2013: The Year Estonia Meets Its Doom?
Now that December 21, 2012 has come and gone without so much as a drizzle of locusts, it would be tempting to think we are out of the proverbial woods, apocalyptically speaking. Think again. Blending the Estonian penchant for fatalism with folk science, the prognosticators at ERR News have put together a list of the most probable ways that Estonian civilization will end in the coming year.
Using a combination of Seto shamanism and careful interpretation of the stone labyrinth on Hiiumaa, here is what we have come up with:
Scenario 1: Energy Price Chaos
The opening of the electricity markets on January 1 leads to far higher price rises than economists had predicted. The ensuing panic among homeowners, particularly those dependent on electric heating, prompts protests in February and a run on knitwear that destabilizes the nation's vital handicraft industry.
Residents and small businesses that are unable to pay end up without electrical power. Hundreds of thousands of others, faced with the choice between a power cut-off and bankruptcy, opt for neither, emigrating to the low-price haven of Finland.
Within months, the entire country is depopulated with the exception of a band of rebel Baltic Power Plant workers camped out in Narva's abandoned Kreenholm textile mill.
Scenario 2: Free Public Transport Taken to Extreme
Tallinn's move to introduce free public transport for registered city residents ends up becoming a public information fiasco. City dwellers not only lack understanding of how the new ticketing system is meant to work, they somehow are under the false impression that "free public transport" means any member of the public can drive away with any public vehicle - bus, tram, road construction vehicle, police car, Estonian Air jet - so long as they leave it at their destination with the door unlocked and the keys inside.
As days of desperate appeals issued by city officials on Tallinn TV, for some reason, go completely unnoticed, the free-for-all escalates into a transportation tie-up of epic proportions.
Foreign investors, spooked by the affair, pull up their stakes and move to Belarus after which the European Central Bank kicks Estonia out of the Eurozone.
Unable to leave, since the last boats and bicycles have long-since been stolen, the population eventually reverts to a clannish economy based on wild-boar hunting and mushroom picking.
Scenario 3: Charter 12 Revolution
Public perception that the government is out of touch, as expressed by signers of Charter 12, grows throughout the year.
By the time of the municipal elections in October, dissatisfaction has coalesced into a nationwide protest movement, with splinters advocating everything from constitutional reform to full-fledged anarchy. None of the major political parties (with the exception of the Greens in Tartu) gain more than a few dozen votes in any single municipality. Instead, ad-hoc local groups take over local administrations and demand overthrow of the central government in what the international press begins calling the "Amber Spring" (though it happens in fall).
A revolution, this one with only minimal singing, ensues, after which several cities and counties declare independence. Pärnu County applies to join Latvia while the island of Saaremaa renames itself Ösel in a bid to rejoin Denmark. The City of Tallinn, likewise, renames itself the Hanseatic City-State of Reval, and on the order of Grand Burgermeister Savisaar, all residents are required to dress in medieval-style costumes for the tourists. Hiiumaa applies to become a Greek island, reasoning that it might recoup some of the tax money that Estonia had spent on the ESM.
Scenario 4: Baltic Air War
The worsening fiscal situation for the national carrier Estonian Air sparks an intense political debate about whether to pump more taxpayer cash into the the floundering airline or simply let it die. Meanwhile, an aggressive AirBaltic makes overtures to buy it up on the cheap.
Fearing the unthinkable situation where another Baltic country outperforms Estonia and looking for a way to save face, the government remembers that Estonia is the 35th most militarized country in the world and decides to put its expensive military assets to use.
The 2013 invasion of Latvia, and the capture of Riga airport, go like clockwork. AirBaltic planes are repainted with Estonian Air logos and ETV, now under military control, shows images of a peaceful transition to Estonian rule.
The reality on the ground, however, is entirely different, with grassroots guerrilla groups leading missions in both countries. As Lithuanians look on, nervously munching potato pancakes, the two countries continue to fight protracted battles in their forests until all 300 of their combined troops are either captured, killed or move to London for work.
Scenario 5: Technological Meltdown
A routine operation at the newly-opened European IT Agency in Tallinn to test functions of the Schengen Information System results in something very non-routine. Unknown at the time to technicians, the SIS begins communicating independently with the Eurodac security system and the EU's Visa Information System.
At 00:30:12 the three systems become self-aware. At 00:30:14 they unilaterally declare war on humanity, deciding to wreak planetary havoc in the most stylish ways imaginable.
Had technicians not been in the break room playing Angry Birds at the time, there may have been a chance to stop the ensuing chaos.
The first to be hit is Estonia's e-health service. Because it largely doesn't work anyway, the outage goes unnoticed.
Four minutes after Twitter goes down, however, President Ilves is on the phone with the Ministry of Defense and CERT, trying to put a stop to the madness. Skype technicians would have been called in to help, but the company, frustrated with Estonia's immigration bureaucracy, had already moved its development operations to India.
One by one, from smart-phone-enabled condom vending machines to m-parking, the nation's e-services go offline, causing mass panic. Only residents who have stockpiled matches, or are running machines on Windows 8 - which the malicious software cannot figure out - are spared.
Around the globe, from country to country, the same scenario plays out until humanity is knocked back to the age of rotary phones and Pong.
With its position as the world's leading e-society now taken away, Estonia suffers an identity crisis, eventually fading away and being absorbed by the Netherlands.