Y1K

December 1999

Medieval World Fears It Isn't Y1K Compliant

Dateline: Europe, A.D. 999 – Waves of panic have carried as far as castle walls. Land barons have raised taxes and stepped up their schedule of exploiting serfs in anticipation of a Y1K shutdown. Concern has reached even the nobility. Sir Samuel Morley of Great Wickham-On-Tyne frets that Y1K issues could stall the next Crusade. "It could affect drastically our ability to massacre civilizations we don’t understand. We simply must become Y1K compliant." While no one really knows what that means, concerns such as Sir Samuel’s echo across the length and breadth of Europe.
In the English countryside there is widespread fear that rivers will turn to blood and that dragons will walk the Earth. Many commoners are stockpiling stale water and rancid meat for fear these won’t be available after Y1K. "I would be boarding up my windows right now", said one peasant on condition of anonymity. "If I had windows. Or boards." Many of his neighbours scheduled to succumb to plague and famine in the New Year are dying early to avoid the rush.
Across the Channel in France the panic has fostered a booming market of quick-fix charms, everything from animal entrails to Holy Relics. Yet some fear that the pending crisis is overblown. "Mankind loves to imagine horrors in the unknown and populate our frontiers with creatures of our own hysteria," Medieval scholar Theodoric the Elder proclaimed to a crowd of students outside the University of Paris. During a pep rally afterwards, Theodoric was decapitated and burned at the stake.
The calmest Y1K reactions come from those who understand the least. "I can’t count so I don’t know what is going on," opined one village idiot. "Utter ignorance has always worked for me and I’m sticking with that."
And there are those in denial. "Technically, this isn’t the millenium", the German Royal Mathematician Abacus said. "Since there was no year ‘zero’, the thousandth year of Christian history does not begin until 1001. But, of course, no one listens to me."
Organized religion too appears to be mathematically disadvantaged. Said Biblical expert Friar Edgar, "The mark of the beast is 666. So this year we encourage those carrying out persecutions to hang heretics upside down before burning them. We are working day and night to find a way to blame the pending crisis on infidels and others who do not support our views in Rome".
In Northern Europe, Y1K fears are not as prevalent as in the South. Viking warrior Hrothgar the Vengeful explained: "Most of us here in Denmark have not yet been converted to Christianity, so Y1K means very little to us. We are compliant in terms of our own religious counting and have nothing to fear for the next several hundred years."
Hrothgar’s father, Hrothgar the Tyrant added that pillaging Southern Europe is a national business enterprise and that Y1K fears in England and elsewhere may work to their advantage. "Panic and divisiveness amongst the populations of the Lower Countries can only bode well for our own future. Divide and rule. That’s this nation’s foreign policy now."
Sir Samuel of Great Wickham-On-Tyne disagrees. "If we are unable because of Y1K to mount an Expedition to save Jerusalem from the Infidel, we will be that much stronger at home. Foreign businesses like the Hrothgars’ are in for stiff competition right here along our shores. Divide and rule? No government in their right mind would ever consider that as foreign policy. What a lot of nonsense!"
As the millennium approaches, there remains in some quarters a patient fatalism. "There really isn’t anything we can do", said one Astrologer. "We shall continue to assure everyone who will listen that the sun will keep revolving and that the Earth will rise again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. And we shall continue to assure everyone of this until the Church tells us this is blasphemy".

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