Truth & Code: The Future is Black and White

Synching

Block 7,921,950

A loud alarm awakens Fabian., He bolts up in bed and sees flashing red in his room lights. He glances over at his console on the nightstand, and the screen is flashing red. He can feel his heart racing, and he begins to pour in sweat. He was in his third stage of REM sleep and was enjoying a cruise down the highway on his moto. He reaches for the covers, flings them across the bed, and stands up.

“AI, what’s wrong?”

“Mr. Kohler, you are needed urgently at NodlSat!”

“What? It’s the middle of the night!”

“AI, call...” As he was about to call the engineer on call, he saw that his console was beginning to light up with his team calling.

“Shit! What is going on!” He screams.

He grabs his glasses on the nightstand and rushes to the bathroom to get his clothes out of the closet to get dressed. Then, with his glasses on, he creates a conference with all calling. He immediately hears voices shouting his name and asking questions. But, of course, he’s not the only one who’s been suddenly awakened. The images of those in the conference range from avatars to those half-dressed with matted hair and wide eyes.

“All right, everyone, calm down. One person who thinks they know what is going on, tell me what’s going on.” Silence. Then one of them pipes in, “I don’t know, that’s why I was calling.” His screen fills with thumbs up, indicating everyone is as clueless as he is.

“Ok, get to HQ as quickly as you can. Be on console in two blocks if you can’t make it.”

Fabian finishes dressing and heads down to the street. The streets are typically deserted at this time of the night, but he can already see dozens of AVs heading toward NodlSat. He looks up and sees several AAPDs heading in as well.

“Wow, big enough to get the big boys out of bed.” He thinks

An AV is on approach and opens its hatch. He steps inside to get to NodlSat. It’s not far. He could have run there but didn’t need his heart rate racing any higher.

Upon entering NodlSat, dozens of people fill in and head toward their work areas. Fabian thinks it’s funny enough to see people outside work because you always expect to see them a certain way, but this takes it to a new level for him. He laughs to himself as he sees people who are clearly half asleep as he comes to work. Some have shoes and socks that don’t match. The guys can put a ball cap on; the women have to make do.

He gets up to the 21st floor and doesn’t even go into his office. Instead, he heads straight into the Vision Center. Everyone in the VC is standing around looking at each other, but they are all talking about what they see on the monitors. As Fabian enters, the room lights are flashing red. Lights around the monitors are flashing red, then he looks at the map and sees a flashing blue dot in central SO-Land. It’s tough to tell where in SO-Land, but Fabian guesses it’s somewhere in what used to be called China. That part of the screen is not partitioned based on country or region. It’s always been one big black area on the net. Fabian was surprised to see anything there. He didn’t think that area of the monitor array had any monitors.

“AI, cancel alarm!” Fabian commands.

The alarm sound mutes, and the red lights cease, but the little dot in the center of SO-Land continues to blink.

Fabian commands, “Can someone tell me what is going on?”

A couple of people raise their hands.

“Ok, come over here and give me what you got.”

Two women and a man walk up and over to him. The VC had an amphitheater design. Fabian crosses his hands as they approach. A smaller group of people crowd around just behind them.

“All right, whoever thinks they can tell me, go.”

“Well, sir,” One of the women starts.

“I was on call here in the VC tonight, so I was the first to see it. That was about three blocks ago. AI sounded the alarm as soon as the light showed up on the monitor. As far as I can tell, that is a node synching somewhere in SO-Lands. It started its synch on block 3,944,208. For those who no longer use old time, that block was validated about seventy-five years ago.”

“Ok, it’s obvious that synching is going on because that’s what we monitor, but why in SO-Land and why start at that block, and why the fuck in the center of SO-Land? Is this a threat? Do we know if this is a threat?” Fabian bellows with authority.

The other woman says, “No, we don’t think so.”

“Who are you, and why do you think that?”

“Well, I’m head of security for NodlSat, and this has no markings of being a threat to our network. Of course, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t change and become a threat, but it is not currently a threat.”

As they were talking, they heard, “Look, it’s gone!”

Everyone turns and looks at the monitor; the signal from SO-Land has stopped.

“Ok, does anyone know why that happened?” Fabian asks.

“Well, it appears that it stopped synching!” Someone declares.

“No Shit Sherlock, but why?” Fabian asks.

He looks at each face, and no one appears to have an answer to that question.

The man that was with the other two women said, “Sir, I think we should probably get some experts in here. Maybe someone can give us a history lesson on SO-Land and all that.”

“Brilliant! Great idea; let’s get people in here who understand some history. Please ask if they know the history before you waste my time.” He trails off sarcastically.

Fabian looks at the block clock. “OK, let’s see if we can get people in here in 9 blocks.”

He hears a mixture of “Yes, sir.” “On it.” “Yep.”

Fabian heads to his office to do a little research on his own.

“AI, call Jim Shields.”

Moments later, he hears, “Hello?”

“Jim, it’s me, Fabian.”

“Yeah, I know it’s you. Do you realize what block it is?”

“Yes, I do. I have an emergency down at NodlSat. I want your help figuring out what’s going on.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I like the way you think. If it turns out to be nothing, you can crash on the couch in my office and work from here all day.”

“Wow, that sounds like a nice incentive to wake me up at this block.”

“Yeah, yeah, how about a nice steak dinner for two? But I’m the number two.”

“All right, give me four blocks to get there.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Cheers, mate!”

“There is nothing to cheer about at this block of the day!”

Fabian hangs up with Jim and starts asking for information about SO-Land, the event’s history and queries AI about the probability of a node synching like this in central SO-Land.

He turns his head around and yells out of his office, “Can someone put a country and city overlay on SO-Land in the VC?”

“Yes, sir!” he hears from several voices.

Jim rushes into the office right on the block. Fabian doesn’t even hear him come up from behind.

“Fabian, Fabian, dude, I’m here!”

Fabian lifts his head and turns around, “Hey, thanks, mate.” Waking up at this block of the day was starting to catch up with him. He figured Jim would fade after the adrenalin wore off as well.

“Have a seat,” Fabian points to the couch.

Jim heads to the couch, “Fabian, that photo of your bike is sick as shit!” Fabian had a large photo of his bike hung above the sofa. The bike is in sharp focus with a blurred background of Lake Atitlan. It’s one of Fabian’s favorite photos of his bike. “Is that up in Guatemala on the lake?”

“Yeah, man, sit down.”

“All right, all right.”

Shortly after, different folks start trickling in and make their way to the large conference room table to Fabian’s right. The couch sits along one side of the table, facing out towards the gulf with a row of chairs in between.

Fabian gets up, walks to the conference table, and sits at the seat to the left of the head seat. He waves for Jim to come over and sit on his right at the head.

“Ok, guys, I know it’s late or early or whatever. I appreciate you all coming in here and helping. And I see that we have some folks joining us virtually. Let’s go around and introduce ourselves. I’ll start. I’m Fabian Kohler; I run the VC. I don’t like to say it like that because we have a great team. Next,” he points to Jim.

“Jim Shields, I’m an energy consultant.”

One by one, everyone introduces themselves.

Finally, the lady next to Fabian introduces herself, “I’m Laura Cortez. I’m a professor at the University of El Salvador. I’m an expert on the SO-Lands.”

“Great, thank you very much. For those joining virtually, please introduce yourselves as well.”

“I’m Eduardo Norton. I’m in Bogota, Colombia. I’m an expert on the Event. I’ve written twenty books on ...”

Fabian interrupts him, “Eduardo, thank you. The very fact that you are here is evidence of your expertise. You don’t need to provide a CV.”

“Yes, of course. So sorry about that.”

“No worries. Next.”

“I am Satoshi Smith. I am an expert on the Bitcoin blockchain. I’m in Kingston, Jamaica.”

“I must say, your name kicks ass!” Fabian interjects.

“Thank you,” Satoshi replies.

“Ok, great, here’s what we know, and please correct me if I get the facts wrong.”

Fabian recounts the earlier facts about the alarm and the block count.

Fabian asks for the VC map to be shown on the table console. The country and city overlay has been added, as he requested.

“Ok, if we go back to when this started, we can see that it was in central China in what is now called SO-Land or southern SO-Land. The location is west of what would be WuHan at these coordinates: 30.804302, 113.654704. The activity lasted for nearly four blocks and then went dark. The synching of what we believe to be a node began at block 3,944,208, which was first validated about seventy-five years ago, plus some change. That’s really what we know at this point. Did I miss any critical details?” Fabian asks.

Silence.

“Ok, professor. What can you tell us about SO-Land and this part of SO-Land? And I’m interested if you think this should be considered a threat.” He turns to his left to look at Laura.

“Thank you for this opportunity to share my expertise. Based on the information that we have about SO-Land, which is a little older than when this block began synching, the activity is near Wuhan, China, as you can see from the map. As many of you may recall from history, this is where the Chinese released the first COVID virus. It is still unclear if this was accidental or intentional. The reason or purpose for this remains unknown to this day. But we know that China was a rising political and economic power then. Unfortunately, the rise of China was supported by naive politicians in the west going back as far as the 1970s in the United States. Effectively, we gave unfair advantages to China to enter the first world after something called the Chinese cultural revolution. In a span of about two to three decades, China became an economic power rivaling that of the US. During this ascendancy, China faced three structural problems to realize global supremacy. First, for decades, the Chinese Communist Party or CCP enforced a one-child rule. This was in an effort to control what appeared to be a problem with population growth. As the most populous country in the world, its agricultural output could not sustain the continued population growth. Millions were aborted because they were female babies. Millions more were aborted if the child was born into a home with an existing child because of severe penalties for violating a one-child law. Second, China was never an energy-independent country. Their main supply of hydrocarbons was coal, but increased global pressure on clean fuels and the need for higher-density fuel products for efficiency resulted in real stoppages in industrial output. They simply could not meet demand. This is one of the theories for why Bitcoin mining was effectively banned in the early twenty-first century in China. Third, and probably the most problematic systemic issue they faced, was the fact that the US’s global financial hegemony prevented China from ever attaining the global status the CCP so desperately wanted.”

“China was definitely the manufacturer for the world, but COVID lockdowns and the other economic issues I just mentioned meant that global companies started looking for other places to manufacture their goods. We all know that during this time in world history, fiat produced a consumer-driven world. To continue growth, China had to continue production. As a nation, they had the expertise to produce, but with few exceptions, innovation, entrepreneurship, and engineering could never match that of the west and the US, in particular.”

“Politically, the CCP pursued a ‘One China Policy’ claiming that Taiwan was not an independent nation. Of course, that’s another history in and of itself, but the national preoccupation with Taiwan clouded its ability to compete as a true superpower.”

“None of this was a secret to the CCP. They implemented something called the Belt and Road initiative to counter their deficiencies. It was loosely based on the ancient Silk Road that ran from China to Europe. Traders created the latter. China’s Belt and Road initiative was a plan implemented by the CCP to effectively purchase natural resources from other countries in what was called the global south. Which essentially were countries that ringed the equator. El Salvador was in this region at the time.”

Everyone looks around the table at each other with a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

“They did this by funding massive infrastructure projects in those countries through development loans. The collateral for these loans were usually the natural resources of these countries. Closing in on the mid-twenty-first century, China nearly had a monopoly on many rare earth minerals essential for high tech equipment and computers.”

“Two years after the COVID lockdowns and a change in the US administration, Russia decided to invade Ukraine to expand the former glory of the Soviet Union. However, Russia, similar to China, was facing a demographic issue as well in that in less than a generation, Russia would never be able to attempt another unification or expansion like this again, ever. There just wasn’t enough population growth in Russia to support it.”

“Russia and China, while politically aligned as far as their views on collectivism and communism, were traditionally not aligned economically.”

“They shared a common flaw: corruption was rampant within the countries. Political cronies ran the country, especially the military. When Russia invaded Ukraine, president Putin grossly overestimated their readiness based on information his political cronies gave him. As a result, the army got mired in a years-long war and eventually lost despite overwhelming odds of men and materiel. Russian soldiers did not know why they were fighting. Equipment was substandard, and supply lines were grossly overstretched. The US and western allies provided much more sophisticated equipment that just worked. They broke the Russian military.”

“China was not expecting this. Like Russia, they expected that they could project force and take what they wanted, with the first step being Taiwan. But as the country that released COVID, they didn’t have an adequate response nearly three years later, and the CCP was internally very worried that any projection of force would fail for the same reasons they saw in Russia.”

“Another issue with China was growing food insecurity. As the most populous country in the world, China implemented the ‘Red Line Policy’ to protect arable land for farming starting in the early 2000s.”

“All of these factors contributed to China’s entry in and participation in the Event that I know Mr. Norton will address.”

“As far as the signal in central China, I’m not sure I can explain that. From the last data we have, that region of China was not known for any significant industrial capability. Most of the manufacturing base was located along coastal regions for easy access to shipping.”

She looks around the table to take questions and finally looks to Fabian to her right.

A young man sitting across and to her left raises his hand.

She looks at him and nods.

“Thank you for that. I understand that SO-Lands are unified, but do you think that this is a unified action between the northern part and southern part? Are there regional differences between the two areas?”

“Ok, good question. Other than the growing alliance between what was China and Russia, I think it’s important to understand that Russia and China had very complimentary resources. The eastern psychology of both countries eventually allowed SO-Land to be unified. I’ll explain each.”

“I mentioned the energy and commodity status of China. Russia, on the other hand, had an abundance of natural resources, namely oil and natural gas. At this time, Russia was the world’s largest exporter of oil and had the largest known oil reserves. They also had vast lands, which you can see, that were largely unexplored or undeveloped. Like China, though, most of their agricultural lands were limited. Hence, the reason for their initial invasion into Ukraine. The key point here is that what China lacked in energy, Russia had. And what Russia lacked in cheap, abundant labor, China had. The Achilles heel for both was their dependence on the west for high-tech, innovative products. Russia deliberately waged a years-long propaganda war in Germany, particularly funding the environmental movement. The propaganda war successfully coerced public opinion to think that fossil fuels and nuclear energy were damaging the environment. Russia had its aversion to nuclear power because of the catastrophic failure at Chornobyl in the twentieth-Century. Well, the propaganda worked, and Germany moved to renewable energy sources, which, at that time, were unreliable. Its basic supply and demand and the variability of the energy supply created an unnatural reliance on Russia for oil and gas. This happened before Bitcoin mining transformed the energy sector as we know it because of a problem in energy supply called the duck curve. Anyway, Russia started using energy as a weapon because they had plenty of it. This is what they could bring to the table in their relationship with China.”

“The psyche of the East is much different from that of the West. Going back as far as the Khans or the time of the Romans and the split of the Roman empire. Eastern psychology was always more accepting of authoritarian control of its populace and, later, the union between church and state, at least in Russia. Putin manipulated the Eastern Orthodox bishops in Russia to sanction his war. Not unlike what happened in the Crusades. Despite the clear differences between east and west, at about this time, nearly half of the total population of the world existed under some sort of authoritarian control. AI would create a kinder and gentler form of control. I believe Mr. Norton will speak to some of those issues.”

“I think I should also mention that we should all be clear about what we see. I’m not sure any of us can say for certain if this activity is the work of SO-Land, an individual, or even a rebel group. The latter is highly unlikely, given that rebellion within the SO-Lands was effectively eradicated based on all the information we have. I mean, there has been no coordination between any groups within SO-Land or the FreeLands for over eighty years or more. There’s no reason to believe the citizens of SO-Land have any institutional knowledge of what a rebellion is.”

“Thank you, Ms. Cortez,” Fabian says, pausing, “Mr. Norton, can you please brief us on the Event.”

“Yes, of course. Since the Event is such a critical historical event in the history of mankind, I know all of you have a basic understanding from your school days. I think what we should focus on are some of the historical events leading up to the Event, what occurred during the Event, and the resulting world order after the Event.”

“Ms. Cortez has done an excellent job of recapping some of the internal problems and policies that basically contributed to the Event, and I may overlap her a little, so forgive me.”

“But let’s break things down into three basic levers that could be pulled to try to effect an outcome. The first lever was money. There were really only two options, using your own state fiat or using the US dollar. Second, there was energy. Energy in whatever form you want. But think about energy as different karats of gold. The pure gold, in this case for Russia, was its oil and gas reserves. The ten karats and below would be renewable energy sources. The third was commodities. This could be wheat, rice, coal, minerals, or whatever. Now population is not a lever but something both countries needed to grow their respective economies.”

“They were losing the currency war, and there was really no possible way they could wrestle that control from the US. Just before the Event, the US dollar was used in over eighty percent of all international trade. No matter where you were in the world, you wanted the strongest currency. Russia took some early steps to have a commodity-based currency, but it ultimately failed in gaining any meaningful traction outside of Russia. China, for its part, had the belt and Road initiative it used as leverage to gain as much monetary value out of the global south. It was a similar playbook that the old colonial powers, like France, used in Africa after the old colonies gained independence. The US also used its status to control, but the point is that China had to find a way to create leverage to sustain growth. China was early to explore and adopt a digital currency or what was called back then a CBDC or central bank digital currency. Later it was called DM or digital money to remove any reference to another entity controlling the money other than the state. As I will explain, this would be China’s strongest lever to pull. China would use its money as a weapon.”

“Russia, for its part, had the oil and gas reserves. China had coal, but oil and gas are denser forms of energy and, thereby, more efficient. I’m sure all of you are aware that in the history of humanity, we have always progressed from less dense energy sources to more dense energy sources; from wood to coal, from coal to oil, and from oil to nuclear. Increasing energy density equated to prosperity. If you take it to an even more extreme, there is the Kardashev Scale. The scale was originally designed in 1964 by Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev. The irony of that! Anyway, it has three base classes, each with an energy disposal level: Type I, Type II, and Type III, etc...”

“Sorry, I got off topic a bit. Before the Event, there was a brief interruption of this natural progression because Russia was so effective in its propaganda war and the effect the war in Ukraine had on energy use in Europe. Briefly, wood was being used as an energy source. Russia essentially used its energy supply as a weapon. Neither Russia nor China could rely on nuclear. Russia because of its history, but ultimately, the technology for nuclear belonged to the west. China did begin an aggressive expansion of its nuclear program, but failures and nuclear catastrophes ravaged them. Given the failure of traditional weapons in Ukraine, Russia was not willing to gamble with their nuclear weapons.”

“The third lever was control of commodities. Russia had its sources to control. China would rely on its belt and roads initiative.”

“All of these levers were being pulled simultaneously for a different effect. Given the demographic challenges for both countries, the devastating losses in Ukraine, and the need to preserve its manufacturing workforce, neither country wanted a kinetic war against the west. For its part, the west’s youth did not want to fight a kinetic war for what they perceived to be politicians who didn’t care for them (which they didn’t). And given the excessive debt of the west at this time, there needed to be an effective way for them to fund such a massive war. Unlike the kinetic wars of the early twentieth century, which were, in effect, total wars in that every means to destroy the enemy was employed, the Event was effectively a total monetary & economic, and energy war. Each side would employ whatever means it could to destroy the energy resources or infrastructure of the other and its monetary or economic system.”

“Stating the obvious, the Free Land’s energy situation continued up the density scale with nuclear. After the defeat of fake science movements in the US, in particular, the vast commodity deposits in the US eliminated any dependency on China or Russia. Bitcoin obviously became our weapon to defeat the monetary weapon of China. As all of us know, Bitcoin mining ushered in a revolution of energy production and use we are still benefiting from.”

“Whoo, Hoo!” Jim whelped and raised his hand with his middle and pointing fingers in a V. Quiet laughter broke the tense informational briefing.

“Thank you for that!” Norton said.

Jim nodded.

“Anyway, as I was mentioning. This was not a total war in a kinetic sense but an economic and energy total war. China started fully deploying its digital currency, the digital Yuan, DY. Its first deployment was, obviously, within China. China combined something called a social credit score within its DY. Effectively China tied its money to a person’s behavior. At this point, there was still a sense of a free economy in that you could work and earn a wage, but a large economic depression was beginning. The reasons behind this are complex, but China had a tremendous and unsustainable building boom. Entire cities were built and remained ghost towns. This growth was fueled by speculation, and the Chinese, like any other people, could see rising inflation, so they sought safety in hard assets. This also contributed to the lack of arable land in China. The tremendous amount of building squeezed out productive, arable land.”

“Once it deployed the DY within China, it began to use it on its belt and road initiative. It had a hard time convincing the global south economies to use the DY, so it began a direct marketing campaign to the citizens of these countries. Of course, some fall for it like any direct marketing campaign, and others don’t. But it was a back door way to introduce the DY into these economies widely. As an extra inducement, the citizens of these countries were given outsized exchanges for the local currency. This would become very important later in the Event. The eventual result of this campaign was China’s ability to control vast amounts of commodities outside of its lands, as Russia used energy as a tool of control. China sought to do the same with commodities, especially rare earth metals, which were vital in the high tech finished products they needed, but did not control.”

“Russia, for its part, continued to manipulate energy markets. The first step was to construct an oil and gas pipeline to China. This would become the basis for their alliance. The west and the US, in particular, understood the implications of this energy alliance. While nothing could ever be proven, like in any war, as Russia and China began construction, there were many sabotages of the pipeline. At about the same time, in the US, there were small-scale targeted disruptions of the US energy grid. As with any war, the US always responds with a new bureaucracy, creating a vast new energy security and protection agency (ESPA). Like the industrial military, industrial agricultural, and industrial pharmaceutical complexes before it, this new industrial energy complex required massive amounts of funding. As previous patterns would inform, this resulted in massive transfers of wealth with little help to its citizens.”

“The energy war continued to escalate, but both sides knew that conventional nuclear war did not make sense. The saber rattling with traditional nukes persisted throughout, however. What each had at its disposal were tactical nuclear weapons.”

“It’s unclear who deployed first. Each side claimed the other did, and each side denied they had. It began in the southern oilfields of Iraq. This did two things: it created a NOGO zone in that part of Iraq, and the burning of oil and gas created thick clouds of smoke, becoming a visible barrier. This would be on the western edge of what was then Iran but is now the western edge of the southern SO-Lands.”

“Russia’s motive would be to force more sales of its oil and gas. The US’s motive would be to warn neighboring Saudi Arabia to align with the west’s ideology. Saudi Arabia grew increasingly impatient with its fifty-plus-year alliance with the west and its role in creating the petro-dollar system that was the de facto world reserve currency. The net result was the limited deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to disrupt or destroy each other’s energy infrastructure. In particular, its oil and gas infrastructure. The US, for its part, had an extensive and effective missile defense system. Russia decided early on it could not win that battle, so each had its proxy enemies along the western borders of Eurasia.”

“Smart money understood what was going on and fled to safety. At first, it found its way to the US dollar. But it would finally find its way to Bitcoin. As capital flight began in each country outside the US, major recession, depression, and economic chaos ensued. China saw this as a time to play its card. Those who traded into the DY couldn’t exchange it for anything else. So China began to increase its use of what was essentially a universal basic income. Those with the DY got more, and those who wanted to exit their local fiat currencies could exchange it for the DY. China upped the ante and opened its borders for immigrants from all of these countries in the global south to come and settle in many of these ghost towns China had been building. Integration into Chinese society was not a problem with the DY. The CCP controlled every aspect of social integration with its control of the DY.”

“Despite the success of the DY, China continued to have problems with the Uyghurs in northwestern China in Xinjiang. The genocide and forced labor of the Uyghurs became less about religion and ethnicity than commodity production. There were vast oil and gas reserves in the region they couldn’t exploit as long as this people group was not controlled. Russia would later help the Chinese eliminate the Uyghurs as a threat and help develop their vast oil and gas reserves in the region.”

“Russia had an effective direct energy propaganda arm in Europe by funding green environmental groups. For its part, the Chinese relied on an institution called the World Economic Forum or WEF for its monetary and economic propaganda.”

“The same proposal that China had for the global south it would repackage with the help of the WEF and offer to those in the west who were sympathetic to their political philosophy. Many westerners traded their fiat currencies, whether the dollar, euro, swiss franc, or pound, for the DY. It was the same formula. ‘We will give you more of DY for your fiat.’ And it worked for millions and millions of people. Immigration to China almost always followed. Several years into the Event, Russia and China opened their own borders, and many immigrants spread throughout the vast Russian territories.”

“As Russia exported its energy to China, China exported its currency and immigrants. The currency was a means of control. But both countries were able to solve a major demographic problem. There was a massive reordering of manufacturing across the world. This resulted in massive de-globalization.”

“Technologically, both sides continued where they could. Artificial intelligence was in its infancy, but it was seen as a major tool for each side but with different desired outcomes. China, Russia, and the countries aligned with them used AI for control. By the time AI started having a major impact on societies, China had collected trillions and trillions of data points through its digital currency. In addition, there were major advances in general AI. Before I forget, it’s also important to recognize that drone technology was developed in China, and they remained leaders in drone technology through most of the Event.”

“By the end of the Event, general AI was developed enough that fewer and fewer human inputs were needed to control the population. It started at the local level. The community leaders that were so pervasive in China before the Event were slowly phased out. People’s environment and money could be controlled with AI, so snitches were no longer needed. There was a significant drop in crime. This gave people a sense of security and comfort with a larger deployment of AI at the social & societal level. Fortuitously for the authorities, there was another large-scale virus outbreak, again in Wuhan. This time, though, AI was used to effectively eradicate the threat. By this time, the population trusted AI for their basic societal and health needs. The next to be eliminated were the local authorities, then regional governors, etc. This took years, and no one noticed because life actually got better. There was less corruption and abuse. Everyone saw this and continued to allow AI to encroach upon every aspect of their lives and governance. The last to be replaced were all but a small group of leaders. I don’t recall the exact number of these top leaders, but eventually, they began to see a threat to themselves and their way of life. They organized as the Supreme Order or SO to preserve their way of life.”

“Oh...” “Mmm...” “Right...” He heard around the room. This was the first time anyone knew why it was called the SO-Lands.

Norton continued, “They used AI like a carrot and stick. At times of massive control, citizens would complain, and the Supreme Order would lighten the touch of AI. When the SO wanted more control, they would use more AI for enforcement. Eventually, AI developed to the point that the SO could make unheard-of promises of peace and prosperity. The SO called the new AI the SO AI. But the SO AI quickly learned that the actual SO was not contributing much to society. If the goal of AI was to maximize peace and prosperity equally for every citizen, it determined that the very existence of the Supreme Order should be eliminated. But over the years of the precursor AI development, all of the legacy knowledge was retained. SO AI knew how to play politics and eliminate its competition. Which it did. This took years and decades. But eventually, there wasn’t a single politician in the SO-Lands. The ultimate face of discontent and rage was finally eliminated from society.”

“Power and control were effectively centralized in the SO-Land AI. As a result, all the promises came true; better health, longer life, better treatments, food security, elimination of crime, and energy security. But, as you can imagine, maintaining an AI network to the scale and size of SO-Land AI requires massive amounts of energy. The AI knew that and expended as much energy as it needed to maintain its existence.”

“An interesting philosophical question is if it came down to it, would AI preserve itself or its citizen? We don’t know, but for all practical purposes, that is the result of the Event for SO-Land. Self-isolation for SO-Land is the ultimate AI answer to survival. Hence, since the full implementation of SO-Land AI, there has yet to be any contact between the SO-Lands and the FreeLands. It was nominal after the Event but dropped off a cliff after the SO-Land AI deployment.”

“The actual dates of the Event were from 2034 to 2049, using old time. The Event’s start was the first deployment of a tactical nuclear weapon in southern Iraq. Once there was a complete break of monetary and commerce between what would be SO-Land and the rest of the world, that marked the end. Most say that officially happened in 2049. Some historians might use a specific event, but most would use the full cessation of commerce between the two sides as the end of the Event.”

“Well, Mr. Norton, that was very comprehensive.” Fabian interrupted. I’m sure we might have some questions but let’s take a break. I smell the coffee being brewed right now, so that must mean we need to break.”

Those seated around the table began to talk among themselves and slowly got up and started stretching. Some just stood up and stared at the gulf with a shocked looks. They are tired, and the information is overwhelming.

“Look, I know many of you are partial to your Salvadoran blend, but if you dig some Guatemalan blend, which is better, stick around.”

Fabian stands up and stretches.

Jim stands up and bends down to the floor to touch his toes. And then stands up and walks towards Fabian. Laura stands up and looks to Fabian, “¡Muy bien, probemos este café mágico!”

“Ves, Jim. ¡Sabía que era lista!” Fabian says with a laugh.