longer.blue

The year is 2040 The world is composed of fiefdoms outside of China and India. China prospers and India is . . . still India. Climate change and sea level rise have had little effect for these two since China had the economy and foresight to move cities and support food sources. India which had suffered for millennia from all manner of catastrophes, shrugged and suffered and grew. The rest of the world fought, shrank and suffered. The climate, surprisingly, didn’t cause any of this radical shift. It all came about as though predetermined, obvious but unavoidable when a convicted traitor was launched into power in the United States by billionaires, their mega corporations and sycophants. Bilious and belligerent, this strongman survived through growing dementia, sustained by his love of kingly power and hatred for all those who had spurned him in his 70 years. In 4 short years before his death, he plundered his country’s economy and support systems. Former alliances were abandoned in favor of ransoms, alienating all allies. Upon his death, the inevitable syncophantacides and billionaire escapes left little of the country’s former power. The lucky avoidance of nuclear war was assisted by well placed spies and hackers. Not so lucky were the assembled minor countries which tried to resist the grasp of US greed and military. The Great Cyber Wall of China is occasionally and only temporarily pierced by insurgent hackers and nibbled by the many small foreign communities clustered at the edge of the wall to buy & sell trinkets to their Chinese protectors.