Alt history: Rhodesia wins and defeats Communists with US support.
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Hey man, there's a meeting at the UN. Martin Luther Gandhi Mandela is going to be speaking.
TheEvanCat
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Dude, it's called method acting. If Daniel Day Lewis can do it, so can you. Idiot
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"I HAVE NO BAN AND I MUST CRINGE." Rest in peace to the last of the good men in this world. I will shed a thousand tears and pour a hundred 40s of Olde English.
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Bio
Armenia - Precipice of War 2017
France - New Earth Oracle
Korea - Our World in Turmoil
Mexico - Precipice of War 2020
New York City - Fallout: War Never Changes III
Persia - The Ghost of Napoleon
France - New Earth Oracle
Korea - Our World in Turmoil
Mexico - Precipice of War 2020
New York City - Fallout: War Never Changes III
Persia - The Ghost of Napoleon
Most Recent Posts
Hey man, there's a meeting at the UN. Martin Luther Gandhi Mandela is going to be speaking.
In 1982, an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. A population of sick and malnourished insectoid aliens are discovered on the ship and immediately placed into rehabilitative care.
Because apartheid was ended in 1980 and South Africa is progressive now, the population welcomed their alien visitors with open arms and sought to make cultural and social connections. The aliens, grateful for the desperately needed help from their new human friends, established a healthy and productive neighborhood in District 9.
The year is 1985 and an alien has just been elected to parliament. He champions civil, human, and alien rights across South Africa and the world. His real name is unpronounceable to humans, of course, but he is affectionately nicknamed "Martin Luther Gandhi Mandela" by the press.
District 9 is now a shining example of avant garde architecture, sociopolitical development, human-alien technological development, and research into fixing humanity's problems. The future has never looked brighter.
Because apartheid was ended in 1980 and South Africa is progressive now, the population welcomed their alien visitors with open arms and sought to make cultural and social connections. The aliens, grateful for the desperately needed help from their new human friends, established a healthy and productive neighborhood in District 9.
The year is 1985 and an alien has just been elected to parliament. He champions civil, human, and alien rights across South Africa and the world. His real name is unpronounceable to humans, of course, but he is affectionately nicknamed "Martin Luther Gandhi Mandela" by the press.
District 9 is now a shining example of avant garde architecture, sociopolitical development, human-alien technological development, and research into fixing humanity's problems. The future has never looked brighter.
@abefroeman
Show yourself! I see you are gone, what's the future of your country look like? I may just fold it in under this DIPS arc and go from there if you're not interested anymore.
Show yourself! I see you are gone, what's the future of your country look like? I may just fold it in under this DIPS arc and go from there if you're not interested anymore.
Hattieville, British Belize
August, 1955
Two days came and went with the Mexicans staying dug in to their improvised position around the town of Hattieville. Captain Lopez had called up to battalion after the British counterattack, requesting to move to a far more defensible position of an old colonial prison just around two kilometers to the north. His request was turned down: the paratroopers needed to maintain their current positions and wait for the mechanized brigade to catch up on the second front. There were only a smattering of British probing attacks and a reconnaissance flight from a faraway aircraft that was unreachable by the company’s light .30 caliber machine guns. Curiously, it appeared to be a rickety old Great War biplane. The RAF did not send their best to Belize.
The civilians in town mostly stayed wary of the Mexicans, neither approaching them with kindness nor outright hostility. Lopez tried to talk to someone, ask who the mayor or local leader was, but the civilian just pursed his lips and carried on to the fields nearby. His soldiers let the man pass, as they were under strict orders not to interfere with the locals unless there was an active threat. Sweeps of unoccupied buildings did not reveal any sort of weapons caches or military supplies. It was almost like, sans the British colonial police who had all been captured without a fight, the British didn’t pay attention to Hattieville.
Lopez finished eating a meal out of his rations. He was still unsure how they managed to maintain semi-edible barbacoa in a can, although the preservative liquid inside tasted somewhat artificial. The tortillas were passable, and the salsa verde was the best part. He was fairly certain that it was the same brand of canned salsa that he could find at a grocery store with the military’s bland label slapped on the side of the tin. In any case, it was fine enough after a week in the field. The fatty goat meat was good for providing all the energy that he needed to maneuver.
It was the first meal that had been delivered by truck, too. The Brigada de Fusileros Paracaidistas’s support battalion flew in earlier in the week to Belize on specialized gliders. Airborne resupply operations were difficult, as most of the troops were light infantry on foot. Vehicles like the supply companies’ trucks needed to be landed in big open fields by skilled glider pilots. While he was an infantryman by trade, Lopez could only imagine the maintenance problems that came with slamming regular vehicles into the ground. Those that didn’t need too much love and care after impact were loaded up with paradropped supplies and sent forward.
Captain Lopez finished off the food before cleaning off his mess kit with a splash of water from his canteen. He left it atop his rucksack to dry out and stood, stretching his sore legs. His uniform was dirty, smelled of sweat, and was getting stiff and crusty from not being washed for so long. He had a change of clothes in his rucksack somewhere and thought about washing it out if they stayed in place for another few more days. Reyes was nearby, playing a card game with a friend of his while listening to the radio’s empty static fill the command post. Its antenna swayed in the breeze lazily.
“Hey Muñoz,” he said to his executive officer. The Lieutenant was napping underneath the shade of his camouflaged poncho strung up against the building for impromptu shelter. Muñoz didn’t budge, his helmet slumped over his eyes.
“Muñoz!” Lopez said, a little bit louder and sterner. The XO jolted awake, one hand going for his nearby carbine in a split second reaction. He looked over at the commander and asked what was going on.
“Nothing,” said Lopez. “Just stay here and watch the radio while I go talk to First Sergeant.”
“Got it, sir,” Muñoz replied. He ducked out from his poncho shelter and straightened out his uniform before grabbing his weapon and heading over to where Reyes had just cleaned out his opponent of the candy that they were gambling. He left his helmet and web gear alongside his own ruck and wordlessly watched the two enlisted radiomen bicker over the card game.
First Sergeant Kan was working with the company’s supply clerk, a short and peppy young Especialista from the same city as Lopez. He talked with a rapid accent, even for most of the troops, as he counted the remaining parcels of rations and water cans before doing math on remaining days of supply for the company’s men. The medic was sitting nearby in his aid station, smoking a cigarette. It was empty now, but the evidence of previous casualties remained. Dark blood in the dirt underneath the shade of his own poncho tent construction was still visible beneath where stretchers had been. All the casualties were taken back to the battalion surgeon on the same truck that delivered the food.
Captain Lopez walked past them, greeting the group before continuing on to the makeshift prisoner stockade. It was rather disinterestedly guarded by a pair of operations soldiers from headquarters. The British inside, now in varying states of loose undress to cope with the heat, were sitting aimlessly inside. They looked more bored than anything else.
Havana, Cuba
August, 1955
Enrique Valdés pored over the maps of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, adorned with military symbols. Red diamonds represented the “enemy” forces, although Mexico was not at war with them. Haitian and Dominican security forces engaged in contact with the Guarda Costa. They were green squares, not necessarily the blue rectangles that represented friendly forces. Nobody in DIPS wanted to designate them as “friendly” just yet. The units fought a bitter war in the jungle, or at least the iconography claimed: Enrique had never served in the military, nor learned its complex pictorial language of tactics.
“Green means good guys, right?” he asked to Carlos, who was reviewing some paperwork nearby. The veteran operative had his feet kicked up on his desk as he perused through photographs of people more important than Enrique could hope to deal with. Carlos almost seemed to scowl at him.
“Are you a fucking idiot?” he chastised. Carlos shook his head. “Didn’t even go through boot camp, didn’t listen to some teniente giving a hare-brained order? Green is ‘partner forces’, or ‘allies’, asshole.”
“Sorry!” Enrique exclaimed suddenly. His heart sank into his chest.
“Fuckin’ momma’s boy. Rich family motherfucker,” Carlos continued. “Ever get dirt under your fingers? Now’s the chance. Focus on Unidad.”
Enrique slowed down to examine the finer points of the map ahead of him. The rebels trying to claim a “Hispaniola” were experts in guerrilla tactics, advancing the forward-line-of-troops with lightning speed as they overwhelmed the Dominican forces. They were too used to police actions, internal defense, and other light actions: many officers were fat and lazy and didn’t produce a significant challenge to the rebels.
“You’re right,” he said, tracing his finger along a Hispaniolan advance through a forested valley. “These fuckers do know how to fight.”
“It’s all those Americans they have,” Carlos answered coolly. “They can fight. Enough of them want to play soldier in the Caribbean that Unidad has some dedicated assholes.”
Enrique kept examining the map. “They could use help here,” he said abruptly. He pointed his hand at the map. Carlos leaned up from his seat and squinted at Enrique.
“What the fuck do you mean, they could use help? These assholes are fine to go conquer their ‘Hispaniola’, we give them some free sugar later. That’s the plan.”
“No, I mean,” Enrique said as he traced the map. There was one highway leading to Santo Domingo, and Guarda Costa forces were approaching it. The village of San Francisco de Macoris was out of sight for most maps, but the iconography was clear to Enrique: fuel depots, staging points, and hardened defensive structures. Whatever the Dominicans had done to the town, the Hispaniolans wanted. He traced his fingers down the main highway. “They’re moving on a strategic village. It’s sixty miles from the capital. There are no spots for the government to stop them.”
Carlos stood up, putting his newspaper to the side. “Jesus,” he muttered. “They’re on the move. If they win this battle, it’s no more than a week til they get to the capital.”
“I know,” Enrique replied, pointing out the route to Carlos. “These fuckers work quick.”
“Fucking Christ,” Carlos said as he studied the map. “I’m going to call the embassy. We need these assholes back, and now.”
“Why?”
“We aren’t supposed to analyze them!” Carlos said, frustrated. “We’re making them allies of Mexico! Get them ready… butter them up… make sure they know we’re behind a push to Santo Domingo… The more they suck our dick, the better. I’m going to call the embassy.”
Carlos put his things to the side and sat up from his chair. As he stormed out of the small office, Enrique examined the map even more. A macro-scale map was to his left, which showed the ever-updating positions of Mexican strategic forces on a scale map of the Caribbean. Army and Navy forces were moving around, tangling with the British on their islands which were now marked in a red overlay. Their island chain, to the east of the strategic “Hispaniola” target, was clearly the goal of Mexico’s fleet in the region. Many islands, strategically useful and not, laid in wait for the invading Mexican force.
While they got daily forces navigation updates from the embassy, when they changed their push-pins, Enrique didn’t know the full extent of the war. All signs pushed to recruiting the Hispaniolans as a “government”, for which to oppose both the British and Americans. Somewhere inside Enrique, he felt relieved: school had always taught him about the colonial injustices of European powers. Now they were able to drive them out of the continent. He looked again at the fleets and forces arranged on his strategic board in stern approval, the markings above each abstract square designating the sheer amount of Mexican forces dedicated to the task. Enrique Valdés smiled in approval, and went back to his map of Hispaniola.
August, 1955
Two days came and went with the Mexicans staying dug in to their improvised position around the town of Hattieville. Captain Lopez had called up to battalion after the British counterattack, requesting to move to a far more defensible position of an old colonial prison just around two kilometers to the north. His request was turned down: the paratroopers needed to maintain their current positions and wait for the mechanized brigade to catch up on the second front. There were only a smattering of British probing attacks and a reconnaissance flight from a faraway aircraft that was unreachable by the company’s light .30 caliber machine guns. Curiously, it appeared to be a rickety old Great War biplane. The RAF did not send their best to Belize.
The civilians in town mostly stayed wary of the Mexicans, neither approaching them with kindness nor outright hostility. Lopez tried to talk to someone, ask who the mayor or local leader was, but the civilian just pursed his lips and carried on to the fields nearby. His soldiers let the man pass, as they were under strict orders not to interfere with the locals unless there was an active threat. Sweeps of unoccupied buildings did not reveal any sort of weapons caches or military supplies. It was almost like, sans the British colonial police who had all been captured without a fight, the British didn’t pay attention to Hattieville.
Lopez finished eating a meal out of his rations. He was still unsure how they managed to maintain semi-edible barbacoa in a can, although the preservative liquid inside tasted somewhat artificial. The tortillas were passable, and the salsa verde was the best part. He was fairly certain that it was the same brand of canned salsa that he could find at a grocery store with the military’s bland label slapped on the side of the tin. In any case, it was fine enough after a week in the field. The fatty goat meat was good for providing all the energy that he needed to maneuver.
It was the first meal that had been delivered by truck, too. The Brigada de Fusileros Paracaidistas’s support battalion flew in earlier in the week to Belize on specialized gliders. Airborne resupply operations were difficult, as most of the troops were light infantry on foot. Vehicles like the supply companies’ trucks needed to be landed in big open fields by skilled glider pilots. While he was an infantryman by trade, Lopez could only imagine the maintenance problems that came with slamming regular vehicles into the ground. Those that didn’t need too much love and care after impact were loaded up with paradropped supplies and sent forward.
Captain Lopez finished off the food before cleaning off his mess kit with a splash of water from his canteen. He left it atop his rucksack to dry out and stood, stretching his sore legs. His uniform was dirty, smelled of sweat, and was getting stiff and crusty from not being washed for so long. He had a change of clothes in his rucksack somewhere and thought about washing it out if they stayed in place for another few more days. Reyes was nearby, playing a card game with a friend of his while listening to the radio’s empty static fill the command post. Its antenna swayed in the breeze lazily.
“Hey Muñoz,” he said to his executive officer. The Lieutenant was napping underneath the shade of his camouflaged poncho strung up against the building for impromptu shelter. Muñoz didn’t budge, his helmet slumped over his eyes.
“Muñoz!” Lopez said, a little bit louder and sterner. The XO jolted awake, one hand going for his nearby carbine in a split second reaction. He looked over at the commander and asked what was going on.
“Nothing,” said Lopez. “Just stay here and watch the radio while I go talk to First Sergeant.”
“Got it, sir,” Muñoz replied. He ducked out from his poncho shelter and straightened out his uniform before grabbing his weapon and heading over to where Reyes had just cleaned out his opponent of the candy that they were gambling. He left his helmet and web gear alongside his own ruck and wordlessly watched the two enlisted radiomen bicker over the card game.
First Sergeant Kan was working with the company’s supply clerk, a short and peppy young Especialista from the same city as Lopez. He talked with a rapid accent, even for most of the troops, as he counted the remaining parcels of rations and water cans before doing math on remaining days of supply for the company’s men. The medic was sitting nearby in his aid station, smoking a cigarette. It was empty now, but the evidence of previous casualties remained. Dark blood in the dirt underneath the shade of his own poncho tent construction was still visible beneath where stretchers had been. All the casualties were taken back to the battalion surgeon on the same truck that delivered the food.
Captain Lopez walked past them, greeting the group before continuing on to the makeshift prisoner stockade. It was rather disinterestedly guarded by a pair of operations soldiers from headquarters. The British inside, now in varying states of loose undress to cope with the heat, were sitting aimlessly inside. They looked more bored than anything else.
Havana, Cuba
August, 1955
Enrique Valdés pored over the maps of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, adorned with military symbols. Red diamonds represented the “enemy” forces, although Mexico was not at war with them. Haitian and Dominican security forces engaged in contact with the Guarda Costa. They were green squares, not necessarily the blue rectangles that represented friendly forces. Nobody in DIPS wanted to designate them as “friendly” just yet. The units fought a bitter war in the jungle, or at least the iconography claimed: Enrique had never served in the military, nor learned its complex pictorial language of tactics.
“Green means good guys, right?” he asked to Carlos, who was reviewing some paperwork nearby. The veteran operative had his feet kicked up on his desk as he perused through photographs of people more important than Enrique could hope to deal with. Carlos almost seemed to scowl at him.
“Are you a fucking idiot?” he chastised. Carlos shook his head. “Didn’t even go through boot camp, didn’t listen to some teniente giving a hare-brained order? Green is ‘partner forces’, or ‘allies’, asshole.”
“Sorry!” Enrique exclaimed suddenly. His heart sank into his chest.
“Fuckin’ momma’s boy. Rich family motherfucker,” Carlos continued. “Ever get dirt under your fingers? Now’s the chance. Focus on Unidad.”
Enrique slowed down to examine the finer points of the map ahead of him. The rebels trying to claim a “Hispaniola” were experts in guerrilla tactics, advancing the forward-line-of-troops with lightning speed as they overwhelmed the Dominican forces. They were too used to police actions, internal defense, and other light actions: many officers were fat and lazy and didn’t produce a significant challenge to the rebels.
“You’re right,” he said, tracing his finger along a Hispaniolan advance through a forested valley. “These fuckers do know how to fight.”
“It’s all those Americans they have,” Carlos answered coolly. “They can fight. Enough of them want to play soldier in the Caribbean that Unidad has some dedicated assholes.”
Enrique kept examining the map. “They could use help here,” he said abruptly. He pointed his hand at the map. Carlos leaned up from his seat and squinted at Enrique.
“What the fuck do you mean, they could use help? These assholes are fine to go conquer their ‘Hispaniola’, we give them some free sugar later. That’s the plan.”
“No, I mean,” Enrique said as he traced the map. There was one highway leading to Santo Domingo, and Guarda Costa forces were approaching it. The village of San Francisco de Macoris was out of sight for most maps, but the iconography was clear to Enrique: fuel depots, staging points, and hardened defensive structures. Whatever the Dominicans had done to the town, the Hispaniolans wanted. He traced his fingers down the main highway. “They’re moving on a strategic village. It’s sixty miles from the capital. There are no spots for the government to stop them.”
Carlos stood up, putting his newspaper to the side. “Jesus,” he muttered. “They’re on the move. If they win this battle, it’s no more than a week til they get to the capital.”
“I know,” Enrique replied, pointing out the route to Carlos. “These fuckers work quick.”
“Fucking Christ,” Carlos said as he studied the map. “I’m going to call the embassy. We need these assholes back, and now.”
“Why?”
“We aren’t supposed to analyze them!” Carlos said, frustrated. “We’re making them allies of Mexico! Get them ready… butter them up… make sure they know we’re behind a push to Santo Domingo… The more they suck our dick, the better. I’m going to call the embassy.”
Carlos put his things to the side and sat up from his chair. As he stormed out of the small office, Enrique examined the map even more. A macro-scale map was to his left, which showed the ever-updating positions of Mexican strategic forces on a scale map of the Caribbean. Army and Navy forces were moving around, tangling with the British on their islands which were now marked in a red overlay. Their island chain, to the east of the strategic “Hispaniola” target, was clearly the goal of Mexico’s fleet in the region. Many islands, strategically useful and not, laid in wait for the invading Mexican force.
While they got daily forces navigation updates from the embassy, when they changed their push-pins, Enrique didn’t know the full extent of the war. All signs pushed to recruiting the Hispaniolans as a “government”, for which to oppose both the British and Americans. Somewhere inside Enrique, he felt relieved: school had always taught him about the colonial injustices of European powers. Now they were able to drive them out of the continent. He looked again at the fleets and forces arranged on his strategic board in stern approval, the markings above each abstract square designating the sheer amount of Mexican forces dedicated to the task. Enrique Valdés smiled in approval, and went back to his map of Hispaniola.
Qajar Persia
The diplomatic flag of Mohammad Shah Qajar. A red background on the flag signifies wartime use, while a green background is for peacetime.
Official Name: Sublime State of Iran (دولت علیّه ایران – Dowlat-e Âliyye-ye Irân)
Leader: Mohammad Shah Qajar (محمد شاه قاجار)
World Trade Center, Manhattan
The control room in the basement of the Twin Towers was cold, metallic, and grey. Computer consoles ringed a vaguely octagonal room and walkways stuck to the walls of the tall ceiling. It reminded Sandra of a missile silo, almost. In the middle of this silo was a pillar with a glowing green computer terminal. Wires and cables ringed the floor and were suspended from the ceiling: her mother had spent two years fixing up The Economist and never could get it all the way tidied up. Sandra didn’t touch most things: she was afraid of breaking him.
She had put a small living room there for her conversations with him. A floral rug covered up the bare floor, letting Sandra walk around and take off her slippers without feeling the cold steel underneath her feet. A lone recliner with a coffee table topped by a vase of flowers reminded her of her own apartment in the tower. She tapped at her cup of coffee, listening to the quiet humming as The Economist thought through a question.
“Indian Point, Indian Point,” he muttered. Sandra cocked her head.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well there’s so much to it!” The Economist said quickly. “The fusion reactor could produce over a hundred-thousand megawatt-hours annually. It had a patented high density toroidal containment unit developed with secret government funding from WestTek.”
“Did you just find their sales brochure?” Sandra responded dryly, stirring some sugar into her coffee.
“Well yes,” admitted The Economist. “But there were no court cases filed for false advertising and the actual generation data appears fairly close to the advertisement, within five percent variance.”
It was a lot of energy: New York City was running on fumes, its own grid unable to keep up with demand outside of localized fusion reactors. There was a power grid running throughout the city but only rarely could neighborhoods draw from a centralized source. Much of the city was an apocalyptic hack job, and much of that infrastructure was damaged after the war. There was a reason why some of the alleys and streets looked like spider webs of electrical wires. Maintenance was a pain in the ass and it was often easier to just hack in a new cable than replace an existing one.
“Curious, when I look at where all the power is supposed to go there are things that don’t give a return value. And not because the information is restricted,” The Economist said.
Sandra leaned back in her recliner. “What do you mean? There are things offline?”
“Precisely. And mostly government things. City government tools and subroutines. Every department answered to one source.”
“One source… Another AI?”
The Economist scoffed, or at least attempted to. “I hope not. Nobody likes competition. I’ve been enjoying my little monopoly, you know. If the SEC were still around they’d fine us into oblivion! But the building plans for city hall have a bunch of secret tunnels and underground facilities like this place, I would not be surprised. I’m not convinced the military managed to shoot down all those incoming missiles by themselves. They needed coordination, and it wasn’t me.”
Sandra nodded. “It would be worth a shot.”
The Economist chuckled, its electronic laugh reverberating throughout the control room. The console’s screen seemed to brighten with his chuckling. “Well, you know, maybe someone can lighten the load over here. You know how much it isn’t my job running day to day operations? I’m a CEO, not middle management, baby!”
Sandra was not amused. But she was used to him by now. She gestured around the room at the computational equipment scattered across the floor. “It may require some repairs. You know, like my mother had to do to you.”
“Maybe not as much as you’d think!” The Economist replied with a wink of his computer monitor. “In 2073, New York City signed a contract with QuickFix! Repair Technologies. QFRT on the market, if you want to make some long plays on it. Not that I’ll divulge insider trading recommendations, that’d be illegal.”
Another electronic wink. Sandra raised her eyebrow. He had never mentioned anything about automated repair systems before.
“See, some of the city’s municipal repair bots had QuickFix software loaded into their subroutines. I’ll go ahead and print out their lot numbers for you so you can take it to the suits upstairs.”
In the distance, a printer whirred and began churning out a document of data into a carboard box that Sandra had placed underneath its tray. The Economist had learned not to blurt random numbers at Sandra by now: an executive summary of his babbling was much better for the City Council.
“If there is some sort of AI, and if that QuickFix contract had been executed… I only say ‘if’ because you and I both know how slow the… ehem… public sector works… then these bots will automatically connect to the AI’s network and start executing repair subroutines. We’d have these bots working day and night down a patented civil defense repair and reconstruction priority task list to restore essential services and city functions. 24/7! And we don’t have to pay ‘em overtime like some union workers, we’ve got our own metal scabs right here in town, baby.”
Sandra nodded, crossing her arms again. The City had been working on restoring what it could based off of old blueprints, but some of these systems were so degraded and damaged that they only caused bigger problems. If this software was really integrated into a government AI, the humans wouldn’t need to solve that problem.
“So what’s the catch?” she asked. “You tell me all the time, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
“Absolutely, my dear,” The Economist said. “Nobody works for free! Well, except me, because I’m a robot slave down here in a basement. Maybe I should take back what I said about unions.”
“You know I never thought I’d see th-”
“Just kidding!” The Economist laughed again. “Anyways, yes, Indian Point has power line connections all over the tri-state region. This includes almost a hundred factories and industrial facilities, dozens of towns, rail networks, and quite a few military installations. I actually have no idea what many of these places look like. I was only able to quickly gather data on close-by corporations and entities using NYPD counterespionage warrants in the hours before the war because everyone else was distracted. But out in the country? I wasn’t able to get that far – that’s why I’ve needed you to manually input data into me.”
“We’d just be flying blind?”
“Well, sort of. I am 65.67% certain that there are no hordes of killer robots out there. Maybe just one or two individual killer robots per county, but that’s not a lot when you have a laser gun from Brooklyn AA&E. But we may be giving our competitors an advantage. I would let the suits figure out if they want those Gunners up in Albany to have factories in their cute little trading port. I’ll print out everything I have!”
The printer whirred again as document after document floated down into the cardboard box below it. Sandra looked over to watch it fill up slowly and methodically. “I still think they’ll do it,” she said.
“Hell, I would do it if I were them. After all, risk is part of the market,” the AI said flatly. He chuckled again. “Well it’s been a good talk, Sandra. I’ll let you go figure this out.”
Sandra stood up from her chair and set the empty coffee mug down on the table. She bid The Economist farewell and walked over to her cardboard box of documents that now had some heft to it. She sighed, picking up the information before trudging over to the waiting elevator. She remembered when her mother got too old to carry up The Economist’s printouts: teenaged Sandra would bear the load instead. She remembered getting bored waiting around while her mom talked about the very same things she quizzed The Economist on today. Sandra got into the elevator and pressed the button to shoot up into the tower proper. As the door closed and The Economist could no longer hear her, she laughed. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same: including that damned AI.
The control room in the basement of the Twin Towers was cold, metallic, and grey. Computer consoles ringed a vaguely octagonal room and walkways stuck to the walls of the tall ceiling. It reminded Sandra of a missile silo, almost. In the middle of this silo was a pillar with a glowing green computer terminal. Wires and cables ringed the floor and were suspended from the ceiling: her mother had spent two years fixing up The Economist and never could get it all the way tidied up. Sandra didn’t touch most things: she was afraid of breaking him.
She had put a small living room there for her conversations with him. A floral rug covered up the bare floor, letting Sandra walk around and take off her slippers without feeling the cold steel underneath her feet. A lone recliner with a coffee table topped by a vase of flowers reminded her of her own apartment in the tower. She tapped at her cup of coffee, listening to the quiet humming as The Economist thought through a question.
“Indian Point, Indian Point,” he muttered. Sandra cocked her head.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well there’s so much to it!” The Economist said quickly. “The fusion reactor could produce over a hundred-thousand megawatt-hours annually. It had a patented high density toroidal containment unit developed with secret government funding from WestTek.”
“Did you just find their sales brochure?” Sandra responded dryly, stirring some sugar into her coffee.
“Well yes,” admitted The Economist. “But there were no court cases filed for false advertising and the actual generation data appears fairly close to the advertisement, within five percent variance.”
It was a lot of energy: New York City was running on fumes, its own grid unable to keep up with demand outside of localized fusion reactors. There was a power grid running throughout the city but only rarely could neighborhoods draw from a centralized source. Much of the city was an apocalyptic hack job, and much of that infrastructure was damaged after the war. There was a reason why some of the alleys and streets looked like spider webs of electrical wires. Maintenance was a pain in the ass and it was often easier to just hack in a new cable than replace an existing one.
“Curious, when I look at where all the power is supposed to go there are things that don’t give a return value. And not because the information is restricted,” The Economist said.
Sandra leaned back in her recliner. “What do you mean? There are things offline?”
“Precisely. And mostly government things. City government tools and subroutines. Every department answered to one source.”
“One source… Another AI?”
The Economist scoffed, or at least attempted to. “I hope not. Nobody likes competition. I’ve been enjoying my little monopoly, you know. If the SEC were still around they’d fine us into oblivion! But the building plans for city hall have a bunch of secret tunnels and underground facilities like this place, I would not be surprised. I’m not convinced the military managed to shoot down all those incoming missiles by themselves. They needed coordination, and it wasn’t me.”
Sandra nodded. “It would be worth a shot.”
The Economist chuckled, its electronic laugh reverberating throughout the control room. The console’s screen seemed to brighten with his chuckling. “Well, you know, maybe someone can lighten the load over here. You know how much it isn’t my job running day to day operations? I’m a CEO, not middle management, baby!”
Sandra was not amused. But she was used to him by now. She gestured around the room at the computational equipment scattered across the floor. “It may require some repairs. You know, like my mother had to do to you.”
“Maybe not as much as you’d think!” The Economist replied with a wink of his computer monitor. “In 2073, New York City signed a contract with QuickFix! Repair Technologies. QFRT on the market, if you want to make some long plays on it. Not that I’ll divulge insider trading recommendations, that’d be illegal.”
Another electronic wink. Sandra raised her eyebrow. He had never mentioned anything about automated repair systems before.
“See, some of the city’s municipal repair bots had QuickFix software loaded into their subroutines. I’ll go ahead and print out their lot numbers for you so you can take it to the suits upstairs.”
In the distance, a printer whirred and began churning out a document of data into a carboard box that Sandra had placed underneath its tray. The Economist had learned not to blurt random numbers at Sandra by now: an executive summary of his babbling was much better for the City Council.
“If there is some sort of AI, and if that QuickFix contract had been executed… I only say ‘if’ because you and I both know how slow the… ehem… public sector works… then these bots will automatically connect to the AI’s network and start executing repair subroutines. We’d have these bots working day and night down a patented civil defense repair and reconstruction priority task list to restore essential services and city functions. 24/7! And we don’t have to pay ‘em overtime like some union workers, we’ve got our own metal scabs right here in town, baby.”
Sandra nodded, crossing her arms again. The City had been working on restoring what it could based off of old blueprints, but some of these systems were so degraded and damaged that they only caused bigger problems. If this software was really integrated into a government AI, the humans wouldn’t need to solve that problem.
“So what’s the catch?” she asked. “You tell me all the time, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
“Absolutely, my dear,” The Economist said. “Nobody works for free! Well, except me, because I’m a robot slave down here in a basement. Maybe I should take back what I said about unions.”
“You know I never thought I’d see th-”
“Just kidding!” The Economist laughed again. “Anyways, yes, Indian Point has power line connections all over the tri-state region. This includes almost a hundred factories and industrial facilities, dozens of towns, rail networks, and quite a few military installations. I actually have no idea what many of these places look like. I was only able to quickly gather data on close-by corporations and entities using NYPD counterespionage warrants in the hours before the war because everyone else was distracted. But out in the country? I wasn’t able to get that far – that’s why I’ve needed you to manually input data into me.”
“We’d just be flying blind?”
“Well, sort of. I am 65.67% certain that there are no hordes of killer robots out there. Maybe just one or two individual killer robots per county, but that’s not a lot when you have a laser gun from Brooklyn AA&E. But we may be giving our competitors an advantage. I would let the suits figure out if they want those Gunners up in Albany to have factories in their cute little trading port. I’ll print out everything I have!”
The printer whirred again as document after document floated down into the cardboard box below it. Sandra looked over to watch it fill up slowly and methodically. “I still think they’ll do it,” she said.
“Hell, I would do it if I were them. After all, risk is part of the market,” the AI said flatly. He chuckled again. “Well it’s been a good talk, Sandra. I’ll let you go figure this out.”
Sandra stood up from her chair and set the empty coffee mug down on the table. She bid The Economist farewell and walked over to her cardboard box of documents that now had some heft to it. She sighed, picking up the information before trudging over to the waiting elevator. She remembered when her mother got too old to carry up The Economist’s printouts: teenaged Sandra would bear the load instead. She remembered getting bored waiting around while her mom talked about the very same things she quizzed The Economist on today. Sandra got into the elevator and pressed the button to shoot up into the tower proper. As the door closed and The Economist could no longer hear her, she laughed. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same: including that damned AI.
THE BANKER
A BESPECTACLED MAN typed furiously at a computer, the flashing white screen of Twitter flashing information at him at light speed. Dozens of bite-sized messages, poorly worded and never edited. After all, who had time to include a source for their information when the message was so small? He bit his lip, scrolling down the screen furiously. Images both tame and extreme passed through his screen. A man ranting about immigrants. An anthropomorphic horse (with feminine characteristics) having intercourse with another anthropomorphic creature by means of an engorged sexual apparatus. Memetic imagery of Leonardo DeCaprio as the "Wolf of Wall Street" accompanying an inspirational quote. He ignored them all. He needed answers.
Then, he found it. A large JPEG of a monkey took up the entirety of his widescreen curved monitor. The Tweet, though short, advertised great riches. He clicked further. It was a link. Through time and cyberspace, he journeyed through the blue-tinted text and ended up on a website with only one goal: the achieve wealth. Dozens, no, hundreds of monkey JPEGs filled the screen. Each one had a price tag attached. Some of them wore hats, some of them wore glasses. Many of them were silly and wacky. The Banker did not care about the value of these monkeys: he knew what he had to do.
Within seconds, he found one that he liked. The brown-furred monkey... no, it was an ape... spoke to The Banker's innermost desires. He wore a navy blue suit with a white dress shirt and, curiously, a yellow tie. The Banker liked yellow: it both felt similar to gold and similarly removed himself from the "binary" red versus blue politics of the conservatives and liberals. Truly, they were the sheep. A cool set of Oakley sunglasses were perched atop the ape's nose, his mouth curled into a sneer.
The Banker clicked buy. Within microseconds, the cryptocurrency in his wallet tunneled through cyberspace to reach this exchange. By the time his brain registered the decision that his fingers had made, The Banker had exchanged digital cash for digital goods. Not that he planned to keep this: the ape was far more valuable to him dead than alive. This did not stop him from making it his Twitter profile picture.
So The Banker flaunted this ape. He joined their society. He posted on their Discord. He was on top of the world. The line always went up. Others joined his society. They all wanted apes. They all wanted to be in the club. The Banker held onto his blue-suited ape and bought more. Not just apes, but other creatures as well. Cats (an internet classic) were in high demand. Dogs were passe by now, not cute enough. Niche animals. He even made his own: whatever covered the Ethereum's gas.
As The Banker ingrained himself into the community, the reigns of his power extended across cyberspace. He was king of several domains. He bought out several other societies, their JPEGs were simply inferior. He enjoyed the spoils of his riches: the old office chair that he enjoyed was now replaced by a Gamer chair so he could trade in luxury.
Yet one day, he received a DM on his Twitter account. He flaunted the blue-suited ape, of course; everyone knew he was wealthy. In the messages, there was a profile picture of a bearded man in a flannel shirt posing happily with a golden AR-15. The Mountaineer was his only name. He asked him The Banker question:
"Dear sir, I see you are a fellow entrepreneur. The Alpine Republic needs help: it has sunk too deep into the swamp. We could use wealthy industry magnates like yourself to help fight the liberal elite. You give the bitcoin, I give the guns. It's an investment you cannot refuse."
The Banker sat and thought deeply, his fingers stroking his neckbeard. With a coy smile, he typed back in agreement. Then, taking a sip of his Mountain Dew, he minimized the window and pulled up his FOREX exchange: it was time to short Alpine Dollars.
<Snipped quote by Pagemaster>
Nah, Britain's fine because England is, well: right fucking there.
<Snipped quote by TheEvanCat>
If you want to that's fine. We barely even started so if you think you can move (and this also goes for Page) then now is the time to do so without being an issue. And if you want to be more relevant but also in your area of expertise there is also being your ancestral enemy
the perfidious turk
* Stares in Armenian *
Yeah, I can move in closer as well. I'm not terrible good at European history (you and I both know I studied Middle Eastern history in college) but I can give it a shot.
Slightly edited the verbiage to correct some dates/events on the app.
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