Federation of the Pacific

Anthony Repetto
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

~future musings~

By Joe Cafaro on Unsplash

Advancements in material science and production will make floating houses economical. Clusters of houses can share spare tools and materials, glomming into larger swaths, oceanic cities. Immigrants from the worst countries will try to escape to these accepting bastions. Goods would frequently be tariff-free, and shipping lanes will stop at these coalescing ports.

Some cities will be massive constructs, intended as a retreat for the rich, a tropical island and floating reef. Skilled labor will be in high demand. As millions throng to these places, there will be differences in policy. Each island has its own laws, its own protocols. You vote with your feet.

Some cities will only allow entry to those who pledge loyalty and seek to defeat rival cities. Pirate cities, full of tax-evaders and people with unsavory tastes. Most cities will prefer a large federation, which pools some resources toward a shared defensive apparatus. These guards will ensure peace, promising to retaliate against any aggression between the city-states. The federation is kept honest by the cities’ ability to enter a new federation — there are three primary choices in the Pacific, which understand that the presence of the competing federations is what keeps that federation honest and intact. They are not interested in merging into a singular government.

These federations will moderate activity between island cities, keeping peace and active, reliable trade. And, they enforce intellectual property rights, a lucrative commodity. Those sorts of things. City-states will select their own laws and protocol in order to differentiate from others, drawing only people who long to be under their chosen rule. Each city-state becomes a nation of like-minded people. A cultural worm-hole. The Federation keeps cities’ disparate rules and out-group bias from rubbing each other the wrong way.

There will be some federations in the Atlantic, Indian oceans, but their small size actually encourages greater diversity, so there will be patchwork federations and a constant physical migration of city-bits as citizens vote with their feet between federations. The Pacific is so vast, however, that it stabilized with three massive, ‘big-tent’ policy federations. They know that they need each other, to prevent a devastating arms race. If one threatens another, the third sides with the defender. If two conspire together against the third, the weaker of those two will defect, revealing and sabotaging the plan. Their politics has a Jungian ring to it.

Technocracy, decision by experts in the public interest, will come to dominate, simply because other forms of government and market were not economically competitive. Sure, the cities formed around religious sects may not seek economic dominance, yet they still receive great benefit from the success of trade and specialization around them, a balance of interests coordinated by federal technocrats. When a city-state hopes to leave for a new federation, it must wait until a sufficient number of other cities would also leave, in order to bargain better terms of exit. A city-state leaving by itself may face heavy fines and sanctions, while a large group threatens to tilt the balance of power, drawing greater interest from the recipient federation, who hopes to avoid the cumulative fines. They are appeased by not taxing their departure.

Ballistic relays will be the high-value transport method. Extensive rail-guns allow travel at high speeds without a large, fuel-bearing craft. People could travel in small, personal pods. When rockets are lobbed by large rails this way, they more easily enter orbit. Parachutes will slow pods down, and an inflated platform will catch them. It will be shaped like a giant, pancaked funnel, pods impacting along the inner walls of the funnel and sliding down the side toward a solid, furry landing platform at the center. Or, so my mind tells me.

Predict

where the future is written

Anthony Repetto

Written by

Easily distracted mathematician

Predict

Predict

where the future is written

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