PROLOG

                         ARKON        ONE       PROLOG


                       

A series of events led to the launch of the floating city of ARKON. They began with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center 11 September 2001. A war was declared against International terrorism and its sponsors by President George W. Bush.

This marked the beginning of America's Forever War against International terrorism. The cost in 2017 was estimated at $960,000,000 per day. In support of the war on terrorism America established the Department of Homeland Security. Also the Patriot Act was passed, allowing detention and surveillance without due process. The War Powers Act allowed the president to invade any country in pursuit of terrorists without Congressional approval.

Afghanistan was invaded 7 October 2001. America demanded the release of Osama bin Laden and expelling the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. This did not happen. As of 2017 the last available public information said we still had 11,000 troops stationed there and Afghanistan is a failed state run by tribal Warlords. The billions of dollars spent to establish democracy, schools, infrastructure, and hospitals was nowhere to be found.

Iraq was invaded 20 March 2003 on the pretext of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction for terrorist Acts. After killing Saddam Hussein and destroying the country no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. As of 2017 the last available public information said we still had 7,000 troops stationed there and Iraq is a failed state run by tribal Warlords. The billions of dollars spent to establish democracy, schools, infrastructure, and hospitals was nowhere to be found.

Then we have the Arab Spring revolts. Nominally popular revolts against tyrants in support of democracy and freedom. Egypt began its Arab Spring on 25 January 2011. Libya begin its Arab Spring on 15th February 2011.  Syria began its Arab Spring on 15 March 2011. Of course there are rumors these revolts were aided and abetted by The Usual Suspects.

All of these conflicts provided great wealth for the defense industry and Wall Street Banks. America's defense budget ballooned to 600 billion dollars. The middle class white / blue collar workers did not benefit too much from this.

And then in 2007 there was a crisis in the subprime mortgage market in the US caused by lack of oversight, relaxed rules, and developed into a full-blown international banking crisis with the collapse of the investment bank  Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. Excessive risk-taking by banks such as Lehman Brothers helped to magnify the financial impact globally. Massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other monetary and fiscal policies were employed at taxpayer expense to prevent a possible collapse of the world financial system. The crisis was nonetheless followed by a global economic downturn, the Great Recession.

Rising energy costs were another part of our problem. After crude oil peaked at $120 per barrel in 2011 it collapsed to $70 per barrel. The oil company majors recognizing that a sea change was coming started defunding their exploration and development budgets in the third quarter of 2013. Since then less and less oil has been discovered each year. This led to the fuel rationing coupon system we have today. In order to maintain market share Saudi Arabia dropped their wholesale crude price to $50 in June of 2014. This was an attempt to drive America's fracking operations out of business. As it turned out the frackers drove themselves out of business. This caused huge budget deficit problems for Saudi and other Gulf States who only produced oil to maintain their economy. Another problem that showed up at this time was all of the cheap easy to pump oil was going dry. It was suspected that many of the old oil field's proven reserves had been falsified and were part of the cause of this problem.

An incredible self-induced problem was the global warming scare tactic initiated in 1988. By the year 2010 the government was spending 1 billion dollars per year to combat global warming caused by human generated CO2. It turns out that Mother Earth warms and cools on many different cycles. Some of them are 11 year, 22 year, 60 year, 88 year, 105 year, 208 year, 500 year, and 1,000 years. They are largely driven by sunspot cycles and radiation cycles from the Sun. CO2 might cause 0.01%, and that was never proved. By 2016 it was acknowledged the sun was going into a quiet spell which was expected to cause 60 years of unusual cold. The last time this happened was the Little Ice Age, roughly a 500 year period starting in 1300 AD, coinciding with the Earth's obliquity falling below 23.5 degrees, and a 7000 year descent to ice age global temperatures of 8 degrees C. During the LIA there were widespread famines and black plague causing a 33% reduction in population.

A last fatal creeping problem was the  increasing complexity of maintaining society and civilization. This problem had been highlighted by Joseph Tainter in the early 1990s. Along with that came the law of diminishing returns. It had been alleged that this heap of problems was the reason Donald Trump, as a rogue Republican, defeated not only the Democrats but 15 party favorites and became president in the 2016 election cycle. The poor and middle class silent majority were not benefiting from all of the wealth generated by conflict and outsourcing of jobs overseas. They no longer believed in the American dream. It seems at least 80% of the wealth went to the Elites. Falling wages lead to falling tax revenues as well. So the government borrowed by issuing bonds to the Federal Reserve and foreign Central Bank purchasers. this huge deficit created an additional drag on the economy. Real economic expansion was closer to 1% globally.

When the elite Dukes of Davos held their annual 2018 meeting to solve the World's problems they decided that there were too many people on the Earth and not enough resources to support them. This was highlighted in the book Limits to Growth in 1973. It was slammed by Elite influenced academics and sidelined at the time. So they decided when resource conflicts over water and farmland or plagues or starvation set in they would just allow it to run its course. This would save a lot of money and combined with a slightly increased natural death rate and slightly lowered fertility rate should bring the global population down to 1 billion by 2100. Thus it was not too surprising when several Tech billionaires decided they didn't want to live in an underground bunker in the coming hard times as many of their cohorts had decided to do. Citizens with torches and pitchforks could easily find the front door and the back door. Several of them had heard about the concept of seasteading. However, the initial idea was to be in a sheltered bay by a large city, easy to attack. So they set up a private foundation to develop ocean-going seasteads that might pay for themselves by hosting genetic research, cloning, transgenic body parts, young blood therapy, stem cell research, and other advanced medical procedures for anti-aging and longevity enhancement.

After the design was finalized in 2021, they set up production in several Chinese shipyards simultaneously. Three of them would build the main hulls and two others would build the cabin modules. (see sketches in appendix) Finished modules cost $800 million and 6 were required for a floating city that would become a free-trade Zone much like Hong Kong had been.

Arkon One launched in 2023 and took up station in mid pacific, about 15 degrees north of the equator. It supported 15,000 residents and 5,000 guests. So our story begins ...