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The Roads Must Roll
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The Roads Must Roll
"The Roads Must Roll" is a 1940 science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was selected for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 anthology in 1970.
The story is set in the near future, when "roadtowns" (wide rapidly moving passenger platforms similar to moving sidewalks, but reaching speeds of 100 mph) have replaced highways and railways as the dominant transportation method in the United States.
Heinlein's themes are technological change and social cohesion. The fictional social movement he calls "functionalism" (which is unrelated to the real-life sociological theory of the same name), advances the idea that one's status and level of material reward in a society must and should depend on the functions one performs for that society.
In the first section of the narrative, a stormy meeting takes place at a Sacramento Sector Guild Hall of the technicians working "down inside", among the very noisy great rotors which keep the moving roads going. Speakers voice various grievances and call for immediate strike action. "Shorty" Van Kleeck, the Chief Deputy Engineer of the Sacramento sector, appears and declares his sympathy with the technicians' demands and effectively places himself at their head. As would become clear later, it was Van Kleeck who instigated the technicians' agitation in the first place.
The road's workforce is sharply divided into two classes – the technicians, who are unionized civilians, and the engineers, who are organized as Transport Cadets, an elite paramilitary organization formed by the US Military to keep this crucial infrastructure running. The technicians feel some hostility to the "arrogant" engineers. Van Kleeck – himself a senior engineer who had "come up from the ranks" manipulates this hostility, with the intention of catapulting himself into a position of personal power.
After this initial scene, the point of view shifts – and remains for the rest of the story – to Van Kleeck's superior Larry Gaines, Chief Engineer of the Diego-Reno Roadtown – at the outset yet unaware of the brewing trouble. He is busy entertaining Mr. Blenkinsop, the Australian Transport Minister, who is looking into Road technology with an eye to introducing it in Australia. Gaines's explanation of the Road machinery to Blenkinsop is a device to bring the reader into the world of the Roads.
Larry Gaines is dining with his Australian guest in a moving restaurant on the road when one of the moving sidewalk strips stops unexpectedly. This causes a chain reaction of people falling from the stopped strip onto the fast moving strips next to it, and vice versa. The entire length of the Road becomes a scene of carnage. The reader already knows that this was the result of the ruthless action taken by Van Kleeck and his confederates. Gaines quickly concludes that this is no mechanical failure but sabotage, and that the technicians who maintain the Stockton section of the road are responsible. The rebels have stopped the strip – heedless of the resulting killing and wounding of numerous people traveling the moving road – as a demonstration to encourage their fellow technicians around the country to rebel against the Cadets.
Gaines calls the Stockton office and learns that the leader of the rebellion is his own deputy Van Kleeck, who defiantly declares "The Functionalist Revolution". Holding to a radical social theory, Functionalism, the rebel technicians were persuaded that their role in maintaining the nation's transport infrastructure is more important than that of any other workers and that they should therefore be in control. Blenkinsop is left behind at one of Road stations as Gaines takes charge of the advance on the Stockton office.
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The Roads Must Roll
"The Roads Must Roll" is a 1940 science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was selected for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 anthology in 1970.
The story is set in the near future, when "roadtowns" (wide rapidly moving passenger platforms similar to moving sidewalks, but reaching speeds of 100 mph) have replaced highways and railways as the dominant transportation method in the United States.
Heinlein's themes are technological change and social cohesion. The fictional social movement he calls "functionalism" (which is unrelated to the real-life sociological theory of the same name), advances the idea that one's status and level of material reward in a society must and should depend on the functions one performs for that society.
In the first section of the narrative, a stormy meeting takes place at a Sacramento Sector Guild Hall of the technicians working "down inside", among the very noisy great rotors which keep the moving roads going. Speakers voice various grievances and call for immediate strike action. "Shorty" Van Kleeck, the Chief Deputy Engineer of the Sacramento sector, appears and declares his sympathy with the technicians' demands and effectively places himself at their head. As would become clear later, it was Van Kleeck who instigated the technicians' agitation in the first place.
The road's workforce is sharply divided into two classes – the technicians, who are unionized civilians, and the engineers, who are organized as Transport Cadets, an elite paramilitary organization formed by the US Military to keep this crucial infrastructure running. The technicians feel some hostility to the "arrogant" engineers. Van Kleeck – himself a senior engineer who had "come up from the ranks" manipulates this hostility, with the intention of catapulting himself into a position of personal power.
After this initial scene, the point of view shifts – and remains for the rest of the story – to Van Kleeck's superior Larry Gaines, Chief Engineer of the Diego-Reno Roadtown – at the outset yet unaware of the brewing trouble. He is busy entertaining Mr. Blenkinsop, the Australian Transport Minister, who is looking into Road technology with an eye to introducing it in Australia. Gaines's explanation of the Road machinery to Blenkinsop is a device to bring the reader into the world of the Roads.
Larry Gaines is dining with his Australian guest in a moving restaurant on the road when one of the moving sidewalk strips stops unexpectedly. This causes a chain reaction of people falling from the stopped strip onto the fast moving strips next to it, and vice versa. The entire length of the Road becomes a scene of carnage. The reader already knows that this was the result of the ruthless action taken by Van Kleeck and his confederates. Gaines quickly concludes that this is no mechanical failure but sabotage, and that the technicians who maintain the Stockton section of the road are responsible. The rebels have stopped the strip – heedless of the resulting killing and wounding of numerous people traveling the moving road – as a demonstration to encourage their fellow technicians around the country to rebel against the Cadets.
Gaines calls the Stockton office and learns that the leader of the rebellion is his own deputy Van Kleeck, who defiantly declares "The Functionalist Revolution". Holding to a radical social theory, Functionalism, the rebel technicians were persuaded that their role in maintaining the nation's transport infrastructure is more important than that of any other workers and that they should therefore be in control. Blenkinsop is left behind at one of Road stations as Gaines takes charge of the advance on the Stockton office.