire was dependable, gas and coal were plentiful, oil was abundant and they didn’t have to worry about whales losing sleep over wind turbines or wombats losing homes to solar farms.
" So Oil, Coal and Gas it is and we try to make this electricity thing. All in favour, say Ugh. "
" UGH! "
As they broke up for the night, the animals all cheered, and even the whale gave a splash of approval. The cavemen had decided wisely… for now. After all, who knew what other strange ideas Gorok might have in a few millennia?
Urg had been pondering everything he heard.
" If we use oil and gas and coal maybe time to invent government and politicians to make sure all work. "
Gorok shook his head defiantly.
" No, Gorok never do that. Last time round they destroy world and that why we sit here now eating tofubeast and speaking like ancient ancestors – the Homo Greenie Moronicus "
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