.5 New ideas for Part Two
Initial thoughts
My new idea for Part Two can keep much of the same pattern as the old, but the kinds of factions involved would be different, as I have explained before. I am not sure exactly what those should be, but I will explain the ideas I have and what still needs to be figured out. Instead of the Republic of Earth, there would be the dominant insurance-based security service or some other organization or regime which operates on similar principles. I will still use “Armenelos” as a placeholder name to refer to this and the location where it is based. I will later explain why that is actually a really great placeholder name. Armenelos played an important, but subtle part in quickly resolving the conflict which resulted in the breakup of the United States, if that is what will happen in this timeline. Since then, they have helped maintain the peace among the resulting polities. However, while their actions are usually not secret, they do not draw very much attention from the public and they mainly operate in only a few places and avoiding conflict. This begins to change in the time leading up to the 2180s as the power of Armenelos grew as its business expanded to places around the world.
Anywhere with insecure property rights due to unstable government is an opportunity. I do not know what places these would be in the mid 22nd century. Places in Africa, the Middle-East, and Latin America are the obvious possibilities. However, those places are unstable in the present often because of actions of the United States and that would not be an issue in this time and the people in those places would not want Americans getting involved with them again. On the other hand, Armenelos and similar organizations might have a presence in Latin America early on, not just because there is a need for their services, but because the ideas on which they are based have some presence there. I have heard about a significant libertarian movement in Brazil which is pursuing a localist strategy, about Americans moving to Mexico to escape the pandemic tyranny, and about attempts to establish private cities in the region. It might even make more sense for Armenelos to have been established there, depending on what happens in the United States. Perhaps Armenelos might be located in that place in Chile after all. However, I may have read that Chile is becoming socialist these days, so maybe not.
With this success, the leadership of Armenelos realizes they are making the once-theoretical anti-empire a reality. They become even more ambitious. They begin to abandon the appearance of humility which Armenelos has maintained and allow themselves to be seen as a significant player in world affairs as they display their power more openly. This results in Armenelos coming in to conflict with a major well-established state. My initial idea for how this happens was that they would offer their service to people in a territory where there is a growing struggle for independence against that state. The prudent thing for Armenelos to do is discourage the independence movement as that is the easiest way to create stability and lower the price of insurance to one which can be afforded. If they wanted to help people being victimized by that regime, then they would help them flee from it rule. Armenelos has never directly opposed any government before. However, this time, Armenelos has set their ambition much higher and they instead plan to help the rebels in their fight to make their territory independent from the regime currently ruling them. Their insurance-based business model would probably not work in this situation, but Armenelos’ experience with it would still help. The process of deciding what the price would be if they were to insure the rebel’s lives and property against the regime’s violence might help them devise the least costly means of fighting that regime to the point that they will negotiate. Afterwards, the rebels will have the paradoxical anti-imperial relationship with Armenelos in which they effectively their vassal by being indebted to them and complying with their directions for the best ways to remain sovereign.
As soon as the regime the rebels are fighting to free themselves from learns of this plan, they threaten Armenelos with full-scale war. Armenelos calls on their network of clients and allies to fulfill their mutual defense agreements. However, when it becomes clear that this will be a drawn-out fight, some of them begin to turn against Armenelos on the grounds that they never agreed to get involved in a conflict initiated by any member of the alliance which they entered on the understanding it would have a policy of never making enemies. Additionally, governments from around the world side against Armenelos in this as they realize they can be a threat to their power if they are successful in bringing about the secession of a territory from a state and are able to repeat such success. There may be accusations that agents of Armenelos incited discontent among the people seeking independence so that Armenelos could sell them their services. The leadership of Armenelos anticipated all of these challenges when they formulated the plan, but they still face huge difficulties and many things do not go as expected. They are faced with the choice of silencing the allies who are about to oppose them and then effectively conscripting their forces into the war effort. Armenelos has the power and influence to do this and get away with it, but by doing this they would hardly be different the monopolistic totalitarian regime they are fighting and the conflict would have the potential to be repeat of the world wars of the 20th century and that would be contrary to the entire purpose of Armenelos. To salvage the legitimacy of their project, the leadership of Armenelos could let those members of their network stop them. They would include other insurance-based security services, so this would prove the validity of the model in that allowing competing agencies results in a self-correcting system.
As before, I want many different characters in order to show these events from different perspectives, but the main protagonists, Sam, Sophia, and Robert, would all work for Armenelos in varying capacities. They see the disaster Armenelos is heading towards and work to avoid it and achieve success in this mission even as they believe it is massively foolish. They discover that the leadership of Armenelos has been infiltrated and this entire mission which brought them into conflict with a powerful state was part of a conspiracy to destroy and discredit Armenelos partly engineered by agents of that state who are also part of the same occult force which was defeated in Part One and is now trying to regain it dominance over the world using this regime as its host in the same way it used the United States. The protagonists are declared traitors by Armenelos in addition to being enemies of the hostile regime. They are eventually successful in exposing the conspiracy and removing those involved from Armenelos’ leadership. With new leadership, they still need to deal with the hostile regime. Being controlled by that mysterious evil force, there is no way to make peace with it. They need to destroy the enemy, not just help the rebels win independence. The forces of Armenelos do this by winning a series of battles which they could have easily lost, perhaps ending with them stopping the enemy from completing a last-ditch attempt to inflict as much damage as possible. When the hostile regime’s involvement in the conspiracy was exposed, that government loses legitimacy as it is revealed that they caused the crisis. Factions sympathetic to the rebels take the opportunity to act against them and contribute to their defeat. Afterwards, Armenelos provides it service throughout that entire country, not just the rebel’s territory.
There is no more doubt that Armenelos has built the anti-empire. It is a victorious military force and a ruling authority maintaining order while also being a provider of a service which its clients can stop buying. This victory is a turning point in history as this process is repeated in other places, but with less violence now that it has become clear that the rulers of a country can benefit at least as much as the independence seekers. The horrors of the modern age which result from and result in the modern state have been ended. This process began with crises the 21st century which weakened such regimes. In the time of Part Two. When the crises passed, it became possible for states to amass such power again, but Armenelos’ victory prevented this and ensured the trends toward decentralization would continue. Instead of mass exploitation by unaccountable oligarchies using democracy as cover for all manner of civilization-destroying evils, governance, as well as industry, would be localized. Great powers such as Armenelos would gain their status by strengthening people and communities rather than weakening them so as to make them easier to exploit. These changes would all be better understood in spiritual terms and as resulting from the defeat of the occult forces.
Another idea for the conflict of Part Two is that Armenelos gets involved in a war between two or more major powers. Armenelos might have clients in one or both countries and would have an interest in deescalating the conflict. In doing so they risk getting drawn into the fight and making it far worse. In either case, I would need to decide which country might be a major power in the 22nd century and would be where the antagonists reign. I should say again that I am not qualified to discuss these matters and I am only stating the impressions I get from the various things I hear.
Russia or China are the obvious possibilities. However, in the present they are boogeymen with Americans being fed exaggerated views of their evils and the threat they pose as well as their competency. Being a contrarian, I am not interested in doing anything to advance those narratives. On the other hand, there seems to be some validity in the perspective that there is a great civilizational rivalry between the east and west. When imagining this fictional future, I could address how this turns out. If the United States is no longer the world superpower and those countries overcome the problems they face as they are further distanced from communism, then they might be plausible antagonists. Russia could be a candidate for a regime which would become dominated by the evil forces which now dominate the West, if it is not already. I am remembering something I have read about Aleksandr Dugin explaining how, despite appealing to right-wing dissidents by denouncing liberal globalism, his ideology is just a pro-Russian version of the same thing. China might seek revenge against the west for the “Century of Humiliation”. If I want to avoid making the present regime’s boogeymen the antagonists of the story, a conflict involving India might be interesting for reasons I will get to later. Of all these possibilities, I might like this one the most. The next most probable possibility is an enemy on the other side of the Atlantic.
In any case, there is no way everyone associated with Armenelos would not see crossing an ocean to get involved with a foreign conflict in a way which would obviously be perceived as aggressive as anything other than a repeat of the United States’ disastrous 20th century foreign policy in addition to all the other obvious problems. Perhaps Eurasian powers become involved or have a hand in starting the conflict of Part Two, but the regime which Armenelos comes into conflict with should be one which they already had a reason to be involved with. If Armenelos is based in somewhere in North or South America, then so should their opponent. I will explain my idea for this by first explaining how the old characters might fit in this new version of the story.
New thoughts on the characters as they relate to the setting
Robert comes from a family which has held a prominent place in Armenelos since its founding. Perhaps characters in Part One could be his ancestors. Robert has been trained from a young age to be a knight. Many of the things I imagined would be part of Istarcano training might work best if started at a young age. When I was worried that the Republic would obviously appear corrupt, it seemed like accepting trainees less than eighteen years old would be seen as taking children and indoctrinated them into serving the global regime. If the elites of the Republic trained their own children, that would be nepotism and contrary to the what a neutral universal government is supposed to be. Armenelos, however would have much more humble beginnings. It was created by members of a particular community in order to serve that community and those friendly to it. Anyone outside of it would have less priority and would also not be expected to support it. Nepotism and in-group preference would be perfectly normal. A significant part of the ideological foundation the entire project is the idea that neutral universal institutions cannot exist. The theoretical anti-empire would form as a result of perfecting the business model by which one group can pursue their particular interests while entering as little conflict as possible with others in part by helping them do the same. Of course, things will not be so simple in reality and part of the conflict of Part Two would be Armenelos being faced with the need to become a universal institution in order to continue to gain power and be able to survive. Positions in Armenelos would not be strictly hereditary, but they would often be held by members of the families involved in its founding because of their status and because their parents would have had them taught the right skills and instilled the right values and loyalty in them. The people involved with the founding of Armenelos would have wanted their children who would take their places to be taught to be as competent and wise as possible in order to survive and succeed in the challenging and dangerous world they find themselves in. There would not be such a well-defined role as the Istarcano, so everyone involved with Armenelos’ project would be given this kind of training and education to varying degrees.
I wrote earlier that the Istarcanor would not often have children. While this might have made sense then with the Istarcanor being a particular special class of people whose ways are not for everyone, this would not be the case for organizations like Armenelos and the communities in which they form. As surely as the destruction of the family is both a cause and effect of so much of the evils the present, building large and strong families is both the ends and the means of their mission. It is an end in that it is the foundation of civilization and all that is good and anything contrary to it is bad. Indeed, a central part of my theory of morality was the importance of future generations continuing the progress of civilization, which would require that those future generations be produced in the first place. It is a means in that people with children are invested in the future and motivated to act productively and for the long term. Of course, it is only in these bizarre times there is any need to say this. A sufficiently high birthrate is only the minimum requirement for civilization. As, I will explain, Part Two will be in a time when these present problems have passed and the underlying issues manifest in different ways.
Robert is one of the younger children in his family. I had the idea that I could roll dice to randomly determine anything numerical which is not extremely important to the plot and which I find difficult to decide. By rolling two four-sided dice, I determined Robert is one of five children and, by rolling one of those four more times, I determined he has an older brother, who would be the oldest of all of them, two older sisters and one younger brother. He is afraid that he will not meet the expectations placed on him. He is also skeptical of Armenelos and questions its purpose and how it achieves it. At the start of Part Two, there would be much disagreement regarding these questions, especially during the coming crisis.
Sophia and Robert would have a more equal importance as characters in this story. I have always disliked the female action hero who does everything at least as well as a man and I do so now even more than before. Sophia was never really that. I imagined the Istarcanor would always use subtle and covert methods. Armenelos would do the same, but that will not always work. Part Two is a story about when it does not. The knights of Armenelos and anyone else whose job expressly involves entering combat will all be men. There could be exceptions as this would not be a universal rule among all factions and organizations, but I have no particular interest in making them a part of the story. This does not need to be brought up as an issue in the story; it would just be accepted as normal. The idea that there is any need to include women in such roles or that not doing so is denying them any kind of right or privilege would be regarded as one of the many absurdities of the decadent early 21st century western society. Even if technologies such as the SSSMACCC suit overcome the physical differences (they would not completely), that would not be a compelling reason for men to allow women enter dangerous situations. I am realizing that an underlying reason for my recent re-imagining of this story by changing the Republic of Earth to the anti-empire may have been to attempt to create a story showing how virtuous traditional masculinity can exist in modernity. The anti-empire is my attempt to imagine a way for men to acquire power, do violence, and achieve greatness on a large scale in ways which are imperfect, but ultimately just, even from the perspective of someone with modern liberal sensibilities.
Of course, non-combatants will can still face danger. The challenges of the previous century and a half show that there does need to be a shooting war for there to be great adversity which every member of a society would benefit from being prepared to deal with. The part of the purpose of Armenelos would be to create a society which does not allow people to become complacent after the crisis passes. When the leadership of Armenelos begins to consider taking ambitious actions which could bring them in conflict with powerful enemies, they know that doing so will put everyone involved with them in danger. For these reasons, women associated with Armenelos might be given a different, but nearly as intensive, kind of training as the men. The main way for Armenelos to protect itself is to keep totally secret all activities beyond its usual ones as a local security service. Women could be well-suited as spies or covert agents. If they ever face combat in this capacity, it would only be because something has gone wrong, just as if that were to happen to a civilian. However, these people would obviously still face great danger and things will go wrong and they would need to have the skills to survive in those cases. Their activities would be secretive by their nature, but even those who know about them would not particularly approve and they all would understand this is not something the average woman should aspire to be, as opposed to every man being expected to put himself at risk if the need arises.
More developed thoughts on the setting
The problem is that I also imagined Sophia would represent an outsider’s perspective of Armenelos. With my thoughts being directed towards the events of the present, I briefly had the idea that she would come from a woke leftist urban center, perhaps one in California. Armenelos, on the other hand, would be everything based. It would be traditionalist while also truly progressive. It would be authoritarian, but in ways in line with libertarian principles. It would also be a leading center of power in red America. Armenelos would be everything Sophia’s culture told her is wrong, but which she would find is actually right. Aside from the problem of once again presenting a simplistic view in which what I think is good is clearly portrayed as such, this scenario is just not plausible. Perhaps it could happen if woke leftism were to truly dominate and the only resistance would be covert and Armenelos would have it origins in leading this. However, there is no way the absolute insanity occurring right now will last, certainly not the obvious cultural aspects of it, and certainly not for more than a hundred years, if for no other reason than that the people who support, what is increasingly obviously a death cult, will go extinct. The only other possibility is that they take everyone else with them. The culture war issues of the future would be at least as different from those of today as those of previous centuries were. There could be similarities and they would be part of the same underlying spiritual conflict, but the surface-level issues might be unlike anything which has happened before. Imagining what’s this might be will be one of the challenges in creating this story.
Additionally, if the leadership of red states, like Florida, are successful in maintaining some normalcy by pushing back against the insanity and tyranny and perhaps also mitigating the effects of the crises, then it would actually be those places which might most resemble American society in the present and would have some of the same problems. There would not be such an apparent need for the localist movement Armenelos leads. Such movements in those states would support and be supported by their state governments and would be subject to them as such. Insurance-based services with the same purpose as Armenelos would take the form of lobbying organizations which insure against tax increases and inflation. I believe this is the more realistic way for this for this kind of service to work, but it could only have indirect involvement in a story which focuses on armed conflict. In either case, there would be less need for this kind of thing and it might be regarded with suspicion and skepticism.
Instead, it would make more sense for Armenelos to originate in a red area which is less urban and does not have such strong leadership in the state government and would then expand from there. As woke progressivism descends into ever greater chaos and contradiction, Armenelos would have an opportunity to gradually restore order by providing its service in the places where it reigns. With as much as I have been hearing of what a disaster cities in California are, that might be where Armenelos has some early success.
With these thoughts, I imagine that, in the time leading up to Part Two, America has been made great again, but it is led by Florida either as a leader of a compact of gulf coast states or as the cultural, economic, and de facto political center of a still united United States with a federal government which is mostly irrelevant outside of the northeastern states. Either way, Florida would be the major power Armenelos would need to contend with. This new Florida would be founded on a rejection of the evils of the 20th and early 21st centuries. It would be a place of freedom and innovation, but in ways which respect nationalism and tradition. Florida and the Gulf Coast Compact’s power might even extend into Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean as a result of an attempt to both deal with mass immigration and to form alliances and trade agreements. Of course, if this compact were to openly conduct its own foreign policy, then no one could pretend that it is still part of the United States.
Even with all this success, many of the same political, economic, and cultural problems of today persist or recur. In some ways, they are successful in recreating an earlier time in America. They have only reset the descent into the crises of the present. By the time of Part Two, the Gulf Coast regime has become decadent and centralized. While it was once a mutual alliance of various states, the compact, perhaps as well the rest of the former United States and Canada to an extent, has become dominated by Tallahasse and there is now an escalating conflict between it and a foreign power. At the same time, there is a growing subversive leftist movement of some kind which might be similar to the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the woke movement, but also as different from each of those as they are from each other.
Armenelos has always either supported or stayed out of the way of the Gulf Coast Compact. The leaders of Armenelos would have seen themselves as taking a different path in the same movement against leftism. They would be wary of the massive growth in Florida’s power, but it would be obvious that it is a result of Florida success in maintaining and building a better society and economy than the surrounding areas. There would be many in those surrounding areas, perhaps Georgia in particular, who might view Florida’s leadership far more favorably than that of their own state. In the political conflicts of the 21st century, Floridians might see it as justified to aggressively oppose their enemies outside of the state in various ways. In the time of Part Two, “Floridian Empire” may be used approvingly and its power would generally be seen as well-deserved after its victory over the obviously anti-human woke globalist agenda. However, the prospect of war gives Armenelos a real reason to oppose, or at least stop supporting, Florida. In doing so, they are accused of siding with both the leftist subversives and the foreign enemy.
I did not like this idea at first. Being a contrarian, I am reluctant to make the antagonist into what can be seen as a right-wing fascist regime. To make it even more of a typical leftist boogeyman, the Gulf Coast Compact might be seen as a restoration of the Confederate States of America and a realization of the Golden Circle with its power over Mexico and Central America. For the purpose of the story, this would be so that Florida would have access to the Pacific and control over the Panama Canal (perhaps canals at this time) and would be able to fight a war with India or China, if that makes sense. Discontent in those regions from the non-white, non-English-speaking population against rule by an American power is an obvious possible motivation for the subversive movement. There would also be a reason to suspect Armenelos of supporting those who are discontent. Indeed, this could be the separatist region in my initial idea for the new Part Two. All of this could be a recipe for an extremely cringe woke story.
However, it would not be hard to avoid these issues. I consider my recent thoughts criticizing unlibertarian right-wingers, some of whom would not object to being called fascists, to be coming from the right. Part Two could show my thought that, even if the unlibertarian right were as successful as anyone could reasonably hope, the result would eventually be repeating the same disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries. They would either fall somewhere between mass-murdering tyranny and liberal democracy and fail at both. The alternative would have to be some kind privatized voluntary system based on liability, which would be represented by Armenelos. On the other hand, while I may have imagined that Armenelos would represent the perfect convergence of the libertarian and unlibertarian aspects of the right, they would not have everything figured out by the time of the beginning of Part Two. Indeed, that has always been what Part Two would be about. The faction which represents my ideals would only do so correctly after the crisis has been resolved and their faults corrected. In any case, Armenelos, Florida, and the foreign enemy would all be infiltrated by the mysterious evil faction, so, as with everything in this story, none of this needs to interpreted as a message about political matters in reality. As for the other issues, if the leadership of Florida has learned anything from the past few centuries, they should be fully aware of the danger of being seen as oppressive white colonizers and would want to have a way to avoid this issue when dealing with the regions outside of the former United States to the south.
The leadership of Florida probably would not want it and the Gulf Coast Compact to be associated with the Confederate States of America and it would mostly be their enemies who would attempt to make that association. This would obviously be a different time under different circumstances and involving different people, especially as so many people there would be northerners who moved there during and after the 2020s. I have recently heard that Ron Desantis, who would be regarded as the founder of this new Florida, had a Confederate monument removed. In the time of Part Two, the Gulf Coast states might more resemble the 19th century North more than the South of that time. On the other hand, I have been thinking about how Armenelos could be the true fulfillment of Jeffersonian ideals and could be the ultimate means of exercising power in favor of agrarian interests.
Concluding thoughts on the characters, setting, and events
With these thoughts, Sophia is from Florida. Some of the old ideas for her could still work. Her father or someone else she knew was a politician who would have campaigned on a viable plan to prevent the coming war many years in advance, but he was assassinated in a way which looked like an accident or was otherwise removed from his position through slander, blackmail, or being framed for a crime. It might be more interesting if he is still alive, but in prison. Sophia’s older brother would join the leftist movement. As the crisis intensifies, Sophia’s family would come under suspicion and might be harassed by the government and their neighbors. They would then flee to Armenelos or some other location aligned with it and on the edge of the Gulf Coast Compact’s reach to escape this. There, Sophia would meet Robert. I had thought they would initially bond over their shared distrust of Armenelos, but now I think Sophia’s attitude would be curious rather than hostile. This way, it is also less improbable that she would consider serving Armenelos. In turn, they would be interested in her family because of what happened to her father and his connection to the events driving the crisis. Indeed, Armenelos would ideally have also been working to achieve the same goal as him and similar things may have happened to their agents. Whether or not a section of the story should be dedicated to her receiving training as before, she would have long been aware of some of the danger she might face and would be prepared for it somehow. Soon after it becomes clear that the Gulf Coast Compact is about to enter a war and Armenelos openly declares opposition to this, Robert discovers that the leadership of Armenelos has been infiltrated by hostile agents who have set it up for failure. Sophia is one of the only people he can trust because she is an outsider. Their actions are essential in removing those infiltrators and restoring proper leadership. After that, the forces of Armenelos would need to do the same for the other factions in the war. The chaos which results from the destruction of those regimes will create opportunities for those following the model of Armenelos to take their place. Perhaps Armenelos does not survive this crisis as a great power, but the anti-empire would still be formed.
Regarding some other issues, I have always wanted some of the events in Part Two to take place in space, but I could never had much of an idea of what those events could be. I have recently been thinking that there is really no reason for humans go beyond Earth orbit any time soon. Mining asteroids will never be easier than just making better use of resources on Earth, especially with prevalence of biomimetic technology in my setting. Until it becomes possible to create Earth-like habitats, humans living in space for any significant length of time has to be the one of the worst ideas ever. If people need more places to live, again, making better use of what is on Earth, perhaps with seasteading or terraforming deserts, is the easier and better option. However, while thinking about the conflict between major powers in Part Two, I remembered an obvious reason for developing space travel is military advantage. This also is an answer to the question of what causes the conflict. The Gulf Coast states going to war against an enemy on the other side of the Pacific seems improbable, but not so much if that enemy can also be right above them. A space race easily becomes an arms race. There could be a long period where the fighting only happens in space and is mostly done by unmanned craft before it escalates and spreads to Earth’s surface. This way, each side of the conflict would have understandable motivations and their actions would not be obviously stupid and evil. Even if the Gulf Coast Compact is committed to the obviously correct position of non-interventionism, they might find conflict unavoidable and it would not be obvious how one could reasonably object to it, putting Armenelos in a worse position. The situation in which rivals powers compete by exploiting their populations so that they can become better at launching things into an empty void and kill each other is exactly the kind of thing Armenelos is supposed to be an alternative to.
This escalation could begin with a race by the opposing sides to complete the first space elevator, in part because this would necessitate that they acquire territory on the equator. Reading about space elevators some after having this idea, it seems like building such a thing would be nearly impossible and maybe very dangerous. I can decide that a sufficiently strong cable material exists in this science-setting, but an alternative idea I had is a device which causes gravity to be much weaker in a vertical space in which a rocket can be launched more easily. The space needs to be enclosed on the top and bottom by the two halves of the device. On half would be on the surface of Earth and the other would be on a geosynchronous satellite, so it would be similar to a space elevator. The problem with this is what it might do to the air in that space, but other than that, whether this or a space elevator should be what exists in this story is a matter of which technology is more consistent with the rest of the setting.
The time before and during Part Two might resemble the time before and during the World War One. The crises of the 21st century slowed globalization and created a multipolar order resembling the 19th century. As globalization progresses again and tensions between superpowers rise, a truly global, indeed beyond global in this case, war will result. The war between Florida and India and their respective allies could have many fronts and there can be characters representing perspectives in each. Figuring out what these theaters of war will be will require deciding the rest of the geopolitical situation in this setting, but I have imagined that much of the fighting on Earth would be in the Pacific and in Africa. In any case, the issue of nuclear weapons complicates the possibility of such a large-scale conventional war. There is also the question of what would happen to the United States’ nuclear weapons if it were to break up. Nearly all of the ideas I have explained here could still work in a cold war scenario, but, for the purpose of the story, there should be reasons why nuclear weapons are no longer an effective deterrent in the time of Part Two. It could be that much better missile defense exists. However, this would also work against other kinds of weapons and there would be great effort to overcome such defenses. In addition to missile defense, I am imagining the invention of a technological device which projects a some kind of field covering a very large space which makes it impossible for a fission reaction to occur and can be immediately activated as soon as warning is received. Perhaps a nuclear war occurs in the 21st century and these various defenses prove effective, but not entirely so.
Thinking about this, I remember hearing David Gornoski discuss how the founding moment of the present age was the use of nuclear weapons at the end of World War Two and how this act of mass-murder has created a taboo around the science of the atom resulting in there being little progress there and how this has made it impossible to solve many of the problems in the present. Remembering how the ideas Gornoski discusses fit well with my ideas for magic and metaphysics in this story, I am thinking may be there is more to nuclear weapons, and probably other technologies as well, than what is commonly known. They may function by some kind evil demonic power and have effects beyond what is apparent. If the present age is partly defined by such mystical effects of nuclear weapons, then the end of this age might mean that effect can be counteracted by similar means. This thing which stops fission from occurring could be an act by a Samatir rather than a technological device. In any case, I have previously neglected to discuss how the magical and mystical elements of the story I explained earlier might fit in this new Part Two. When figuring out the details of this story, it should be remembered that there is an element of the supernatural and there is not such a distinction between magic and technology. Additionally, the characters would also discover evidence of the actions of aliens in the past and present and other things which show how the conflict they are involved in is part of something much larger. This would foreshadow Part Three.