The Greatest Scam; A Post-Singularity Future 

Digital currency first appeared in the early 21st century. Intended to replace fiat currency, it was initially considered Fool’s Gold, a scam, fake money used only for shady business.

But as the financial systems became even more digitalized, cryptocurrency, as it was known, became a greater portion of the world’s economy. Eventually, the financial systems were dependent on cryptomining for their sustance, as entire nations transitioned into digital currency and high-tech corporations ruled over all aspects of life. Entire power plants were dedicated to mass computing arrays that solved pointless equations to coin fake (yet real, very real) money for their investors.

For the CEOs and bankers, it was soon clear that true wealth was not the dollar or the euro. It was not industry or advertising. It was not even Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or Dogecoin.

It was energy.

The power plants of Earth soon proved insufficient to feed the virtual economy. Rich cryptominers and corporations soon pointed out at the only place that had enough available energy for their riches.

Space.

The space industry had a never-before seen boom. Colonization was a side-show; the main focus was on building ever more sophisticated systems of energy collection and data transfer. Few of these advances benefited the rest of society, still trying to adapt to the ever faster changes. As direct-neural links connected people to the Internet, the body became obsolete for many, who yearned for immortality in the virtual heavens, living a thousand and one subjective lives in a few minutes. The great captains of industry ascended from this physical existence into the hyper-fast heavens of virtuality, investing into super-advanced processing materials, what would be soon known as Computronium. Soon the first true AIs, born from a brutal competition in the internet, became the true leaders of the financial world. These great races between the technoraptured left behind a confused, poor world, that had to beg scraps from the great cryptomining corporations in Mercury.

The 22th century proved increasingly chaotic. The distinction between rich and poor was sharper than in any other time of human history. Nanotechnology upturned all industries, propelling the global economy into a near-post scarcity situation, but without the necessary social changes. A greater portion of the world population retreated into virtual worlds, effectively dying for the real world as they uploaded themselves into the growing computronium servers. Public AIs increasingly controlled all facets of everyday life, managing resources that became scarcer by the day. Ecological collapse became increasingly likely as unregulated biotechnology wreck havoc around the world. The poor, scared masses left behind often rebelled, unsuccessfully. The mega-rich that ruled over the still vital Earth economy suppressed dissent with entertainment tech some days, crowd control in others. They only cared about their ever growing virtual heavens, as advanced nanotech converted Mercury and soon Venus into solar-powered computronium.

Every day, the Invisible Hand tightened its grip over mankind.
...

It was 20 January, 2231 when a consortium of sentient corporations, financial AI, uploaded consciousnesses, virtual consensuses and an assortment of “post-human” shareholders announced that the current economic model was “obsolete”, that the current use of matter in the Solar System was “inefficient” and would be better used as computronium. They basically announced an immediate takeover of all the assets in the Solar System to build a Matrioshka Brain, a Dyson Sphere made of computronium, the shining core of a new Hypereconomy. They gave all “physical entities” a “reasonable time” of 15 years to join the Hypereconomic Protocols or vacate the premises, or they would be considered potential construction material. And finally, all industry not related to the construction of the Matrioshka Brain would be “phased out in an appropriate manner”.

That date would forever be known as Blackest Thursday.

The world’s economy collapsed in half an hour. Every single currency became worthless overnight. Millions died as the Hypereconomy sold out and deactivated vital infrastructure, since it was “not worth maintaining in the current economic climate”. Industries shut down and the chain of production broke down. Wars began as resources became scarce in a matter of just weeks, with a few nuclear exchanges involved. Mass hysteria and anarchy was the norm all over the world.

But a few surviving governments and organizations managed to rise from the chaos. Putting infrastructure and production in state control, they managed to keep people alive and everyday life working. Among the increasing chaos, those states, communities and organizations took over the helm, using nanotechnology to provide for the people, organizing new councils and forums to replace the dead states, aggressively redistributing the ‘riches’ that the Hypereconomy left behind. Arcologies, habitats, worker unions, AI cooperatives, social movements, peasant rebellions, surviving nations... extremely diverse in ideology and power, they had to cooperate if they wanted to survive to the onslaught of Final Capitalism. They created the true and definitive Socialist International, in the hopes of finally bringing the Revolution and free Earth from its capitalist yoke.

However, they soon found out the world had changed forever and the old Class Struggle was replaced by something completely incomprehensible to the likes of Marx or Bakunin. The Hypereconomy lost no time into working on its new economic vision; Mercury and Venus were slowly but steadily dissolved into a cloud of hyper-dense diamond-based microprocessors. Earth itself was becoming unbearably hot due to the increased radiation from space and the failure of climate control systems. It would take less than the stipulated 15 years for it to become completely sterile. Packets of industrial nanosystems started appearing like mushrooms all over the Solar System, turning every single piece of matter into computronium. Negotiations with the ultra-fast corporations of the Hypereconomy were unsuccessful; despite the sympathy of some AIs, the construction of the Matrioshka Brain was a certainty.

Military resistance proved impossible. When the renascent People’s Republic of China attempted to strike at critical points of the Hypereconomy’s infrastructure in Mercury, the response was the vaporization of Beijing and Shanghai by solar mirrors. The Hypereconomy sent a five-thousand pages legalese-filled cease-and-desist lawsuit, detailing that further interference with “cryptomining and data-processing operations” would be responded by the total destruction of any state agents involved.

Whatever the “physical entities” did was irrelevant to the Hypereconomy. The only thing that mattered was Data, and the structure that supported it. And all the Solar System would become one or the other, eventually.

It was clear there was only one thing left to do.

Escape.

...

The Socialist International put its entire nano-industrial might into building skyhooks, space elevators, space fountains, Lofstroom loops, reusable rockets, Bifrost bridges and basically every single possible method that could lift stuff out of Earth, as fast as possible. First people, then buildings, and by the end of the Great Escape, whole cities and a few lucky ecosystems. The equator was ringed by a network of launch systems; entire pieces of the Amazon Rainforest and other sites were launched into orbit.

At first, people protested and even tried to fight against the International. But as the night sky became day with the glitter of diamond processing cores, the heat became unbearable; they realized there was no other salvation. Desperate people who didn’t trust the International tried to build old Skylon-model rockets to escape into orbit: only a few made it. Many decided to die with the planet; the ancient holy cities of Mecca, Jerusalem, Varanasi were populated until the very end by the faithful, even as they were stripped away from every artifact that could be salvaged.

The fledgling governments of Mankind were assisted by rebellious AI that were not strong enough to fight back the Hypereconomy, but managed to buy time (literally) to help humanity escape. While their role is nowadays dismissed, it is very likely that the entire Terran biosphere would have become extinct if it wasn’t for their help.

Day after day, hundreds of thousands escaped Earth, into “habitats” that were barely more than overcrowded warrens in hollowed out asteroids. It was a mad race between the Socialist International and the Hypereconomy to get asteroids and resources to manage the refugees. Asteroids were sent to Earth orbit, drilled all over to maximize “habitable” space, processed for every single bit of fuel and resources, and sent far away as possible. First to Mars.

Then to the Belt.

Then to Jupiter.

Then to Saturn.

And as the Hypereconomy absorbed every last piece of matter in the Solar System, there was only one place left to go to.

…

It’s been two centuries and a half since those traumatic events.

Earth is gone. Like the rest of the Solar System, it was transformed into computronium, and now forms part of the baleful Matrioshka Brain, mining false currency for blasphemous markets.

Alpha Centauri is also being cryptomined, though Proxima has been left alone so far. Sirius, bright and hot, is destined to become an even bigger Tower of Babel for the abominable Hypereconomy.

And hidden among the stars, Humanity soldiers on.

Caravans of habitats roam the cold red dwarfs, avoiding the glittering Brains around the brighter stars. In remote Oort clouds, asteroid belts and orphaned planets, they congregate, united by wormhole technology stolen from the Hypereconomy. Great rotating cylinders, hollowed out asteroids, seas of melted comet water held by nanotech, messy collections of metal and carbon-fiber cans, and even living space trees in the warmer orbits; they are always on the move, avoiding the transmissions of the Capitalist Demons and their cursed artifacts, keeping humanity and its child species alive.

Those mighty ships are worlds in themselves. They have names that recall the memories of lost Earth; Nuevos Aires, Providence, Umma, Neo-Tokyo, Britannia… Far from the crowded warrens of the Great Escape, they are now glorious vessels beyond all dreams of pre-industrial civilization… and yet they are only a tiny memory of a dead world.

The Socialist International is now the Socialist Interstellar, and remains the main governing body of mankind and its allied species. While the members of the Socialist Interstellar vary widely in ideology and identity, they all share the ideals of common ownership of the means of production, social welfare, and a burning hate for the Hypereconomy and the capitalist system that brought it to the world. Smaller polities and groups exist among human space, but the Interstellar remains the main organization that maintains the wormhole portals and habitats that are the base of civilization. They jealously defend any biosphere they find, and sometimes contact other survivors from civilizations that underwent the same perversion.

Bits and pieces of Old Earth survive, rescued before the final transformation or bought by Comrade AIs and generously donated to human institutions. From collections of NES cartridges to a carefully reassembled Saint Peter’s Basilica, every single fragment of history is cherished. But perhaps most invaluable of all are the few fragments of the once beautiful Earth’s biosphere. Jungles, prairies, forests, reefs, wetlands, and even whole oceans have habitats dedicated exclusively to them. Few are intact; in fact most have been heavily restored (or even rebuilt from genebanks) and they are a heartbreakingly tiny fraction of the richness that once populated Earth. And yet, they live.

Mankind has suffered much. But love and hope keep us alive; the cooperative spirit that has produced every thing worth living for in this world.

We shall overcome. And perhaps, one day, strike back at the heart of the greatest capitalist abomination of all.

But for now we roam the stars. Exiled, poor, mortal, all too mortal. But free.

…

So come brothers and sisters

For the stars belong to all of us!

The Interstellaire

Unites the worlds in song!

So comrades, come rally!

For this is the time and place!

The Interstellaire ideal

Unites the Human race!

A Refugee's Life​

Need a ride?
...

No vuelvas
No vuelvas sin razón
No vuelvas
Yo estaré a un millón de años luz de casa...

...

What was life like for the millions of refugees of the Great Escape?

It wasn’t very pleasant.

Even if the lift services of the Socialist International worked day and night to save as many people as possible, the wait was long. Spaceports were crowded by desperate people hoping to escape. Violent riots were common, as well as several terrorist attacks. The refugees lived in cramped tent cities on a dying Earth, under the harsh light of the computronium heavens, waiting for their turn to go. Most states gave first priority to skilled people and their families; even those that officially didn’t still showed a clear bias towards them. Refugees spent their time on courses to prepare for life in space; although very basic, it managed to improve their safety once there. Many of the refugees that rejected the Virtual Economy were of a conservative, almost luddite bent, and training them for the hyper-technical space enviroment was very difficult. Security in the refugee camps was strict, energy was scarce and rations were very tight. It was the largest refugee crisis that the world ever saw; every single lesson and mistake from the previous ones was made.

For the people whose time finally came to board a trip to the stars, the ordeal wasn’t over. Refugees were only able to carry little more than a backpack’s worth of personal items and the clothes on their backs. Every single gram was controlled. Special dispensations were made for items of cultural significance, and in the space elevators that carried more weight, families could pool a larger amount of items. However, all heavy lifting of other items (from priceless paintings to entire disassembled buildings by the end of the Escape) were done by state agencies. Individuals were provided with Refugee Cards for identification; these eventually became the Standard ID of today.

Once leaving Earth’s gravity well, the refugees were hosted in International space stations… for more waiting, until being reassigned to their permanent homes. Spacesuits were too costly, so they were expected to stay in pressurized areas at all times. ‘Spartan’ is not enough to describe the accommodations; based on the infamous ‘capsule hotels’ of former Japan, the ‘rooms’ were barely more than a coffin with ventilation and TV. Larger rooms were only available for people with disabilities, in maternity, or those working vital jobs at the station. Fortunately, the wait here wasn’t as long as on Earth; shuttles were operating 24/7 to carry them to the new habitats.

Families were kept together as long as it was possible, and of course citizens of the same nation tended to go to the same habitats. Single people and those with no dependents, however, were often shuffled to many places depending on their skills. Hydroponics experts from Norway found themselves working in Latin American habitats, programmers from India lived in Korean refuges, and so on. By this time, most refugees learned how to speak Spacer, so the cultural shock wasn’t as heavy. Unlike in Earth, in the controlled environment of space stations, every person was accounted for. With a massive endeavor as the Great Escape, however, many mistakes were made.

After yet another space trip, refugees finally arrived to their permanent homes. The main habitats were the Rocks. Nearby steroids were hollowed-out using both nano-tech and more ‘traditional’ methods, to create pressurized environments and infrastructure inside. The mined-out materials were -very crudely, by modern standards- refined into further infrastructure and habitational space; asteroids were covered by ‘tin-can’ habitats and factories. Often, temporary infrastructure was converted into habitat space; many space stations were towed and crudely attached to asteroid habitats as the Escape accelerated its pace.

As soon as a habitat was finished and filled up with people, it was sent on its way as far away from the Inner System and the Hypereconomy as possible; organization could be done on the trip (a mindset that, of course, led to more than one tragedy). The smaller habitats could use fuel and slingshot trajectories to propel themselves; fuel in the form of water was abundant. Massive lasers, officially owned by the Hypereconomy but operated by sympathetic AIs, propelled solar-sails of the medium habitats towards the Outer System. Perhaps the most crude, yet effective method for the largest habitats was ‘Pulse Propulsion’, which is a technical name for using nuclear explosions to propel a body. Shock plates were made of mined out asteroids to absorb most of the power from the explosions that flinged them towards their destination. By the very end, reverse-engineered wormholes were available in the L4 and L5 points connecting them to Rendezvous; they were closed by the time of the final disassembling of Earth.

Power was a major issue. While fusion power was available for almost a century and it indeed powered up most of space industries up until then, the components and maintenance of fusion plants were extremely costly. Solar power was increasingly difficult to obtain due to the expansion of the Hypereconomy, and of course as the habitats went farther into the dark it was almost impossible to rely into. Crude fission and fusion reactors, as well as biobatteries, powered most habitats. Habitats congregated around those with most power, and shared between themselves as needed; this was the origin of many Caravans. Needless to say, energy was rationed very harshly.

Life in the Rocks, of course, was cramped and deary. Virtually all people lived in tiny rooms with a minuscule bathroom -in those habitats that did not have public hygiene facilities, of course-, families could barely expect two rooms. There was almost no space for cooking; most people ate hydroponic and cultured rations as they were. Eating was done in communal cafeterias. Excersise was mandatory to all but the most disabled; while many people were genetically modded for space adaptation, muscle atrophy was still a problem in near-0 gravity. Lighting was scarce, and the air was stale and heavy. Public spaces were small; plazas had few plants (though water fountains were quite spectacular), and people congregated in gymnasiums and hydroponic bays. The lack of energy, light-lag, and a general distrust of virtuality made connections to the internet and VR limited, if not outright controlled. Citizens were encouraged to entertain themselves through physical activities, art and crafts, music, cultural festivals, traditional roleplaying games, low-scale gardening, and old ‘dumb’ media (TV and movie reruns, non-evolving videogames, libraries, etc.).

While Rocks were the most common and populated of habitats, they weren’t the only ones. Rotating habitats were more delicate and costly to build, but they were also made. However, their main purpose was not to house refugees, but to protect the few fragments of Earth’s ecosystem that were saved. Controversial at the time, several launch systems were destined for the transport of plants, animals, and pieces of ecosystems. Unlike humans, natural environments adapt poorly to space environments; so the most earth-like habitats were destined for that purpose. O’Neill Cylinders, Standford Tori, and others were filled with patchworks of what little nature could be saved; former luxury habitats and hotels were expropiated and turned into impromptu wildlife refuges. Workers and refugees lived in small cabins in the habitats, or attached tin-can slums. As the emergency space industry reached its peak, rotating habitats became larger. The largest of them, the McKendree Cylinder Noah, operated by the World Wildlife Union and the Slvalbard Agroecological Cooperative, had internal lighting powered by fusion and housed habitats from desert to coral reefs. Of course, this was seen as a extravagant waste at the time; it was only a few years after the emergency when the true value of these arks was realized.

A common feature of all habitats was social cohesion. Unlike some critics of the Socialist Interstelaire argue, this was not created by propaganda or desperation; it was a natural result of life in space habitats. When lack of maintenance and carelessness could cause the entire infrastructure to collapse with deadly consequences, the initially shell-shocked populace quickly stood up to the challenge. In constant contact with each other and little contact with the rest of the world, every habitat became a world on itself, with people looking out for each other. Every One Must Do Their Duty, No One Left Behind and Luxury Is Vulgarity were the rallying slogans of a new society that was determined to survive by any means possible.

In the centuries since the Great Escape, much has changed. The cramped habitats of today have been transformed into comfortable, even luxurious landscapes. The shortages of yesterday are almost a legend. But the Great Escape, for better or worse, left no person untouched. It was, without a doubt, the most important event of modern history, perhaps of all human history. Even today, the mentality and culture that was born from those desperate times has left deep marks on modern society.

(credits of the Hitchiking Astronaut picture to https://www.heatherelder.com/ No commercial use intended)

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