Great Pacific vol. 2: Nation Building

One would think that the actual logistics of founding a country on the Pacific Garbage Patch would make for a compelling story in and of themselves.  How do you manage sanitation and disease control on a pile of toxic trash?  What kind of people would want to live here?  How do you manage buildings on this thing?  What do you do about recognition from the international community?  It’s only that last bit that writer Joe Harris seems interested in addressing here, and I find that quite disappointing.  He clearly wants to tell a story about renegade oil heir Chas Worthington’s struggle to maintain this new country he’s created and the hard moral choices he has to made in order to do that.  Unfortunately the writer is also skimping on the little details that would add credibility to his world.

We pick up on the settlement of New Texas eighteen months after the events of the first volume.  Since that time, people have arrived to make new lives there, a government has formed with its own security force, and there’s a workforce and economy in place as well.  While New Texas has these things going for it, the budding country doesn’t have international recognition of its rights to exist and there are eco-terrorists on its “soil” bombing buildings and making attempts on Chas’ life.  Chas sends French mercenary Zoe to investigate the terrorism side of things while he works on the politics.  This leads him into an uneasy alliance with the rogue state of West Rhodesia and a trip back to the U.S. where a lot of people are not happy to see him at all.

I’m going to say this right now:  Jumping forward a year and a half from the first volume strikes me as a wasted opportunity here.  As it stands, New Texas currently exists as an interesting concept.  We have no real reason to care about it beyond how much we care about Chas himself, and he still comes off here as someone who doesn’t grasp the full extent of the game that he’s playing here.  There are people here, but they only exist to show that this concept is working.  We’re not given any indication of how they feel about things, what made them decide to move here, or what kind of life they’re living in New Texas.  Though the country is shown to have its own security force, they’re shown to be either terrible at their jobs or just incredibly lazy.  How have they managed eighteen months without things descending into anarchy with that kind of security?  It’s a question that only gets bigger when you see Chas’ government in action and how it’s populated only by ciphers who speak in exposition.  I want to believe in the idea of a new nation being able to forge its own path in this world, but the one Harris has given us here is simply not credible at this time.

So what do we get instead of actual worldbuilding in this volume?  Well, the “nation building” part holds true as Chas negotiates with the representative of West Rhodesia for their aid in getting recognition from the U.N.  It’s clear from this that Harris wants to add a degree of moral ambiguity to his protagonist’s actions by having him interact with a bloodthirsty and corrupt regime to get what he wants.  The old “ends justifying the means” setup, if you will.  Though instead of being compelling, it simply beggars belief that Chas would even consider working with these kinds of people.  The problems of being associated with a rogue state are brought up by some of his advisors, and if legitimacy is really what Chas wants then these are the last people he should be associating with.  I can only imagine that Harris didn’t have him team up with North Korea because that would obliterate any sympathy for his cause right then and there.  Yet the West Rhodesians are presented as being almost as bad, leaving the reader to marvel at Chas’ terrible choice in allies.

Zoe’s subplot actually fares better as she does manage to infiltrate the eco-terrorists, known as Green-X, and finds out what they’re up to.  It turns out that these violent environmentalists actually have some good reasons for what they’re doing, as Chas’ efforts out here to colonize this giant garbage dump strike them as being an environmental act of war against the Earth itself.  That there are those who would take this tact with New Texas doesn’t surprise me as the general toxicity of the environment is directly commented on by the mutated wildlife that infests it.  While Zoe makes the argument that Green-X’s actions are damaging her home and those who live there, the organization’s leader makes the not-undefensible point that no-one should be living there in the first place.  It’s the kind of engaging moral ambiguity that the main plot strives for and doesn’t quite nail.

As for the art from Martin Morazzo, I think his characters could still use some work but the rest of the book is fantastic otherwise.  If I were to find out that he was distracted from showing the cast in action because of the incredible detail he invests in the trash that makes up New Texas, I’d certainly believe it.  Morazzo’s an effective storyteller overall, and his work here makes me wish that the quality of the writing would live up to the art.

That’s where we are with this second volume of “Great Pacific.”  It has some great art and a setting that is severely underdeveloped and doesn’t come off as credible as a result.  Harris’ s story ideas sometimes work, but I find myself wondering if I want to give this series a third chance to see if it lives up to its potential.  This volume seems to spell out just what Harris wants this story to be about and it doesn’t address any of the issues I have with it.  I dunno, maybe if I find it on sale at a convention sometime in the future…