How Latter Day Saints Save the World - Chapter One: The Book of Aaron

How LDS Save the World
(a speculative work)

Table of Contents
I. THE BOOK OF AARON ...........................................
Formative Years ............................................
Faith ......................................................
Mission ...............................
Wedding ............................................................
Career ..................................................................
Family ......................................................................................
LDS Church Service ...................................................................
Epiphany ....................................................................................
II. THE BOOK OF PREPARATION .................................................
The Council ................................................................................
Selecting a Site ...........................................................................
Requirements ........................................................................................
Initial Construction ................................................................................
Deep Farm .............................................................................................
Food ......................................................................................................
Designing a Home and the “Law of Health” ...........................................
Recruitment and Selection ....................................................................
Social Engineering .................................................................................
Regime Change .....................................................................................
III. THE BOOK OF TRANSITION ................................................
Evacuation .............................................................................................
The Bombing .........................................................................................
Orientation ............................................................................................
Theda ....................................................................................................
Forty Days In .........................................................................................
Bradley ..................................................................................................
Unraveling .............................................................................................
Dora ......................................................................................................
Reen ......................................................................................................
IV. The New Savior .................................................................
Reorganization ......................................................................................
Interviews .............................................................................................
New Order .............................................................................................
V. REBIRTH ................................................................................
Opening .................................................................................................
Vernal ...................................................................................................
Chandra .................................................................................................
Aftermath and Renewal ........................................................................
Others ...................................................................................................
VI. Epilogue ............................................................................
The Real Mara .......................................................................................
Coda ......................................................................................................

I. THE BOOK OF AARON

Formative Years

Aaron’s mother had been a promising research geneticist. In Mormon fashion, she curtailed her career to raise her children. Aaron was the first. Two brothers and a sister followed.

Ensconced in the LDS community of the San Francisco Bay area, Aaron’s upbringing was largely insular. He excelled academically. Athletic, and popular, he was the guy at school kids wanted to be seen talking to. In his Sophomore year of high school, Aaron’s father retired and moved the family back to his native Provo Utah. There too, Aaron’s
charisma shone as he quickly took his place at the top of the high school social hierarchy. Tall, lanky, with intelligent green eyes sparkling from a not technically good looking face fringed with curly dark brown hair, pretty girls still found him attractive. He lettered in baseball, belonged to the Mathletes, and science club, and was elected student body president.

Faith

From the time he was old enough to examine his faith, Aaron understood it in terms of logic and reason. He found himself progressively analytic concerning the ordinances, doctrines, proclamations, covenants, practices, policies, and procedures that were taught by the church as The Truth.

His father, a computer scientist at legendary Xerox Parc who’d helped design early computer graphic user interfaces, encouraged his children to see scripture and science as compatible. When Aaron questioned dogma, his father did not correct him. He listened. They conversed until, dialogically, Aaron built a bridge between the words and their meaning. He was already explicating gospel and scripture in his early teens, interpreting them as metaphor. His father was more pleased than threatened by Aaron’s curiosity. It gave him an opportunity to guide his son to deeper spiritual growth.

“Dad, how can someone have his own planet?” Aaron asked after dinner one night. He was in sixth grade, feeling mildly rebellious, and genuinely trying to make sense of achurch-borne concept he’d recently discussed with friends.

His father put down the mail he was sorting. Aaron was his most complicated child. Sometimes he made statements or asked questions that challenged him, but he always responded with calm patience. “You tell me. What does scripture say about it?” he said.

“It says if you are married and lead a good life you will get your own planet.” Aaron blurted.

“Does it really say you get your own planet?” His father looked at Aaron, eyebrows raised a little.

“OK, you get your own place in the celestial kingdom. The celestial kingdom is outer
space, and the only places there are planets.”

“It’s not that simple. There are stars, asteroids, comets, nebulae...” his father said, smiling.

“Yea, but you can’t live on any of those.”

“You can’t live on any planets either unless they’re exactly like Earth. Do you think that after you die, you still have a human body?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t read any description of what really happens.” Aaron shrugged.

“I don’t think anyone knows the details - or can know. Scripture is a matter of interpretation. It comes from timeless wisdom, but still has to make sense to us mortals. When Joseph Smith told us about before and after this time on earth, he had to use expressions that could be understood by people mostly unaware of how physics and biology work. People were just learning about the cosmos, starting with our own planet. About that time electromagnetism was being defined as well, and quantum mechanics wouldn’t be discovered for almost three quarters of a century. The world beyond Earth is so different, we can’t just say what will happen out there based on what we know here.”

“That’s just it! What the church says feels right, but every time I dig deeper into how it all works, I just become confused again.” Aaron sighed.

“If a lot of this doesn’t make sense, just know that science hasn’t caught up with scripture, but both speak of reality,” his dad replied. “Truths can’t be defined factually because what we know as humans isn’t the full scope of knowledge it takes to define things beyond our limited experience. Just have faith and the answers will come.”

The answers never did come, but there were always clues leading to deeper thought.Eventually Aaron was able to synthesize a kind of belief from a soup of dogma and his ongoing interpretations. He couldn’t believe Joseph Smith was in reality visited by an angel, and all the other stories that lent legitimacy to his nascent religion. But Aaron admired Joseph Smith’s feat of piecing together a religion and body of work that included the sciences and even the cosmos. To Aaron, Smith and his cohort of early Mormons deconstructed and reassembled most of the Bible into the Book of Mormon, insinuating a new world into the ancient beliefs. What resulted was a mutant Christianity with a back door open to adaptations to the modern world and science and a view of the world that included the expanding universe.

LDS dogma was, to Aaron, as solid and true as that of any other religion. and he was determined to maintain his identity as a member. Layers deep in his conscience, places he rarely visited, resided recognition of his true self as an agnostic heretic. A friend of his from high school, Marcus, did leave the church. He was a handsome, burly rugby player who had been a model Latter Day Saint. He and his wife raised four boys. Marcus was a scoutmaster and tireless participant in the LDS community. Still, one day, he told his friends, family, wife and grown children that he was leaving the church and moving to Colorado to live with his HIV positive partner.

Aaron didn’t have a divergent orientation he needed to hide, like Marcus. He just wasn’t a genuine believer of LDS theology. So, he continued as a Mormon, like many Jews, Catholics and some Mormons he’d known who had no religious faith, but identified with and supported their culture.

His real compatibility with Mormonism was focus on and enablement of family and community. Underneath it all, he possessed an unquestioning commitment to the Latter Day Saints. It was his heritage, his family, culture and future. Whatever his beliefs, Aaron would never set himself adrift from his LDS community, it was a part of him.

Mission

Aaron was ordained Elder on his 19th birthday. This bestowed on him the duty to "teach, expound, exhort, baptize, and watch over the church.” He was also given the authority to administer to and bless the sick and afflicted, to "confirm those who are baptized into the church, by the laying on of hands for the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost". Yes, he was thenceforward able to baptize people. This was very exhilarating for Aaron. He didn’t believe that as an elder he had any additional powers, but felt elevated somehow in the community’s estimation.

He couldn’t wait to go on a mission, and was soon was assigned to gather souls in the South Pacific. Tuvalu, a tiny archipelago nation halfway between Hawaii and Australia was his first, and most memorable assignment. The effort to study Tuvaluan gave Aaron pause. So much work to learn a newer language with a limited vocabulary, spoken in a country with less than 12,000 people. It was a good experience nonetheless and increased his openness to Tuvaluan culture. Aaron and his missionary companion, Elder Jonas Abernathy, arrived in Funafuti, the Tuvalu capital after 48 hours of travel. The nearest neighbor was the island nation of

Fiji, over 750 miles to the east. The Fiji Suva Temple district was their LDS administrative seat. With branches in Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, the Fiji Suva Temple district also claimed Tuvalu and Kiribati as members of its far-flung fold.

A local LDS member met them at the little airport. His plump body was clad in a faded brown linen suit, with worn but polished black shoes. “I am Kuolo Luata,” he said, rather formally. Completely fatigued, Aaron and Jonas still mustered enthusiasm and greeted him warmly.

“I will show you where to go and what to do.” Kuolo said smartly and started for the parking lot. They followed him to a little Isuzu coupe that had seen better days and got in. “We are a small community of Mormons here, but we hope you can help us grow.” Kuolo offered. About 3 minutes later, he tooled up the dirt driveway of a squat, whitewashed building with the sign Latter Day Saints of Tuvalu.

“This is our church, and this is house,” Kuolo pointed to a little tatty hut behind the church, “will be your home.”

650 square feet of living space – a small kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom with a dresser and bunkbed. Instead of romantic thatch and native materials, the structure was made of cheap particle board, tar shingles over the roof and dingy linoleum over the floors.

The shabby digs didn’t bother the young missionaries. They were too busy to concern themselves with comfort. They became familiar sights in Funafuti as they diligently plied every road of the atoll on their bicycles, looking very distinct in black shorts, white shirts, ties and name tags, rain or shine. The pair remained undaunted by weather conditions, constant resistance or outright rejection. Magnetic as ever, Aaron managed to baptize 23 new members before moving on to his next assignment. The converts joined the threadbare Tuvaluan LDS community of 21, more than doubling their membership.

LDS missionaries were encouraged to learn as much as possible about the people of local societies. Aaron was intrigued and tried to see the world from indigenous points of view. He was also lonely. The island had very few visitors from cultures more familiar to him. There was the ever-present Elder Abernathy. They had little in common; conversations stayed well clear of curiosity and philosophy. But Elder Abernathy was easy to get along with and a good, supportive companion. He even had a slapstick kind of humor. Every time he entered their hut, he would gingerly step over the International Date Line. It got a little stale, but never failed to make Aaron smile

One night, as they were tossing a baseball back and forth in their tiny living room, Aaron asked Elder Abernathy what he thought of the ancient island religions. “They’re superstitions passed on to each other by mouth.” As he said mouth, he tossed the ball hard at Aaron making it look like he spat it at him. Aaron knew this discussion wasn’t going any further, so he made a spitting sound as he threw the ball back. It wasn’t long before they were making laser sounds and aiming at each other’s heads.

Aaron reached out emotionally to the locals, trying to understand them, and help them understand him. He studied their mythologies and beliefs, especially taboos. Historically, the islanders lived in their own world; what they had was all they had. Yes, there was the sea and eventually trade, but every palm, every bird, every grain of sand mattered in their isolation and vulnerability. Early inhabitants had to derive their entire existence from this lone group of atolls in the vast Pacific.

Tuvalu’s pre-scientific people developed religious dogma that promoted sustainability. Gods with human characteristics controlled natural forces and established rules that could not be broken, lest immediate and dire punishment be dealt
the offenders and their families. This functioned elegantly as a way to manage existence in a largely closed system, protecting them from environmental exhaustion for at least three thousand years before the islands were rediscovered in 1821. The Tuvaluan creation myth included an eel that spawned coconut trees, which were therefore sacred. It was taboo to cut the trees down. Without this injunction, the islanders would soon be out of the nutrient dense and versatile coconuts, materials with which to weave clothing and construct their homes and boats, and animals the trees fed and sheltered. There would also be erosion; only 10 square miles of land was so precious in the roiling ocean. The ground itself came from living coral that accreted atop undersea volcanoes. Their system wasn’t perfect, and many of their past practices would not do in a broader society, like ritual sex and cannibalism, but the traditions that ensured long-term survival were built into the culture and religion, and were thus upheld.

Upon foreign discovery, the developed world’s currency based system supplanted "fakamolemole”, the Tuvaluan tradition of reciprocity and sharing. Now nature, craft and territory were commodities to be exchanged for money, which could then be used to acquire necessities, as well as status for people no longer wholly dependent on each other and the isolated islands for survival. Products from around the world were acquired in exchange for pieces of the land, materials, minerals and native labor.

Seeing island subsistence as a model, Aaron extended this reasoning to the entire planet. Earth was, essentially, an island in the solar system, and inhabitants were completely dependent on what was on Earth. This would necessarily one day be depleted, and mankind would be faced with the necessity of full sustainability.

Wedding

When Aaron returned home two years later, he was determined to catch up. He attended BYU full time, anxious to graduate and start his career and a family. He was only three semesters behind, having taken computer science classes at Brigham Young while still a High School student, earning 24 credits before graduation.

He never had a high school sweetheart, and dating was forbidden to him as a missionary. At BYU, he searched hard for a suitable girlfriend and found Ellen. Both, keen to meet the church mandate for marriage, approached dating as a sort of interview process for the role of spouse. Ellen hit all the notes.

Energetic, nice, with average looks and above average everything else, Ellen appealed to people in general. Beneath her unassuming, friendly demeanor was a strong determination to apply herself to the role of a Mormon wife and mother. She was a sophomore when her relationship with Aaron began. They got engaged a year later, setting the wedding date for just after graduation. By Ellen’s senior year, Aaron, thanks to the credits he earned in high school, and accelerated curriculum, had caught up with her and they graduated together. Their yearlong engagement was unusually lengthy for an LDS couple, especially since they adhered to the no-sex-before-marriage requirement. But they were disciplined and wanted to do everything right.

After being recommended by their bishop and stake president as being worthy, the couple married in a wedding ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple three weeks following their graduation. Despite the prescriptive nature of their relationship, Aaron and Ellen genuinely grew to love each other.

Career

Aaron gained sponsorship to pursue an MS in Computer Science at Stanford. He attended full time. Ellen joined him in the San Francisco Bay area and applied for jobs in the Silicon Valley area. Soon she was working for Adobe as an event coordinator in the Marketing department, commuting from their apartment in Palo Alto to San Francisco daily on BART.

Even before completing his Master’s, Aaron was courted by a broad range of firms. The 4th industrial revolution was in full swing with creative technical people in high demand. He decided on a consulting firm. As a consultant, he would garner higher pay and be exposed to a broader range of industries than he would have been as an employee of just one company His first assignment was with Sprint IoT (Internet of Things) platform for smart cities.

Aaron took off three months from work to attend the intensive BYU entrepreneur’s program. It was a good program and offered advantages, like introductions to influential people and cheap loans.

With the help of the LDS network, and excellent mentors, he started a software RFID company. It was called STAMP (Signal Transmitting Adherent Monitoring Patch). The product was an edible RFID chip made of cellulose, cornstarch and silicone, trace graphene, and nanowires comprised of electricity conducting amino acids. These “stamps” were placed on a broad variety of produce and meat. Depending on sensors programmed into the stamps, they provided a wide range of information, such as locations, temperature and food breakdown status. Uses included modeling more efficient supply chains; optimizing growth cycles under varying conditions and locations; identifying the best transport routes, and many more. STAMP manufactured the patches and worked with clients on applications for them. They also built an IoT platform that would gather data from sensors, sort, prioritize, and disseminate information to automated systems for analysis and instruction.

STAMP’s first clients were cannabis growers in Colorado where the Schedule I drug was recently legalized. Ingesting any recreational drug was forbidden to Mormons, but the church had no qualms about participating in any legal market. Thanks to stringent regulations requiring tracking of every plant, a way had to be devised to uniquely identify and monitor each, from sprout to harvest - something that was perfect for STAMP.

The applications expanded from there into numerous verticals. The market grew, royalties came in for use of intellectual property based on their patents, and implementations with communications, security and AI firms. Within six years of starting STAMP, Aaron was very wealthy.

Family

Ellen’s first three pregnancies miscarried, each in the first trimester. Finally, a healthy baby girl, Mara, was born four years after their wedding. At this point a joyous Ellen left her job to be with her daughter full time. Aaron and Ellen had wanted at least five children. Ellen had two more miscarriages. They were traumatic and left her feeling weak and depressed. After many discussions with medical and LDS counselors, they made the difficult decision to stop trying.

Their daughter got all the love, attention and aspirations of both of her parents. Energetic, brilliant and unquestioningly faithful, Mara was a force. She reached her full adult height of six feet by age 14. She played soccer and lacrosse. She also excelled academically and was a born leader. She spoke in a deep, mellifluous voice and had a strong presence that tended to draw attention and respect.

At 36 Ellen was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was particularly aggressive. She underwent two rounds of chemotherapy over the next three years. The cancer returned within months both times. Eventually Ellen was hospitalized and faced a third round. Once again, Ellen made the difficult decision to stop trying. She told Aaron “I don’t want to go through this again. Each time I just get sicker.” The cancer had metastasized in her bones and she could no longer walk. “All I want is to be with you and Mara – all of me.”

Realizing Ellen was prepared to die, Aaron’s throat seized and he knew if he tried to say anything, he would just sob. He let Ellen explain her decision to their daughter. Ellen was brought home from the hospital for good in an ambulance soon after. Mara was with her from the moment her mother returned to the time she died 18 days later. It was just before Ellen’s 40th birthday and Mara’s 15th.

It was very painful. As they grieved, Mara told her father, “It’s so hard to believe she’s gone. I’m glad she’s not suffering any more, but I am missing her so much!” Aaron wished he could say something to console her. In his heart he knew Mara would be all right. Ellen had been a great mom.

Stricken with his own grief, Aaron yearned to return home to be with close family and friends. He decided to put STAMP on the market and move back to Provo. When he sold the company, taxes and his tithe took tens of millions, yet left him with over 230 million USD net assets. Resettled in Provo, he participated as a venture capitalist in the thriving Silicon Slopes, the Silicon Valley of Utah, and continued growing in responsibilities with the church.

Mara adapted quickly to the abrupt relocation in her Junior year of high school, much like Aaron had done when his family relocated from Silicon Valley to Provo in his Sophomore year of high school. And despite being new to the school, she was elected student body president.

Mara was in gifted and talented programs from the outset. In high school, she was already interning in AI research labs. Well versed in tech and biology, her interests were centered in bioengineering.

She was very close to her widowed father. He spoke to her as both a parent, mentor and peer. He shared his deepest thoughts, including his struggles with faith. Mara was his only child and as such, considered her entitled to his genuine experience and insight. Late at night, she would find her father up and about. He was a pacer, walking back and forth when his thoughts were particularly fecund.

“What are you doing, dad?” 16 year old Mara asked one night.

“Thinking”

“About what?”

Aaron felt it might be wrong to talk to his daughter about his fears, but he always wanted to be truthful to her.
“The end of the world.” He replied.

Mara laughed. “That’s pretty dramatic, dad.”

The encounter kicked off a stream of questions from Mara to help her understand exactly what he meant. Aaron told her that in the 1830’s, as Joseph Smith established Mormonism, he also envisioned the universe and its relationship with the church and its members. Aaron tried to explain his view that humans as a species had outgrown themselves and was rapidly laying their habitat to waste. Soon would come the time that both humanity and its substrate would graduate to a new level in the process of ultimately conquering the cosmos. The transition didn’t mean the end of days, but unfortunately, it would be the end of the world as they knew it.

He hoped he wasn’t guilty of roping Mara into an irrational mindset by confiding in her. It was also a heavy subject to impose on so young a mind, and it was not a subject discussed in the LDS community. It was becoming obvious to him that the trajectory of several existential threats was irreversible. They were also no longer in the future, but here, right now.

“So how is this transition going to happen?” she asked.

“Geopolitical implosion and environmental collapse – then a kind of birth of an entirely different world from the rubble.” Aaron said simply. “All human societies now are bound in one system, while at the same time we live in separate cultures and countries. The prior world order is unstable, and the formal conversion to the new will likely bring world war. And you know what’s happening with our ecosystem. We’re an intelligent animal that’s managed to ruin of its own ecosystem. We must evolve into a species that can live in sustainable harmony with the natural world on which it depends. Worst case scenario is the natural world is unable to support life, and humans have to establish their own habitat.“

“OK, I get it. We have to evolve quickly into another kind of human if we’re going to survive our destruction of the planet.”

“There’s not enough time to evolve, but we have genetic technology. With it, we can adapt fast enough to go on as a species before killing ourselves with wars, resource exhaustion and environmental demolition.”

“So we become Frankenstein… and his monster.” Mara smiled. “Forgive me if I don’t completely agree with you.”

“Of course. It’s just my opinion after all, and it is far-fetched.” He laughed. Mara would, of course, have trouble accepting his point of view. LDS church teachings had always stressed having large families. Bringing many new people into the world depended on denying any possibility of worldwide collapse.

Over the years following his confession to Mara, they kept the conversation going. Aaron would talk of his observations of the relentless suicidal breakdown of the natural world by extraction and degradation for the millions of contrived products to solve made up needs primarily meant to generate capital value.

Mara occasionally reminded her father that the future was not so dire, that measures were being taken to preserve the ecosphere. Aaron showed her data that could be found online, like Worldometer.com, that measured relentless and accelerating forest loss, land erosion, desertification, carbon emissions and soil salinization, loss of species’ habitats, among many others. Whatever the measures to slow anthropogenic destruction, they were isolated events with and unchanging trajectory. Overall the loss was proving to be an unstoppable tidal wave.

Mara grew to agree that humankind really was full-bore endangering itself. Her entire life she’d heard intimations that when environmental damage finally hit a breaking point, people would pull a last minute hat trick that would save the world. Her hopes for the rescue grew into sad resignation that it simply wasn’t going to happen. Massive geo-engineering, like capturing CO2 and injecting it into the oceans, or seeding clouds for rain, would be more disastrous than the problem being addressed.

Life went on. At 18, equipped with a driver’s license, Mara applied for, and got a job at the Bingham Canyon open pit mine driving a 300 ton haulage truck. When Aaron found out she was applying at the mine, he jokingly told her that for all of her ecologic awareness, she decided to work at the ultimate symbol of human’s destructiveness - the largest mine in the world. She explained there wasn’t anything she could do about the mine. Also, it was good exposure to the inner workings of large scale operations that would surely come in handy one day.

Mara loved the training and work. The amount of material being moved was mind boggling. One night, about a month after starting work at the mine, she came home looking exhausted, and exhilarated. Aaron wanted to hear about her day.

“Well dad,” she said. “It all began with the 18 foot climb from the ground to the cockpit of my giant truck. I started the massive engines and joined the other haulers down to the demolition site, where a few acres of ore had just been blown apart. We formed a single file convoy that looked like a crazy alien caterpillar jerkily moving down to the shovel dumpers. The dumpers are even huger than the trucks. One swung over me and released a 100 tons of ore from its maw into the truck bed. With a full load, my slow but mighty machine made its way back to the processing area. There, I commanded it to lift the bed, tilt, and release the hill of dirt it was carrying. Then I did it again three more times. I was drunk with power!” Aaron laughed.

She drove the truck in summers and attended BYU September through May. Her chosen academic area was, like her grandmother’s, genetics. Aaron made sure she knew how lucky she was to study in this time of exploded information, and all the recently emerged interdisciplinary opportunities. Genetics had filaments now throughout most of the technical areas. The field was completely changed with augmentation, the epigenome, gene editing, nanotech, robotics and even 3D bio-printing. So much to learn; her hungry mind looked forward to the feast.

LDS Church Service

Through his adulthood, Aaron held progressive positions in the LDS local lay clergy. During college he served in a ward bishopric for two years as a group leader. In California his responsibilities grew to membership in his stake high council. Back in Utah, without full-time commitment to his enterprise, Aaron immersed himself in the extensive LDS community of Provo. He grew in prominence and in a matter of five years became his Ward’s Bishop. LDS Bishop were required to be married, and Aaron was not. Those who advocated for him to be called to the role made the case that he was recently widowed, and had proven his abilities and dedication. It helped that Aaron was a good friend of the Stake President, and particularly well connected with the highest leadership of the church. When the ordination of Aaron was proposed, it was easily accepted by common consent of the Ward members and the church hierarchy.

Bishop Aaron’s responsibilities deeply affected the lives of his congregation. As spiritual leader of the ward, he conducted worship services and served as president of the ward's quorum of priests. He fulfilled the obligations of stewardship over his congregation, while at the same time feeling a little like an impostor. But he knew LDS theology inside out and was confident in his abilities to counsel to the benefit of his constituents. As administrative leader, he directed the business of the church, ensuring everyday management went smoothly. When ward members were out of work, had illness in the family with crushing medical costs, or otherwise needed help, as social leader, he ensured his organization provided temporary financial relief and guidance for getting back on their feet. He excelled in this role and had no misgivings about it. His church leadership took up as much time as his involvement with technical enterprise and philosophical exploration.

Epiphany

In a world where sanity is based on shared reality, Aaron could have been considered mad. But he wasn’t the only one who nakedly saw the fissures ripping through humanity’s bedrock, promising collapse.
As a Mormon, Aaron was fully indoctrinated in contingency planning. Preparing for disaster was part of the beliefs that shaped their culture. By the time he became a bishop, he firmly believed the “end times” were at hand, not as a biblical prophecy, but as an unfolding reality. The entire biosphere, while in vigorous decline all of his life, was perceptively in decline, and geopolitical world order was losing its structural integrity. It had been occurring in slow motion, but there came a point when all but the most denial-prone had to admit a sense of peril.

Aaron read numerous credible studies, articles, documentaries and books sounding alarms. Many outright stated the urgency of “saving the world.” But somehow, even vehement alarmists refused to declare it too late to avert what was at the bottom line worldwide implosion of stability and carrying capacity. Aaron suspected their views would not reach mainstream if doom was their thesis. Predictions of collapse without an escape clause were unacceptable to the general public. And rightly so. Without hope, all would collapse immediately instead of over a period of years.

Aaron’s personal view was that “collapse” was more of a metamorphosis. The world was reorganizing for its next phase. That entailed the rearrangement of everything that Earthlings perceived as order. The order that sustained them was, in fact, failing from their point of existence. At a greater level, it was reorganizing for a new, more complex phase. With the ecosystem in trouble, and worldwide political stability faltering, Aaron was literally counting the months to a great disruption threatening planetary life itself. With this understanding, Aaron saw a special role for the church.

The day Aaron became certain that mankind was on a trajectory of complete holocaust within his lifetime, everything came together for him in the form of a mission. He would build an Ark to carry people safely through the destruction of their habitat. He gave a name to the new world that would emerge from the rubble: Zion.

Zion meant many things to Latter Day Saints. Aaron customized his own definition, adapted in fragments from others. The Ark would be an autonomous super shelter that could sustain inhabitants for years, if necessary, and from which a new humanity could be launched to subsist in habitats of their own making. The Ark would help bring everyone one step closer to ultimate unity – Zion. It would bring the church through the end of current civilization to the other side where it would rebuild, better and completely transformed.

Aaron couldn’t imagine being the only leader making full scale preparations for utter cataclysm, but knew of no-one doing it. Like the Noah’s great flood, which Joseph Smith had likened to the world’s baptism by water, this was to be the world’s baptism by fire.

“The baptism of water, without the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost attending it, is of no use, they are necessarily and inseparably connected. An individual must be born of water and the spirit in order to get into the kingdom of God.” JS

Aaron did not take this revelation literally. During the end times for Latter Day Saints, it's God who causes the cataclysm. It would be God who performed the baptism by fire to bind the wicked and exalt the godly through the Holy Ghost. Besides, the world would not 'end' in Mormon theology. Instead it would become celestialized and Earth become part of heaven.

Individuals themselves were the beings borne of water. Aaron’s personal interpretation of the prophecy was: Humanity’s metamorphosis would be the figurative baptism of fire. Being baptized by fire was ultimately the catalyst for humanity connecting to one another through the Holy Ghost. The force of life and sentience, analogized as the Holy Ghost, to Aaron’s thinking, would infuse a new human with more explicit ties to the whole of humanity. This phase would bring the species one level higher on the ladder of development, and end evolution by natural selection. Environments would evolve, and organisms adapted to them through augmentation and genetic technology. He didn’t believe in the Holy Ghost per se, but the concept followed a line of reasoning that described complex forces of nature in easier to understand terms of a being with human characteristics.

This special interpretation reassured Aaron that he was on the right track, despite the fact that it was no longer fully consistent with Mormon culture or theology.