Return to Appalachia

Personal Log, Doctor Edgar Blackburn. Return to Appalachia. After all these years, I have come back. Back to Appalachia. To West Virginia. To the home of my greatest personal and scientific failure. Academic research was a dead end; the world was descending into riots and ruin, food shortages were increasing... Generating papers in a university lab to attempt to secure tenure seemed pointless. It felt irresponsible in the face of everything happening. West Tek approached me about joining the Greenhouse Initiative. Genetic engineering to produce new crops and multiply production. It swept away my concerns about joining the private sector. Here was a chance to be on the cutting edge and solve real problems at the same time. Doctor Dumont described the goals of the Pan-Immunity Virion and the Greenhouse Initiative in terms that set my mind ablaze. There was satisfaction to be had there. Doing the best work, advancing humanity, making the world better than it was. Then the funding vanished. The research staff was being cut, with no explanation, simply "a shift in priorities". Dumont begged me to stay, promising the new work would be vital and challenging. To my shame, I did. End log.