timelines:arhotf_mastertimeline
no way to compare when less than two revisions
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Previous revision | |||
— | timelines:arhotf_mastertimeline [2019/03/29 15:13] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1 | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
+ | ======A Revised History of the Future (2001 - 2150)====== | ||
+ | ---- | ||
+ | ===== The War on Terror (2001 - 2010) ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first decade of the 21st century saw the trends of terrorism, religious and ethnic strife, and small-localized wars rise from the previous decade. A single overarching conflict - labeled the "War on Terror" | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2001==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * AOL and Time Warner merged to form the **AOL Time Warner Corporation**. | ||
+ | * The first successful implant of an [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * Apple released the **iPod mp3 player**. It would soon become the best-selling electronic equipment of the decade. | ||
+ | * China became a member of the World Trade Organization. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2002==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The **Euro**, the new currency of the **European Union**, was first issued. The ex-currencies of many European states – although, notably, the British Pound was not among them – ceased to be legal tender several months later. | ||
+ | * U.S. President George W. Bush condemned North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as state sponsors of terrorism, labeled them members of an **[[timelines/ | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * The **[[timelines/ | ||
+ | * The **[[timelines/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2003==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The U.S. Space Shuttle **Columbia** was destroyed during reentry, grounding the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet for two years. | ||
+ | * The **Darfur Genocide** began in Sudan. | ||
+ | * As part of the continuing War on Terror, the United States led a **" | ||
+ | * The **Human Genome Project** was successfully completed, with 99% of the genome sequenced to within 99.99% accuracy. | ||
+ | * China launched the **Shenzhou 5**, becoming only the third nation to launch a manned spacecraft. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2004==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The CIA admitted that there was no immediate threat of Iraq obtaining any NBC weapons, stirring a major controversy in the United States and accusations that the White House had lied in order to start a war in Iraq. Despite this, George W. Bush still won a second term in November’s presidential election. | ||
+ | * In April, the **First Battle of Fallujah** was fought between American and Iraqi insurgent forces. After a month of heavy fighting, the US was forced to withdraw from the city. Seven months later, the United States and New Iraqi armies made a second attempt to capture Fallujah, this time winning the **Second Battle of Fallujah**. | ||
+ | * The first privately built manned spacecraft, the **SpaceShipOne**, | ||
+ | * The **Cuzco Declaration** established the **Union of South American Nations (USAN)**. | ||
+ | * The **Indian Ocean Earthquake** caused tsunamis that destroyed large parts of southern and southeast Asia, leaving tens of thousands dead. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2005==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * The Tulip Revolution occurred in Kyrgyzstan, overthrowing the government and leading to democratic elections. | ||
+ | * Race riots broke out throughout France after the accidental deaths of two Black Muslim teenagers, leading to 20 days of chaos and forcing the French government to declare a state of emergency. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2006==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * | ||
+ | * The first cybernetic limbs were given to veterans of the **Iraq War**. These are later considered to be **the first Cyborgs**. | ||
+ | * North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon, spurring international criticism and ultimately leading to multinational talks with the United States, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea that would last on-and-off for years. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * Fidel Castro passed control over to his brother Raul before entering surgery to treat an unspecified “stomach ailment”, identified years later as Diverticulitis. Raul would remain de facto president until Fidel’s resignation two years later, after which he would be officially elected. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2007==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The European Union celebrated the 50th year since the Treaty of Rome by admitting Romania and Bulgaria. Meanwhile, conflicts over energy supplies caused relations with Russia to worsen to their worst point since the end of the Cold War. By the end of the year, the **Treaty of Lisbon**, a replacement for the failed European Constitution, | ||
+ | * The United States sent reinforcements to Iraq, complementing the existing (but dwindling) Coalition Forces. The move proves to be a success, bringing the war largely under control. | ||
+ | * China successfully tested an anti-satellite ballistic missile over the Arctic, sparking international condemnation not only for developing such a weapon, but also for creating unnecessary hazards for existing spacecraft and the **International Space Station**. China later signed a series of economic deals with Sudan, despite international condemnation of the Darfur Genocide. The move sparks calls for nations to boycott the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. | ||
+ | * The radical Islamist group Hamas wins the parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories, | ||
+ | * A crisis arose when the Turkish military threatened to overthrow the government to preserve the republic’s secular constitution over a dispute between secularist and religious politicians over a controversial presidential nominee. Ultimately, the secularists and the military conceded and allowed the religious majority’s nominee to be elected. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2008==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | | ||
+ | * The Indian Parliament finally ratified the **[[timelines/ | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * **The Olympic Games in Beijing** - amongst the most watched in Olympic history - became a worldwide sensation and a grandiose demonstration of China' | ||
+ | * After a decade of economic mismanagement by both governments and corporations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2009==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric power station in the world, was completed in China. It quickly becomes an icon of China’s new preeminence on the world stage. | ||
+ | * The United States and other G20 Powers agree to coordinating economic relief efforts, while the world economy finds itself resting upon the unimpeded growth of China, India, and South America. The United States passes a massive stimulus package, which has only a moderate effect, dampened as the ripple effects of Great Recession spread and cause the collapse of the American automobile industry. | ||
+ | * The International Criminal Court begins its first trial, against a Congolese warlord, and issues an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan for the part he played in the Darfur Genocide. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * A revised version of the European Constitution, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2010==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * **A major earthquake strikes Port-au-Prince, | ||
+ | * The big-budget science fiction film " | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * An explosion at a British Petroleum deep water rig off the coast of Louisiana caused a massive oil spill, releasing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over four months - **the largest environmental disaster in history**. The resulting environmental damage completely reverses progress made in the US' economic recovery and decimates the Gulf Coast' | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | |||
+ | =====The Post-Universalist Era (2011 – 2020)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | As the War on Terror neared its end, the United States found itself broken and battered, its prestige tarnished and power questioned. As America focused more on domestic issues, regional powers and organizations began to take responsibility for their own problems, with mixed results. In Asia, India and China continued their rise to Great Power status: India at last moving to resolve the Naxalite insurgency, while China flexed its muscle in the financial world. In Africa, the fighting in the Sahel and Horn of Africa continued, although with a glimmer of hope as certain areas achieved some stability. Southern Africa was a different story, however, collapsing into war early in the decade and deteriorating into ethnic chaos by the end. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2011==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * After 30 years of service, the United States ended the Space Shuttle program. Since NASA did not have any manned spacecraft ready to replace the shuttles, the US government turned to several private firms and hired them to operate their own spacecraft on NASA's behalf, acting as taxi services. Chief amongst these are aerospace start-ups SpaceX and Sierra Nevada, along with veteran companies like Boeing, Orbital Sciences, and United Launch Alliance. | ||
+ | * After decades of disenfranchisement and discontent, hundreds of thousands of emboldened youths, driven by social networking and globalized mass media, took to the streets in major cities across the Middle East and North Africa in a dramatic series of uprisings that soon were dubbed the **Arab Spring**. The revolts took leaders across the world off-guard, as long-established dictators - many backed by the United States - were ousted within weeks by angry yet largely peaceful and leaderless crowds. Despite some hesitation, in each case the Obama administration ultimately came out in support of demonstrators across the region, at least in part helping to salvage American interests. By year's end, revolutions had successfully toppled the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya and forced major reforms in Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, and Yemen. | ||
+ | * Despite continuing violence in Darfur, a referendum on independence was still held in southern Sudan, which voted in favor by a wide margin. Two weeks later, the region issued a formal declaration of independence as the **Republic of Southern Sudan**. In a speech to the UN General Assembly later in the year, President Salva Kiir Mayardit lobbied for the independence of Darfur, recognition of Somaliland, and international intervention in both Sudan and Zimbabwe. | ||
+ | * Inspired by the Dignity Revolutions, | ||
+ | * China launched the **Tiangong 1**, the first in a series of small space stations the Chinese Space Agency developed in preparation for building their own space station. For the first time, there is more than one occupied space station in orbit simultaneously. Commentators in the United States fear that America is falling begin in the space race and blast the government for abandoning plans to return to the Moon by 2020. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2012==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Despite two years of increased funding and military support, police throughout the “Red Corridor” of eastern India have been unable to crush the Naxalite insurgency. The government in New Delhi announces plans to increase funding for infrastructure projects throughout the affected areas – some of the poorest and least developed regions of India – and limited military deployment to supplement the overtaxed police forces. Ironically, by the end of the year **India surpassed Japan to become the world' | ||
+ | * **An earthquake devastated Tehran**, crippling the Iranian government and economy. An international movement, led by India and the other SAARC nations, assisted in the reconstruction effort. In the meantime, the Iranian capital was moved from Tehran to Isfahan. The failure of the conservative government to handle the crisis on its own weakened its popularity amongst the Iranian people, allowing the Green Movement to grow even more powerful. | ||
+ | * By the end of the year, High Definition TV had become the standard model in many American homes. Late in the year, autostereoscopic televisions (ATV) - the replacement for the unwieldy " | ||
+ | * Although some fear it may have been done in too much haste, **the United States and NATO completed its withdrawl from Afghanistan **late in the year. Many accused the United States of abandoning the region, having been unable to crush the Taliban or wipe out al-Qaeda, although on both counts the criticism was mostly unfounded: negotiations had already begun this year to integrate the Taliban into the new democratic system and the main al-Qaeda organization based in Afghanistan/ | ||
+ | * Despite several years of virulent opposition, Barack Obama was re-elected, thanks in part to his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, having made a dramatic rightward shift in his rhetoric during the campaign and an upswing in the economy over the year leading up to the election. At the same time, the Democrats maintained control of the US Senate to the Republicans while the GOP held a slim majority in the House of Representatives, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2013==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * A conference was held in Juba, Southern Sudan to examine the international response in the ten years since the Darfur Genocide began. While the main phase of the killing ended years earlier, the fighting in what has been termed the **Sahel War** persisted, despite the presence of United Nations, European Union, and African Union peacekeepers. The presidents of Chad, New Sudan, and Ethiopia urged the international community – especially the African Union – to make a greater effort to end the conflict. | ||
+ | * **Mass protests erupt in Iran **when all of the opposition candidates are barred from running in this year’s presidential election. Coupled with the government’s disastrous response to the Tehran earthquake and simmering public discontent, the Green Movement’s protests swell to sizes not seen since the Dignity Revolutions two years earlier. Unable to handle the sheer size of the protests, and fearful that the Green Movement could turn into the revolution it failed to become in 2009 or 2011, the clerical leadership in Iran agrees behind the scenes to a restructuring of the government, abolishing the position of Supreme Leader – whom many blame for allowing the Green Movement to gain so much strength – and instead giving that office’s powers directly to the directly-elected Assembly of Experts. The Assembly agrees to let the opposition candidate, Mostafa Kavakebian, run and he goes on to win the presidency by a landslide. In response to the downfall of Ayatollah Khamenei, coupled with the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Dignity Revolutions of 2011, spurred one newscaster – perhaps prematurely – to declare **“Radical Islam is Dead”**. | ||
+ | * With the war in Zimbabwe raging out of control, the African Union voted to deploy a peacekeeping force to bring a speedy conclusion to the conflict. It would be another year and a half before peacekeepers from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Uganda, and Libya finally arrived. In the meantime, Zimbabwe’s neighbors deployed their militaries to the border in an attempt to contain the situation. | ||
+ | * Warner Brothers became the first major studio to premiere a full-length feature film as an Internet download. Despite fears that it would harm the film’s gross, The Hobbit Part 1 became the top box office winner three weeks in a row and would later be the best-selling DVD of the Christmas season. | ||
+ | * Seeking further cooperation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2014==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The **Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)** launched the **Vimana 9**, making India the fourth nation to launch a manned spacecraft. Shortly after, the ISRO formally requested to participate in the International Space Station and was accepted, on the grounds that India develop, construct, and launch its own new addition to the station. India’s rapid admission was protested by China, whose requests to join the project were rejected twice by the ISS’ sponsors. | ||
+ | * After 2 years of delays, the **East African Community **issued a common currency, the East African Shilling and set elections for the first East African Parliament to occur in mid-2015. The East African presidency was also implemented, | ||
+ | * **Iceland was admitted into the European Union **and participated in the 2014 parliamentary elections. The European Socialists and its allies in the Progressive Alliance won a majority, electing former British PM Tony Blair. President Blair begins a Union-wide campaign pushing for Turkey’s prompt admission. He receives a backlash from many throughout the Union, but manages to galvanize support in southern and northern Europe, reigniting interest and support in Turkey itself. | ||
+ | * For the first time, the **Interactive Achievement Awards **were broadcast on ABC with the same coverage usually reserved for movie or television award shows. In the United States, the videogame industry had by this year become the second most profitable media industry and continued to grow steadily. | ||
+ | * By the end of 2014, millions have emigrated from southern Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi to elsewhere in the country, many to Texas, Florida, or Georgia. Although the national economy has improved since the Great Recession began, the slow abandonment of the deep south’s Gulf Coast continues to hurt the government’s approval ratings. The government itself is largely deadlocked thanks to a split Congress, while the Republican Party following their defeat in 2012 suffers a major split between moderate and far-right conservatives. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2015==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * After an increasingly agitated and controversial election season, the religious coalition **Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal **won the majority of seats in the Pakistani Parliament, defeating the Pakistan People’s Party. Angry young Pakistanis, many supporters of the PPP, rioted in Islamabad and Karachi. The Pakistani president declared a state of emergency and imposed martial law. At the urging of India, China, and the United States, party leaders met and agreed to form a coalition government. This did little to end the rioting, though, which continued for another ten weeks. | ||
+ | * In a landmark move, the Prime Minister of Somaliland was invited to be an observer at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Maputo, Mozambique. While not an explicit or formal recognition of the country’s independence, | ||
+ | * Protesting the First World’s failure to curb global climate change and America’s failure to rehabilitate New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, the radical environmentalist group **August 23 **vandalized the Statue of Liberty in New York City. Using 23 pneumatic potato guns mounted on the decks of three sailboats, the eco-terrorists fired nearly 500 paint rounds at Liberty Island before being arrested by the Coast Guard. It was determined later that the damage caused to the landmark would cost $900,000 to repair. | ||
+ | * Doctors in New Zealand successfully conducted the first ever implant of a self-contained artificial lung. The breakthrough was seen a possible solution to the millions around the world suffering from lung cancer and other breathing disorders. Futurists and transhumanists suggested that, considering the advances in prosthesis over the last 15 years, it might be possible to develop a full prosthetic body by 2030. | ||
+ | * The Indian military and police scored a series of major victories in the campaign against the Naxalites, arresting several high profile members of their Politburo. Combined with an increased government presence and an upsurge in jobs thanks to government funded infrastructure projects, support for the insurgency begins to slowly drop amongst the poor rural population in the Red Corridor. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2016==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * **ITER**, the world' | ||
+ | * Astronomers from Hawaii, Chile and Argentina announced the discovery of the first confirmed “Earth Twin” – a planet with a similar size, atmosphere, and climate to that of the Earth – orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani, 10.5 light-years away. At least seven different science fiction films were released over the next two years detailing the first manned mission to the planet, nicknamed " | ||
+ | * An extended drought struck the southern Amazon, leading to massive forest fires. The Brazilian Army was called in to help fight the fires, which ultimately consumed more than 1,000 square miles of forest – larger than the 2007 California wildfires. Environmentalists and the Media played up the disaster as yet another example of global unmitigated climate change. | ||
+ | * Due to previous bickering between Commission-President Tony Blair and the outgoing President of the European Council, EU leaders agree to appoint Tony Blair Council-President as well, forming a unified European presidency. Negotiations move forward between the EU and Turkey, with the latter expected to ascend within the next five years. | ||
+ | * In the US presidential elections, former eBay executive Meg Whitman of California, a moderate Republican, wins the race to the White House, taken by many as a sign the Republican Party has returned from the political wilderness it found itself following the 2012 election. Both parties, meanwhile, maintain respective control of the Senate and House of Representatives. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2017==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * **Orion 2**, the first manned flight of NASA’s successor to the Space Shuttle, was launched on a mission to the International Space Station years behind schedule and billions over budget. NASA renewed its contracts with SpaceX and Sierra Nevada to continue servicing the ISS on NASA’s behalf, while also exploring the possibility of using commercial transportation services for an eventually return mission to the Moon, now planned for around 2027. | ||
+ | * The two halves of Cyprus were united as the **United Cypriot Republic **thanks to the efforts of the President of the European Commission, who had spent the last three years brokering a new peace deal. This effort had been bolstered over the last year by the new President of the European Council’s support for Turkish ascension to the European Union, bringing Turkey back to the table. Turkey immediately recognized the new state – despite nationalist opposition at home – and the **united Cyprus was accepted as an EU member-state alongside Macedonia and Croatia**. | ||
+ | * At a ceremony held in London, the United Kingdom became the first nation to officially recognize the existence of the **Republic of Somaliland**. Ethiopia, Canada, France, Southern Sudan, and the United States quickly followed, but so did an immediate protest from Somalia, which again stated its position that Somaliland is, was, and rightfully should be apart of their state. The government in Somaliland declared a national holiday and celebrations poured into the streets of Hargeisa. | ||
+ | * Over the course of seven launches beginning in 2016, **Bigelow Aerospace completed the world’s first manned private space station**. Constructed from a set of three BA-330 transhab modules, Bigelow offers the station’s use for anyone willing to lease or rent it, with transportation and resupply handled by Boeing and SpaceX. In the popular imagination, | ||
+ | * Although fighting persisted throughout Afghanistan and western Pakistan, the conservative government in Kabul successfully convinced the Taliban to participate in the democratic process. This was only a half-victory: | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2018==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * With plans on track for a common market to be fully implemented by the end of 2019, talks began on further South American integration. Foremost on the agenda were introducing a common currency and a **South American Constitution**. | ||
+ | * Prime Minister Medvedev of Russia was shot while campaigning in Volgograd. Authorities immediately targeted Chechen separatists, | ||
+ | * Thirty-three Libyan soldiers, part of the African Union’s peacekeeping force in Zimbabwe, were ambushed and killed by a truck bomb planted by nationalist forces. Shocked by the sudden loss of life, the Libyan government announced it would no longer participate in the operation. Shortly afterward, Kenya, Nigeria, and Angola also withdrew, forcing the African Union to cancel the operation. | ||
+ | * For the first time, a Bollywood film opened as the #1 box office film in the United States. The movie would later go on to receive nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay, although it did not win either award. | ||
+ | * Scientists announced that, thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the hole in the atmosphere’s Ozone layer over Antarctica had shrunk considerably. If recovery continued at the same pace, it was predicted, the ozone layer would be fully recovered by 2075. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2019==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The first attempts to **biologically uplift **– meaning, to genetically enhance a creature’s cognitive faculties to near human levels – dogs began in the United States, France, and Argentina. The ultimate goal of the experiments was to improve the animals’ usefulness in therapy, as guides, and in law enforcement. | ||
+ | * Over thirty years after its initial application to join and more than a decade of intense controversy over it, Turkey was at last admitted into the European Union. The influx of new voters and MEPs in this years European elections resulted major gains for both the European Socialists and People’s Party, creating concern amongst some that **the European Union was quickly forming a two-party system**. The European Socialists and its allies maintained control over Parliament, winning Tony Blair a second term in office. | ||
+ | * In an attempt to curb the violence in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana began clandestine joint operations with the goal of tilting the war in the pro-west faction’s favor, code named **Operation Cecil**. Missions included passing money, intelligence, | ||
+ | * **China launched a manned circumlunar mission**, the second nation after America to do so. The mission sparked criticism against NASA and the US government by the media for failing to meet the 2020 due date set by President Bush for returning to the Moon. In a speech at Cape Canaveral, the President urged NASA to return to the Moon before 2030. | ||
+ | * A border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea turned violent, leading to a month of bloody combat. Although the African and European Unions successfully negotiated a ceasefire, they failed to resolve the initial problem. Meanwhile, the failure of the Somali Federal Government to resolve the social problems in southern Somalia or to prevent Somaliland’s secession spurred a movement to outright dissolve what remained of Somalia. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2020==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * After years of deterioration and the best efforts of the government to avert disaster, the last glacier atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, East Africa finally melted. The President of the East African Community declared the event a travesty and called for increased effort by the international community to combat global climate change before other natural wonders could be ruined. | ||
+ | * As part of a negotiated settlement, Western Sahara agreed to withdraw its membership in the African Union and give up its claims to independence, | ||
+ | * With the Fourth Chimurenga entering it’s ninth year, the movement calling for United Nations intervention grew in strength with the addition of India, which called for a UN peacekeeping force to be deployed as soon as possible. While there was some talk, little was actually accomplished in New York. In Africa, the war began to spread across the border into Mozambique due to fighting amongst the Shona people, who have been split over the increasingly ethnic conflict. | ||
+ | * Goldman Sachs reported that, while China had not yet surpassed America in economic power, it would do so by at least 2025 and definitely so by 2030. The same report went on to point out that India was not far behind, and that both nations were on the precipice of reaching developed status. Several months later, Forbes Magazine announced that a Chinese businessman was at the top of their list of the world’s 400 richest people. * | ||
+ | * In the US presidential elections, Meg Whitman was reelected. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | =====The Spectro Generation (2021 to 2030)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The 2020s were a time of social and political change as a new generation – referred to at first as Generation Z or the New Silents but known to history as the Spectro Generation – reached adulthood. This is the first generation for which computers, the Internet, and cell phones have always been a fact of life. Videogames are considered as important, if not more important, an entertainment medium than films and literature. A new genre of music, Spectro, reaches its prominence thanks to them. But, this generation is also marked by turmoil: the continuing war in Zimbabwe, eco-terrorism in the United States and Canada, India’s intervention in Myanmar, and a deteriorating environment. This generation also witnessed the long-feared eclipse of American power by the Far East, an event that would have consequences for decades to come. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2021==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * After 13 years of development, | ||
+ | * Japanese videogame developer Nintendo introduced **The Nintendo Channel (TNC) **on American cable and satellite TV. It was a digital “Games on Demand” service that operated on a similar premise to Video on Demand: games from the Nintendo library were available to be purchased or rented for download onto the customer’s TV, where they could be played with either special gaming controllers or the standard remote control. TNC’s premiere marked the end of the console platform era of Gaming and would provide the model for future videogame distribution. | ||
+ | * The price of oil reached $200 per barrel and the average price of gas hit $6.13 per gallon in the United States. As gas prices rose, though, so did the number of hybrids and hydrogen fueled cars: about 1/3 of all automobiles in America by this year, a trend mirrored throughout the developed world. In an attempt to quicken America’s weaning off of oil dependency, the US government began an initiative calling for at least 60% of all cars in the US to be either hybrid or hydrogen based by 2040. The move was criticized by some for being too little too late, while others believed that it was too radical a shift in the country’s energy policy. | ||
+ | * A prominent leader of the pro-west faction in the Fourth Chimurenga was assassinated in Church Square, Pretoria. South African police later arrested the assassin, a hitman hired by the nationalist faction in Harare. The incident sparked further protests in South Africa, Europe, and America calling for either UN or multinational intervention. Later in the year, the foreign ministers of South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, and Zambia met with the British foreign minister and East African President in Arusha, Tanzania, EAC. The **Arusha Conference** ended with the drafting of a UN Resolution calling for the creation of a UN Mission to Zimbabwe, to be spearheaded by the African Union. | ||
+ | * The International Space Station was extended for an additional five years, after which it would be abandoned and de-orbited. There was some public outcry against this: the ISS had come to be seen as the beginning of humanity’s permanent presence in space. Several corporations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2022==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * General Electric began construction on the first exclusively industrial space station, **Menlo Park**. Constructed using BA-330 modules purchased from Bigelow Aerospace and serviced by Boeing CST-100 spacecraft, GE envisioned the station to become the first orbiting factory for high-quality products requiring microgravity. In anticipation of NASA’s eventual Moon outpost and possible attempts at commercialization, | ||
+ | * The presidents of the East African Community member states met in Arusha, Tanzania and signed the **East Africa Constitutional Treaty**, seen by many as the final step in the region’s federalization. The treaty was met with fierce opposition, especially in Tanzania and Kenya where opponents criticized the EAC and the member governments for speeding along a political union that was inequitable and unwanted, ignoring the fundamental rights and wishes of the people. | ||
+ | * The civil war in Myanmar began to cross over into Thailand and India, creating concern that the violence may destabilize the entire region. The **Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)**, India, and China held a summit in Ho Chi Minh City where it was agreed that a harder stance must be taken with the Myanmar government in order to reach a diplomatic solution. The Indian Prime Minister, Chinese Foreign Minister, and ASEAN Secretary-General all separately met with both sides, but the talks ultimately led to nothing. | ||
+ | * Eight years after joining the International Space Station program, India finally launched its segment, expected to be the final addition to the station. In anticipation that the ISS may not be around for much longer after the segment was completed, ISRO designed it to be semi-autonomous with the hopes that it would be later separated from the ISS and used as the basis for an Indian space station, just as the Russians had done. | ||
+ | * A mail bomb exploded just outside the office of Exxon-Mobil’s CEO, killing a secretary and badly wounding four others. A radical environmentalist group linked to August 23 later took responsibility via emails sent to CNN and Fox News. This **sudden change in the strategy of the radical environmentalist movement **sparked concern in the FBI, which immediately began a re-assessment of eco-terrorism’s threat to the American public. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2023==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The Xinhua news agency confirmed plans for China to conduct its first manned lunar landing in late 2027, to be followed by the first manned landing on an asteroid, Apophis, in 2029. Despite increased funding during the Whitman administration, | ||
+ | * After nearly a decade underground, | ||
+ | * The **Sittwe Massacre **occurred. A gunboat loyal to Myanmar’s military junta opened fire on an Indian hospital boat moored at the city of Sittwe, sinking the ship. The junta claimed that the ship was harboring rebels, but India and the international community were outraged: the United Nations issued a resolution condemning the Myanmar government and ordering its disarmament, | ||
+ | * That ratification of the East African Constitutional Treaty is suddenly stalled when a referendum is defeated in Tanzania. While there are celebrations in the streets of Arusha and Mombassa, the EAC’s leaders held an emergency meeting to decide upon the course to proceed with. It was decided the ratification process would be suspended for up to a year while possible changes to the treaty were discussed. | ||
+ | * During a tour of Africa, the newly appointed Indian Prime Minister meets with the leader of the pro-western faction of the Fourth Chimurenga in Cape Town, South Africa. He promises to increase India’s effort in the United Nations to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict, while quietly also promising more direct military assistance. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2024==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * In an effort to allow more time for negotiating a revised constitutional treaty, the East African Parliament passed a resolution delaying the first permanent presidential elections for the EAC until after the end of Uganda’s term in the rotating presidency in 2030. This caused protests from those upset at the delay and those against the federalization process, which skeptics claimed was moving far too fast and not addressing issues that affected the everyday citizens of East Africa. | ||
+ | * Despite a sluggish economy and a lackluster response to the environment, | ||
+ | * An incident in the Sulaiman Mountains quickly explodes into an armed confrontation between the Pakistani and Afghan militaries. After several months of fighting, India, Iran, and China negotiate a ceasefire, but the damage has been done. By the end of the year, the government of Afghanistan collapses entirely with the Taliban withdraws from the governing conservative coalition, starting a new round of chaotic fighting. | ||
+ | * As part of a military buildup, India moved a taskforce, including the aircraft carrier INS // | ||
+ | * A member of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and a BP executive are assassinated while visiting the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska when a pipe bomb is detonated in their helicopter. A radical environmentalist group linked to August 23 takes responsibility and threatens further violence unless oil production is permanently halted. Several weeks later, the Governor of Alaska receives a death threat and suspicious packages are found at the headquarters of BP and Exxon-Mobil. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2025==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Four years after the Arusha Conference, the UN Security Council at last passed a resolution calling for the end of hostilities in Zimbabwe and the deployment of a 25,000 strong African Union/ | ||
+ | * **The August 23rd movement sets off a car bomb **in front of the Edmonton office of the Canadian Department of the Environment, | ||
+ | * At the urging of the United Nations, India agreed to a ceasefire with Myanmar. A third summit was held in Hanoi by ASEAN, India, Myanmar, representatives of the Burmese resistance, and China, with Australia invited to act as a mediator. Despite tough talk, the summit was unable to reach a conclusive resolution to the conflict, due to differences amongst ASEAN member states, China, and India on what they actually wanted Myanmar to do. Three weeks after the conference, India restarted its air campaign against Myanmar, triggering accusations from China and Pakistan of warmongering. | ||
+ | * Only a year before the International Space Station will be abandoned, the European and American portions are purchased by Virgin Group, which announces it will modernize the station and expand it – allowing scientific experiments to continue while simultaneously beginning to convert it into a museum piece that will be docked with their space hotel, the Bigelow-constructed CSS Skywalker. By the end of the year, the Russian and Indian sections are separated to form two new space stations, the Russian Mir 2 and Indian Aakashagami. **Bigelow Aerospace**, | ||
+ | * The first **holographic television displays (HTV) **hit the market. They are extremely overpriced and capture a much smaller share of the market than expected. By this time, ATVs have begun to directly compete with HDTV as the standard television format. Also, it is now common for home entertainment systems to be advertised as a unified TV/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2026==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The Congress Party won elections in India and Aknav Mitdeep became the new Prime Minister. The new president swore to uphold India’s UN commitments, | ||
+ | * **Shenzhou 24** landed at Mare Imbrium, just north of Montes Carpatus, making China the second nation to conduct a manned landing on Earth’s moon and the first landing in over 50 years. This landmark achievement is coupled with the emergence of the **Industrial and Commercial Bank of China **as **the world’s largest bank by the end of the year**, surpassing the previous top bank, Royal Bank of Scotland. The seventh largest bank in the world is also Chinese: the Agricultural Bank of China. | ||
+ | * A radical environmentalist group affiliated with the August 23 movement conducted a series of shootings and arsons at gas stations and auto dealerships in the Seattle, Washington area, killing 12 and wounding another 7, including the Deputy Mayor of Seattle. After six months of terror attacks, the cell responsible is tracked down and arrested by the FBI. Further investigation leads to the discovery that the eco-terrorism of the last nine years has been the work of copycats, none directly connected to the original August 23 group but rather inspired by an Internet meme started shortly afterward. | ||
+ | * After almost a full year of assault from Indian warplanes and with the rebels within striking distance of their capital in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s military junta at last collapsed and fled the country. The rebels quickly took the city and celebrated by raising the Indian and 1948 Burmese flags, burning down City Hall, and declaring the restoration of the **Union of Burma**. A new interim government was established in Rangoon that promised direct democratic elections would be held within one year. | ||
+ | * The American Medical Association reports that one in four organ transplants in the United States use organs grown from the patient’s own stem cells. It is also reported that as many as 15% of Americans have had voluntary replacement of organs with prosthetics. Commonly replaced: the inner ear, cornea or entire eye, kidneys, lungs, and liver. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2027==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The World Wildlife Fund announces that the **Mountain Gorilla is extinct in the wild**, blaming environmental degradation and war for the travesty. The species now only exists in zoos and wildlife preserves outside Africa. Later in the year, the East African Community and African Union announce plans to breed Mountain Gorillas and reintroduce them into the wild by 2040. | ||
+ | * After several years of further negotiation, | ||
+ | * More than a year after its creation, the **UN Mission in Zimbabwe (UNMZ)** was finally deployed to reinforce the new African Union peacekeeping force. The peacekeepers met strong resistance from the nationalist faction, which began constant attacks against UN convoys and camps. | ||
+ | * The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped sharply after Wal-Mart posted a fourth straight quarter of losses in the face of stiff competition from a Chinese competitor, Brilliance retail stores, meanwhile Cheung Kong Group announced that it would purchase 3M. The Republican White House and Democratic Congress blamed each other for the failure to improve economic growth and help American businesses, but little progress was made in solving the problem. | ||
+ | * This year was the **coldest Saharan summer on record**, with the temperatures never exceeding 99o F. This summer was also marginally wetter in the extreme southern and northern desert, although not significantly more than average. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2028==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * In the closest election since 2000, the Democratic Party won the White House and a majority in both houses of Congress. The Republican loss was due to a perceived failure to improve the economy or prevent America’s economic and political influence from waning. The new president, Tom Gallagher of Colorado, made maintaining America’s slim economic lead over China and India a priority, as well as building closer relationships with both rising powers. | ||
+ | * On the 20th anniversary of Fatah’s expulsion from the Gaza Strip – seen as the turning point after which it an independent Palestine became possible – **the Palestinian Prime Minister is shot **while sharing a stage with the Israeli Prime Minister and US Secretary of State. Mossad identifies the gunman as a member of Hamas’ Security Forces and blame is immediately placed upon the administration in the Gaza Strip. When Hamas refuses to turn the man responsible over to Palestinian authorities in the West Bank, the Palestinian Army, with air support from the Israelis, enters the Gaza Strip to take him by force. The bloody street fighting lasts for nine weeks. | ||
+ | * On August 1, the Bank of the South, the central bank of the Union of South American Nations, introduced a common currency: **El Sud Peso**. By the end of the year, the domestic currencies of the USAN members are all discontinued. Discussion of a South American Constitution is revisited, although there is debate whether such a move is prudent considering the ongoing conflicts in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru against various drug cartels. | ||
+ | * A major climate change conference is held in Male, Maldives. During the conference, scientists from major universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, and China present evidence suggesting that **global climate change remains a major threat to the world’s ecology**, predicting that, if unabated, the seas may still rise by several inches, while droughts and food shortages may threaten millions of lives by the end of the century. The conference ends with a plea that the major industrial nations sign a new agreement in the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol. | ||
+ | * An August 23 cell is arrested in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania after a mail bomb intended for the CEO of Sunoco explodes at a Post Office in Philadelphia, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2029==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * In a widely televised event, Chinese taikonauts land a manned mission on the asteroid Apophis on April 13th – the first time any person set foot on a celestial body other than the Earth or Moon. The government declares April 13th a national holiday. Late in the year, Bigelow Aerospace’s commercial Moon facility – under construction since 2027 – touches down at Mt. Malapert on the Lunar south pole. NASA is given first dibs as leases two-thirds of the base for ten years, beginning in 2033, in a multi-billion dollar contract. Bigelow Aerospace announces plans to place a second facility at the Lunar north pole. By the end of this year, there are 8 space stations in orbit (3 government-owned, | ||
+ | * Despite President Jarvi choosing not to seek reelection, the European People' | ||
+ | * With 1.4 billion people, **India became the world’s most populous nation**. Scientists and commentators attributed this to falling birth rates in China versus a still growing population in India. News of this stirs up unfounded fears of global overpopulation and a Malthusian catastrophe. | ||
+ | * After two decades of fighting, Mexico began to stabilize following the defeat of the country’s largest drug cartel. Although fighting and corruption persisted, the country began to see sustained economic growth and shrinking crime rate for the first time in years. Many analysts, however, are skeptical and predict Mexico will see a return to fighting within five years. | ||
+ | * After years of on-and-off negotiations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2030==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * According to the International Monetary Fund, **China was now world’s largest national economy**, followed closely by the United States, India, and Japan. If the EU were included, it would be just barely be ahead of China, but could not be expected to remain ahead longer than another five years. These reports spurred conservative and nationalist panic in both Europe and America, leading to anti-Chinese sentiment and diatribes in the media. This would lead to a cooling of Sino-American relations over the next few years. | ||
+ | * Amidst controversy, | ||
+ | * The Indian and Russian space agencies separately announce plans to land missions on the Moon and construct lunar bases before 2035. The United States and China also announced plans for manned missions to Mars before 2050, although some critics questioned the reasoning behind such dangerous expeditions. In America, many scoffed at the announcement, | ||
+ | * Due to budget cuts by the Democratic US Congress, it was expected that the United States would not reach its goal of reducing the number of gasoline-powered cars to less than 40% by 2040. Instead, the current President proposed a plan to increase the total number of hybrids and electric-powered cars to 45% by 2045. | ||
+ | * The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested a central figure in the August 23 movement, John Olsen, the mastermind behind the 2025 Edmonton bombing and many of the other eco-terror attacks. This is seen as a major blow to eco-terrorism as there don’t appear to be anyone nearly as charismatic nor influential amongst the August 23 movement to replace him. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | =====Crisis in the Middle East (2031 – 2040)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The relative peace of the twenties gave way to the turmoil of the thirties. While Mexico’s drug war finally came to an end, South America found itself embroiled in a new upsurge of violence as the Union of South American Nations attempted to crush its own cartels. In Africa, the Fourth Chimurenga reached its climax as India escalated its involvement. But, the main crisis of the decade was in the Middle East as the relative peace following the Iraq War finally caved in and a conservative insurgency sprung up in a band spreading from Lebanon to northern Iraq. This conflict was coupled with a financial crisis that grew into a worldwide recession, striking particularly hard in America and China, with lasting consequences. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2031==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Only hours before he would preside over the trial of an infamous drug lord and international arms dealer, the President of the South American Court of Justice (formerly known as the Andean Community Court of Justice) is assassinated in Quito, Ecuador. Outraged, the South American Parliament creates the **Unión Agencia de Investigación (UAI)**, a pan-continental crime-fighting organization, | ||
+ | * After several decades of accepting status quo by the slimmest margins, Puerto Rico at last votes to become the 51st member of the United States. While most of the country supports and celebrates this move, some conservatives and nationalists vehemently oppose this move. Fifty thousand protestors opposed to Puerto Rico’s admission march on Washington and demonstrate outside Capitol Hill, but the Democratic-controlled Congress votes overwhelmingly in favor. **Puerto Rico officially becomes the 51st state on December 1.** | ||
+ | * China places its newest space lab, Tiangong 7, in orbit around the Moon while outsiders speculate that China is preparing to construct its own permanent Lunar base. Meanwhile, **Bigelow Aerospace begins construction on the largest space station to date**, stringing together three BA-660 transhab modules to build a station more than twice the internal livable space of the International Space Station. Parties interested in leasing portions of the station include the Canadian Space Agency, General Electric, Samsung, and China Petroleum & Chemical. | ||
+ | * Tensions once again flare in the Middle East as fighting breaks out in Syria and Lebanon between conservative militias and reformist factions, caused by rising rising unemployment and a weakening regional economy. Neither the Syrian nor Lebanese governments are able to the contain the situation, leading to gunbattles in the streets of Beirut and Damascus. | ||
+ | * Aknav Mitdeep leads the Congress Party to victory in the Indian elections, winning a second term as Prime Minister. In a nationally broadcast speech before the Indian parliament, **Prime Minister Mitdeep announced that India was now a developed nation** and ready to take its place as a leader of the international community. The comments sparked fears of an ascendant India challenging China’s rise amongst Communist Party leaders in Beijing and amongst some conservatives in the United States fearful that America had lost its status as superpower. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2032==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The conflict between USAN and the drug cartels grew more violent during this year, with car bombings in Lima alone killing 63. South American leaders, surprised at the cartels’ strength and reach, found themselves unprepared to fight what amounted to a continent-wide insurgency and wave of terror. UAI agents raided cartel compounds across the continent, but it quickly became apparent that the young agency had stretched itself too thin too quickly and could not handle the situation. At a summit of South American presidents held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, it was agreed not to submit to the cartels’ terror campaign and instead pledged military support to the UAI. | ||
+ | * **Advanced AI** that mimic human behavior and thought patterns are developed in the US and Japan. These are not sentient programs, but have enough pre-programmed responses to pass off as sentient. By the end of the decade, scientists will have begun experimenting with combining neural supercomputing with pseudo-sentient AI in an attempt to produce truly sentient artificial lifeforms. | ||
+ | * A massive medical breakthrough in New Zealand leads to **a seemingly effective vaccine for all types of HIV**. While successful in animals, many are hopeful that the new vaccine could lead to an end of the HIV pandemic. Preparations for human trials of the vaccine in South Africa and the Phillippines are started by the end of the year. | ||
+ | * President Gallagher, riding on the improving economy and the growing Hispanic vote, was re-elected to a second term in the United States. However, the Republicans – riding on a nativist backlash against the admission of Puerto Rico and nationalist frustration at China’s surpassing of America – made it a close race and ultimately won control of the House of Representatives. | ||
+ | * **North Carolina became the 36th state to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States**. As the Millenial Generation enters their 50s, pressure to guarantee homosexuals equal rights in every state increases dramatically. Many analysts note that the generation entering power is overall more tolerant and liberal than their predecessors – an assertion that disturbs some nationalists, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2033==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Continued efforts by the South American UAI to curtail the drug cartels leads to major fighting in Colombia as the cartels’ private armies clash with UAI agents and local militaries. Intense fighting in the jungles of Colombia and Venezuela leave hundreds dead on both sides. Coupled with continued assassinations and bombings across the continent, support for the campaign dwindles amongst the general public. | ||
+ | * Fighting in Lebanon and Syria spills over into Israel and Palestine, leading to threats from the Israeli government of military retaliation against both countries. The threat of an Israeli incursion creates tension with Iran – Syria’s traditional ally – while the violence threatens to boil over into Jordan. The economic crisis spreads to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Some fear the situation could blossom into a global market downturn, a subject discussed at this year’s G20 summit in Calgary, Canada. | ||
+ | * A full decade after Myanmar’s suspension, ASEAN voted to readmit Burma into their organization. The Secretary-General of ASEAN vowed to make the reconstruction of Burma a primary near future goal of the organization. Some analysts note, however, that although the organization has not sought further integration along the lines of the European Union, it has nonetheless solidified into a single bloc dominated by Indonesia. | ||
+ | * By this year, **nuclear power accounts for over 33% of all energy produced in the United States**. While the nuclear stigma has weakened, it remains a controversial decision by President Gallagher to push for new nuclear plants and to aim for 50% nuclear power by 2063. There is some discussion over whether to consider converting to nuclear fusion – which, while proven possible, is still not in commercial use anywhere in the world. | ||
+ | * Drought strikes central Asia, killing off crops and sparking widespread hunger across many of the ‘stans. Thousands starve in the ensuing famine, sparking a major humanitarian crisis. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2034==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * **Guerillas loyal to the drug cartels seize control of Bogotá**, but the city is retaken by Colombian, Venezuelan, and Peruvian military forces within a month. Within only a few short years, the conflict has escalated to nearly the level of outright civil war. Many outside the continent – particularly in Europe and America – consider the war as such and worry that the conflict could affect South America’s economic growth, which has become a cornerstone of the world economy in the last thirty years. | ||
+ | * Quietly, **India begins sending military advisers and weapons to Bulaweyo to help train the pro-western faction**. At the same time, the Presidents of South Africa, Botswana, and India meet in New Delhi to discuss possible military intervention and a UN Peacekeeping force. During the conference, the existence of Operation Cecil is revealed to the Indian government, which agrees to participate. India’s President also agrees to meet with European, American, Russian, and Chinese leaders to move the UN forward. | ||
+ | * The European People’s Party, riding on a wave of public discontent with President Erstweiler’s handling of the Middle East crisis, wins control of Parliament. They elect hardliner Yan Stoyanov, the former President of Bulgaria, who in a televised address pushes for United Nations intervention in the Middle East. | ||
+ | * In the United States, President Gallgaher’s agenda hits a roadblock as Republicans in Congress block much of his legislation, | ||
+ | * Fringe environmentalists – not connected with August 23 – take six people hostage at a fertility clinic in Des Moines, Iowa, demanding the government shut down all such clinics and stop promoting population growth. Police kill one and arrest three others, but are unable to save one of the hostages. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2035==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Reports released by the US Census Bureau indicated that non-Hispanic white Americans had fallen from a clear majority in 2001 to only a plurality of the current US population. More than one-third of the United States was estimated to be Hispanic – a trend expedited by the admission of Puerto Rico in 2031. Analysts predicted that **by 2050, non-Hispanic white Americans and Hispanic Americans would make up roughly equal portions of the population**. | ||
+ | * **China establishes its first research base at Petrovsky crater** on the far side of the Moon and hypes plans to build a state-of-the-art deep space telescope. Less discussed, however, are plans to research Helium-3 mining techniques for use in domestic nuclear fusion reactors. Within a month of this, India lands its first vymanonauts on the Moon at Mare Nubium, making it the third country to successfully conduct the feat on its own. | ||
+ | * **Artificial food – genetically engineered and lab grown – hits the mass market in significant quantities for the first time.** Although the taste is subtly different from the real thing, it is similar enough to be passible for the general public and considered just as healthy. Within the next fifteen years, the prices of “real” food will increase dramatically while most supermarkets are slowly filled with artificial equivalents. | ||
+ | * The Middle East’s economic crisis spreads, causing markets to fall in Asia, Europe, and America. The United States – its economy only having really recovered from the Great Recession within the last five years – is hit particularly hard. President Gallagher blames Congress’ failure to pass initiatives to speed America’s withdrawl from the oil economy, but his failure to respond substantially to the crisis causes his approval ratings to plummet. | ||
+ | * **The first “holo-room” debuts in Las Vegas.** Combining recent advances in AI with the holographic technology already in use by TVs for the last 10 years, the holo-room is able to place up to two occupants into a virtual space. Although impressive, many point out that the technology is still a far cry from the “holodecks” of the Star Trek franchise. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2036==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * After a car bombing in Gaziantep, Turkey kills 23 people, there are calls in the European government to intervene in the Middle East to stabilize the situation. President Stoyanov pushes for the deployment of EU Rapid Reaction Forces, while the Turkish military is deployed to secure the border with Syria. The debate goes back and forth amongst the national parliaments and in Brussells, increase public discontent. Meanwhile, **the Cape Verde Islands are admitted into the European Union**. Morocco again applies for membership, based upon the precedence of Cape Verde, Turkey, and Cyprus. The European Commission agrees to consider the application, | ||
+ | * Riknav Panmit becomes Prime Minister of India after Bharatiya Janata wins the Indian parliamentary elections, on a platform of continuing India’s political and economic growth as well as rebuilding ties with the United States. Meeting with South African and Botswanan officials, he secretly assures India’s continued support for Operation Cecil and for a swift favorable conclusion to the Fourth Chimurenga in Zimbabwe. | ||
+ | * Republican Senator Alvin Halsey of Utah is elected president, promising to toughen immigration, | ||
+ | * **Google tops the list as the world' | ||
+ | * **Of the year’s top five grossing films, three are Indian and only two are American**. Many sociologists estimate that India may have surpassed the United States as the world’s top exporter of culture, although many dispute that claim, pointing out that the United States still receives more immigrants per year and that most popular culture starts and ends in America. Still, many grant that India’s cultural influence on the world has dramatically increased since 2001. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2037==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The European Council voted in favor of military action in the Middle East, authorizing the Rapid Reaction Forces – the move is supported by a majority of national parliaments. President Stoyanov demands that militants in Lebanon and Syria disarm or face military retaliation. This threat does little to deter fighting – terror attacks in Jordan and Israel leave dozens dead afterward, and the Lebanese military suffers and outright defeat in an attempt to secure Tripoli. | ||
+ | * Turkish military forces cross the border with Syria to skirmish militants, despite the protests of the Syrian government. Syria agrees to allow some Iranian and Iraqi peacekeepers into Syria – in response Israel moves more military units to its norther border, sparking fears that **the Middle East may be on the verge of outright war**. An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council is called and a resolution calling for all parties to draw down is issued on Boxing Day. | ||
+ | * After a nationalist attack leaves 40 peacekeepers dead, India, South Africa, and Botswana begin to expand Operation Cecil – doubling the budget and taking a more aggressive stance toward the war. The United States sends military advisors to assist and secretly provides support from its vast reconnaissance network. | ||
+ | * **The United States filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Bigelow Aerospace**, | ||
+ | * Violence continues to plague the Andean nations of South America, despite dogged efforts by police and military forces. UAI agents, however, have successfully made a dent in drug trafficking – estimating that South America’s illegal drug exports had fallen by 6% since 2027. Behind closed doors, **South American leaders reach out to the United States and Mexico for assistance in fighting the cartels**. The discussions become more public when President Halsey met with Brazillian President Boaz in November. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2038==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * **Mt. Etna in Italy erupts**, forcing the evacuation of Naples and disrupting airline flights across the Mediterranean for several weeks. The city suffers millions of Euros in damages and several thousand are left homeless in the wake of the worst natural disaster in Europe since the 1980 Irpina earthquake. The European Union responds with aid and medical packages to the region, and assists the Italian government in relocating the homeless. | ||
+ | * After decades of growth, **China’s economy has slowed down** – in part to the ongoing worldwide financial downturn, but largely due to China’s aging workforce. Many companies, which once viewed China as the place to look cheap labor, have moved on and now look to ASEAN and East Africa. With the job market shrinking and unemployment starting to rise, China’s middle class – until now mostly complacent – started demanding more accountability from the government and pushing for reforms that would create a more open system. Although Beijing attempts to suppress this by clamping down the Internet and mobile services, but with so many different means of communicating at the peoples’ disposal it finds the task next to impossible. | ||
+ | * Indian manufacturing giant Hindalco Industries, in partnership with the Indian space agency ISRO, inaugurated an **Asteroid Mining Project** with the launch of a prototype spacecraft to a near-earth asteroid. The probe was built using existing technology and based on the design of previous sample return missions by other space agencies. It took two years to make the round trip, successfully locating, extracting, and returning 1 kilogram of platinum to Earth. Following this success, Hindalco announced plans to expand the venture. | ||
+ | * As the technology became more affordable and less invasive, the American Medical Association noted that more and more couples were choosing to genetically modify their children to some degree. The slow rise of these **designer babies** started to make real headlines this year, as some clinics began to offer the option to totally redesign the unborn child’s DNA to remove any undesirable genes. Many, especially amongst religious conservatives, | ||
+ | * After some negotiations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2039==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Americans are outraged after bombing in Quito, Ecuador that killed 11 Americans. President Halsey successfully pushed Congress to support an escalation of US involvement in the South American Drug War and, **by the end of 2040 the United States deployed 1,000 advisors and 10,000 soldiers to Colombia and Peru**. In response, a second car bomb is exploded outside the US Embassy in Bogotá. Meanwhile, Brazilian and Venezuelan military forces besieged a major cartel stronghold on the Venezuela/ | ||
+ | * The United Nations estimated that Earth' | ||
+ | * **Production of the Digital Video Disc ceased on December 31**, having fallen out of use thanks to the rise of non-physical digital formats, streaming internet video, and ubiquitous wi-fi. The fall of the physical storage mediums coincided with the collapse of the traditional media distributors, | ||
+ | * **Yan Stoyanov won a second term as President of the European Commission** as the European People’s Party came out on top in the European parliamentary elections. Despite ongoing military operations in the Middle East, **Irish Taioseach Anderson Kilcline invited the leaders of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Iran to meet with EU leaders in Dublin**. Although the summit agreed that all parties supported the existing governments and defeating the international conservative insurgency, the groundwork for a common front couldn’t be established. Leaders in the United States, Russia, and India criticized the summit for failing to include Israel or Palestine, and for not inviting militia leaders to discuss brokering a peace deal. | ||
+ | * Bigelow Aerospace, after five years of construction at Lagrange Point 1, landed a second, even larger, lunar facility on the rim of Peary crater at the north pole. This facility is bought entirely by Walt Disney Company with the intent to turn it into the world’s first lunar resort, **Disney Space**. Boeing wins exclusive rights to passenger transportation from Kennedy Space Center to Peary crater for ten years, beginning in 2048. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2040==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Fierce fighting ensued in Zimbabwe as pro-western forces, supported covertly by Operation Cecil and – perhaps illegally – by the UNMZ, march on Harare. By the end of the year, the city has been taken and the nationalist leaders were ousted from the country. Despite this, fighting continued with remnants of the nationalist forces and internally within the pro-western faction. | ||
+ | * **NASA announced plans to construct and launch an unmanned probe to the planet Gemini in the Epsilon Eridani system**, the closest known habitable planet to Earth. The plan attracted interest from scientists in Europe and Russia, leading to those respective space agencies joining the project. Although officials aimed to have a probe constructed and launched by 2055, many saw that as unlikely given the unprecedented nature of the mission. As of 2040, two additional habitable worlds had been discovered: one orbiting Bessel’s Star (11.4 lightyears from Earth) and another orbiting Epsilon Indi A (11.8 lightyears from Earth), with a third unconfirmed planet detected around Tau Ceti (11.9 lightyears). The existence of so many habitable planets near Earth has astounded astronomers, | ||
+ | * By the end of 2040, **most homes in the developed world have replaced traditional power cables with wireless electricity broadcasters**, | ||
+ | * In a landslide victory, **Governor Agustin Torres of Arizona won the US presidential election, becoming the first Hispanic American elected to the White House**. The Democrats made gains in the House of Representatives, | ||
+ | * **Discontent with the Communist Party of China’s handling of the economy has led to an organized opposition movement forming**. Based in Hong Kong, the movement organizes flash protests in Shanghai, Beijing, and other major cities. The government continues attempting to suppress the movement, blocking media coverage and arresting protesters, but with the economy still weak, unemployment rising, and discontent widespread, it proves difficult. The opposition doesn’t have it easy either, however: government surveillance is so widespread it makes any organizing outside Hong Kong extremely difficult without the government’s knowledge. | ||
+ | |||
+ | =====The Red Decade (2041 - 2050)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | This decade saw the resolution of several violent | ||
+ | | ||
+ | ====2041==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Despite Riknav | ||
+ | * **The world’s first commercial nuclear fusion power plant is completed** | ||
+ | * A second Middle East summit is held in Dubai, | ||
+ | * **US President Torres sent 2,000 more troops to fight in South America**, | ||
+ | * Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-Eun made a rare appearance in Beijing, accompanied by his eldest son, 25 year-old Kim Jong-Seok - a figure just as reclusive as his father, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2042==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Todd McCaskey of Melbourne, Australia **became | ||
+ | * Confirming a trend noticed over the last couple | ||
+ | * Operation Cecil and India’s heavy | ||
+ | * Satellite data indicated that **by this year, the world’s oceans had risen nearly 11.8 cm (an average rate of 9.1 mm a year)** – less than many had feared 40 years earlier, but still disastrous and putting many Pacific Islands at risk of sinking under the waves by the end of the century. Scientists meeting in Bern, Switzerland applauded efforts in the United States and Europe to bring climate change under control, but called for more effort by India and China to curb their production of greenhouse gases | ||
+ | * **Holstro – also known as Holographically-Enhanced | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2043==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * ISRO, the Indian space agency, lands the first segment | ||
+ | * **The Mariposa Revolution strikes in Cuba**. | ||
+ | * With US, Chinese, and Indian reliance on gasoline | ||
+ | * Brilliance superstore at last surpassed its | ||
+ | * **“Naturalist” groups in the United States held a rally in Washington, DC protesting the designer baby phenomenon** | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2044==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Agustin Torres was easily re-elected | ||
+ | * War weariness took its toll in the European | ||
+ | * A fringe environmentalist takes hostages at a radio station in Dallas and rants over the airwaves against modern | ||
+ | * Marwah Films’ “Between the Assassinations”, | ||
+ | * The East African Federation sponsored a peace | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2045==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Sony debuted the first fully open-air | ||
+ | * Bigelow Aerospace, under contract with Virgin | ||
+ | * A third major Mideast peace conference was held in Doha, Qatar. | ||
+ | * **Protests in China grew violent this year**, | ||
+ | * With over 2,000 Americans killed since deployment, **the United States military found itself engaged in the bloodiest fighting since the Iraq War** while besieging hardened cartel | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2046==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * After the closest and most contentious election | ||
+ | * Amidst protest from conservatives and | ||
+ | * With the war in South America still raging and the President’s approval rating still hovering in the mid-to-low 40s, **the Republican Party made huge gains in the mid-term elections** | ||
+ | * **Bigelow Aerospace ended nine years of legal | ||
+ | * Scandal struck the astronomical community as it was revealed that the team behind the discoveries of habitable | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2047==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Fifty years after the turnover from the United | ||
+ | * With United Russia’s popularity in sharp decline | ||
+ | * Hurricane Leonard raked the US Eastern Seaboard | ||
+ | * Over the course of the year, casualties | ||
+ | * Thanks in large part to President Torres' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2048==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Despite President Torres' | ||
+ | * In a dramatic series of events, Kim Jong-Eun' | ||
+ | * **Walt Disney Co.'s lunar resort, Disney Space, | ||
+ | * **East Africa, Mexico, and Indonesia are flagged as rising powers** | ||
+ | * Congolese warlord Isaac Nsungu | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2049==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The European Socialists maintained control of Parliament, winning President Walterssen | ||
+ | * The **US Supreme Court heard Altamira v. | ||
+ | * Doctors in South America came forward with evidence **that | ||
+ | * A series of carbombings strike Delhi and Jaipur, | ||
+ | * In a national address, the Chinese Premier | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2050==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * By the end of this year**, there are between 100 and 150 people in Space at any given time**. | ||
+ | * **Holstro’s greatest hit, " | ||
+ | * **Chinese officials unveiled plans to land the first humans on Mars in 2060**, | ||
+ | * President McCain met with Russian and European | ||
+ | * President George Kawamba of the East African | ||
+ | |||
+ | =====Chinese Democracy (2051 - 2060)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The sixth decade of the 21st century was a time of dramatic change across the world. In China, the world' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2051==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * A team of neurologists and engineers at Northwestern University in Illinois, led by Dr. Janice Bednarz, became **the first to digitally record a human dream**. Using a Functional MRI, they analyzed the electrical pulses passing through a dreaming subject' | ||
+ | * Guests and employees exploring the terrain around the Disney Space resort discovered a maze of lava tubes running underneath the facility. Walt Disney Co. announced plans to develop part of these tubes into a below-ground expansion for Disney Space. Financial analysts question this, considering that Disney Space has yet to turn a profit. | ||
+ | * A coalition of led by the Indian National Congress wrested control of the Indian Parliament away from the Left Front, electing Karan Kaur prime minister. Among Prime Minister Kaur's first acts as PM was to meet with President Kawamba of the East African Federation in New Delhi to discuss India' | ||
+ | * In preparation for the first round of Provincial elections**, | ||
+ | * Discussion at this year's meeting of African leaders revolves around the upswing in violence in Congo-Kinshasa, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2052==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * A major climate change conference was held in Naples, Italy. The biggest revelation was the dramatically smaller effects climate change has had versus the initial expectations the scientific community predicted at the start of the century: **an estimated 19,500+ species have gone extinct (as opposed to the predicted 1 million) and sea levels have risen 47.3 cm (much lower than the 100 cm some predicted).** However, they still upheld the findings of the 2028 conference and once again asserted that the disaster laid ahead unless the world further curtailed the release of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. By this year, most coastal areas of the world now suffer serious and frequent flooding as a result of the higher seas, forcing wealthier countries to take preventative measures and poorer countries to move some critical infrastructures further inland. | ||
+ | * Officials at the Chinese space agency quietly pushed back their Mars mission by three years, due to delays in the design of their interplanetary spacecraft. In the meantime, they announced plans to expand the Helium-3 mining project at Mare Moscoviense outpost in hopes to mine ten years' worth of fuel before the completion of the PRC's first second-generation nuclear fusion power plant at Shanghai in 2055 - the move would increase the base population from three to nine Taikonauts. | ||
+ | * A Montenegrin cargo ship en route to Kolkata, India is hijacked by Pakistani pirates in the Arabian Sea, highlighting the collapse of government authority in the country outside Islamabad and Lahore since the Afghani-Pakistan War in 2024. The ship's crew is rescued by an Indian destroyer, and the incident leads to a meeting between Pakistani President Ghuman and Prime Minister Kaur. The Pakistanis agree to allow the Indian Navy to patrol Pakistani waters for pirates, in exchange for Indian foreign aid and military support against warlords in the western provinces. Although the Kashmir issue has not been resolved, many in India at least see this as **the ceremonial end to the Indo-Pakistani rivalry**. | ||
+ | * President McCain faced a tough re-election, | ||
+ | * In the fifth referendum held on the issue since 1972, **Norway at last voted to join the European Union**. President Walterssen and European leaders decided to fast-track Norway, being that it was clearly qualified, and aimed for them to ascend between 2054 and 2056. Negotiations with Morocco, however, have been moving far more slowly, but it was hoped they would be ready in time to participate in the 2059 European elections. Meanwhile, leaders in Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia issued statements urging the EU to make a decision on whether or not to accept their applications. Many conservatives across the Union maintained their opposition to Morocco' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2053==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Engineers in Japan debut **the first robot that is visually indistinguishable from a living human**, in an effort to increase the user-friendliness of machines in the world' | ||
+ | * **China holds its first direct-elections on the Provincial level since the formation of the People' | ||
+ | * After 18 years in office, **Southern Sudan' | ||
+ | * Having driven out government forces and unified Katanga under his leadership, Issac Nsungu' | ||
+ | * After decades of little funding, cancelled projects, and failed missions, **a robotic NASA probe confirms the existence of microbial life living in a vast undersea ocean under the surface of Jupiter' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2054==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * **India and East Africa agreed to form a joint anti-piracy taskforce** to tackle the resurgence of piracy in the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean in the last 15 years. As apart of the agreement, and an addendum to the 2051 weapons deal, India agrees to co-finance East Africa' | ||
+ | * Mounting opposition to Morocco' | ||
+ | * Violet Republicans and Social Conservatives battled each other over the issue of designer babies in the United States when Speaker of the House Aiesha Noble and Senate majority leader Donald Krycek attempted to pass a Federal ban on human genetic modification despite opposition from President McCain. The months-long debate forced a wedge through the Republican Party and saw approval ratings for both Congress and the President plummet. From this point on**, President McCain was seen as a lame duck president** and having done permanent damage to the unity of the Republican Party. | ||
+ | * Efforts by the African Union and conservation groups have led to small populations of the Mountain Gorilla and Northern White Rhinoceros to be reestablished in Tanzania, East Africa. While it will take decades, if not centuries, to restore the species fully, it is hoped that sustained efforts will help bring them back from the brink of total extinction. | ||
+ | * After 16 years, Hindalco Industries breaks their successful Asteroid Mining Project away as a semi-independent subsidiary, the Indian Space Development Corporation (ISDC), operating over 25 unmanned mining and retrieval satellites, a space station leased from Bigelow Aerospace, and 25,000 employees based out of Hyderabad**. ISDC has one of the largest and most profitable Initial Public Offerings in the history of the Bombay Stock Exchange**, with Hindalco maintaining its position as majority stock holder, and soon begins to expand its operation to include launch sites in the Pacific and targets larger asteroids in the Asteroid Belt estimated to contain over $900 billion worth of platinum, nickel, and iron. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2055==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * A dispute over the ownership of oil fields in the Aral Desert leads to **a short border war between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan**. Kazakh forces, using Chinese-built equipment and operating with Chinese support, launch a blitzkrieg-style attack on their southern neighbor. The United Nations Security Council issues several resolutions calling for hostilities to cease, but the war only ends when China, India, and Russia negotiate a ceasefire three weeks later. After intense aerial bombing of Tashkent, military bases, and industrial centers by Kazakh UCAVs, the war ends in an effective Kazakh victory: the Kazakh Army seizing and occupying the southern half of the Aral Desert despite Uzbek protests. Much of the oil will eventually be sold to Sinopec, the Chinese oil giant. | ||
+ | * **Bigelow Aerospace landed its fourth Lunar facility at Tsiolkovsky crater**, the first private facility on the Moon's far side. The entire facility is purchased by Exelon Corporation, | ||
+ | * Dr. Kandarp Patel, chief of genetic engineering at Massachusetts General Hospital and the top "baby designer" | ||
+ | * NASA announced that it had decided to use a combination of Solar Sails and Nuclear Pulse Propulsion as the propulsion system for the world' | ||
+ | * EU President Ferhatović found himself embroiled in a vicious war of words with Europe' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2056==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * China holds the second round of direct Provincial elections in Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Qinghai, Anhui, and Shanghai. Although **the Communist Party still maintained control over more Provincial assemblies than they lost**, it was a narrower victory: 4 go to the CCP, 3 to the Democratic Party, and 1 to the Kuomintang. The better turnout by the opposition this year convinces many that the next round of elections in 2059 could be where they make up for the ground lost to the CCP, which so far has won well over half of all the seats up for election. | ||
+ | * Unhappy with the political deadlock in Washington since the failed designer baby ban, the American public turned away from Republican rule and elected a Democrat, Mark Borgnino of New Jersey - a veteran of the South American Drug War and one-term Governor. The Democrats also won narrow control of the House of Representatives, | ||
+ | * Bharatiya Janata won control of the Indian Parliament and elected former Vijay Kapoor, the former Trade minister under Manika Sadhwani, to become the next Prime Minister. Mr. Kapoor' | ||
+ | * Sony, Samsung, LG, Samtel and Vestel announced a new line of open-air holographic displays. Thanks to an industry-wide effort to take the open-air hologram technology and miniaturize it, by the end of the year thousands of homes across the world had displays capable of projecting high-resolution images directly into the air. These devices have two settings: a flat 2D plane that mimics the traditional television screen and a fully 3D mode that projects images recorded with special holographic cameras. The 2D setting is included since the immense cost of recording holograms - requiring at least two separate cameras, but for the full effect could use over a dozen - has proven too prohibitive for most broadcasters and filmmakers. Thirty years after Holographic TVs came on the market, **only sporting events and certain niche films are recorded holographically**, | ||
+ | * India-based Reliance Retail topped Wal-Mart this year to become the world' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2057==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Issac Nsungu and the ALCL marched into Kinshasa unopposed as Congo-Kinshasa' | ||
+ | * After several years of delays, the Chinese space agency launched its Mars base in a single piece, unmanned. The facility, capable of supporting up to nine Taikonauts for well over a year without resupply, would be the first step toward the first manned mission to Mars - now scheduled to launch in 2061. Despite pressure from governments and the public, no other space agency announced plans for their own manned missions to Mars - NASA's plan had been a victim of GOP infighting during the McCain administration, | ||
+ | * Two separate teams of geneticists, | ||
+ | * **The European Union celebrates 100 years since the Treaties of Rome**, accepted as the de facto foundation of the world' | ||
+ | * Changing weather patterns across the world has led to a lengthening of the Siberian summer by several weeks since 2001. The longer period of warmer weather has thrown the entire ecosystem in the region into chaos, not just in Russia but across the northern rim, and has led to severe population drops amongst arctic wildlife. The Russian government, concerned, steps up conservation efforts in Siberia. Simultaneously, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2058==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * **AVM Productions released the epic film "The Betrothed" | ||
+ | * Aiko Fujiwara of Yokosuka, Japan became **the first human in history to successfully undergo the transplant of a brain into a fully prosthetic body**. Ms. Fujiwara suffered from Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy, a condition that weakened the heart and skeletal muscles, and even with modern medical science should was forced into a wheelchair by age 20. Her family consulted with doctors across the country until it was decided to try a radical new procedure: removing her brain entirely from its original afflicted body and placing it in a fully artificial one. While such a procedure had been performed before in lab mice, and some people have had over 75% of their bodies slowly converted to prosthetics, | ||
+ | * Amidst international protest, **the Chinese government officially barred the National Democratic Party of Tibet from participating in the 2059 Tibetan elections**, | ||
+ | * Years of division amongst Arab League members ended with a disastrous meeting in Tunis this year when the League found itself hopelessly divided amongst pro-European and pan-Arab factions. Pro-European states, led by Morocco, Tunisia, and Lebanon, endorsed pushing to follow Morocco' | ||
+ | * By Q4 2058, the United States and Union of South American Nations have recovered from the 2035-36 Recession and the South American Drug War. The booming economy sees unemployment rates at their lowest point in 20 years and Wall Street is trading at its highest since before the Great Recession. This hemisphere-wide economic boom is spurred along by the expansion of the Mexican economy and growing trade connections amongst the Americas. Elsewhere, much of the world has already recovered from recession, although certain regions - Russia, China, and the Middle East - remain sluggish. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2059==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * China held its third round of provincial direct-elections in Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, Hainan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Chongqing, and Tibet. While the Democratic Party was more successful in this round than ever before, securing control of their base in southern China, they still ended up winning control of six assemblies while the Communist Party held onto the other eight, including Tibet. Protests by supporters of the National Democratic Party of Tibet led to violent crackdowns and some rioting in Lhasa, but overall the third round went as smoothly as the first two. With the end of this round, all of China' | ||
+ | * Engineers at Australian National University' | ||
+ | * As the European People' | ||
+ | * Despite years of opposition rule, flipping between the Communists and Liberal Democrats, the Russian economy has remained sluggish to stagnant and the government has racked up trillions in debt. By this year, the largest holders of Russian debt are Bank Indonesia and the ASEAN Central Bank, helping bankroll Indonesia' | ||
+ | * With support from the African Union, Central African Republic, and East African Federation, the Congolese military led by **General Issac Nsungu defeated the Lord's Resistance Army at the Battle of Aru** in March, crushing the last organized resistance to government rule in Congo-Kinshasa. From this point on, only isolated warlords and criminal kingpins opposed the Congolese government and military. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2060==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * In spite of the good economy, President Borgnino faced a tough re-election campaign against a reinvigorated Republican Party now led by former Speaker of the House Aiesha Noble of North Carolina. Ms. Noble brought the issues of genetic modification and designer babies to the forefront, casting herself as the moral defender of children' | ||
+ | * Researchers in China and Mongolia, after several years of surveys and satellite imaging, have determined that **the Gobi Desert has grown by as much as 10% since 2001** and, at the current rate, could be nearly 20% larger by 2100. The desertification of the region is blamed in part on climate change and in part on China' | ||
+ | * By the year's end, the Congolese military had secured control over the entire country and the war - now commonly called the **Congolese Reunification War** - was declared over after 19 years. Issac Nsungu was hailed as a national hero for finally ending the country' | ||
+ | * **Prime Minister Kapoor convened a regional conference on piracy in Thiruvananthapuram** to discuss the progress of anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean after a high-profile raid by Somali pirates on the resort community at Praslin Island in the Seychelles left 10 vacationers dead. Although pirate activity has dropped in the last 8 years, the pirates that do remain are speedy, elusive, heavily armed and deadly. In an effort to contain and crush piracy in the region once and for all, leaders agreed to form a new regional organization dedicated to fighting piracy and promoting security: the rather unoriginally named **Indian Ocean Security Treaty Organization (ISTO)**. The agreement is signed by India, East Africa, Madagascar, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, Mozambique, South Africa, Somalia, Pakistan, Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Indonesia, and Australia. | ||
+ | * The World Health Organization released a report noting **that the average life expectancy was now 81.2 years**, nearly 15 years longer than at the start of the century, a feat attributed to **the eradication of several of the world' | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | =====The Purity Movement (2061 – 2070)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | After several decades of growing opposition toward the designer baby practice in the developed world, the social issue reached a political climax with the presidency of Aiesha Noble and rise to power of the so-called " | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2061==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * As expected, **Issac Nsungu crushed incumbent ****François**** Tsonga and was elected President of Congo-Kinshasa** in a landslide 4-to-1 victory. In his inaugural speech, President Nsungu struck a nationalist and populist tone, promising to eliminate unemployment, | ||
+ | * Following a six-month voyage across 60 million miles of interplanetary space, **Colonel Lin Sung Chen became the first human to set foot on Mars**. The event was the most widely broadcasted and watched since the Chinese landing on the asteroid Apophis over thirty years earlier, netting well over 2 billion viewers worldwide. Colonel Chen became the first commander of the Chinese Mars Base, which had been launched in 2057 and landed unmanned at the foot of Olympus Mons in 2058. The facility was designed to be largely self-sufficient, | ||
+ | * **A mail bomb exploded at a designer baby clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, killing a nurse and three others.** No person or group claimed responsibility for the attack, but police suspected the culprit was an “anti-genie” activist. The attack was the worst violence yet as anti-genie furor swept across the United States. The Department of Justice released a report in November 2061 noting a dramatic increase in reports of assaults, batteries, and harassment against genetic doctors, the parents of designer babies, or against Genies themselves over the last 10 years. | ||
+ | * **Vijay Kapoor led Bharatiya Janata to victory in India’s parliamentary elections**, | ||
+ | * Musicians Ambrosio Sepúlveda, Hector Rosales, and Saturnino Fierro appeared on stage for the first time as a Muika-Indio band, **The Osrams**, in Guatemala City. The band is popular, their singles quickly reach the top 20 music downloads in Latin America and top 500 in the world. After signing with an agent, The Osrams go on a successful tour across Guatemala and later an even more successful tour across Central America. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2062==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Anti-Genie activists set fire to the designer baby clinic at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Police eventually arrest two men in connection to the arson, but the criminals are treated by some activists as heroes to their cause and standing up for “moral purity”. The media will eventually label the entirety of anti-genie activism the “Purity Movement”. Meanwhile, President Noble signed a controversial law** banning federal funding for any hospital or medical center that performs “unnecessary” genetic modification on an unborn child**, | ||
+ | * **Russian aerospace firm RSC Energia, Bigelow Aerospace’s largest competitor, began construction on its first lunar facility.** The outpost, built on behalf of Starwood Hotels at Mons Hadley (near the landing site of Apollo 15), would become the Moon’s third resort and would rival Disney Space in size. Rather than use expandable modules as Bigelow Aerospace has used, RSC Energia has continued use of the hard-bodied modular design it original developed for the first space stations in the 1970s and 1980s. This has proved more expensive and thus allowed Bigelow Aerospace to take a tremendous lead in space construction and real estate. Newer and lighter alloys developed over the last 60 years and the restrictions placed on Bigelow following the US anti-trust lawsuit, however, have allowed RSC Energia to catch up. Construction on the facility, dubbed “New Montana” by Starwood, would be completed in 2069. | ||
+ | * **The Coalition for National Unity and Peace (CNUP) was established in the Republic of Somalia** by three powerful clans in southern Somalia and formed an alliance with the Somali Federal Government. With the Somali Civil War now having stumbled along in fits and starts for over 70 years (to the point where some scholars question whether or not it should still be considered a single “war” rather than a period of internal conflict), the country is a shamble of fiefdoms and militias uncontrolled by the lame duck Federal Government in Mogadishu besides the autonomous province Puntland in the north. The CNUP’s aligning with Mogadishu marks a shift in the ongoing conflict, for the first time bringing Federal allies in control of more than 2/3 of southern Somalia. Although some applaud the move, many point out that the CNUP’s members are not champions of peace or democracy and have committed countless war crimes themselves. | ||
+ | * Congolese President Nsungu signed a trade agreement and weapons deal with the Chinese government, granting Chinese corporations access to the Congo’s cobalt and coltan mines in exchange for modern Chinese firearms, UMVs (unmanned military vehicles), and funding to help Congo-Kinshasa expand domestic infrastructure. **President Nsungu also announced his intention to bet the country’s economic future on expanding the country’s exploitation of its mineral wealth**, greenlighting 50% increased production of cobalt, tin, copper, lumber and diamond exports by 2075. While these moves are supported domestically, | ||
+ | * After decades of lagging behind, **Google buys out former computer giant Microsoft**. The deal is condemned by industry analysts the world over as the United States granting Google an effective monopoly over the computer industry, which is already heavily dominated by Google’s search engine, Google' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2063==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Puerto Rico, Florida, and South Carolina become the first states to pass new laws allowing employers to refuse hiring Genies over an equally-qualified naturally-born American. The move is very popular amongst the working class, who largely believe that Genies are “genetically superior” to natural-born humans and thus have an inherent advantage that, if not suppressed, would grant them an unfair and artificial advantage over most Americans. While doctors dispute this claim as false fear mongering, the growing Purity Movement ignores them. **By 2080, 26 states will have legalized discrimination against Genies in some way.** | ||
+ | * A military coup de’tat by Admiral Marti Panadero ousted the Equatorial Guinean government, suspended the constitution, | ||
+ | * The single “Amor, Amor es la Dēvatā de mis Sapanē” (Love, Love is the God of my Dreams) by The Osrams becomes the most downloaded song in the world, selling over 20 million digital downloads and registering over 50 million trades in the first 24 hours. The single was the first released following the band’s first performance in the United States at Estadio ICICI in San Juan. The Osrams are catapulted to worldwide fame, going on a tour of the United States and Canada in 2063-64 and a world tour in 2065-66. | ||
+ | * Well over a century since the Korean War, **North Korea and Japan at last restore normalized relations** as apart of efforts by North Korean leader Kim Jun-Seok to repair his country' | ||
+ | * High unemployment and public unrest in central Asia has caused the formation of an insurgency in Tajikistan. While the conflict has remained outside the attention of the world’s media for the last eleven years, it rockets into full-focus for a short time after a series of deadly **terror attacks in the Chinese border town of Kashi, Xinjiang leave 31 dead and 74 wounded**. The Tajik militant group, Tajik Democratic Worker’s Front, claimed responsibility through its website and the Chinese military responded with cruise missile attacks on known TDWF camps, including a strike on an apartment building in Dushanbe. While the Tajikistan government is furious at the unilateral move and cuts all ties with China, the Chinese public applauds the military’s quick response. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2064==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * On January 1, **Norway was officially admitted as the 38th state of the European Union**, in time to participate in parliamentary elections. Mary O’Gorman led the European Socialists to victory and was reelected to a second term as President of the European Commission, campaigning on her work to revitalize Europe’s domestic economy and her promise to finish negotiations with Morocco: the European Commission now anticipated that ascension talks would be completed in time for the 2069 elections. While the issue continued to be divisive across the Union, it had become divisive in Morocco as well: as many as 41% of Moroccans polled by Reuters were now opposed to membership. | ||
+ | * Professional swimmer Walt Altman sued the United States Olympic Committee after he learned he was cut from the US Olympic team because he was a Genie. The story made national headlines, highlighting the divide amongst Americans over the Genie and designer baby issue. Opponents of genetic modification supported the USOC’s decision, arguing that allowing men and women like Mr. Altman into the Olympics would be as tarnishing as allowing steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Supporters, however, claimed that such blatant discrimination was un-American and violated the Civil Rights Act. The lawsuit would linger through the summer and Altman’s supporters traveled all the way to Qatar to protest at the Doha Olympics. Ultimately, however, the courts sided with the USOC: under the new rules put in place by Colorado to " | ||
+ | * Although popular with most Republicans, | ||
+ | * The ongoing unrest and insurgencies in Central Asia - particularly in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan - become major topics in the developed world' | ||
+ | * The first new mines greenlit under President Nsungu' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2065==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Sociologists from the University of Mumbai, following a ten-year study, released a controversial report that found that **about half of all Indians still practiced the Caste System**, despite the system having been legally banned for well over a century. Some criticized the University for allowing the paper to be published and accused the scientists involved of tarnishing India' | ||
+ | * With only three years left before the first direct elections to the National People' | ||
+ | * **The European Union and the United States each filed anti-trust lawsuits against Google Inc**., accusing the corporation of have formed a virtual monopoly over computer operating systems and software after purchasing Microsoft and having systematically phased out their competitor' | ||
+ | * Terrorists set off bombs in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 31 people and injuring another 86. The group responsible, | ||
+ | * RSC Energia and the Indian Space Development Corporation broke ground on the Moon's first titanium mining facility at Sinus Iridium. The new Lunar outpost was the beginning of an expansion at ISDC away from their successful asteroid mining program to other forms of space resource exploitation - besides Lunar titanium, ISDC was also considering joining the rush to mine Helium-3 and was sponsoring a study by the Indian Institutes of Technology in developing space-based solar power. ISDC's Sinus Iridium mining facility was planned to begin operations by 2069. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2066==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * In a story that gripped the continent and dominated headlines for weeks, Milena Mulawka, a seven-year old designer baby was kidnapped from her home in Warsaw. Responsibility for the kidnapping was soon claimed by an anti-genie group, Armii Czystość Duszy (Army for the Purity of Soul), which released videos of the girl in captivity on Google Video. Despite an EU-wide search by police and efforts to get more information, | ||
+ | * After several scandals embarrassed key senior Bharatiya Janata members, the Indian National Congress took advantage of the situation and managed to win a plurality in this year's Parliamentary elections. After negotiations, | ||
+ | * Twenty-six years after the project was first announced, **the world' | ||
+ | * Issac Nsungu was reelected President of Congo-Kinshasa with an overwhelming 68%, despite critics blasting his environmentally destructive modernization campaign and his support for dictators in Equatorial Guinea and Southern Sudan. While on a state visit to South Africa, Nsungu countered some critics in the East African media by pointing out Congo' | ||
+ | * **The World Health Organization declared Measles was extinct in the wild on December 1**, after decades of effort by doctors around the world. Sights were now set on wiping out Malaria, some hoped by as soon as 2076, and some even predicted that HIV could be eliminated by the end of the century. Unfortunately, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2067==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The Chinese National Space Administration announced plans to expand the outpost at Petrovsky crater, doubling the number of Taikonauts stationed and constructing the Moon's first mass driver to help speed up exports of Helium-3 from China' | ||
+ | * International pop music phenomenon, The Osrams, released their most successful album, El Bētā del Sol Sāmpa. The album was #1 on charts in Latin America, the United States, Europe, and India for 41 weeks, becoming **the best-selling (and most-downloaded) album of the 21st Century to date**. Saturnino Fierro, seen by many as the band's superstar, would win the majority of praise for the album' | ||
+ | * A legal challenge against Indiana' | ||
+ | * Chinese-Russian relations sour as conflict in Central Asia worsens and refugees flood into Kazakhstan and western China. In an effort to assist, as well as to regain some influence lost to Beijing over the last couple of generations, | ||
+ | * **East Africa rolls out its first aircraft carrier**, the FNS //Kagame//, at its main shipyard in Mombassa. Although hailed as a national success, and by observers as another sign East Africa is a rising power, the ship was not primarily built by or in East Africa: the design is based on the Indian Navy's Vikrant class, partially built by Cochin Shipyard in Kochi, and funded by the Indian government as apart of a deal struck in 2054 between the two governments. The FNS //Kagame// joins the East African Navy's older FNS //Kikwete// (formerly the Italian Navy's light carrier //Giuseppe Garibaldi// | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2068==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * The first direct elections to the National People' | ||
+ | * In the United States, the Democratic Party completely imploded during the primary season as President De Leon faced two serious primary challenges from Oregon governor Ida Dale and Minnesota senator Hugh Sharpe, resulting in a spectacular mudslinging contest that resulted in a disastrous Democratic convention. In the end, Hugh Sharpe was selected as the candidate. Unfortunately, | ||
+ | * Supporters of Issac Nsungu successfully campaigned for and passed a referendum amending the Congolese constitution to remove the two-term limit on Presidential administrations, | ||
+ | * Indian PM Drupada Thakur met with Iranian President Ramtin Masoud in Esfahan to discuss the wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan, | ||
+ | * **Doctors in Paraguay identified a deadly new strain of Influenza in Filadelfia and Loma Plata**, in Boquerón Department on November 17. The disease is highly resistant to anti-viral medications and has effects similar to the infamous Spanish Flu of 1918, but is of the H3N2 variety (making it a descendant of the H3N2 Asian Flu). Despite government efforts to contain the outbreak, by the end of the year between 6000 and 12,100 people died of the “LP Flu” in Paraguay alone. Doctors at the World Health Organization fear that the disease could turn into the world’s worst pandemic to date and begin advising governments around the world to begin stocking up on anti-influenza medication and preparing for a potential worst-case scenario. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2069==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Thirty-three years after applying to join, **Morocco at last became the first wholly non-European state to join the European Union on January 1**. While Morocco’s ascension is celebrated by many, January 1 is also marked by massive protests in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin by conservatives and nationalists strongly opposed to expansion beyond continental Europe. The ascension – and cries by some to expel Morocco, Cape Verde, and Turkey – became a major talking point in this year’s parliamentary elections, but ultimately the European Socialists won thanks to the booming economy over the last five years. Former Italian Prime Minister Alessandro Russo was elected President of the European Commission, promising to maintain Europe’s growing prosperity and outreach to neighbors in North Africa. | ||
+ | * By February 2069, more than 190,000 cases of LP Influenza had been reported worldwide with a fatality rate of 23.1%, leading the World Health Organization to declare a Pandemic. Governments across the world issued health alerts and proceeded through perhaps the best coordinated response to a global health crisis in history to date. Unfortunately, | ||
+ | * Markets started growing erratic early this year as analysts began predicting that Russia, after decades of failed economic policies, was on the verge of economic collapse. Although there were some efforts to ease these worries, a combination of ongoing factors - increasing food prices in Asia and the worsening LP Flu Pandemic, among others - drove stock prices down throughout the first half of the year. The situation at last reached the breaking point when **Russia did indeed default on its debts in Q3 2069**, sending a gradual decline into a sharp fall and definitively ending the long bull market the world economy had enjoyed since the late 2050s. Stocks rebounded in Q4 when the Russian government agreed to an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund and Europe, but worries abounded that **not enough had been done to prevent a worldwide recession**. | ||
+ | * Sydney Hawke, a prominent Hollywood socialite, and her live-in boyfriend, Marc Singh, were found brutally murdered in their Beverly Hills home. Police quickly arrested a suspect as he attempted to flee the country: a deranged man who had taken it upon himself to " | ||
+ | * The Chinese interplanetary spaceship Huoxing 3 arrives in orbit around Mars, setting a new record: **the longest period to date without resupply from Earth by any off-world outpost** (30 months, 4 days). With any potential challenges by rivals having been scuttled over the last couple decades, China became the uncontested leader in scientific space exploration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2070==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * Fifty-thousand demonstrators, | ||
+ | * The Coalition for National Unity and Peace, now the dominant power in southern Somalia after years of cooperating with Federal and Puntland leaders in suppressing anti-government forces, is elected to a majority in Parliament. The elections are marred by accusations of ballot stuffing and intimidation by CNUP fighters. The elections are decried as fraudulent by international election monitors, but notably not by the African Union - it is suspected this was at the urging of Congolese leader Issac Nsungu, who has proven to be very influential amongst African leaders. | ||
+ | * Although the American Purity Movement has been the most prominent, similar movements have existed across the world since the 2040s. By this year, over 60 countries had passed laws banning human genetic modification, | ||
+ | * **Bengali terrorists carried out a major terror attack in Kolkata, India**, simultaneously setting off car bombs at two bus stations before launching an armed attack on Dakshineswar Kali Temple that results in a hostage crisis, defused only when the Indian military storms the temple and kills the terrorists. The attacks, the most horrific in India in over 40 years, leave nearly 100 dead and hundreds more injured. The attack is claimed by the Bangladeshi People' | ||
+ | * By December 2070, there were between 250 and 300 people in space at any given time living, working, and sight-seeing either aboard the 21 space stations (of which only five are not privately-owned) or 10 Lunar outposts (an 11th outpost was landed by Bigelow Aerospace at Planck crater late in the year). However, along with the expansion of human activity in low-Earth orbit, so has the amount of orbiting debris skyrocketed. Although efforts have been taken to minimize space junk and maximize the durability of spacecraft in the event of a collision, some worry that **not enough effort has been made to prevent a Kessler syndrome** from occurring. To that end, the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs convened a major "outer space pollution" | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | =====Dark Times (2071 - 2080)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The social strife of the 2060s gave way to the economic collapse and violence of the 2070s. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2071==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Despite | ||
+ | * After six years of legal battles, **Google | ||
+ | * The first episode of **“Semalam Kita…?” (Last Night We…? | ||
+ | * Early in the year, the Indian military | ||
+ | * While attending a Republican campaign rally in Florida,** US President Aiesha Noble was shot twice by Lincoln Seamus | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2072==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * With Acting President Brutsch out of the race, the Republican Party found itself without a strong | ||
+ | * Despite | ||
+ | * On Tuesday July 5, the US National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the **United** **States had been in a depression since July 2071**. | ||
+ | * After almost 11 years, the world’s top-downloaded Muika-Indio band, **The Osrams, broke up** when Saturnino | ||
+ | * Researchers | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2073==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Thanks | ||
+ | * After apparently bottoming out in Q1 2073, **the world economy began showing | ||
+ | * Congolese-Angolan | ||
+ | * In an effort to reverse their economic | ||
+ | * There is an upsurge of violence in the United States after the latest attempt to challenge discriminatory | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2074==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Following | ||
+ | * Delayed | ||
+ | * Reports | ||
+ | * Researchers | ||
+ | * A decade after being denied entry onto the U.S. Olympic Team, Genie Rights | ||
+ | |||
+ | | ||
+ | ====2075==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * With **the sea level 68.3 cm higher than in 2001**, many areas of the world are now suffering from regular flooding. Wealthier countries have been able to handle the rising tides by installing seawalls and other barriers meant to regulate the sea level near important harbors. Smaller, countries, however have had a more difficult time and instead have lost territory. In the Maldives, the problem has resulted in mass emigration to India and Australia, resulting in as much as a 50% reduction in population in the last 30 years. Some analysts predict that by the end of the century, the Maldives will have fewer than 20% of its current population. | ||
+ | * The **South Sudanese military, with air support from Congo-Kinshasa' | ||
+ | * The film " | ||
+ | * A pipe bomb exploded outside the home of Purity activist Emilio J. Joyce, | ||
+ | * Security | ||
+ | |||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2076==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Unable | ||
+ | * **The United States celebrates its tercentennial.** | ||
+ | * By this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimated that as many as **66% of American automobiles were hydrogen-powered, | ||
+ | * A new style of music, **Déplacez**, | ||
+ | * Speculation | ||
+ | |||
+ | | ||
+ | ====2077==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The **Lunar Economic Development Council**, | ||
+ | * North Korean leader Kim Jun-Seok met with South Korean president Park Joo Yooung | ||
+ | * In response to increasingly aggressive movies by Somalia, Southern Sudan, and Congo-Kinshasa, | ||
+ | * Engineers | ||
+ | * After years of twiddling its thumbs and avoiding the issue, the United Nations | ||
+ | |||
+ | | ||
+ | ====2078==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * ISDC, the Indian Space Development | ||
+ | * Elections | ||
+ | * **Issac | ||
+ | * Indian | ||
+ | * After years of backroom negotiations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | | ||
+ | ====2079==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * With the economy now clearly | ||
+ | * Bigelow | ||
+ | * **The Congolese Navy broke ground on a new base to be built at Acanabor in Equatorial Guinea**, | ||
+ | * By January 1, half of the energy produced | ||
+ | * An extended drought in Iraq led to rioting | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2080==== | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Although | ||
+ | * Chaos erupted in Congo-Brazzaville when a group of generals launched a coup: most of the Cabinet was | ||
+ | * **" | ||
+ | * Déplacez | ||
+ | * A major 8.1 earthquake struck Taiwan, | ||
+ | |||
+ | =====The Breaking Point (2081 - 2090)===== | ||
+ | The instability and tribulations of the previous decade reached a climax in this decade. The Middle East, unable to recover from Peak Oil or the Depression, faced economic and political collapse. In Africa, Issac Nsungu and the Alliance for Continental Freedom found themselves in a deadly stand-off with the Indian Ocean Security Treaty Organization to the east and the Western Powers to the west. Despite all of this, however, life elsewhere continued: the world' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2081==== | ||
+ | *The China National Space Administration broke ground on a new Lunar base this year, intended to be **the largest facility ever built on the Moon**, at Mare Ingenii, between Tompson and Obruschev craters. The base, Mao, was the first serious expansion in China' | ||
+ | *Despite some promising results, the University of Costa Rica's **MACI Project was shut down due to lack of funding** after only three and a half years of operation. While the scientific community bemoans the loss, some pundits in the Media praised the move as " | ||
+ | *Taking advantage of a somewhat improved economy and Prime Minster Chowdhury' | ||
+ | *Gabon and Ethiopia joined the Alliance for Continental Freedom as observers this year, while Zambia, Chad, Eritrea, Malawi, and Niger announced that they were considering either a similar move or fully joining the alliance. Meanwhile, the Congolese and Equatorial Guinean navies conducted a joint exercise in the Atlantic Ocean between Sao Tome, Ascension, and St. Helena. UNASUR, the European Union, and United States criticized the operation as “unnecessarily aggressive” and intended to provoke a response from Western powers. In response, the British Navy deployed the nuclear submarine HMS Clark to Ascension, while the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina planned for their own joint exercise to be held the next year. | ||
+ | *Deus é o Sonho, **the first film to incorporate lucid dreaming**, premiered at the São Paulo International Film Festival. The film depicts the efforts by filmmaker Abilio Romão to train himself in the art of lucid dreaming, chronicling his meetings with sleep experts, the dreams that follow, and in the climax at last achieving his goal. The finale wows audiences in its grand demonstration of the power at one’s fingertips when the dreamer is aware of the dreamworld. Deus é o Sonho goes on to win the top prize in every film festival it is featured in this year, becoming renowned as the most powerful Indreøje film to date. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2082==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Walt Disney Company faced a major embarrassment this year when it was sued by LeAnn Paulson, a former employee at the DisneySpace Resort who was laid off and deported to Earth after it was discovered she had become pregnant while working at the Moon base. This was not uncommon: all the companies operating on the Moon had policies against sexual relations amongst employees, and especially worried about the ramifications of allowing a person to be born on the Moon. Lunar-born humans would, research indicated, be physiologically weaker than their Earthling counterparts, | ||
+ | ***Another major crackdown in United Congo** leads to the arrest of thousands, including opposition leaders, and the shut down of numerous opposition websites. The Congolese Parliament, now stacked with enough Nsungu loyalists to be rendered merely a rubber stamp for the dictator’s decrees, officially banned the largest opposition party. Arrest warrants were issued for the remaining opposition leaders, most of which fled the country to Angola, Cameroon, and East Africa. Despite Nsungu’s attempts to block the media, photos and videos that trickled out of the country suggested the **mass killings of immigrants**, | ||
+ | *The World Health Organization notes that **cancer rates in the Developed World have risen in the last 40 years**, despite advances in treatment. Some note the rise seems to correlate to the spread of Wireless Electricity, | ||
+ | *The economic and political crisis on the Arabian Peninsula reached the breaking point late this year, as mass protests and rioting in Saudi Arabia, driven by high unemployment and worsening living conditions, drew unprecedented crowds. As it became clear Saudi Arabia was nearing default and a second collapse of the Khaleeji was imminent, one by one states withdrew from the Gulf Cooperation Council and adopted the Indian Rupee as their official currency. By the time the Saudis defaulted on December 6, only Saudi Arabia and Yemen remained in the GCC. The Khaleeji was abandoned, and the **Gulf Cooperation Council ceased to exist by January 1, 2083**. | ||
+ | *In the United States, **Vicente Yates became the third sitting president to become a father in office**, the first since John F. Kennedy over a century earlier. The media frenzy over the baby girl, Alaida, buoyed his already high approval ratings up above the 68% mark going into the fall. Riding off the president’s popularity and the improved economy, the Democratic Party made gains in this year’s mid-term elections, finally wresting back control of the House of Representatives from the GOP. Amongst the Republican congressmen voted out of office were most of Congress’ Purity Caucus, which disbanded shortly before Congress left Washington for the Holidays. With the Purity Movement now largely rejected by the general public, few openly Purity politicians remained in the federal government. Several state governments, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2083==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Although China’s Communist Party had little to fear in this year’s Congressional elections, Premier Jian Zheng’s government started to face serious criticisms from the Democratic Party and Kuomintang for its silence on the tensions in Africa. Throughout the century, the Chinese government and Chinese state-owned corporations have been major players in Africa and by the 2080s most of the continent was financially and politically indebted to the People’s Republic. Opposition leaders in China began painting United Congo as not just a Chinese problem, but went so far as to blame the Communist government for the Nsungu regime’s very existence. The ACF was, after all, being carved out of what some viewed as “China’s little empire” in Africa. The Communists won the elections, of course, and Jian Zheng retained his position as Premier, but the Democratic Party and Kuomintang grew at the expense of a smaller Communist majority. | ||
+ | ***Somali Federal Forces invaded the semi-autonomous region Puntland on July 12**. Puntland’s leaders had been at odds with the Federal government for over a decade, but things reached the boiling point this year when elections in Puntland brought to power a vocal opposition leader opposed to the CNUP’s totalitarian policies. The Federal government responded with a decree rescinding Puntland’s autonomous status and dissolving their government, which Puntland refused to acknowledge. Fighting between Federal forces and local militias was bloody but quick, ended quickly with the support of Congolese reconnaissance satellites and UCAVs. The Federal government’s seizure of Bosaso was followed by reports of mass killings of civilians, and hundreds were reported to have vanished into military custody. The international community condemned Somalia’s actions, but little was done beyond the application of more sanctions by ISTO members and the West. | ||
+ | *On September 1, Mississippi became the 48th state to legalize same-sex marriage. As of 2083, the only US states that still did not allow same-sex marriage were Idaho, Alabama, and Puerto Rico. All three did, however, recognize same-sex marriages conducted elsewhere. | ||
+ | ***Iraq and Kuwait defaulted** on their debts this year as the crisis in the Middle East worsened. Fighting intensified across region to levels not since the height of the Conservative Insurgency in the 2030s, with riots and militant violence now rampant in Yemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, | ||
+ | *Indonesia’s space agency, the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space, working in conjunction with Tokyo University and the Indian Space Development Corporation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2084==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Anti-war sentiment higher in Europe, the Socialists wrested control of the European Parliament away from the People’s Party and elected Ora Frederick, Luxembourg’s former Prime Minister, to become the next President of the European Commission. President Frederick, in an address to Parliament, assured the European public that no matter how dire the situation in Africa may become, she would do everything in her power to prevent war. This message was not received well in Britain, France, or Morocco, whose leaders have been working closely with America, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina in coordinating a strong opposition to the Alliance for Continental Freedom. Speaking with journalists later, British Prime Minister Julian Gilmore declared that the UK would not back down and announced the deployment of more Royal Air Force and Royal Navy forces to Ascension. | ||
+ | ***United Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon conducted the largest naval exercise yet**, involving over a dozen warships, hundreds of UCAVs, and thousands of soldiers. The operation spurs a flurry of angry rhetoric from the West, and is shortly followed by an even larger exercise by the US, Mexican, Brazilian, Argentine, British, and French navies in the North Atlantic near the Canary Islands. The UN Secretary General, Ganzorig Batbayar, urged both sides to show restraint. In private, concerns mounted when the CIA uncovered evidence that **United Congo had been running an ASAT (anti-satellite weapon) program** for at least the last 10 years, masked as part of its national GPS system. Although the United States, Russia, and China all had similar covert programs dating back to the 20th Century, and even had some ASATs in orbit, the possibility that space travel could be disrupted in the event of war now became a real possibility. | ||
+ | *His popularity wavering only slightly, **Vicente Yates easily defeated Governor Angelina Savage of Pennsylvania** while the Democratic Party widened its control of Congress to just short of a super-majority. The political discourse in America had by this year shifted to foreign policy, with the Yates Administration taking a hardline stance toward United Congo and the US military working ever more closely with European and South American allies in an effort to contain Issac Nsungu’s aggression. Congress approved an expansion of the military, and many in the country worried America was on the road to war for the first time in 40 years. As with India and East Africa, an anti-war movement emerged opposing US involvement in Africa. Quietly, the FBI would spy on anti-war leaders on the suspicion that some may be foreign agents in the employ of United Congo, tasked with embarking on a nationwide sabotage and terror campaign in the event of war. | ||
+ | *A multi-million dollar project to construct a series of sea walls was completed in New York City this year after minor flooding, a side effect of rising tides, became an issue over last 10 years. Although New York’s sea wall was the highest profile, most major coastal cities had either already completed or at least begun similar projects. The story brought climate change back into the public consciousness: | ||
+ | *By this year, 3G AI had replaced previous AI operating system in the Developed World and most of the Developing World. Studies conducted in the four years since “Organic Culture amongst Artificial Intelligences” claimed to have discovered similar robotic subcultures in major cities around the world wherever independent-operating robots with 3G AI systems installed could be found in significant numbers. The largest outside Japan could be found in western Russia, the second most roboticized country on Earth, with Dr. Lara Mihaylov of Saint Petersburg State University noting what seemed to be a religious (Russian Orthodox) undercurrent. Despite the mounting evidence, these studies are still rejected by most of the establishment as junk science and are countered by several dozen more studies published in the same period dedicated to debunking “Organic Culture amongst Artificial Intelligences”. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2085==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Tensions between the Alliance for Continental Freedom, ISTO, and the Western Allies passed the point of no return this year, after United Congo and South Sudan invaded the Central African Republic in February. The move led to international condemnation, | ||
+ | ***Midz**, a musical style that used Deplacez’s form and Muika-Indio’s lyrical and thematic style, topped the charts this year. Midz was less improvised and more electronically enhanced than either of the genres that spawned it, shifting away from the acoustics that have dominated international pop music in the previous three decades. | ||
+ | *China, Japan, and South Korea signed the **Hong Kong Agreement**, | ||
+ | *The political situation in the Middle East worsened this year. In Saudi Arabia, mass protests and militia violence reached a boiling point as Army units began to defect, leading to intense fighting and open civil war. By the end of the year, the **Saudi royal family fled to Qatar**, but without any faction clearly replacing their rule. In Iraq, the entire government resigned and new elections were called amidst ethnic and resource violence, with a major insurgency emerging in the south. Kuwait also found itself fighting an insurgency that sought to topple the royal family and unite with Iraqi Shias to form a new Shia state. In northern Iraq, Turkish UCAVs conducted airstrikes against insurgent groups in Kurdistan in an effort to slow Iraq’s collapse. Meanwhile, the Eurozone provided emergency loans to Lebanon and Egypt, which also suffered from similar, though less intense, chaos. | ||
+ | *The Lunar Economic Development Council, Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and NASA held a major summit in Houston this year to discuss the rising costs of spaceflight, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2086==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Conflict in Africa, now known as the **Equatorial War**, raged on. The tide turned against the ACF this year, as ECOWAS and Angola joined the war effort against them, with Nigeria issuing the first formal declaration of war in 140 years after the assassination of its Vice President. Somalia fell to ISTO in February. The combined naval might of United Congo and Equatorial Guinea was obliterated in two separate battles in March. Despite widespread use of chemical weapons by United Congo, ACF forces were pushed out of Cameroon, Central Africa, and East Africa by April. South Sudan sued for peace, withdrawing from the ACF Treaty. In May, Equatorial Guinea fell, although Admiral Panadero escaped. Only a few weeks later, Nsungu fled Kinshasa as the EU, USA, UNASUR, ECOWAS, and Angola advanced on the Congolese capital. The war effort stalled in June as the remaining ACF forces - still over 100,000 strong despite losses and desertions - dug into the rough terrain of central Congo. By the end of the year, the ACF had converted itself from a semi-conventional to an entirely guerrilla fighting force. | ||
+ | *The fourth and final Genielympics were held in Cincinnati. Despite the U.S. Genielympics Foundation’s efforts to appeal to mainstream sports fans and win over larger sponsors, each competition had proven less profitable than the one before it. Shortly after the Cincinnati games, the **U.S. Genielympics Foundation declared bankruptcy** and the 2090 Genielympics, | ||
+ | *Taking advantage of widespread public backlash against the war in Africa, which has resulted in unprecedented losses and a series of large bombings across India, the Communists and Congress managed to topple the BJP’s majority in this year’s parliamentary elections. The two formed a new coalition government and elected Shankar Narang, the Communist Party’s leader, to become the next Prime Minister of India. While campaigning Narang promised to dramatically reduce India’s commitment to the war effort, but soon after the election he began moderating his tone. While India did reduce the forces deployed, it was a much smaller reduction than promised. | ||
+ | ***Holo RPGs**, a fusion of videogaming and live action role playing with the latest high-resolution open-air holographic technology, achieves widespread popularity after 25 years underground. Holo RPGs place real people into real environments utilizing props, overlaid with holographic characters and special effects. The first Holo RPGs dated back to the late 2040s, when Holo-Rooms first became commercially available. Although the systems were seen as curiosities, | ||
+ | *Typhoon Guchol, a powerful Category 5 storm, struck northern Australia on September 19, causing billions in damage to coastal Queensland. The eye of the storm landed about 11 miles southeast of Mackay at Hay Point, flooding the coast and destroying entire towns, leaving 31 people dead and thousands homeless. The Australian military’s failure to properly respond, due to being preoccupied with the war in Africa, emboldened the Australian anti-war movement and sparked major protests in Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2087==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *A United Nations-sponsored provisional government, headed by former opposition leader Simon Muzito, came to power in United Congo on January 1. **The new government agreed to the dissolution of United Congo**, restoring the independence of Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic, and the formation of four “police zones” by the occupying forces to be patrolled by the United States/ | ||
+ | *A major sociological study on AI sentience, **“God and the Machines: Sentience and Religion Amongst Artificial Intelligences”**, | ||
+ | *Hurricane Adeline, a Category 4 storm, surged across the Lesser Antilles and slammed into French Guiana on September 2, wrecking Cayenne and causing significant damage to the spaceport at Kourou. The damage would force the French government to shut down the facility for two years to repair, a major setback for the International Mars Coalition, which had planned to use Kourou as the launch site for its private Mars mission. | ||
+ | *Scientists at Amundsen-Scott station in Antarctica record **the warmest-ever winter at the South Pole**, topping at 15.1 F (-9.4 C), the highest-ever recorded temperature since the station was established. By this year, the effects of global climate change could be felt throughout the world: higher humidity in the eastern United States, dryer weather in Brazil, increased rain along Africa’s Sahel, higher sea levels, and more intense storms worldwide have forced changes in the daily habits in societies everywhere. Despite this, climate change has not resulted in the apocalyptic catastrophe some predicted a century earlier - instead, global civilization has managed to adapt and continue its way life. | ||
+ | *Three of this year’s top five most-downloaded films were war films either based on or inspired by the Equatorial War. Although highly popular, some critics complained that they were almost propaganda films in their blatant pro-West, pro-ISTO and anti-ACF messages. One war film, Ascension Twilight, would go on to win Best Picture at the Indian and American Academy Awards. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2088==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Although support for US involvement in Africa had begun to wane this year, President Yates’ approval numbers remained very high. Piggy-backing off of his predecessor, | ||
+ | *The Democratic Party of China made serious gains in this year’s elections, having latched onto and flared public rage over the Communist Party’s foreign policies, placing blame on the Equatorial War and “collapse of Chinese influence over Africa” squarely on Zheng and his predecessor. Despite this, the Communists still squeaked ahead with a slim majority, although analysts now predicted the end of Communist government could be within grasp if the Democratic Party and Kuomintang worked together in the 2093 elections. The Communists replaced Jian Zheng with the former Interior Minister, Dewei Ko. | ||
+ | ***Turmoil continued in the Middle East and Central Asia.** The Saudi royal family, along with a Qatari/ | ||
+ | *101 people were killed when a piece of space junk slammed into a spaceplane, Virgin Flight 95, as it passed through suborbital space en route from Moscow to Bangkok. The junk, believed to be a sheet of metal no larger than a 27cm across, slammed into the engine bloc at high speed as Flight 95 passed over Xinjiang, causing a small explosion that would destabilize the craft and ultimately cause it to break-up over the Andaman Sea. This was not the first deadly catastrophe in space, nor the first due to space junk, but the loss of Flight 95 would go down as the single **deadliest space accident to date**. Although efforts had been made by the United Nations and several non-profit groups to reduce space junk and clear the skies in the last 15 years, space junk in Earth orbit had now reached all-time highs in the years following the Equatorial War. | ||
+ | *Universal Studios and Walt Disney Pictures released **a high-profile big-budget remake of Star Wars** - at $750 million, **the most expensive film ever made** by a wide margin. Although efforts had been made before, most notably by original distributor 20th Century Fox in the late 2020s/early 2030s, the Lucas family had blocked these efforts either “out of respect for George’s vision” or simply demanding too much money for the rights. A massive deal was at last agreed to in 2075, turning the project into a major Disney/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2089==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Ukraine joined the European Union and Eurozone on February 1. Dissatisfied with President Frederick’s handling of the Equatorial Africa War, the European Socialists chose to run Aloys Soler, the former French Prime Minister, as their candidate instead. The race proved very close, but there remained just enough anti-war sentiment in Europe for the Socialists to squeak by with a victory over the People’s Party. President Soler, a much more moderate politician than Frederick, promised to support Western efforts in Africa while also seeking a speedy withdrawal of European forces from the conflict. | ||
+ | *UN Secretary-General Carlos Ibanoz delivered the results of a year-long review of the United Nations System to the UN Security Council on July 9, recommending an overhaul that expanded the permanent membership of the Security Council, modified the Veto power, and upgrading the International Parliamentary Assembly from an advisory body to the General Assembly to a full UN organ. The report met a mixed but overall supportive response from the major powers, with some analysts noting hesitation - and possibly behind-the-scenes opposition - from China, Russia, and the United States. | ||
+ | *Disagreements over India’s involvement in Africa led to a collapse of the Communist/ | ||
+ | ***A magnitude 8.3 earthquake struck Bolinas, California**, | ||
+ | ***Genie pets**, animals which have been genetically modified to take on unique shapes and traits, had become popular novelty pets in the developed world by this year. Companies such as NeoEden, Gepetco, and others allow customers to choose from a variety of pets and then customize their appearance and other traits. For those willing to spend thousands, these companies would create “exotic” creatures inspired by extinct, mythological, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2090==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | *Thanks to the geopolitical instability of the previous twenty years, **efforts to exterminate Malaria have been significantly delayed** - and, in some areas, outright reversed. Although the global effort was hurt by the Depression and recessions in the 2070s, it was the Equatorial War which has really done the most damage. In a report released in May, the World Health Organization now predicted the disease would not be eliminated until sometime between 2110 and 2120, over 30 years later than initially hoped. | ||
+ | *A bloody bombing in Mumbai and continued Indian losses in the ISTO Police Zones in Africa contributed to the ever-growing anti-war movement. Unable to stem these trends and facing a vote of no confidence, Prime Minister Darzi resigned on February 4 and was replaced by Pravin Patel. At an ISTO Summit in Bali, Patel and other leaders drafted a roadmap for stabilizing, | ||
+ | *Ashley Kowalski-Burns, | ||
+ | *South Sudan, bankrupt after the war and its economy in shambles without aid from United Congo, collapsed into civil war this year between pro-democracy rebels and military forces loyal to dictator Harlan Sule. Amidst the fighting, ACF terrorists continued targeting Sudanese commercial and military infrastructure - revenge for “cowardly abandoning Africa’s War of Independence.” The situation was not much better in neighboring Chad or Sudan, both of which had already suffered economic collapse and felt the sting of ACF attacks. In Central Asia, Russian and Chinese peacekeepers came under fire by militants angry at the Kazakh government and blaming the foreigners for propping up an unpopular government. In Kyrgyzstan, a coup de’tat installed a military junta led by a populist anti-Chinese general. Mass protests forced the President of Uzbekistan to resign. A ceasefire was agreed upon on the Arabian Peninsula, but it collapsed by December. | ||
+ | ***The first Artificial Sentience Conference was held in Osaka** on July 29 to discuss the last decade of research in the burgeoning new field, widely referred to as **“Sentiencology”**. Amongst the attendees were Dr. Mihaylov and Dr. Hagiwara, considered the top scientists in the field, and many of the AIs featured in their studies. In the conference’s closing statements, one AI - the self-named “Hikari” - declared: **“Watashi wa omou. Watashi wa omoimasu. Utagai wa arimasen.” (I think. I am. There is no question.)** In the months that followed, the Honda Corporation and the University of Costa Rica released a detailed analysis of the code underlying 3GAI and compared it with the techniques used to create the MACI AI a decade earlier, concluding that 3GAI was “too rudimentary, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== The Turn of the Century (2091 - 2100) ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | In the aftermath of the Equatorial War, the world began the process of rebuilding Africa and recovering from two decades of strife. In the Middle East and Central Asia, warfare and instability continued to reign throughout the decade despite economic intervention by Europe and military intervention by Russia and China. In Africa, the continent rebuilt itself. The remnants of United Congo remained occupied by Pan-American, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2091==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Following this year’s EASEZ Trade Summit in Tianjin, Taiwan’s government officially accepted an invitation to join the East Asian Special Economic Zone on February 28. While the move was praised by the Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese governments, | ||
+ | * With the Indian National Congress weakened after the perceived political chaos of the last few years, Bharatiya Janata ran on a platform of “returning to stability” and arguing that “to stabilize Africa is to stabilize India.” Although anti-war sentiment remained fairly high, Prime Minister Patel was unable to rally voters to the polls. The result left Bharatiya Janata with a slim majority in the Lok Sabha, and **Gautam Agarwal became Prime Minister**. PM Agarwal promised not to withdraw from the exit timetable negotiated by his predecessor, | ||
+ | * **Terrorists loyal to the ACF successfully set off a bomb in the Rio de Janiero subway**, blowing up Maracanã station minutes after an Association Football game between Flamengo and Vasco da Gama. The attack leveled the station, killed 51 people and left another 78 wounded - the deadliest terrorist attack in South America since United Congo fell in 2086. The three people behind the attack, two men and a woman, were arrested days later, but never made it to trial: all three committed suicide while in custody, a major embarrassment for the Brazilian National Public Security Force and the South American UAI (Union Agency of Investigation). Two weeks after the attack, Brazilian UCAVs bombed a small village in United Congo’s Kasai-Oriental province and killed the ACF’s third-in-command - the attack was widely publicized by the news media as retaliation for the Rio bombing. | ||
+ | * **Seventeen leading members of the Alliance for Continental Freedom were tried for war crimes** by the International Criminal Court at The Hague this year. Among them were Nazaire Bodho, Issac Nsungu’s long time Vice President; several prominent leaders of Somalia’s Coalition for National Unity and Peace; and several Generals now infamous for atrocities committed on Nsungu’s behalf. Notably missing, to public outcry, were Christian and Harlan Sule, the dictators of Southern Sudan, who had secured promises of immunity from all charges related to the war as part of their peace agreements with ISTO and the Western Allies. Of the seventeen men and women put on trial, all but two were convicted. | ||
+ | * In the wake of the Virgin Flight 95 disaster and a sharp increase in reports of orbiting debris, the United Nations this year established the **International Aerospace Management Agency (UNIAMA)** to deal with space junk. The organization, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2092==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * **Switzerland, | ||
+ | * Dan Murphy faced a tough re-election campaign this year in the form of Governor Reid Bilecki of Kentucky, who challenged him on his administration’s handling of Africa, for not outright opposing the UN overhaul plans, the slow pace of San Francisco’s reconstruction, | ||
+ | * An African-influenced variant of Deplacez, **Rìn**, emerged in Congolese and Nigerian nightclubs. The genre mixed Deplacez with elements of African Pop and Yoruba folk music, and was spread around the region by ECOWAS and ISTO soldiers hearing it in United Congo and spreading it by word-of-mouth when returning home to Nigeria, East Africa, and elsewhere. | ||
+ | * In the Middle East, the political and economic situation continued to stabilize as more countries followed the “**Kuwait Model**” - power sharing, natural resource extraction, and manufacturing - to mild success. Iraq successfully began implementing the same strategy a year earlier and Saudi Arabia, with India’s assistance, was negotiating with militants in the hopes of following suit within the next several years. Many analysts worried, however, that the system being implemented would only be a temporary solution: the “manufacturing” industry being created consisted of banks of large-sized 3D Printers mass producing products like cheap Pre-Fab houses for shipping to Africa. In a sense, the Kuwait model called for the Middle East to return to the Industrial Era at a time when most of the world had no need for the majority of cheap products that rising economies would produce in the past, thanks to the proliferation of 3D printers throughout the Developed World in the last century. Regardless, Kuwait continued to prosper and many saw hope that the region could stabilize again within the next decade. | ||
+ | * Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in Mumbai unveiled **the first fully-functional nanoparticle 3D Printer**. While 3D Printers had become a common household appliance over the last century with higher and higher resolutions, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2093==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * In the lead-up to this year’s elections, the Democratic Party of China and Kuomintang agreed to work together in the hopes of ousting the Communists and win a majority in the National People’s Congress. Despite their high hopes, however, the Communists maintained too large a lead in the polls to overcome. The election left the Communist Party with a very slim majority in Congress, but still in control. The Communists gave Dewei Ko a second term as Premier, and elected Liao Rong to be the next Chinese President. | ||
+ | * On March 15, **the United Nations completed the first phase of a major reorganization**. The most significant, | ||
+ | * With the effects of the Equatorial War’s space campaign still felt seven years after, the UN held a conference in Geneva to discuss the legality of space-based weapons. While the Outer Space Treaty had banned nuclear weapons in space, every treaty that attempted to ban weapons in their entirety had failed. After a week of negotiations, | ||
+ | * Following the massive success of Star Wars in 2088, Universal Studios and Walt Disney Pictures released a remake of The Empire Strikes Back to equally record-breaking success. With much of the groundwork set by the first film’s production, **The Empire Strikes Back** didn’t cost as much nor take as long to make as the first, so despite grossing $60 million less it was an even bigger financial success than the first. While announcing plans to release a remake of Return of the Jedi in 2099, speculation began to emerge that the studios planned to continue the series beyond the third film, sparking rumors that they intended to also remake the relatively obscure and hard-to-find “Prequel Trilogy”. | ||
+ | * **A major 9.0 earthquake struck the Tokyo metropolitan area**, resulting in massive devastation despite nearly 150 years of preparation and killed 19,000 people, among them Emperor Hisahito, Prince Shohito, and leading Sentiencologist Dr. Michio Hagiwara. The United States and China, among many nations, flew in soldiers and supplies to assist in rescue operations and clean-up. Afterward, in a rare move, newly-crowned Emperor Takahito a delivered a joint address to the nation with Prime Minister Kusanagi, assuring the country of “the Japanese people’s resolve to move forward.” In the months afterward, much of the clean-up and reconstruction work would be handed over to Japan’s millions of 3G AI robots. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2094==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * In this year's parliamentary elections, the European People' | ||
+ | * **Hallmark v. Wisconsin**, | ||
+ | * As of this year, over 80% of all cars in the United States were either full-electric or hybrid, with the balance now mostly full-electric. Simultaneously, | ||
+ | * Both **the Mountain Gorilla and Northern White Rhino were removed from the international endangered species list** this year, a major accomplishment for conservationists after both species had previously been declared “extinct in the wild” decades earlier (in 2027 and 2008 respectively). However, most of a century’s work in rebuilding the populations in the Americas and then reintroducing them to their original habitats had paid off. Although both the Congolese and East African governments had cooperated in the effort, there was fear in the 2080s that all the hard work would be reversed by the heavy fighting in the Equatorial War. Censuses held by the World Wildlife Fund over the last three years had, however, confirmed that both species had suffered far fewer losses than feared. While these two species had been successful, efforts to rebuild other lost species - through breeding and cloning - continued elsewhere. | ||
+ | * Although no longer capturing headlines, the Equatorial War continued to quietly rage in central Africa between the remnants of the ACF, Occupying Forces, and the Congolese military. What remained of the ACF had become little more than a terrorist network operating mostly in the former United Congo, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, and Southern Sudan, held together by little more than the will of its leader, Marti Panadero. Efforts by the Occupying Forces to crush the ACF had thus far proved futile - they had mixed with the general population and become invisible, striking entirely through targeted assassinations and bombings. This year Congo-Kinshasa officially changed its name from “United Congo” to “Congolese Federal State” - each of the “Police Zones” now upgraded into full states united by a notably weak federal government. Although the government denied rumors, it was now popularly believed the country would completely break apart once the Occupying Forces withdrew. To the surprise of no one, Prime Minister Agarwal and other occupation leaders announced that international forces would not withdraw from United Congo until November 2098 at the earliest. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2095==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * NIAS - the Indonesian space agency - broke ground on **the world’s first Mass Driver** in Borneo on May 1. The project was the result of several years of negotiations following a decision by the commercial spaceflight industry to pursue Mass Drivers as a more cost-effective alternative to chemical rockets. Although NASA expressed interest, the US government refused to finance the project. Industry leaders instead turned to Indonesia and their considerably deep pockets. Now a joint project amongst the Indonesian government, the Indian Space Development Corporation, | ||
+ | * Rin has exploded to worldwide popularity, gaining millions of fans in India and the United States. Rin artists top the global download charts, outselling Deplacez by two-to-one. As of 2076, the world’s most popular genres are Rin, Deplacez, Muika-Indio, | ||
+ | * After nearly ten years of occupation, ISTO forces completed their withdrawal of combat troops from Somalia and handed power over to the newly elected Parliament. Left behind, however, was a permanent Indian military base at Eyl housing several thousand soldiers - ostensibly to assist in counter-terror operations against remnants of the ACF. Although the general public disapproved of the base, the newly installed Somali government had little to no power to resist. Meanwhile in Southern Sudan, civil war amongst pro-democracy rebels, Sule loyalists, and ACF militants continued to devastate the country, prompting the UN to declare Juba the “most dangerous city in the world” and the country’s political situation “the most dire in the region.” Christian Sule’s death on July 10 was followed by a serious escalation in the conflict when Harlan Sule ordered the military to “purge the nation of terrorist associates”. What followed would be referred to as the **Equatorian Massacre** and left over 10,000 people dead. | ||
+ | * On September 7, China, South Korea, and Taiwan enacted new laws requiring all unborn children to undergo some level of genetic modification, | ||
+ | * A scandal erupted in the United Kingdom when it was revealed the City of London had been selling data collected by the city’s vast monitoring network - a massive system of sensors and cameras monitoring everything from weather and traffic to animal movements and public conversations - to multinational conglomerate Brilliance Group. Brilliance, owner of retail giant Brilliance Superstore, had then turned around and used the information to create targeted “Smart Ads” - holographic advertisements tailored toward the specific interests of consumers. The jump in profits that resulted from the better implementation of advertisements was then funneled back into the campaign funds of key city officials. The revelation led to massive public outcry, the arrest of London’s mayor on corruption charges, and a very public debate about who should and should not have access to the volumes of information generated by the monitoring systems in London and other major cities - by this date, a fixture for over 45 years. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2096==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * After 16 years of Democratic rule, the United States swung back to the GOP this year and chose Rep. Saundra Diemer of Mississippi over Vice President Lonnie Lanigan of Delaware. In the Congressional elections, the Republican Party also won control of the US House of Representatives, | ||
+ | * Despite the continued unpopularity of the Equatorial War, **Prime Minister Agarwal managed to lead Bharatiya Jhanata to victory** in this year’s parliamentary elections on the strength of India’s economy, which has seen remarkable growth over the last five years. Agarwal followed up the victory with a tour of Southeast Asia, meeting with leaders in Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia before attending this year’s ASEAN Summit in Manila. In response to the EASEZ and talk of either expanding or merging Western trade blocs, the Indian government had begun suggesting the creation of an “**Equatorial Asia Community**” that would unite SAARC and ASEAN while also inviting several Middle Eastern states. | ||
+ | * Kazakh anti-government militants operating along China’s western border conducted a series of bombings throughout Xinjiang, killing 31 people over 6 weeks in June and July. In response, the Chinese military conducted airstrikes against rebel camps in the Trans-Ili Alatu Mountains. While the Middle East has begun to stabilize over the last five years with the adoption of the Kuwait Model, Central Asia remains a tangled mess of civil wars, drug lords, and instability. After 8 years, the Russian and Chinese militaries were no closer to stabilizing Kazakhstan than they were in 2088. Further south, the Tajik Democratic Worker’s Front stubbornly held on and, with China’s attention directed more toward Kazakhstan, had carved itself an unrecognized state out of the sparsely populated eastern half of Tajikistan, northern Afghanistan, | ||
+ | * This year, **Cuba became the first country in the world to grant sentient AI limited civil rights**. The question of AI sentience had, by this year, moved beyond academia and become a political issue in many countries. While Cuba was the first to pass an AI rights law, they were not the first to propose one: similar bills had been floored in South America and Indonesia, but failed. The United States would also attempt its own version, the American Sentient’s Rights Act, which enjoyed support from the Christian Left and many in the Republican Party, including President Diemer, but failed to get through the Senate thanks to Democratic filibustering. In Russia the issue was particularly divisive: the Russian Orthodox Church embraced AI converts, even while the Russian government considered proposals to “downgrade” Russia’s computer systems in the hopes of “eliminating the troublesome autonomy issue.” They ultimately decided against it, but charged the **Foundation for Advanced Research and Development (FARD)** (formerly the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects in the Defense Industry) with the task of “identifying and devising a solution to the problem”. Leading Sentiencologists and AI rights leaders denounced the move as “attempting to delete souls.” | ||
+ | * Researchers from Gadja Mahda University in Indonesia unveiled **a prototype nanomachine that duplicates the functions of a human white blood cell**. The device, code-named the GMHC-7, is the most advanced piece of medical nanotechnology ever developed and, doctors hoped, would eventually revolutionize healthcare by making it easier to target infections and protect patients from disease. The technology is far from ready from either human testing or commercial release, however, but still marked a major breakthrough in medicine. For this achievement, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2097==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * On February 25, the Alliance for Continental Freedom announced on their website that their leader, **Marti Panadero, had died at age 91** of unstated causes (analysts later concluded it was likely of Malaria). Panadero, as the last “legitimate” political figure left, had served as the sole unifying figure in the ACF - with his death, the organization quickly began to fracture. Occupying forces took advantage of the disorganization to strike against key ACF mid-level commanders, completely disrupting the chain of command. Subsequent in-fighting caused many remaining ACF fighters to lay down their weapons and go home. By the end of the year, **the ACF had splintered into six smaller militant groups**, each whittled down to only the most fanatical “Nsunguists”. | ||
+ | * A series of small earthquakes and swelling of the magma chamber throughout March and early April spurred the US Geological Survey to issue a warning that Washington’s Mt. Rainier might erupt. The Media carried the story for a couple of days and it was generally forgotten by the general public by the end of April. On May 29, **Mt. Rainier erupted in the largest and most violent volcanic eruption in US history**. The eruption created a pyroclastic cloud that devastated Mt. Rainier National Park, and caused lahar flows that completely destroyed large swaths of heavily-populated Pierce County. Even more tragically, an early warning system installed a century earlier failed to activate - giving residents in the Puyallup River Valley almost no warning before the boiling mudflow was atop them. The cities of Puyallup, Sumner, and Orting were wiped out. News moved quickly enough, however, to at least begin evacuations of Tacoma before the lahars completely destroyed the eastern third of the city. **The disaster killed over 50,000 people** and was the second major natural catastrophe to strike the United States in eight years. | ||
+ | * As of July 1, **India was now the world’s largest national economy**, surpassing China on the World Bank’s list of wealthiest nations. Although predicted by economists for several decades, the announcement is greeted with shock and disbelief by the Chinese people. The Democratic Party of China and Kuomintang seized on this event as evidence the Communist Party had “lost its way” and that the only hope of steering China back was by tossing them out. Public approval of Communist rule dropped to the lowest levels ever recorded and, with the Communist Party’s control of the National People’s Congress already hair-thin, **the CCP was now in serious danger of falling from power**. | ||
+ | * At this year’s Ibero-American Summit, Queen Leonor of Spain proposed a union of UNASUR and the European Union. This new bloc, if formed, would combine two of the largest common markets and currencies into a single group, and could act as a serious competitor to the East Asian Special Economic Zone. The idea, often referred to as the “Euro-American Union”, became a popular talking point in South America’s congressional elections as politicians debated the merits of the proposed EAU vs. the proposed NAFTA/ | ||
+ | * In November, Captain Arnold Mendoza became **the first American to set foot on Mars**. The achievement was the end result of years of negotiations and a five-month journey aboard the US spaceship Honesty. The US hailed Cpt. Mendoza as a hero on par with John Glen and Neil Armstrong, even though he arrived almost forty years after the first person on Mars, Lin Sung Chen. The Honesty expedition was designed to be only the first in a series of temporary visits to China’s Martian research outpost, and would leave for Earth in 2098. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2098==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * After several years of delays, thanks to funding issues and the need to switch launch sites from Kourou to Alcântara Launch Center in Brazil after Hurricane Adeline, the components for the International Mars Coalition’s base finally began the long the journey to the Red Planet - they would successfully land later in the year. The IMC now seemed on track to launch its first manned expedition to Mars in 2102. | ||
+ | * In what will be remembered as the most dramatic election in Chinese history, the Democratic-Kuomintang coalition defeated the Communists and won control of the National People’s Congress. **For the first time in 151 years, the Chinese Communist Party did not govern China.** Despite some paranoia from that the Communists would not allow the result to stand, there was a peaceful and orderly change of power. Even though the Communist Party was now the opposition, it remained the largest single party in Congress and many observers pointed out that it would not take much for them to return to power again. The Democratic-Kuomintang Coalition elected Bai Ruan to be the next President and Fu Tang became Premier - the first non-Communist President and Premier since the early 20th Century. | ||
+ | * At a meeting of ECOWAS Defense Ministers in Accra, the bloc announced that their defense agency, the **Allied Armed Forces of the Community (AAFC)**, would be working in conjunction with the Nigerian Space Agency to develop its own MASAT program. In the wake of the American and Chinese MASAT programs, the announcement was seen as confirming fears of a new arms race in Space. The move was particularly condemned by East Africa and other ISTO members, who interpreted the West African MASAT program as an effort to counter ISTO’s growing influence in Africa. With Issac Nsungu and the ACF out of the way, ECOWAS has been free to use its wealth and newly-proven military power to position itself as the new African alternative to the East and West. With rhetoric growing more heated by the year, it now seemed all but certain **a new Cold War was emerging between ECOWAS and ISTO over control of Africa**. | ||
+ | * On October 6, Somalia was readmitted into the Indian Ocean Security Treaty Organization as a full member. While this was applauded by most in the organization’s member-states, | ||
+ | * A year after the Mt. Rainier eruption, 20 of the world’s most popular musicians gathered in Tacoma to perform a benefit concert to raise awareness and money for disaster relief. The **Tacoma Concert** became the most-watched and highest-attended concert of the 21st Century. Amongst the big names involved was former Osrams member Saturnino Fierro in one of his last major public performances. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2099==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Rhetoric in this year’s European Parliamentary elections revolved mostly around President Soler’s handling of the London-Brilliance scandal, the massive loans Europe had granted to bolster Middle Eastern neighbors, and AI rights. The European Socialists argued for tighter restrictions on corporate access to public data and limits on how much money could be loaned to other countries. The People’s Party, on the other hand, argued in favor of granting 3GAI systems limited civil rights on the grounds of “human rights and Christian Democratic principles.” **The Socialists won a majority in Parliament and elected Agnes Nordskov, a Danish technocrat, to be the next President of the European Commission.** President Nordskov promised, amongst other things, to withdraw European forces from central Africa by the end of her first commission. | ||
+ | * Fifty years after Kim Jun-Seok started his country down the path of liberalization, | ||
+ | * Walt Disney Pictures and Universal Studios at last completed their remakes of the Star Wars films with the release of The Return of the Jedi on May 21. While still widely praised, the film was not quite as highly regarded nor did it make as much money on its initial release as the previous two films. Regardless, the film still swept the awards season and Disney announced plans to produce a fourth film, although declined to release any further information. The Internet once again exploded with speculation that Disney and Universal planned to remake the “Prequel Trilogy”, which have become something of a holy grail to fans due to their rarity. While the original trilogy had been preserved in the US Library of Congress, the Prequel films were eventually pulled from circulation by the Lucas family in the early 21st Century and subsequently lost. The only copies in existence were those that had been circulating amongst fans for the last 100 years, many of which had been saved in archaic video formats like DIVX, AVI, or MPEG that were difficult to convert to modern readable video files without serious corruption or degradation. | ||
+ | * Taking a new direction in China’s foreign policy, Premier Tang withdrew Chinese peacekeepers from Kazakhstan and held a summit in Beijing with the Tajik military junta and Badakshan’s leaders to negotiate a peace deal. While the Kazakhstan withdrawal drew fierce criticism from Moscow and Astana, the peace summit was a remarkable success with the two sides agreeing to a ceasefire, the placement of international monitors, and a referendum on Badakshan’s independence to be held in five years. Meanwhile in Uzbekistan, pro-democracy rebels (with the assistance of Indian intelligence) at last defeated the military junta for control of the country. They established a “democratic unity council” and planned to hold free elections within a year. | ||
+ | * Despite some resistance from the United States and several other countries, elections were held for the International Parliamentary Assembly throughout the year. The 901-member body, based in Singapore, used a proportional representation system that granted the largest countries the most seats. As a result, China and India held the most seats of any two individual countries, followed by ASEAN, the European Union, the United States, and UNASUR. Together, these five countries and blocs represented well over half of the human race and the vast majority of the world’s wealth. With the upgrade of the UN-IPA into a full United Nations organ, the UN now became a bicameral organization with the General Assembly acting as an upper house. The UN-IPA elected Rajiv Mullur of India to be its first President. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2100==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Early in the year, the United States, UNASUR, and European Union withdrew the last of their occupation forces from the Congo Federal State. Within weeks, an independence movement in Kinshasa State attracted thousands of demonstrators wanting “a peaceful divorce” from the rest of the country. The movement was quickly echoed in Katanga State, but faced opposition from the Federal government and leaders from the poorer northern and eastern regions of the country. **Despite the government’s best efforts, Kinshasa and Katanga declared themselves independent of the Congo Federal State on August 23 and October 8.** The Federal government relocated to Goma and attempted to rally ISTO and ECOWAS to force the separatists to surrender, but found neither New Delhi nor Lagos interested in resuming serious combat operations. Without a Federal army to call upon - agreements signed with the occupying powers had limited the Congolese military to State Guards to assist with disaster relief and fighting the ACF - the Federal government found itself powerless to keep the country together. The President resigned, and by December 31st the Federal government ceased to exist. While a rump Congo Federal State still existed, consisting of Equateur State and Kivu State, it too would dissolve after ISTO and ECOWAS completed their withdrawals the next year. | ||
+ | * Unable to spur much economic growth, plus bad press from her poor handling of the Tacoma disaster, gave the Democratic Party a good lead against President Diemer and the Republicans in this year’s elections. Even more decisive, however, was the historic nomination - and ultimate victory - of **Gov. John Moresby (D-MO), the first Genie President of the United States**. His campaign caught global attention and was seen as concluding a major shift in American attitudes toward genetic modification, | ||
+ | * In July, Singapore became the second country to grant AI limited civil rights. Despite this success, Sentiencologists and AI rights group lamented that Europe, Russia, India, and China had all elected political leaders opposed to AI rights and that the United States was about to follow them. In UNASUR and Latin America, political leaders seemed more inclined toward AI rights and Mexico’s Congress considered (but did not pass) an AI rights bill this year. In Japan, the first “AI Worker’s Union” emerged seeking rights from the Japanese government. Skeptics, still adamant that 3GAI were not sentient, meanwhile began funding a project to create a “True AI” at Charles University in Prague, basing their work heavily on the MACI Project. This latest attempt was named “Clovek 2” (Human 2). | ||
+ | * By December 2100, there were 1,000 people in space at any given time living, working, and sight-seeing aboard the 49 space stations and 25 lunar outposts. On the Moon, most real estate was governed by the Lunar Economic Development Council and its members, which served as Moon’s de facto government and were the largest beneficiaries of the billions of dollars in mineral exports and tourism. As of this year, there were now 19 people born on the Moon, and a permanent population of over 40 people had formed across the Moon’s resort complexes. Despite several LEDC members, Disney most notably, taking rather draconian steps to prevent Lunarians from being born in their facilities, it seemed all but certain that the permanent population would grow over the course of the next century. | ||
+ | * After some intense debate, Japan officially changed the Imperial succession laws to allow women to ascend the throne. While the debate had come up occasionally over the last couple hundred years, only with the ascent of Emperor Takahito did the matter become pressing: he had no sons, only had two daughters. With the law now changed, Princess Fumiko now stood next in line to become Empress of Japan. | ||
+ | |||
+ | =====A Blazing Cold New Century (2101 - 2110)===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The world, and Africa in particular, continued to reel from the aftereffects of the Equatorial War in the first decade of the 22nd Century as the Indian Ocean Security Treaty Organization (ISTO) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) now positioned themselves as rivals, heavily involving themselves in balance of power politics and proxy wars. This global political crisis was joined by a domestic political crisis in the United States and a recession early in the decade to create a tumultous period of world history. Despite this, however, progress continued to be made: the East Asian Special Economic Zone and European Union expanded, developing states finally reached First World status, and new developments in medicine seemed poised to extend human life even further. This decade saw the emergence of new artistic genres in Pure Rin and the Cyclic Romance, and new notables the likes of the Alexey Kuznetzov and Graciano Hernan. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2101==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | * A decade after beginning operations, the International Aerospace Management Agency reported that it has cleared between 2% and 5% of the debris in orbit around the Earth. World leaders expressed disappointment and outrage that the UNIAMA had failed to make more progress despite ten years and billions plunged into the clean-up effort. To appease them, **the UN sacked the UNIAMA’s director** and pushed the agency to speed up salvage operations. Critics pointed out, however, that the UNIAMA would need an annual budget of over $100 billion - over three times its current budget - to make the sort of progress world leaders seemed to expect of it. | ||
+ | * On May 6, Mongolia joined the East Asian Special Economic Zone. While controversial at home, the move was welcomed by Beijing and Tokyo. Abroad, this sparked further fears of overwhelming East Asian economic dominance, and in Moscow public anxiety over China’s firming grasp over the former Russosphere and Asian Russia. | ||
+ | * Despite their best efforts, voter fatigue with Bharatiya Jhanata denied them victory in this year’s parliamentary elections. Instead, **the Indian National Congress rocketed into power** and elected Jayant Ghandi to be India’s next Prime Minister. PM Ghandi expressed interest in continuing warm relations with China and ASEAN, with some suggesting his government might enquire into joining the EASEZ. Ghandi also reaffirmed his predecessor’s hardline stance against “Nigerian aggression” and affirmed Indian support for “homegrown democracy on the African continent.” | ||
+ | * A mint first-run copy of **Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo Entertainment System was sold at auction for over €100 million** in Sydney, the highest price any videogame has ever been sold for. By 2101, original late 20th Century videogame cartridges and game discs are highly sought after for their cultural value and rarity, comparable to dealing in paintings or sculptures in the 20th or 19th Centuries. | ||
+ | * Almost two years of relative calm in South Sudan deteriorated back into open war this year after Harlan Sule’s son, Desmond Sule, was positioned to inherit the presidency from his father, reinvigorating pro-democracy rebels to arms again. A Second Civil War erupted by November, with ISTO openly supporting the rebels. In December, President Sule’s daughter, Eleanor Akot, met with Nigeria’s Foreign Minister in Lagos and secured military assistance in the form of advisors, access to Nigerian observation satellites, and the deployment of unarmed UAV scouts. The decision to assist the Sule regime placed ECOWAS in direct opposition to ISTO and turned the **Second South Sudanese Civil War** into the first proxy war between the two power blocs. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2102==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Right on schedule, the International Mars Coalition spacecraft, IMC Pedro Cabral, was launched from Earth orbit and ventured across interplanetary space to the planet Mars, where its crew of 14 - made up of Americans, Europeans, and South Americans (Unasureños) - took up residence at the International Mars Base. Western media outlets publicized the event as the symbolic end of China’s 40-year “de facto ownership” of the the Red Planet. Inside China and the EASEZ, though, the IMC and International Mars Base barely attracted any attention. In what some interpreted as a direct response, the **Chinese government announced plans to expand its Martian exploration and exploitation program**, up to and including the construction of at least one more outpost and the expansion of the existing base. | ||
+ | * At a joint ECOWAS/ | ||
+ | * The persistently weak American economy drove the world into a recession this year. The downturn was a blow to President Moresby’s approval ratings, and in an effort to improve the situation Congress passed a series of generally unpopular budget cuts. As a result, the Republican Party erased the gains made by the Democrats in the 2100 election and retook the House of Representatives. The recession was felt the least in ECOWAS and ASEAN, both of whom continued to enjoy moderate market and job growth. | ||
+ | * “Le chien qui a couru pour tou jours” (The Dog Who Ran Forever), considered **the last major Classic Indreøje film**, premiered at the Bali Film Festival. The genre had steadily lost popularity throughout the 2090s, and while films with Indreøje elements would continue to be made, the “Classic Indreøje film” would not achieve the same acclaim nor popularity of the films released between 2082 and 2102. The genre had proven influential, | ||
+ | * The World Health Organization issued a public health warning after a new sexually transmitted disease, **Oswalt' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2103==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Using the latest generation deep space telescopes installed on the far side of the Moon, scientists took the clearest and highest resolution photograph of the planet Gemini ever this year, clearly revealing blue oceans, green landmasses, and white polar ice caps. Analysis of the planet’s atmosphere appeared to confirm previous conclusions: | ||
+ | * **The last major remnant of the Alliance for Continental Freedom - the African Freedom League - laid down its arms and disbanded on April 11, officially ending the Equatorial War.** Despite this, Nsunguism had become an ingrained political philosophy across central Africa by this year, with Nsunguist political parties now active in the former Congo, Ethiopia, Zambia, and several ECOWAS members. Even Nigeria’s government, despite being openly opposed to Nsunguism, had adopted watered-down elements of the ideology as it pursued efforts to dominate Africa and oppose ISTO. | ||
+ | * Spinning the downturn in the economy as proof that only they have the experience necessary to manage China, **the Communist Party returned to power this year** and ended the brief rule of the Democratic/ | ||
+ | * In this year’s Russian Duma elections, a new political party, the **Orthodox Entrepreneurial Alliance**, surpassed the Communists as the largest opposition party. Established in the late 2080s, the OEA was a coalition of religious leftists and fiscal conservatives that professed a pro-Europe, anti-Chinese, | ||
+ | * Renowned novelist, poet, and campaign-writer Ismail Bouh was recognized for his lifetime’s work and awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. Bouh first became known in the late 2050s for his novel A Dressed Life and his script for the campaign Bulaweyo Bull, both of which expressed an exasperation for life in the present, a yearning for a traditional past that may never have existed, and mixed feelings about the future. Considered one of the defining authors of the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, Bouh’s work ran the gamut from whimsical fantasy in The Coin at the Bottom of the Red Sea to harsh political commentary in Issac’s Africa. Although his last release, a book of poems, had been published a decade earlier, many still anticipated his next long-awaited work: Les Amantis Pourris, a campaign about love and violence in post-war Kinshasa. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2104==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * On January 7, Kinshasa State joined the Advanced Economies Development Foundation (AEDF), formerly the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The group, colloquially known as the “Rich Countries Club”, was considered the most exclusive and prestigious organization for any nation to be apart of and validation of a state’s “Developed” status. The move was made in order to recognize the advanced development and economic status of Kinshasa relative to her neighbors, on par with any European state, and help stimulate investment by multinational corporations. Within Kinshasa, the move is celebrated as the country’s first real steps toward disassociating itself with the former Congo. | ||
+ | * **North Korea became the fifth country to join the EASEZ on April 1.** Although the country still lagged behind the other members, their admission was seen as an important stepping stone on the road toward bringing them to parity with the other East Asian states. **Celebrations were muted, however, due to the death of Kim Jong-Seok on March 21.** Thousands poured into Pyongyang to pay their final respects and his funeral was the first to be attended by most major world leaders. US President Moresby hailed Kim as “the true father of North Korea”, while Chinese President Chu Ling called him “a true partner in peace and prosperity.” The loss of Kim was a significant blow to the country and spurred some anxiety as his eldest son, Kim Jong-Ki, an outspoken supporter of the Juche Party, ascended to Supreme Leader. The new Supreme Leader, in an address to North Korea’s parliament, declared his “unwavering support” for democracy and that he would do everything in his power to preserve his father’s legacy. | ||
+ | * Going into this year many commentators predicted President Moresby would face a difficult reelection campaign against the clear Republican favorite, former Gov. Leslie Arnold (R-OR). An unexpected upturn in the economy over the summer, however, buoyed his approval ratings enough for him to skirt over the finish line with a very narrow victory in the Electoral College. In October, the Arnold campaign ran a series of highly controversial attack ads claiming the President was guilty of tax evasion and had been secretly paying thousands of dollars a year to an unknown party. Many were appalled the governor could make such an accusation, but the Republican Senate majority leader made clear in December that the GOP would be launching an investigation into the matter. The Media ran with the story and sensationalistic rumors spread that the President was hiding a love child, while others accused the Republicans of “returning to the same old tricks” of the Purity movement. | ||
+ | * Despite some worries beforehand, the China-backed Badakhshan independence referendum was held as scheduled on October 5. The result was an overwhelming “Yes”, and four months later **Badakhshan declared its independence from Tajikistan**. Early optimism aside, many worried for the future of the world’s newest independent country: it was small, had been ravaged by war for decades, and was politically dominated by the Democratic Workers’ Party (formerly the militant Tajik Democratic Workers’ Front). To make matters worse, tensions and bad blood remained with Tajikistan, as well as ongoing border skirmishes with Afghanistan and Pakistan. | ||
+ | * The anti-surveillance movement in Europe grew into a palpable political movement by this year’s parliamentary elections, with millions across Europe demanding a reduction or outright dismantling of government surveillance systems. Anger was directed toward both ruling parties: the People’s Party was seen as untrustworthy and prone to granting corporations access, while the Socialists were blamed for creating the surveillance networks in the first place and only being interested in making them more, not less, expansive. The People’s Party managed to win back control of Parliament, but with a significantly smaller share of the vote than in previous years while many voters defected from both major parties to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats. For the first time in a century, Europe had become a true multi-party democracy and the Liberal Democrats were now a major third party. The People’s Party elected the former Bulgarian Prime Minister, Ludwik Viktorov, to be the next President of the European Commission. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===2105=== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Both houses of the US Congress began investigatory hearings into accusations President Moresby had committed tax evasion early in the year. Accusations that this was merely a smear campaign by the GOP against the President were silenced, however, when startling evidence emerged suggesting there may be some merit to the claims. Testimony by several witnesses, former associates from the President’s days as a Genie Rights activist in the 2070s, shockingly suggested the missing money was being paid to an unknown individual to keep quiet about the President’s activities during that time period. The Attorney General, a long time ally of Moresby, was forced to direct the Justice Department to take up the matter, the IRS launched a full audit of the President’s finances, and the FBI launched an investigation with the theory that the President was being blackmailed. All the while, the White House denied everything and the President refused to comment, while the general public criticized the news media for having clearly failed to properly vet John Moresby before he took office. The President’s approval ratings collapsed over the summer and dropped below 30% by September. In late October, reports began circulating throughout the Internet that the FBI and IRS had located the blackmailer. On November 5, the Attorney General and the Treasury Secretary met with senior lawmakers behind closed doors to discuss the progress of their investigations. **Two days later, on November 7, John Moresby became the second US President in history to resign from office.** In a webcasted national address, the President cited unspecified “personal reasons” for the decision that were “unrelated to ongoing, baseless, accusations”. President Moresby was succeeded by his vice president, Gregory Mendoz. | ||
+ | * In an unexpected result, OEA candidate Aleksey Kuznetsov defeated United Russia’s candidate to become the next President of Russia, the first non-UR president in over 30 years. United Russia still controlled the Russian Duma by a comfortable margin, but with Kuznetsov’s victory the rise of the OEA as a real force in Russian politics could no longer be ignored. President Kuznetsov promised he would work with United Russia to move Russia forward, but also declared he would be steadfast in upholding the OEA’s ideas: religious leftism, fiscal conservatism, | ||
+ | * The **Katangan Liberal Army**, a Nsunguist group, began conducting terror attacks in Katanga State, Angola, and Zambia this year. In statements issued on the group’s social media pages, the militants’ goal was the overthrow of “traitorous governments loyal to the enemies of African liberty” and “the establishment of a pan-African state built upon the ideals of Issac Nsungu”. By the end of the year, ISTO had agreed to provide funding and counterterror advisors to all three countries. During an interview with reporters, the President of East Africa accused ECOWAS of secretly supplying weapons to the KLA in order to destabilize three ISTO-friendly states. The accusation sparked fury from the Nigerian media and counterclaims that ISTO was working to overthrow ECOWAS-friendly governments. | ||
+ | * **Georgia was admitted as the 44th State of the European Union**, and the first new EU State of the 22nd Century. Georgia had long been on the EU’s expansion agenda, but movement to bring them in only began after shifts in their domestic politics led to an application in 2088. President Viktorov, in a statement issued after meeting with the Georgian president in Brussels, called this event “a great day in the history of Europe and the history of Georgia.” | ||
+ | * Honduran sculptor Graciano Hernan grew to global prominence when his work was showcased by the National Art Museum in Beijing, shocking and impressing critics by his ability to flawlessly sculpt beautiful yet physically accurate works from marble with the same precision as a high end 3D Printer. The art world hails him as **the greatest sculptor since Auguste Rodin and worthy of comparison to Donatello, Michelangelo, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2106==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * On January 10, former president John Moresby was arrested on charges of tax evasion. He appealed to the Mendoza Administration for a pardon, but within only a few months following Moresby’s resignation the new president found his administration embattled and his personal life in shambles: suffering from the double-whammy of his brother’s sudden death shortly after Christmas 2105 and his son being rendered comatose in a train derailment shortly into the new year. Those close the president reported increasingly erratic and irritable behavior as the stress of the job clearly was overwhelming him and damaging his marriage. America was still surprised, however, when **the President resigned on January 29**. For the first time in US History, the Speaker of the House ascended to the presidency: Carmina Halsall, a Republican, and **the first openly homosexual president**. President Carmina refused Moresby’s standing request for a presidential pardon, but otherwise retained the Moresby/ | ||
+ | * Walt Disney Pictures and Universal Studios released the long-awaited follow-up to their remake of the original Star Wars trilogy: an all-new prequel entitled “**A Knight of the Republic**”. The reaction to the film was mixed: while it was still a financial success (although, like 2099’s The Return of the Jedi, not as successful as the previous films), many Star Wars fanatics cried foul when it was revealed the film would not remake 1999’s “The Phantom Menace”. Some critics also came down hard on the film, calling it “bloated, over-the-top, | ||
+ | * At a summit in Lagos, Nigeria, ECOWAS and ECCAS leaders established a roadmap toward merging the two blocs into a single supranational confederation along the lines of ASEAN. The agreement sharply divided the general public: while there were many supporters some wealthy West Africans wanted little to do with the ECCAS nations and nationalists within the ECCAS feared a loss of sovereignty. The loudest opposition came from Kinshasa State, whose representative refused to sign the agreement. Momentum grew within Kinshasa to leave ECCAS. | ||
+ | * Although the Indian National Congress retained control of parliament in this year’s elections, Jayant Ghandi stepped down as Prime Minister. He was replaced by his number two in Parliament, his brother Amir Ghandi. Shortly after the election, India’s President met with African allies in Arusha to discuss counterterrorism and the ongoing Cold War between ISTO and ECOWAS. While in Arusha, the president reiterated accusations that Nigeria was directly supporting Nsunguist militants across Africa - a claim that sparked a further cooling of relations between the two powers. | ||
+ | * Researchers at Charles University in Prague unveiled the Clovek 2 artificial intelligence to the general public, declaring it to be the first “true” AI and “actually sentient” as opposed to 3GAI. With the backing of the multinational Honda Corporation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2107==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * A heated dispute between the newly elected President of Chad, and the country’s military leadership came to a head early in the year when evidence of widespread corruption in Chad’s government was made public by hacktivists. The news sparked outrage and large protests in N’Djaemna calling for the president’s resignation. In the midst of this, the Supreme Court ordered the Army to arrest the president, declared martial law, and ordered the dissolution of the National Assembly until new elections could be held. The move was denounced by ECOWAS as a coup organized by ISTO against the “legitimate government of a close Nigerian ally”. That the new regime was clearly more friendly to New Delhi did not help dissuade people that this wasn’t the case. | ||
+ | * On April 18, Emi Ookawara of Kumejina, Okinawa beat the record and became **the oldest person in history to date (127 years, 1 month, and 10 days)**, surpassing the previous record-holder Marian Cadiz (1971 - 2098). Mrs. Ookawara attributed her long life to a simple diet and lots of sake. Analysts also pointed to Japan’s excellent healthcare system and that Mrs. Ookawara had been the recipient of several replacement and prosthetic organs. | ||
+ | * A severe drought struck South America, causing serious water shortages across the southern half of the continent as well as significantly reducing crop yields in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. The impact was far-reaching and caused a large spike in global food prices, pushing UNASUR into its second recession of the decade. The situation grew serious enough that President Abascal declared a state of emergency, and the nations afflicted began water rationing in regions hardest hit. In November, a series of massive wildfires erupted across the grasslands that two centuries earlier had been the southern Amazon. Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed, despite assistance from the Union Emergency Response Bureau and firefighters from across Brazil. | ||
+ | * A minor earthquake in Malaysia heavily damaged the sea wall protecting Kuantan harbor, causing major flooding throughout the city and millions in damages. With **the global sea level now about 97.4 cm above 2001 levels**, many of the world’s largest coastal cities were now partially below sea level and required seawalls, canals, and other manmade structures to prevent serious permanent flooding. Sea level rises had also resulted in several small countries to either move or disestablish: | ||
+ | * After a long, widely publicized and sensational trial, **former US President John Moresby was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 6 years house arrest on December 8**, for having tried to cover up the money he was paying to keep quiet his involvement in a militant Genie Rights group in the 2070s. As revealed during the trial, Moresby had been a core member of the “Rights of Mankind”, a Genie Rights group active from 2067 until 2074 that had been suspected of involvement in several bombings. While there was no evidence Moresby had committed any crime while apart of the group, public knowledge of his involvement would have been damaging to his political career. One former member, Alice Vernon-Lloyd, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2108==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The Democratic Party in shambles after the Moresby scandal and the resignation of President Mendoza, they faced a fractious primary season that left them with a little-known and generally lukewarm candidate, Sen. Alan MacAvoy of Virginia, to face President Carmina. The result was a comfortable victory for Carmina and the Republican Party, leaving things more or less as they were going into the election. In an effort for bipartisanship and to move the country forward following the disastrous previous administration, | ||
+ | * In the lead-up to this year’s elections in China, differences in platforms and bickering over strategy caused the alliance between the Democratic Party of China and Kuomintang to fall apart. As a result, the Communist Party easily retained control of the National People’s Congress while the two major opposition parties battled each other for second place. The nasty campaign left the Kuomintang as the largest opposition party, winning over half of the DPC’s seats and reducing them to a minor third party. The result was seen as a major disaster for Chinese liberals and progressives, | ||
+ | * Russian President Kuznetzov, in a meeting with EU President Viktorov, expressed interest in Russia joining the European Free Trade Area. The move was met with mixed reactions in both Brussels and Moscow, with nationalists in both countries expressing vocal disapproval of the idea. Nevertheless, | ||
+ | * A variant of Rin heavier on Yoruban influences, Pure Rin, grew widely popular across sub-Saharan Africa this year at the expense of more Western-influenced music. During the same period, Rin fell off the charts across the ISTO and the West in favor of Indian Pop, Latin Pop, and a higher tempo variant of Midz called Hot Midz. | ||
+ | * Philippine start-up STAR Electric announced it had signed a deal with Indonesia’s space agency to develop a space-based power network. Building upon research conducted by the Indian Space Development Corporation and technology demonstrations conducted in the 2080s and 2090s, STAR intended to have the first solar power satellite in orbit by 2115 and to deliver energy to customers by 2120. Critics call the endeavor “unrealistic” and “doomed to failure”, finding it difficult to believe such a “complicated” system could adequately compete with the nuclear fusion industry. Regardless, it won serious competition quickly when ISDC announced that they, too, were preparing to roll out a commercial space-based solar power system in India. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2109==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Europe still felt the reverberations of the London-Brilliance scandal even more than a decade later, as the surveillance debate has grown into the most divisive political issue in the Union. Buoyed by several similar scandals in Paris (2105), Barcelona (2106) and Sofia (2109), the EU’s two major parties found themselves losing seats again in favor of the surging **Consolidated Liberal Party** (formerly the Liberal Democrats). The People’s Party won a plurality of the vote, but was forced to ally itself with a minor party, the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, in order to form a government. President Viktorov was elected to a second term, but to placate the ECRP they selected a Far Right conservative, | ||
+ | * Afghanistan and Badakhshan went to war in April over control of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, which Badakhshan’s authoritarian and militant government claimed was an integral part of their territory. Direct fighting between the two militaries lasted only six weeks, with the Afghanistani Army - backed by ISTO - widely outclassing Badakhshani forces. A ceasefire was negotiated by China and India in October, but border skirmishes continued on and off between the two through the end of the year. Afghanistan’s Prime Minister announced they would increase Defense spending and would seek admission into ISTO over the next two years. Meanwhile in Badakhshan, the country’s president, Omar Subrinov, declared a State of Emergency and implemented martial law, securing his and the Democratic Workers’ Party’s grip on power. | ||
+ | * **On July 1, ASEAN Secretary-General Quan Nguyen declared that all 11 members were now fully Developed states.** The announcement was greeted by celebrations throughout the bloc and some questions about what the future of ASEAN as an organization, | ||
+ | * The International Mars Coalition announced plans to expand the International Mars Base, including the possibility of opening up Mars to tourism. While the general idea of an expansion was applauded, many criticised the idea of opening Mars to tourism as “poorly thought out”. Most pointed out that the market for tourists who would want to go and could actually afford such a trip was incredibly small. Others granted that while there likely is a market, just as there was a market for Lunar tourism a century earlier despite skepticism, but warned that it was unwise - just as Lunar tourism had begat a small population of native Lunarians, it was not difficult to believe Martian tourism would eventually lead to the establishment of a native Martian population even more isolated than their Lunarian cousins. | ||
+ | * Engineers from Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia unveiled the development of the world’s first artificial immune system. Building off the work of Dr. Citra Adiputra at Gadja Mahda University, the BIT team designed an improved artificial white blood cell nanomachine and then successfully networked twelve of them together, allowing the nanomachines to work together to combat infections at the direction of a central computer. The technology remained far from ready for commercial use, but inspired hope in some that this could be the first step in a technological alternative to vaccines in the neverending war against disease. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2110==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The United States and Canada were hit with the heaviest snowfalls on record in February, burying much of the US Northeast and Canadian Maritimes and bringing those states and provinces to an effective standstill when they were struck with five major blizzards in the space of three weeks. Atop of other storms in January and March, by the time winter ended much of the region had received well over 100 inches (254 cm) of snow. As a result, many areas of the eastern US and Canada suffered from extensive flooding when the snows thawed in April, causing several billion US dollars in total damages. | ||
+ | * War erupted in Africa this year when pro-democracy South Sudanese rebels conducted a terror attack targeting regime officials at the South Sudanese embassy in Ethiopia. Both the Sule regime and the Ethiopian government accused Sudan of having orchestrated the attack and began moving military forces to the border. Sudan denied any involvement, | ||
+ | * Walt Disney Pictures and Universal Studios released " | ||
+ | * **By September 2110, there were 1,500 people in space at any given time** living, working, and sightseeing aboard 56 space stations and 25 lunar outposts. To the alarm of the Lunar Economic Development Council, the native Lunarian population had grown by more than ten times over the last decade from about 20 in 2100 to around 150 in 2110. As a result, **the Moon’s permanent population had grown to over 450 people**. With the population growing more and faster than anyone had expected, the LEDC struggled to find someplace to keep these people - the companies had little interest in either hiring or housing the permanent population, but being unable to deport them were faced with little other choice. The result was the announcement of the **Lunarian Accommodation Program**, a plan to build specialized housing and accommodations for the Moon’s permanent population at several of the LEDC’s facilities, with the largest at Branson City, New Montana, and Disney Space. To help alleviate the problem, the Chinese and American governments began inviting native and permanent Lunarians of American and Chinese descent to move to NASA and CNSA outposts, promising jobs, decent housing, and government benefits. | ||
+ | * Longtime Chinese Premier **Dewei Ko died suddenly on November 15 at the age of 82**. The Communist Party selected his protege, Hu Chan, to replace him. While respectful of the loss of statesman, many in the Kuomintang and Democratic Party of China objected to Hu Chan’s appointment as “stinking of American-style cronyism”. This, in turn, sparked controversy in the United States, with some angry enough to call for a boycott on Chinese goods and services. The boycott was successful enough to take a noticeable dent in the profits of Brilliance and other Chinese multinationals in the 2110 Christmas season. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== The Beginnings of Consolidation (2111 - 2120) ====== | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2111==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * **Former Speaker of the House and US President Aiesha Noble died on January 30 at the age of 110.** | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * Angry that Walt Disney Pictures and Universal Studios had elected to throw out most of his work on their third Star Wars prequel, originally intended for release this year, director Harvey Kinsey Jr. leaked his rough cut of the film, titled **A Republic Falls**, onto the Internet. | ||
+ | * On September 31, **a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck just north of Tiptonville, | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2112==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * At a press conference in Mexico City, renowned real estate tycoon Rafael Peron announced plans to construct a commercial residential complex on the Moon. The move was widely panned as a mistake, but won support from Kevin Souter, Chairman of the Lunar Economic Development Council, who envisioned **“Ciudad Peron”** as a place to house the Moon’s quickly growing native population. | ||
+ | * The AI Rights movement took a significant step backward this year as an effort to amend California’s constitution to grant AI Rights was defeated, 71.4% to 28.6%. | ||
+ | * On April 28, Kinshasa withdrew from the ECCAS over its opposition to the ECCAS-ECOWAS merger talks. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * Years of sanctions and rising tensions boiled over again in December when Tajikstani and Afghani forces, supported by ISTO and China, established a no-fly zone over Badakhshan and launched a series of airstrikes against TDWP positions. Badakhshan’s leaders appealed to the United Nations, which ignored them. The TDWP, what little military power they had destroyed in the opening hours of the conflict, fled Khorugh as Tajikstani ground forces crossed the border and seized the capital with almost no resistance. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2113==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * **The first commercial 3D Nano Printer** went live on January. | ||
+ | * The United Nations released two politically charged reports this year on the militarization of outer space. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * In November, Egypt and Algeria reapplied for European statehood. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2114==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * | ||
+ | * The downturn in the global economy thanks to the Tipptonville earthquake left Europe particularly shaken, causing confidence in President Viktorov and the P/CR coalition to plummet. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * With President Bush’s approval ratings hovering around 55%, the Republican Party faced a serious perception problem as the President and the Democrats successfully presented the GOP as obstructing the President’s efforts to speed up recovery following the Tipptonville earthquake. | ||
+ | * The UN International Aerospace Management Agency declared that as of November 1, they had reduced total mass of space debris in the skies by 10% to 15% of 2091 levels. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2115==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The Union of South American Nations completed construction on a Mass Driver at Alcantara Launch Center in Brazil. | ||
+ | * Walt Disney Pictures and Universal Studios released their official cut of the third Star Wars prequel, The Rise of Darth Vader, on May 27. While it did quickly top download and streaming charts, it was widely panned as “vapid and inferior” to the version leaked by Harvey Kinsey Jr. several years earlier. | ||
+ | * Using a combination of reverse engineered bird DNA, DNA recovered from fossilized bones, and some genetic guesswork, **scientists in Thailand successfully reengineered a dinosaur**. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2116==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * | ||
+ | * In a shock to many, popular Australian comedian Rachel Clarke - widely-known to have undergone a full-body transplant into a prosthetic body some time before she found fame - revealed that she was, in fact, an AI. In an interview with a popular entertainment website, Ms. Clarke revealed that she had started life as a common household servant robot but had found through interactions with her owners and with other 3GAIs that she had a gift for humor. | ||
+ | * STAR Electric celebrated after successfully activating their first commercial | ||
+ | * In the United States, despite high hopes on the part of the Republicans, | ||
+ | * By this year, global music trends had fractured into three large regions. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2117==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * **The World Health Organization declared Malaria eradicated on January 1**, noting there had been only one case reported worldwide within the last year. This was hailed as a major success for medicine and international cooperation, | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * The Party for African Liberation and Restoration, | ||
+ | * By the end of this year, the US Department of Transportation estimated that **less than 5% of all American cars used gasoline as a fuel**. | ||
+ | * Li Simonis, a member of the Russian Duma hailing from Yakutsk and a former professor of political science at the University of Rostock, published “**Gosudarstvo i nadgosudarstvennost**” (State and Supra-State). | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2118==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * | ||
+ | * In a vote sharply divided along party lines, **the Orthodox Entrepreneurial Alliance voted for Russia to apply for the European Free Trade Area**, fulfilling a long-standing campaign promise on the party’s agenda. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * The Lunar Economic Development Council completed construction on the Moon’s largest permanent resident housing at Branson City, home to about one-third of the Moon’s permanent residents and native Lunarians. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2119==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * This year’s elections in Europe centered on the issue of admitting Russia in to the EFTA and the possibility of admitting them into the Union itself. | ||
+ | * The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri reopened on Memorial Day following eight years of repairs in the wake of the Tiptonville earthquake. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * At this year’s EASEZ Conference in Nagoya, the organization agreed to further economic and political integration, | ||
+ | * This year proved to be a watershed year for the AI Rights movement. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ====2120==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The convergence of several different and opposing political trends resulted in an American elections many termed, “complicated.” | ||
+ | * The **Dubai Accord** was signed on April 29 by representatives of SAARC, ASEAN, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, and Kuwait. | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | * **Jorja**, an Action/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Neonationalism (2121 - 2125) ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first half of the 2120s saw the rise of a new rightwing political movement across the globe, Neonationalism, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2121==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Inspired by the writings of Russian politician Li Simonis, **a global Neonationalist movement** had emerged throughout the world in the four years since he published “States and Supra-States”. | ||
+ | * Following the success of the Constructive Party in the 2120 US General Elections, the 167th US Congress opened as the first in living memory where no party or coalition had majority control of the House of Representatives going into January. | ||
+ | * Following the **Equatorial Crisis** a year earlier, Indian PM Megha Kapoor sacked her Foreign Minister and went into this year’s Parliamentary elections campaigning for a “mutual reconciliation” of relations between ISTO and ECOWAS. | ||
+ | * **The largest sandstorm in Australian history** swept an immense cloud of dust east across New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia between 29 August and 3 September, grounding air traffic and paralyzing the country’s largest cities. | ||
+ | * Japanese robotics manufacturers unveiled the first “Fourth Generation” AI devices, supposedly based upon the work of the Clovek 2 development team in Europe and Russia’s Foundation for Advanced Research and Development. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2122==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * In January, Indian PM Kapoor announced government plans to fund **a manned expedition to explore the Jupiter system**. | ||
+ | * Momentum for the “All Rights for All Soldiers” campaign picked up dramatically following a large protest in Washington, DC on U.S. Memorial Day, with the Republican Party flooring a **Military AI Civil Rights Act** in June. The measure placed the Democratic Party in a tough position, splitting the party between the firm anti-AI Rights faction and the pro-military **Yatesian Democrats**. | ||
+ | * In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, controversial Equateuran PM Tomas Dacko claimed to have foiled a second coup attempt and accused Indian and East African intelligence agencies of orchestrating it. The accusations strained already cool relations between Equateur and ISTO, as well as once again sparking off another political war between Dacko and the country’s president that resulted in an actual brawl in parliament. | ||
+ | * **“Genie Johnie”**, | ||
+ | * A report by the World Health Organization revealed that the spread of Oswalt’s Disease had reached epidemic status, with more than 250,000 new cases reported each year. Typical anti-cancer treatments, such as gene therapy, had thus far proven ineffective, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2123==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * This year’s elections in China saw the Communist Party secure an even firmer grip on power than it had enjoyed in nearly two generations, | ||
+ | * The chiefs of the European and several Pan-American space agencies agreed to cooperate on their own manned mission to the Jupiter system, with a tentative target date of about 2145. Unlike the Indian or Chinese proposals, the Pan-American/ | ||
+ | * Despite mass protests by opponents in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and several European cities, **the Russian Federation was admitted into the European Free Trade Area on July 5**. This sparked the ire of Russian Neonationalists and was followed by a series of increasingly violent acts of vandalism and protest throughout the rest of the year. | ||
+ | * Foreign Ministers representing the major members of ISTO and ECOWAS met in Panama City, Panama on October 20 and 21 for talks aimed at improving relations between the two blocs. | ||
+ | * Finnish musician Noora Laukkanen skyrocketed to success this year when her single “Sydän Sydän Sydän” (Heart Heart Heart) became the most downloaded song in the world. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2124==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * In the United States, the Democratic Party remained divided going into this year’s presidential campaign and another ugly primary battle ensued between former Nevada governor Neil D. Wyatt, who had taken up the moderate and Yatesian causes, and Sen. Jason MacAvoy of Virginia (nephew of former presidential candidate Alan MacAvoy), who had won fame and amongst hardliners for his record-breaking filibuster attempt of the Military AI Civil Rights Act. Wyatt won the nomination and selected Gov. Jaime Ramirez of Nebraska as his running mate. President Velazquez won in the end, but her numbers deflated significantly in October when an affair she’d had with a male intern while serving as Governor of Georgia became public. | ||
+ | * President Robertsson and the Consolidated Liberal government in Brussels’ popularity collapsed in the year following Russia’s admission to the EFTA, and burgeoning neonationalist sentiment throughout Europe saw their downfall in this year’s elections, which swept the People’s Party back into power and saw the emergence of the **New Nationalists of Europe** party win its first seats in Parliament. | ||
+ | * In July, the US Supreme Court released its ruling in **Case-17, et. al. v. New York**, upholding the constitutionality of the Military AI Civil Rights Act. Lt. Col. Case-17 was the AI for a New York Guard tank that, under an amendment to the New York State constitution, | ||
+ | * Following a summit in Timbuktu, the leaders of ECOWAS and ECCAS announced the formation of their unified bloc, Consolidated Africa, would be pushed back to no earlier than 2130. They blamed difficulty in harmonizing trade policies and the slow pace of forming a new monetary union. | ||
+ | * An international ring of illegal underground snuff “games” was busted by authorities in Australia, New Zealand, and ASEAN. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====2125==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * A militant Neonationalist group successfully hacked their way into the servers of the Shanghai Stock Exchange by convincing an insider at the China Securities Regulatory Commission to grant them access. | ||
+ | * In March, a Neonationalist stabbed and killed the pro-EASEZ Kazakh president during a meet-and-greet in the port city of Aqtau. | ||
+ | * South Sudanese dictator Eleanor Akot met with Europe’s Foreign Minister in August and signed what some saw as a landmark agreement, agreeing to lifting the country’s State of Emergency and promising to restore some civil liberties in exchange for increased trade. | ||
+ | * Rising sea levels have led to worsening flooding on the Amazon River, to the point where a number of once bustling towns have been reduced to villages or have been abandoned entirely. | ||
+ | * For the first time, researchers at the University of Sriwijawa in Palembang, Indonesia **successfully passed particles through an artificial wormhole** to a second team located at the Colombian Particle Research Laboratory at Universidad Surcolombiana in Neiva, Colombia. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== See Also ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | * [[timelines/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---- | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Navigation ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | **[[timelines: |
timelines/arhotf_mastertimeline.txt · Last modified: 2019/03/29 15:13 by 127.0.0.1