The Flight of the St. Paul: A Novel

Timothy X. Merritt | 2021

Abstract

The application of science fiction narratives to describe and explore plausible future realities has been increasing as a means of understanding the future in an era defined by rapid change and unpredictability. “Science fiction is experiencing a renaissance as the rate of change accelerates, and we grow more uncertain about the future Organizations, innovators, leaders, and changemakers are turning to the genre to navigate the future and design for the present” (Zaidi, 2019, p. 16). Science fiction worldbuilding is a natural offshoot of this practice that seeks to construct a complete and coherent imaginary world that provides the backdrop for the narrative. As such, “the concept of worldbuilding is embedded within foresight and design practices” (Zaidi, 2019, p. 18). This novel is my attempt at creating a highly-detailed plausible future through which I can explore contemporary issues through the process of storytelling.

At the time of this writing, the world is awash with a myriad of conflicting and competing worldviews. The struggle for power has permeated society, and nearly every issue is subject to socially polarizing impulses. It is a global phenomenon that pits groups of people against each another on the basis of race, religion, gender, ethnicity, and nearly every other conceivable category. In The Flight of the St. Paul, this polarization does not end well. The decade of the “Terror Twenties” is characterized by the horrors of a second Great Depression and a limited thermonuclear war as worldviews and ideologies are tested by adversity and come crashing down when they are found wanting.

Worldviews are stubborn things. People tend to believe what they believe, and they will ignore the anomalies inherent in their preferred paradigm so long as it doesn’t result in an overt crisis. Even then, when the inevitable crisis comes, people will tenaciously cling to their worldviews unless a new, alternative worldview is presented to take the place of the one that has failed (Kuhn, 2012). The Flight of the St. Paul offers neither a utopian nor dystopian view of the future. Just as David, the main character, struggles to overcome the terrible events of the recent past, this novel offers a “mostly-normal” image of a world that is still recovering from societal collapse. The characters and mission of the Parousia International Relief Agency represent the Christian worldview that waits quietly and patiently to for any modern reader who has come to consider the possibility that they might be in need of an alternative.

Science fiction often focuses heavily on technological change. However, science fiction worldbuilding encompasses “a wide range of high-level research from social science, economics, technology, cultural history, trends, and global interviews” (Johnson, 2020). Through the creative process of worldbuilding the author participates in what J.R.R. Tolkien described as the “sub-creation” in which contain fragments of “truth” (Northrup, 2004). For this reason, The Flight of the St. Paul contains scenes involving angels and demons, as well as conversations with God. The unique perspective of omniscience allows the author to share with the reader glimpses of supernatural forces that would otherwise be unavailable to a mind trapped in secular reality. There seems to be no good reason for an artificial separation between science fiction, and Biblically-based faith. Both are explorations of the truth.

Leadership is one of the contemporary issues The Flight of the St. Paul examines. The character of the Rabban is a classic example of a Transformational Leader (Northouse, 2013). He is a self-made billionaire who now uses his vast wealth to search for evidence of God’s return, and much of the activity in the novel takes place because he put it into motion. Captain Pruitt is the airship pilot obsessed with proving the capacities of hybrid airships on the global stage. He is aware of the famous airship disasters of the past, the Hindenburg and the Akron, and he will stop at nothing to preserve his ship. Based on how he motivates his crew to achieve his objectives, Pruitt’s leadership style is best described by the path-goal theory of leadership (House, 1996). At the end of the novel, Dr. Ranell reveals to David in a private conversation that he is the actual owner of the St. Paul. David is surprised because all he has seen Ranell do up until that point is provide service to the other members of the crew. Dr. Ranell is practicing servant leadership (Patterson, 2003). Ranell even mentions to David, “I’m afraid you don’t know anything about my kind of service.” His character is a deliberate exploration of how a servant leader might react to life and death situations.

The last aspect of leadership explored in The Flight of the St. Paul is followership (Chaleff, 1996). David is suffering from the ravages of the war and is haunted by a terrible secret that torments him and causes him to act impulsively and dangerously. During the course of this novel, David learns to confront his demons through a process of deliberately supporting the leaders appointed over him. He is the most junior member of the crew, and he often feels that he doesn’t have a clear purpose and that he is not truly a member of the team.

One of the most underrated aspects of leadership (Naithani, 2014), the cultivation of followership enables David to literally confront his demon and gives him the courage to contradict Captain Pruitt at the critical moment. Because followership involves both the leaders and the led (Copeland, 2015), Captain Pruitt listens to David, and calamity is averted. This climactic scene is inspired by the real-life events of the disaster at Tenerife Island in 1977 involving the crash on the runway of two 747 jet airliners. It remains the greatest single air disaster of all time, and one of the contributing factors was that a crew chief aboard the Dutch KLM flight was afraid to stand up to his overbearing pilot. The moral premise of this novel is that the cultivation of followership can avert catastrophe.

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