The Demolition Man Prophecies

I made a discovery the other night, the likes of which no historian could ever imagine.

As I was browsing through various texts created by the indigenous peoples of 20th century North America, I happened upon a most peculiar document: a frightening and foreboding prophecy they had named "Demolition Man".

Many similar prophecies, such as the "Blade Runner" prophecy and the "Terminator" prophecy, have yet to establish any connection with history as it has unfolded. In fact, the third text of the Terminator Prophecy, known as "Rise of the Machines", is in direct contradiction of its own predecessors. It is precisely this unreliability that makes these precious texts difficult to interpret.

Demolition Man, however, prophesies a future as hauntingly near as the Mayan apocalypse of 2012. The text concerns itself with the year 2032, decades after an earthquake demolishes the city of Los Angeles (Los Angeles is a key city in 20th century North America, and features prominently in many different prophecies; in fact, it is said that many such predictions originated in a small village in or near Los Angeles, known as Hollywood).

After the earthquake hits, the people of Los Angeles merge their battered city with those of Santa Barbara and San Diego (both also prominent in 20th century North America). The new city that arises from their collective ashes is known as San Angeles. One man, the prophecy foretells, joins the people together and forms a new, peaceful government where health and safety are honored above all else. This man, Cocteau, is not referenced in any other prophecy of the time, nor are many of the text's other key figures.

A lawman named Spartan, after being cryopreserved in frozen stasis since the year 1996, is awakened by the naive law force of 2032 in order to stop a criminal named Phoenix. Spartan is the most qualified to stop Phoenix's wave of destruction because Phoenix himself has been frozen for as many years; in fact, it was Spartan himself who captured Phoenix decades before.

Early painting of Spartan

What follows are frightening predictions of the suffocatingly serene anti-Utopia the Los Angelinos have to look forward to. One such clairvoyant iteration involves the rise of a man named Arnold Schwarzzenegger to political power in future Los Angeles (and much of North America). Schwarzzenegger, the current governor of California (the territory in which all three featured cities lay), was still a theatrical performer at the time the prophecy was written (circa 1993), and had not yet pursued a political career.

Critics of these documents will surely point out that Schwarzzenegger may have easily been inspired by the prophecy, making it either intentionally or unintentionally self-fulfilling. Although these arguments do hold a lot of weight, I implore their perpetuators to consider the difficulties in achieving these political goals, especially for someone not native to North America or its customs.

Early painting depicting the final moments of the prophecy.

Left to right: Phoenix, Spartan

Another particularly daunting prediction is that the popular dining franchise known as Taco Bell (beloved in 20th century America almost as much as it is now) will be the only remaining restaurant establishment in the year 2032. The Demolitionist Los Angelinos believed that this eatery would remain as a symbol of culture and etiquette when much of their own society vanishes in the coming transition.

The cataclysmic event that spawns this change, the "big one", is an earthquake that will happen circa 2010, very close to the second Mayan apocalypse. Inarguably, this coincidence is too great for any respectable historian to ignore.

The prophecy also details a technological revolution, where even the most physical acts, such as love-making, are performed digitally through private neural networks. This concept is referenced in many other prophecies as well, although typically it is mental telepathy, not a controlled wireless connection, that serves as the basis. The similarities have made me theorize that perhaps other, earlier seers into this future simply could not understand the complexity of digital technology and thus explained it in their own texts as "magical" or "telepathic". This is not to say that other clairvoyant documents should be disregarded; that is a monstrous idea, as many of these important relics offer an insight that the Demolitionists, due to their deep intellectual understanding, could not.

The prophecy the Demolitionist citizens of Los Angeles left behind likely cost them dearly in their own time. One can only assume that, because of the broad scope and advanced conceptual nature of the foretelling document, it was rejected, feared, and even hated by the general population. Perhaps now, given the new light shed on this outspoken prophecy, we as a people may study and learn from it in the little time we have left.