Part 32 - Medical Advancements, Peak Performance, The Global Cup of Ice Hockey and The Films of the Age
By the 2030s, the world's globalization had shifted the world's economic and cultural goalposts in ways that had once been the realm of science fiction. As climate change made the world wetter, what it also did was grow the creation in many parts of the world of crops that weren't merely the food staples that humans needed - rice, wheat, corn, sugarcane, potatoes, soybeans, milk and dairy products - but also vast quantities of many other kinds of crops. Production of coffee, tea, cocoa, grapes, nuts, citrus fruits, kiwifruit, peaches and nectarines and many other kinds of tree fruits grew dramatically with the new lands available to agriculture, and the development of lab-grown meat in the 2020s made possiblea dramatic fall in the prices of many meats, thus creating a division between "natural" meat and lab-grown meat that, of course, saw most of the sellers of "natural" beef, pork and chicken develop their products into new fields. Concerns about the overuse of farmland in many places in North America saw a massive growth in the growth of orchards and increasing rotation of crops with a desire to allow the soil in many places to improve. This created many new developments in food both in Canada and around the world, as the improving diets of people that resulted from the development of new cooking techniques was soon added to with new products and developments.
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy developments in Canada was the development of sandwiches into new forms and dessert berries, and the growth in the use of sugarcane. Dessert berries had long a reality in many parts of Asia and some parts of Europe, but in North America their use in many forms swelled dramatically in the 21st Century. Sandwiches of course were known to every Canadian, but in this case the place many of the ideas had been taken from was Japan, who had made sandwiches over time into almost an art form in many ways and Canada was quick to follow the idea. Many of Canada's better culinary elements had made their way across the world during the same time period - even poutine had come to be seen as less unhealthy as over time two-stage baking of potatoes and the use of poutine sauce rather than gravies rather improved the dish's rather-awful fat content - and so it was only fair that a lot came back the other way. The use of sugarcane was more than anything a direct result of the Commonwealth ties, as Australia and India were two of the world's larger producers of sugarcane, and the development of Canadian sugarcane in tropical regions and sugar beets in the St. Lawrence River Valley and parts of Atlantic Canada also contributed to this. The Empire Company's food stores (Sobeys, FreshCo, some Safeways, Foodland) began the "Better ingredients, better food" campaigns in the early 2020s out of a desire to separate themselves from rivals, but it ended up being much more successful than many at first realized in that it worked hand-in-hand with the growing desires for better products and consumers' growing awareness of what was good and what was bad in many foods.
The development of HIV vaccines made a massive impact in Africa, and Moderna's trials were quick to be supported in the Commonwealth, which both had confidence in the company's mRNA vaccine development (COVID-20 proved that) and a massive hope for the ability for the virus to be tamed, as South Africa and India both suffered badly from the virus, and while education on sexually transmitted diseases had slowed its spread and much-improved health care in both nations had done much to reduce its death toll, the Commonwealth very much hoped that it could wipe out the disease entirely at some point, though it noted that that was not likely a short-term project. However, was with the collection of diseases eradicated during the 2020s and Smallpox's edarication in the late 1970s, the hope existed and few nations weren't willing to help, and Moderna's successful vaccine was soon joined by a similar RNA vaccine developed by AstraZeneca, HK Biotechnica, CSL and Valeant Healthcare, and with it came the prospect of a growth in the treatment of HIV in the West. By 2040, the combination of vaccinations and treatment had all but eradicated HIV's spread in Western nations (though treatment of AIDS patients would continue for some time to come) and was making major headway in less-developed parts of the world.
Indeed, the development of mRNA vaccines was one of the forefronts of a major wave of new technologies for treating conditions from the 2020s onward. Concerns about the use of the overuse of many kinds of antibiotics led to reductions in their use over time, with probiotics and other treatments being used instead as ways of fighting bacterial infections in order to reduce their use. What also began to be developed was the creation of abiotic body components, making possible for the first time the very real prospect of both gene splicing to create "designer babies" and the development of transhumanism into a reality, something that began to be a major debate in the late 2020s and throughout the 2030s as to their ethics, particularly with regards to designer babies and the idea of even using it to eradicate potentially-troublesome genetic diseases such as autism spectrum disorder or very-serious ones such as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs Disease or ALS. The debates as to what was ethical to do with the human genome became a topic of massive debate across the world over time, resulting in even entire nations shifting apart from each other over these debates. By the late 2030s, such developments had grown to a fever pitch and was seeing even the normally very-united Commonwealth split on the issue, as while Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom were entirely in favour of such developments, South Africa, Ireland, Israel and particularly India were much more on the side of limiting the development of such technologies. Regardless of the debates surrounding both implants and gene splicing, the advancements in the science in the early decades of the 21st Century were enormous, and with it came the obviously-desirable possibilities of developing ways of further screening and then adapting the DNA of children in order to make it possible to make many genetic diseases disappear. Tay-Sachs Disease, which is far more common in Ashenkazi Jews than any other population (and French Canadians are another group far more commonly effected than others) was an early target both because of its awful effects and its ability to be beaten through gene therapy, as was ALS for similar reasons.
Beyond the genetic improvements, massive improvements in medical science and the improved diets in much of the world had the effect of adding to the already-rapid growth in life expectancy for humans, as well as their ability to maintain higher physical or mental performance levels. By the late 2020s, even players in very physically demanding sports such as hockey, basketball and gridiron football were seeing careers stretch longer than ever before - the mid-40s retirements of several NHL legends in the 2010s and 2020s (a list of players that included Jaromir Jagr, Eric Lindros, Martin Brodeur, Zdeno Chara, Nicklas Lidstrom, Mats Sundin and Jarome Iginla) ended up being the beginning of a trend among the best in the NHL who took good care of their bodies - the first-overall picks in 2015 (Connor McDavid) and 2016 (Auston Matthews) both played their last NHL games in 2040. It was a similar story in many ways in other sports, but in gridiron football, the massive troubles with head injuries that had become blindingly apparent in the 2010s, led the NFL to steadily change the rules of their sport in the 2010s and 2020s, including the development of helmets in the 2020s that included magnetorheological fluid to reduce the impacts on the head. Regardless of this, the NFL ended up developing rules that resulted in a wider field and the league began switching towards rugby-style tackling techniques, and growing the number of players on a team - positions that saw regular hits, such as defensive linemen and running backs, began to be required to be swapped out for other players, growing rosters from 53 men on an NFL team in 2020 to 80 players by 2032, a situation that was mirrored in the NHL, which saw its ice sizes grow wider and the nets grow in the 2020s. Over time, players and sports that saw less debilitating injuries began to grab much more of the spotlight in the world of sports, a reality that basketball and association football immensely enjoyed.
Beyond that, the wild sports worlds of the 21st Century were joined by the Olympics, which grew into a truly unique world by the middle of the Century. The Olympics had begun with Barcelona in 1992 seeking out hosting bids that would leave a long-lasting positive impact from the games (Toronto in 1996 did this through its transit improvements, beautifully-improved cityscape, giant growth in low-income housing availability and long-lasting co-operation between the city's various cultural communities, and that was just the start of it) and it showed in dramatic fashion as the Olympic Games began to be used by cities and nations as a way of showing off their arrival to the world. Tokyo had done this so extraordinarily well in 1964 and Seoul had done similarly well for Korea in 1988, but the Games across the world took lessons from Canada's hosting the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 and the Summer Olympics in Toronto in 1996 in that raising local support for the Games would be the absolute best way of ensuring long-term success, and cities followed it. By 2020, the Olympic Games were to its hosts the best chance a city and a nation could ever have to invite the world and show just how they lived - and it became abundantly clear how well this did during the decades. Nowhere did this get done better than the Commonwealth of Nations' hosting of games, as they did it five times in 24 years for the Summer Olympics - 1996 in Toronto had been followed by 2004 in Jerusalem, 2008 in Mumbai, 2012 in Cape Town and 2020 in Hong Kong - and in all five cases the games themselves were an absolute triumph. The Olympic Games in every case were part of a vast series of parties, events, cultural exhibitions and other ways to allow both locals and visitors in their millions to enjoy themselves, and again the 1996 Olympics in Toronto had been the first (and in the minds of many, the high-water mark) in that the entire city seemed to be in on the fun, as the city had packed a year's worth of fun into a month for visitors and whose tourist industry lived off of the benefits of it for decades afterwards. The Olympics began to be seen less of a commercial event (despite the growth in sports played) and more of a vast collection of sports events that were part of a wild time in one of the world's greatest cities or places.
This couldn't stop there, of course. The major professional sports leagues in North America in the aftermath of the COVID-20 pandemic all had their seasons re-open with massive exhibition games in order to get the fans excited to have their sports back, and in every case the leagues pulled out all the stops for this. The NHL kicked off its 2021-22 season with perhaps the wildest stunt of all, creating a FA Cup-style tournament for CHL, with the ECHL, the three Canadian Major Junior hockey leagues (QMJHL, OHL and WHL) and AHL teams to compete with the NHL, with its new wider ice surface and larger goaltender nets. The hockey world got the mother of all stuns when the Memorial Cup Champion Rouyn-Nouranda Huskies and the Oshawa Generals (whom they had vanquished in the Memorial Cup Final) made their way all the way to the final eight teams of the tournament, the Huskies pulling off one of the greatest upsets in NHL history when they prevailed over the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks in making it to the round of Sixteen and the Generals taking the Boston Bruins to double overtime in their Round of Sixteen game. When the NHL did this again four years later, they invited the teams of the European CHL and the Russian Kontinental Hockey League as well, as well as making a way for teams to be nominated by people involved to enter the tournament, and as a result a team from Korea (the Asia League champion Anyang Halla) was also invited to what the NHL termed the "Global Cup of Ice Hockey". As with four years prior, there were some monumental upsets, and the Anyang Halla and KHL champion Lokomotiv Jaroslavl made it all the way to the "Great Eight" eight finalists, and the latter took the defending Stanley Cup Champion Philadelphia Flyers to overtime in their match. (The Flyers made a point of inviting the Lokomotiv to come to town to play an exhibition game in Philadelphia at the end of their respective seasons, and the second time around the Russian team was victorious 7-6 in the rematch in Philadelphia that became known as the "Broad Street Gunfight", and made sure memories of the 1970s exhibition match between the Flyers and the Red Army team were left behind rather quickly.)
The NBA played it a little differently by hosting a special All-Star tournament to start off its 2021-22 season, but they got four full 15-player teams and made sure at least one player from every NBA team was part of the festivities, and having fans choose the captains of the teams - in the end LeBron James of Los Angeles Lakers, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, Kawhi Leonard of the Toronto Raptors and Danian Lillard of the Portland Trailblazers got the nods as the team Captains, with the other 56 players drafted by their team captains. The format proved immensely popular among the fans and would become the regular format for the All-Star games in the NBA, helped along by the prize of $500,000 for each player on the victorious team - a prize that led to spectacular play in the first tournament, including the 6'3" long-range specialist Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors blocking a lay-up attempt by 7'1", 280-pound Philadelphia 76ers Center Joel Embiid, the Seattle Supersonics' monstrous power forward Zion Williamson's soon-to-be-famous one-handed dunk and the Raptors' enormous (7'5", 345 pounds) Center Sim Bhullar pulling a backboard out of its frame during one of the games.
While the world of sports and personal fitness was a hallmark of the 2020s owing to the post-pandemic world and the desire to improve one's physical conditioning, the world of entertainment was to see many dramatic changes of its own. Streaming services that had made such a killing and the growth of the Internet made sure people wanted their entertainment everywhere, and the growth of smartphones as do-it-all devices over time ultimately began to reverse, as dedicated music players and paired headphones and speakers offered sound quality no smart phone could hope to match and laptops and larger-screen devices made it people to watch their desired entertainment choices, the limitations of the human eyes and ears forcing the reversal of miniturization trends. Canadian "Entertainment Creation Studios" Lionsgate and MGM were at the center of new creations, as the Commonwealth's extraordinary growth of content creators created as a nexus of English-speaking media creation that seriously shook the American stranglehold on the world's English-speaking movie industry, helped along by Indian preferences to work with other Commonwealth partners and the ability of the Commonwealth producers to snag talent from American studios, though that regularly also worked in the other direction. The 2000s and 2010s rash of Canadian TV shows sold to Americans was matched by the massive growth of movies in the 2020s that became co-productions across the Commonwealth as well as with the Americans. Canadian producers re-wrote the rules of movies based on video games with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Heavy Rain, System Shock and Perfect Dark, all absolutely brilliantly done, while the Commonwealth nations' love for visually-stunning movies kicked off by Avatar and fed by the DC and Marvel Universe's films was fed by God From The Machine, Blue Planet, Midnight Club, Dark Dreamers, The Fallen: Genesis, For The Angel's Heart, The Triad and Electric Dancer, many of which fed the viewpoint held by many in the film industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s that Hollywood was too focused on the easy money of sequels and remakes, allowing others to take over the storytelling that had made the industry so great. This viewpoint more than a little irked the industry in the United States, but it wasn't until six straight Academy Award wins for Commonwealth productions - awarded to Dark Dreamers in 2017, Crazy Rich Asians in 2018, For The Angel's Heart in 2019, Deus Ex: Human Revolution in 2020, Chasing Hearts in 2021 and A Memory Called Empire in 2022 - that the American studios began to search for ways of putting one over on their English-speaking rivals. This rivalry defined the film industry for the 2020s and into the 2030s, and led directly to the Commonwealth's movies becoming widely distributed all over the world and a rapid growth of Indian cinema's fusion with North American, British and Australasian cinema influences, all of the above further influenced by Asian film influences, particularly those of Hong Kong and Singapore. The resulting films of what would be termed "The Great Rivalry" between the American and Commonwealth creators - Pacifica, Master of Dragons, The Sword of Damocles, Terra Nova, Mirror's Edge, Singularity, Crusaders For The Devil, City of God, West Coast, Femme Divine, The Black Javelin - would do much to contribute to a massive revival in storytelling in the film industries all around the world.
