two planets

on planet a-1, there is a single village where all the inhabitants live. the population of the village fluctuates between 197 and 203 souls. everybody is equal to everybody else. there is no law, and no authority, and no need for either. everybody gets up in the morning and does what they have to do. there are no seasons on planet a-1. the temperature never changes. light and dark are evenly divided every day into periods of 12 hours each. it rains all day every seventh day. apple trees, peach trees, blueberry bushes, and blackberry bushes surround the village and just beyond the village is a wheat field. a river of clear clean water runs just beyond the wheat field. the villagers subsist on the clear clean water and on apple, peach, blueberry, and blackberry pies baked fresh every day. the village has existed for a trillion years, and will exist for at least another trillion, but nobody in the village is counting. * on planet b-2 there are two trillion inhabitants. one trillion live in the island-city of memphis and the other trillion in the island-city of new orleans. the two cities are at constant war with each other. they are at war over the dwindling resources of the great ocean that otherwise covers planet b-2. the great ocean had been ffilled for a quadrillion years with fish and plants, but generations of the inhabitants of memphis and new orleans have depleted it to the point where it will be empty in another seventeen years. in addition to fighting for the remaining fish and seaweed in the ocean, the armies of the two cities seek to take prisoners who are then eaten by their captors. few of the citizens of either island actually take part in the warfare or in the processing of such food as can still be extracted from the ocean. most of the inhabitants spend their days and nights in the great amphitheaters where games - most involving deaths of the participants - are continually held. and when they are not actually witnessing these spectacles, they gamble on them and plan their strategies for the gambling on them. except for the ruling elites, who make up 1 precent of 1 percent of the population, the citizens are fed, twice a day, at great soup kitchens that surround the great amphitheaters. in addition to running out of fish and plants, planet b-2 is running out of oxygen. both cities employ squads of technicians who are busy trying to invent an ultimate weapon that will obliterate the other - but which, if successful, will almost surely destroy both sides. each side is determined to crush the other, before the end comes. * which planet would t you rather live on? a-1 __________ b-2 __________