…everyplace else is #2
The Doclopedia #3,288
It’s Not On The Map: Vulmonia
On Earth 14-H, the small country of Vulmonia, located on an island in the Atlantic a couple of hundred miles west/southwest of the Canary Islands, was always an obscure place for most people. It produced no valuable or unique products, had no strategic position militarily, and didn’t have a really notably culture. It seldom got written about, and one of the last people to mention it called it “a very pale version of of an African Spain on a very dull day.”
And then, on May 8th, 1805, a sailor on an American ship that had pulled in for emergency repairs met a young woman. In the course of the 10 days the ship was there, they eventually did what young lovers do, resulting in a healthy baby girl 9 months later. The sailor, who had returned to marry the young woman, raised her and her three siblings to be resourceful, independent, and curious. Their mother raised them to be kind, generous, and goodhearted.
These 4 children, 2 girls and 2 boys, also turned out to be very smart. From an early age, it was apparent that they were far more intelligent than their teachers, the local politicians, or the clergy. Those people were not pleased by that. On the other hand, the common folks loved them and the inventions they began creating as pre-teens.
Eventually, they grew up, went off to European and American universities, met other very smart young people, and started sharing ideas with them. Eventually, they married some of these folks and brought them back to Vulmonia. Laboratories, workshops, and other facilities were built, and by the time their also very intelligent children grew up, the island was a hotbed of scientific discovery that outpaced all others. A secret hotbed of scientific discovery.
Over the next few decades, the now very secret Society of Concerned Scientists, invented and discovered many things. They kept almost all of them hidden from the world. By the time the American Civil War ended, it had been decided that the best course of action would be to hide Vulmonia from the world and send out agents to help civilization to become better in spite of itself.
On August 21st, 1871, the non-Vulmonians who knew the most about the island began forgetting about it. At the same time, ships of all kinds began altering course to avoid seeing the island. Books or maps that mentioned it were replaced by ones that didn’t. By 1883, almost nobody in the outside world remembered Vulmonia. This hiding has only gotten better until by now, local year 1932, Vulmonia has vanished completely.
But then, the outside world has fewer dictators, fewer wars, less crime, better education, better health, and better technology than it otherwise might have had.
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