New NESes, ideas, development, etc

The Conflict


As the twenty-first century progressed, the relentless march of globalization continued. International trade, intentionally or not, continued to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, expanding the gap between the poor and the rich. The influence of multinational corporations continued to increase and nations which had previously been happy to attract investment and profit by serving as flags of convenience to multinationals often found their governments, over time, serving as little more than a public relations mouthpiece for the increasingly amalgamated, increasingly monopolistic, corporations.



Resource development and exploitation (though they were careful not to call it this) continued, oil and mineral wealth continuing to drive growth and public spending as it had in the 20th century and earlier portions of the 21st. Ecologists warned us again and again and even as a significant portion of the population adopted new, greener, energy sources and manufacturing methods, the entrenchment of the existing systems, and even the very forces of the market itself served to reinforce the need to explore and exploit new resources, often to the detriment of local populations who’s power and influence to stop these companies were just not competitive with multinational-backed lobbyists.



In the late 20th and early 21st century the public had grown disenchanted with their governing bodies, pessimistic and apathetic in regards to their ability to truly influence their futures. Economic hardship and political disenfranchisement accelerated this process through the middle 21st century; in the United States national Presidential elections plummeted from 55% in 2000 to less than 15% in 2050. The same thing was happening across the world.



As the multinationals grew to become transnationals and, through their wealth and influence, came to effectively dominate first third world nations, then increasingly, the emerging nations, they were awarded more and more powers, gaining independent sovereign territory in Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands in the late 2030s and hosting large swathes of sovereign territory and private armies in central Asia, the Balkans, some south-American states and even Canada by the 2040s.



The public did not react well. The unemployed, the working poor, the underemployed, the indebted youth, sympathetic academics, idealists, environments, and socialists were increasingly disenfranchised but perhaps unfortunately too poor, too unconnected, too disorganized to stand in the face of the established powers and their influence over government, and increasingly, non-government institutions. Between the twenty-oughts and the twenty-sixties, a series of small rallies (similar to the early 21st century movement calling itself "Occupy"), and grassroots cooperative organizations blossomed and fell, moments of often brief publicity that did much to keep the subject of wealth inequality top-of-mind but more often than not, doing more to harm their cause then to help it. Rallies turned to riots in the 2030s and 40s and by the 2050s armed, organized, anti-government, anti-corporate groups were increasingly in the public eye, their leaders terrorists, their adherents traitors.



At the same time, technology, globalization, and freedom of information all conspired against the powers of governments. Virtual currencies were becoming increasingly popular and privatized, international black-markets first competing with then dwarfing national currencies and regulated markets. This made tax collection and wealth accumulation in the administrative institutions increasingly difficult amidst a population that had long ago lost trust in their governments.




In this world of super-globalization, predatory transnationalism, failing governments, and extreme wealth inequality, it was only a matter of time before something broke. And so finally, as conditions worsened, and the world’s population reached 9 billion, as unemployment or underemployment continued to rise, as water and food security became very real concerns for more than half the world's population, as housing and energy accessibility began to define the haves and have-nots, as extreme climate instability caused unprecedented devastation on a wide scale, violent rebellion broke out first in isolated flares, then within half a decade, was widespread across the globe.



The 2060s saw the single greatest conflict in world history, a world war that made World War II look like an regional conflict. Ultimately it was more similar to the Russian Revolution of 1917 than the conventional wars of the mid-twentieth century, except that this revolution spanned not just one nation, but the entire globe. Even early in the conflict the media began to describe the rebellion as the final clash between two ultimately, irreconcilable systems, democracy and capitalism. That narrative proved both popular with the news-entertainment market and incendiary with the population and the growing rebel movement.



The narrative of capitalism vs. democracy was a popular one for academics and idealists, and those with the resources to feel somehow outside the conflict- at least initially- but for those involved it was more a conflict to secure water, food, energy, to dismantle the systems, primarily corporate, but also government and others, that had disenfranchised them for too long.



Socialist and anti-capitalist, anti-corporate coups rocked many nations, ignoring national borders using many of the same tools the Islamic revolutions of the twenty-twenties and thirties had already established and tested. The corporations had the money and they had the guns but the people had the numbers and increasingly, a fanatical will.



Many thought it was the end-times. It was a civil war, but fought on a global scale, and almost every part of the globe was directly involved. The transnationals simply did not concern themselves with the wishes of most national governments and the national governments were powerless to prevent this. Without the funds and guns of the transnationals and without the support of their populations, the governments simply weren’t. As international law was openly broken by almost every nation remaining and the transnationals, who were as powerful or more than most nations themselves, were not represented upon its councils directly, the UN also failed.



The class war, which came to be known simply as 'The Conflict' was not fought like a conventional war, with uniformed soldiers on each side killing each others in the millions until such time as men in ties signed paper saying it was over. Rebel leadership was diverse and, often, conflicting. Initially many transnationals and governments had seen the confusion and violence as a means to undercut their competitors or rivals and had attempted to sponsor particular groups, 'aiming' them when possible. That proved shortsighted and within a few years the process had stopped as most of the entrenched system was fighting for their very survival.



Idealists of all stripes fought against the established order to try and establish a future they envisioned. Socialists, communists, faithful of most religions all fought for their own causes. Old tribal and racial banners were raised to replace the fall of national flags.



While some would come to some compromise and the fighting would end, others would be mounting a new offensive. The conflict might smolder for a few years in one location or another but across the world, it did not die out for a long, long time. Even now it is difficult to say exactly how long the war and violence lasted and how many were lost. The Conflict was perhaps the single greatest moment of confusion and anarchy in written history. While major wars between nations soon petered out, the violence continued, on and off again, in flares that brought down entire nations or transnational corporate-states who's GDP could rival, in some cases, western European nations.



By the late 2080s, the world seemed to have had enough. Twenty-five years of world-wide conflict had tore through hundreds of years of post-industrial nation-building, socio-economic stratification, and human culture.



When the dust settled, the world was unrecognizable. Nations had simply stopped existing. Supranational organizations, corporations, socialists, idealists of every variety had taken over. The violence abated and the people of the world looked around them, disbelief, relief, sorrow, or horror overtaking them; realizing that it would never be the same as it once was. It was the post-national era.



In the 30 years since the Conflict, we have organized ourselves. We govern ourselves primarily through voluntary membership in post-national organizations we call phyles. Phyles organize their membership along ideological lines; in the reality of a global transport infrastructure, it is very easy to ignore traditional territorial or previous national boundaries. Some phyles are the remnants of aggregate transnationals, phyles like Subarashī or Ares operating as corporations and their population as employees. Others are the remnants of the ideological dreams people once fought over, such as the Common Socialist Union, a cooperative democracy and economy based on the economic democracy writings of the US economist David Schweickart, or the Apauruṣeya, who base their organization upon a progressive interpretation of the Hindu religion and many mystical elements of Hindi culture. Phyle membership is almost always voluntary though many phyles are hard to join. The majority of the world's population belong to one phyle or another, with membership usually requiring tax payments and labor on behalf of the phyle. Those without phyles, informally called 'recluses', inhabit the bottom rungs of society, with no real organization or laws to protect them and often serving to fill the most menial positions of society.




Most of the phyles have devolved some small portion of their power to form a supraphyllic government they call the Consensus. Similiar in some ways to the UN of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Consensus is intended mainly to provide for the co-existence of, and peaceful economic activity between phyles with potentially very different values.


The year is 2112.

As the twenty-first century progressed, the relentless march of globalization continued. International trade, intentionally or not, continued to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, expanding the gap between the poor and the rich. The influence of multinational corporations continued to increase and nations which had previously been happy to attract investment and profit by serving as flags of convenience to multinationals often found their governments, over time, serving as little more than a public relations mouthpiece for the increasingly amalgamated, increasingly monopolistic, corporations.
[...]
As the multinationals grew to become transnationals and, through their wealth and influence, came to effectively dominate first third world nations, then increasingly, the emerging nations, they were awarded more and more powers, gaining independent sovereign territory in Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands in the late 2030s and hosting large swathes of sovereign territory and private armies in central Asia, the Balkans, some south-American states and even Canada by the 2040s.

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This is a trope ("the megacorp"), and I know from your own statements elsewhere that this is more or less lifted entirely out of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, particularly as regards Praxis and Subarashī. As a genre feature of science-fiction this belongs overwhelmingly to 1980s cyberpunk (especially William Gibson and works that drew inspiration from him). There's a long line of cinematic megacorps to draw from like OCP and Weyland-Yutani. They appear in games like Shadowrun. But by and large they appear in stuff from the 80s and sometimes the 90s and have sort of disappeared since. Why?

The reason is that the megacorp, as a trope, is a product of its time, and is one that has fallen largely out of fashion since then. There are companies that exist today that have soft monopolies on whole sectors (e.g., Microsoft) or almost unfathomable control over the flow of information (e.g., Google) but nobody is particularly concerned in this day and age about the rise of megacorps; they largely died with cyberpunk itself. It's interesting that you identify Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age as an influence because that work is distinctly Postcyberpunk. I would personally argue that Stephenson's previous Snow Crash was the apex, subversion, and end of Cyberpunk all at the same time; Cyberpunk taken to its logical conclusions to the point of self-parody, ushering the way forward into Postcyberpunk. That gives us a time of death for Cyberpunk in 1992.

The Mars Trilogy, released 1993, 1994, and 1996, echoes this, being sort of Cyberpunk-in-Space: just like Bud (a typical Cyberpunk protagonist) dies to establish The Diamond Age's Postcyberpunk setting, John Boone (the cowboy), Frank Chalmbers (the manipulator), and Arkady Bogdanov (the revolutionary) all die to establish the Mars' Trilogy's Postcyberpunk setting: in the end it's really a gradual transformation of social consciousness at large that brings down the Metanats, not violent upheaval and class warfare.

By now you're thinking "Why the history and literary lesson?" and the answer is: because this premise is 20 years past its sell-by date. I understand that the general arc of your scenario is Cyberpunk → Revolution → Postcyberpunk, but the problem with that is we already live in a Postcyberpunk world. In many ways we are in a Post-Postcyberpunk world. Being that future scenarios are as much science-fiction as they are anything "realistic," this is a tonal problem with the scenario: it ignores the 20 years that have transpired since the end of its primary influence(s).

Having established that it's this arc underpinning this scenario, we can address elements within the arc on the basis of it in addition to whatever their "plausibility" is."

Resource development and exploitation (though they were careful not to call it this) continued, oil and mineral wealth continuing to drive growth and public spending as it had in the 20th century and earlier portions of the 21st. Ecologists warned us again and again and even as a significant portion of the population adopted new, greener, energy sources and manufacturing methods, the entrenchment of the existing systems, and even the very forces of the market itself served to reinforce the need to explore and exploit new resources, often to the detriment of local populations who’s power and influence to stop these companies were just not competitive with multinational-backed lobbyists.

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Although this is plausible it again links back into this very pessimistic top-down Cyberpunk ethos. There are, no doubt, climate-change deniers in policy-making offices who both espouse (and probably genuinely believe) things like "God made oil a renewable resource" who do receive campaign funding from corporate concerns, but they aren't all linked together into a massive conspiracy or something.

In the late 20th and early 21st century the public had grown disenchanted with their governing bodies, pessimistic and apathetic in regards to their ability to truly influence their futures. Economic hardship and political disenfranchisement accelerated this process through the middle 21st century; in the United States national Presidential elections plummeted from 55% in 2000 to less than 15% in 2050. The same thing was happening across the world.

[...]

The public did not react well. The unemployed, the working poor, the underemployed, the indebted youth, sympathetic academics, idealists, environments, and socialists were increasingly disenfranchised but perhaps unfortunately too poor, too unconnected, too disorganized to stand in the face of the established powers and their influence over government, and increasingly, non-government institutions. Between the twenty-oughts and the twenty-sixties, a series of small rallies (similar to the early 21st century movement calling itself "Occupy"), and grassroots cooperative organizations blossomed and fell, moments of often brief publicity that did much to keep the subject of wealth inequality top-of-mind but more often than not, doing more to harm their cause then to help it. Rallies turned to riots in the 2030s and 40s and by the 2050s armed, organized, anti-government, anti-corporate groups were increasingly in the public eye, their leaders terrorists, their adherents traitors.

Click to expand...

This doesn't really make sense to me. People opt out of the political system in order to undertake political action outside the system? People usually take action outside the system only when the system doesn't permit them to take action within it: the Arab Spring, the 2009 Iranian election protests, the mass incidents in the PRC, the Catalan and Scottish independence movements, even the 2009 US Presidential election are all examples of this. Most people exercise frustration through the system rather than attempting to topple it. That is by and large the function of democracy as implemented: a safety valve that brings the masses to the table where they at least nominally have some influence on the agenda of the elites.

The US Presidential election is easily one of the least democratic aspects of the American political process (because the vote doesn't count due to the Electoral College) but it always has a much higher turnout than the Congressional midterms precisely because people identify the office as having more importance even though in many cases it's less important, as 5-6 years of Congressional gridlock has shown. People want to be involved. The elite (whomever they are, whatever their ideology) usually want them to be involved too because it keeps them invested in the system.

A large number of the Continentalist philosophers of the 20th century (e.g., Althusser, Lacan, Badiou) will essentially tell you that the system as it exists is designed to be maximally inclusive (although it both won't and can't, by necessity, include everyone) in order to perpetuate itself. As conjectured this is it more or less deliberately entering a self-destructive mode. To have an elite that permits the body politic to walk away suggests an elite that is both moustache-twirling evil and also largely incompetent due to being blinded by its delusions (another standard feature of Cyberpunk). I rate this quite negatively on plausibility: it's possible, sure, but it comes across as another example of the overarching theme being applied to get the intended end result. We need a dramatic social upheaval, so when people are disenfranchised they all become what Zizek identifies as political passive-aggressives letting the system drive itself off the cliff precisely to get that upheaval. It strikes me as teleological and rather assuming of the popular political consciousness as well.

At the same time, technology, globalization, and freedom of information all conspired against the powers of governments. Virtual currencies were becoming increasingly popular and privatized, international black-markets first competing with then dwarfing national currencies and regulated markets. This made tax collection and wealth accumulation in the administrative institutions increasingly difficult amidst a population that had long ago lost trust in their governments.

Click to expand...

Given the history of BitCoin (and Dogecoin, etc.) to date, I find this one particularly laughable. Cryptocurrency is fundamentally incapable of replacing even a fraction of the normal economy; the only way to scale a system up is to have it centralized in some fashion. What you describe already exists and has little to do with such things: it's called System D and it piggybacks off existing market structures instead of replacing them, because by and large those structures are already optimized and are what need to exist for the services to work.

In this world of super-globalization, predatory transnationalism, failing governments, and extreme wealth inequality, it was only a matter of time before something broke.

[...]

The class war, which came to be known simply as 'The Conflict' was not fought like a conventional war, with uniformed soldiers on each side killing each others in the millions until such time as men in ties signed paper saying it was over. Rebel leadership was diverse and, often, conflicting. Initially many transnationals and governments had seen the confusion and violence as a means to undercut their competitors or rivals and had attempted to sponsor particular groups, 'aiming' them when possible. That proved shortsighted and within a few years the process had stopped as most of the entrenched system was fighting for their very survival.

Idealists of all stripes fought against the established order to try and establish a future they envisioned. Socialists, communists, faithful of most religions all fought for their own causes. Old tribal and racial banners were raised to replace the fall of national flags.

Click to expand...

This is all extremely vague. Aside from that, I'd point out that people that should nominally be allied in fighting a common foe are actually often the bitterest of enemies (e.g., WWII Allied Powers, CCP and KMT vs. IJA, FSA and ISIS vs. Assad) and also that decentralized revolutionary movements without a clear power structure (e.g., OWS, Iran 2009) have a bad track record of succeeding and also a bad track record of transitioning to the open violence often necessary to achieve revolutionary aims.

In the 30 years since the Conflict, we have organized ourselves. We govern ourselves primarily through voluntary membership in post-national organizations we call phyles. Phyles organize their membership along ideological lines; in the reality of a global transport infrastructure, it is very easy to ignore traditional territorial or previous national boundaries. Some phyles are the remnants of aggregate transnationals, phyles like Subarashī or Ares operating as corporations and their population as employees. Others are the remnants of the ideological dreams people once fought over, such as the Common Socialist Union, a cooperative democracy and economy based on the economic democracy writings of the US economist David Schweickart, or the Apauruṣeya, who base their organization upon a progressive interpretation of the Hindu religion and many mystical elements of Hindi culture. Phyle membership is almost always voluntary though many phyles are hard to join. The majority of the world's population belong to one phyle or another, with membership usually requiring tax payments and labor on behalf of the phyle. Those without phyles, informally called 'recluses', inhabit the bottom rungs of society, with no real organization or laws to protect them and often serving to fill the most menial positions of society.

Click to expand...

As you said, a blatant theft from The Diamond Age. My critique of this is mostly operational. How does this actually work differently from nation-state based conflict? Considering phyles are purely voluntary and ideologically based, there's no reason for them to really attempt to conquer other phyles, nor to hold territory beyond what's required for self-sufficiency or security (if indeed any territory is required for it at all). Conflict between them is generally zero-sum or purely negative; they largely only stand to lose. Not only are they wildly divorced from the "near-future" understanding of Humanity, they lack a lot of sources of conflict.

Indeed, other than the introduction of MacGuffins that will allow one to brainwash all other Phyles or exterminate them, or allow some other Phyle to do the same, the only reason they should really interact with one another let alone fight, assuming easy access to resources akin to in The Diamond Age, is misunderstandings. Not really the basis for an interesting setting.

I am inclined to agree with everything you wrote. Do you have suggestions regarding what to use instead, especially as a veil between ‘cyberpunk’ (or immediate future) and ‘post cyberpunk’ or future I have outlined in the goals I set out above? Megacorps are easy- I agree- and not particularly original- I agree. But new ideas are HARD. So… what is not only plausible but serves the same function.

Symphony D. said:

Having established that it's this arc underpinning this scenario, we can address elements within the arc on the basis of it in addition to whatever their "plausibility" is."

[snip]

This doesn't really make sense to me. People opt out of the political system in order to undertake political action outside the system? People usually take action outside the system only when the system doesn't permit them to take action within it: the Arab Spring, the 2009 Iranian election protests, the mass incidents in the PRC, the Catalan and Scottish independence movements, even the 2009 US Presidential election are all examples of this. Most people exercise frustration through the system rather than attempting to topple it. That is by and large the function of democracy as implemented: a safety valve that brings the masses to the table where they at least nominally have some influence on the agenda of the elites.

The US Presidential election is easily one of the least democratic aspects of the American political process (because the vote doesn't count due to the Electoral College) but it always has a much higher turnout than the Congressional midterms precisely because people identify the office as having more importance even though in many cases it's less important, as 5-6 years of Congressional gridlock has shown. People want to be involved. The elite (whomever they are, whatever their ideology) usually want them to be involved too because it keeps them invested in the system.

A large number of the Continentalist philosophers of the 20th century (e.g., Althusser, Lacan, Badiou) will essentially tell you that the system as it exists is designed to be maximally inclusive (although it both won't and can't, by necessity, include everyone) in order to perpetuate itself. As conjectured this is it more or less deliberately entering a self-destructive mode. To have an elite that permits the body politic to walk away suggests an elite that is both moustache-twirling evil and also largely incompetent due to being blinded by its delusions (another standard feature of Cyberpunk). I rate this quite negatively on plausibility: it's possible, sure, but it comes across as another example of the overarching theme being applied to get the intended end result. We need a dramatic social upheaval, so when people are disenfranchised they all become what Zizek identifies as political passive-aggressives letting the system drive itself off the cliff precisely to get that upheaval. It strikes me as teleological and rather assuming of the popular political consciousness as well.

Click to expand...

My thoughts were based something on social apathy driving failure of democracy in the face of capitalist wealth and its influence, leading to revolution.

That’s insightful and perhaps food for thought for alternative means of social upheaval and cultural redesign? I would ask that you continue your thought process and see what can be drawn from it that would get us to the goals I outlined –in a way that is more practical and plausible.

Symphony D. said:

Given the history of BitCoin (and Dogecoin, etc.) to date, I find this one particularly laughable. Cryptocurrency is fundamentally incapable of replacing even a fraction of the normal economy; the only way to scale a system up is to have it centralized in some fashion. What you describe already exists and has little to do with such things: it's called System D and it piggybacks off existing market structures instead of replacing them, because by and large those structures are already optimized and are what need to exist for the services to work.

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Okay- I was trying to make failures of government more realistic. I need something else.

me said:

In this world of super-globalization, predatory transnationalism, failing governments, and extreme wealth inequality, it was only a matter of time before something broke.

[...]

The class war, which came to be known simply as 'The Conflict' was not fought like a conventional war, with uniformed soldiers on each side killing each others in the millions until such time as men in ties signed paper saying it was over. Rebel leadership was diverse and, often, conflicting. Initially many transnationals and governments had seen the confusion and violence as a means to undercut their competitors or rivals and had attempted to sponsor particular groups, 'aiming' them when possible. That proved shortsighted and within a few years the process had stopped as most of the entrenched system was fighting for their very survival.

Idealists of all stripes fought against the established order to try and establish a future they envisioned. Socialists, communists, faithful of most religions all fought for their own causes. Old tribal and racial banners were raised to replace the fall of national flags.

Click to expand...

Symphony D. said:

This is all extremely vague. Aside from that, I'd point out that people that should nominally be allied in fighting a common foe are actually often the bitterest of enemies (e.g., WWII Allied Powers, CCP and KMT vs. IJA, FSA and ISIS vs. Assad) and also that decentralized revolutionary movements without a clear power structure (e.g., OWS, Iran 2009) have a bad track record of succeeding and also a bad track record of transitioning to the open violence often necessary to achieve revolutionary aims.

Click to expand...

I think I worked backwards from my goals and this seemed plausible to get there. Basically to help get to ideology-based phyles in some future.

me said:

In the 30 years since the Conflict, we have organized ourselves. We govern ourselves primarily through voluntary membership in post-national organizations we call phyles. Phyles organize their membership along ideological lines; in the reality of a global transport infrastructure, it is very easy to ignore traditional territorial or previous national boundaries. Some phyles are the remnants of aggregate transnationals, phyles like Subarashī or Ares operating as corporations and their population as employees. Others are the remnants of the ideological dreams people once fought over, such as the Common Socialist Union, a cooperative democracy and economy based on the economic democracy writings of the US economist David Schweickart, or the Apauruṣeya, who base their organization upon a progressive interpretation of the Hindu religion and many mystical elements of Hindi culture. Phyle membership is almost always voluntary though many phyles are hard to join. The majority of the world's population belong to one phyle or another, with membership usually requiring tax payments and labor on behalf of the phyle. Those without phyles, informally called 'recluses', inhabit the bottom rungs of society, with no real organization or laws to protect them and often serving to fill the most menial positions of society.

Click to expand...

Symphony D. said:

As you said, a blatant theft from The Diamond Age. My critique of this is mostly operational. How does this actually work differently from nation-state based conflict? Considering phyles are purely voluntary and ideologically based, there's no reason for them to really attempt to conquer other phyles, nor to hold territory beyond what's required for self-sufficiency or security (if indeed any territory is required for it at all). Conflict between them is generally zero-sum or purely negative; they largely only stand to lose. Not only are they wildly divorced from the "near-future" understanding of Humanity, they lack a lot of sources of conflict.

Indeed, other than the introduction of MacGuffins that will allow one to brainwash all other Phyles or exterminate them, or allow some other Phyle to do the same, the only reason they should really interact with one another let alone fight, assuming easy access to resources akin to in The Diamond Age, is misunderstandings. Not really the basis for an interesting setting.

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I think in a way it forces a re-evaluation of society. Instead of appealing to the middle ground, the world allows for some very extreme government types that normally would not exist. I don’t think conflict would be zero sum- resources still drive much of competition and conflict. Again I point to H3 lunar mineral mining.

Symphony D. said:

I have additional problems with the premise in so far as that the world of 2112, even with (and perhaps especially because of) a 25 year war between us and it will look nothing like ours technologically (in-article link is broken, full-scale downloadable version here), a point on which there is broad consensus. This feeds back into the question of why phyles would be a rich source of conflict, or indeed why the situation would have gotten so bad as to precipitate "the Conflict" to begin with. This is all without getting into the will-there-be-won't-there-be of the possibility of the Singularity.

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The link in my sig outlines some technologies I propose. The lack of consensus regarding future tech doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to construct some future society based at least partially on them. I do outline an exocortex system similar to Accelerando’s go(o)gles but refuse his AI premises. I accept fusion but refute it as an unlimited source of free energy (due to costs and relative limits on efficiency). I embrace new technologies (rho –field- acts like levitation and military shields) but outline its limits.





So yeah, again, I appreciate all your helpful and insightful feedback. I realize you invested some time in it and thank you. If you are willing to invest more time, I would ask that you help me rewrite the future to make it more interesting, plausible, and ‘make sensical’ while still striving for similar goals.