2902 "The problem with the powerful is not that they're fallible, despite their resources, but when they don't know it or care. That's when everything and everyone is ripe for ruin." 2X21 minus 19, Asteroid Belt, onboard the Magpie. AL missed his father. The news of how he died was too much. He thought of him when in ported into "the Interface". Suddenly he was in a room that like his bedroom as a child, back in the Cadmus family compound. "Hello son. I left this "expee", this ...

2902 "The problem with the powerful is not that they're fallible, despite their resources, but when they don't know it or care. That's when everything and everyone is ripe for ruin." 2X21 minus 19, Asteroid Belt, onboard the Magpie. AL missed his father. The news of how he died was too much. He thought of him when in ported into "the Interface". Suddenly he was in a room that like his bedroom as a child, back in the Cadmus family compound. "Hello son. I left this "expee", this ...

1985 NYC, The Plaza Hotel The ministers of the West gathered to change the story about the US Dollar. A "strong" USD was killing American business. It was the latest chapter in a never-ending money story about the USD. After WW II, everyone used dollars after the sun set on the British Pound after WW I. Business was booming, and the world needed more USD. Banks began to make their own USD outside the U.S. - "Eurodollars", USD outside of US control, was born. (Note: We’ll return to this part o...

1985 NYC, The Plaza Hotel The ministers of the West gathered to change the story about the US Dollar. A "strong" USD was killing American business. It was the latest chapter in a never-ending money story about the USD. After WW II, everyone used dollars after the sun set on the British Pound after WW I. Business was booming, and the world needed more USD. Banks began to make their own USD outside the U.S. - "Eurodollars", USD outside of US control, was born. (Note: We’ll return to this part o...

1980 California The idea was a wildfire that started in California - exchanging tomorrow for today, without 19th century horrors of debtor prisons or the purgatories of indentured servitude and company towns. Generations traumatized by depression, recession, inflation and war were faded into history. The pieces were coming together for a new "innovation", which came out of California like so many new technologies. It was financial technology before "fintech" was born. Enter the Age of Credit ...

1980 California The idea was a wildfire that started in California - exchanging tomorrow for today, without 19th century horrors of debtor prisons or the purgatories of indentured servitude and company towns. Generations traumatized by depression, recession, inflation and war were faded into history. The pieces were coming together for a new "innovation", which came out of California like so many new technologies. It was financial technology before "fintech" was born. Enter the Age of Credit ...

2X21 DECEMBER, The Node Complex, EARTH Jake made his way back to the wrecked Magpie. He found a message waiting for him. He thought AL was there.He saw a flashing light then a ping from the Magpie.”MESSAGE WAITING. MESSAGE WAITING.”Jake Jr. waved his hand to listen. A holostream of AL began. "Jakey. If you're seeing this then it all worked. But I made a few changes to the plan. It wouldn't be like my dad's plan. Or your dad's plans. It was my plan. I trained for years but ...

2X21 DECEMBER, The Node Complex, EARTH Jake made his way back to the wrecked Magpie. He found a message waiting for him. He thought AL was there.He saw a flashing light then a ping from the Magpie.”MESSAGE WAITING. MESSAGE WAITING.”Jake Jr. waved his hand to listen. A holostream of AL began. "Jakey. If you're seeing this then it all worked. But I made a few changes to the plan. It wouldn't be like my dad's plan. Or your dad's plans. It was my plan. I trained for years but ...

1980 England It was born in the mid-1960s but it came of age, like a teenager by the early 1980s. A new sound was coming from musicians playing with synthesizers. Synth-pop, Electro-pop, Techno-pop, it had many names. Post-punk, New Wave. One of its godmothers was a depression-era baby and Brown U. graduate, Wendy Clark, whose electronic variations on Bach, led to an eerie soundtrack for the film version of 'A Clockwork Orange' in 1971. She would later make the soundtrack for first ...

1980 England It was born in the mid-1960s but it came of age, like a teenager by the early 1980s. A new sound was coming from musicians playing with synthesizers. Synth-pop, Electro-pop, Techno-pop, it had many names. Post-punk, New Wave. One of its godmothers was a depression-era baby and Brown U. graduate, Wendy Clark, whose electronic variations on Bach, led to an eerie soundtrack for the film version of 'A Clockwork Orange' in 1971. She would later make the soundtrack for first ...

December 2921 2X21 DECEMBER, The Node Complex, Earth AL sat in the main chamber of the Node Room and began to let the room connect him to the main interface. Tendrils of nanos, liquid peripherals and focused beams joined with him. He was connected to the Inner System. He was "everywhere" all at once. The pain from the Magpie's crashlanding onto the deck of the Node complex was buried by an almost limitless awareness of everything. He had a passing comforting thought that Jake Jr. was in ...

December 2921 2X21 DECEMBER, The Node Complex, Earth AL sat in the main chamber of the Node Room and began to let the room connect him to the main interface. Tendrils of nanos, liquid peripherals and focused beams joined with him. He was connected to the Inner System. He was "everywhere" all at once. The pain from the Magpie's crashlanding onto the deck of the Node complex was buried by an almost limitless awareness of everything. He had a passing comforting thought that Jake Jr. was in ...

2X21 minus 20, Asteroid Belt, Ceres John Cadmus was a prisoner. Again. He knew he could free himself but first, one last talk with a former friend. "John, you had a chance to listen to reason before the Vote. You had another chance after the Vote. I'm sorry about Audrey and your boys. I am. You should have stayed under house arrest with the pne son you still had. You just won't listen. You wasted 20 years. You're not stopping the ‘Halt’.” "How did you find me? I thought I was c...

2X21 minus 20, Asteroid Belt, Ceres John Cadmus was a prisoner. Again. He knew he could free himself but first, one last talk with a former friend. "John, you had a chance to listen to reason before the Vote. You had another chance after the Vote. I'm sorry about Audrey and your boys. I am. You should have stayed under house arrest with the pne son you still had. You just won't listen. You wasted 20 years. You're not stopping the ‘Halt’.” "How did you find me? I thought I was c...

1940 June, France The enemy was closing in. They had failed to repel the dominoes after September 1939. The order was sent to save the "root and core and brain" of the surviving forces. Retreat or annihilation. A retreat on anything that floated and could be piloted. Almost 340,000 saved, 70,000 lost. They fought on. "We shall go on to the end." - Winston S. Churchill 2905 2X21 minus 16, Outer Jupiter Space Proper AL had Jake Jr in his arms, as they floated from the ship. "What about dad, Unc...

1940 June, France The enemy was closing in. They had failed to repel the dominoes after September 1939. The order was sent to save the "root and core and brain" of the surviving forces. Retreat or annihilation. A retreat on anything that floated and could be piloted. Almost 340,000 saved, 70,000 lost. They fought on. "We shall go on to the end." - Winston S. Churchill 2905 2X21 minus 16, Outer Jupiter Space Proper AL had Jake Jr in his arms, as they floated from the ship. "What about dad, Unc...

1980 Menlo Park, California They sometimes gathered in the parking lot of a Safeways, and then a bar used by Stanford students. They traded parts, components, and information about how to write instructions to run smaller versions of what were very large machines for corporations. It started in 1975, as a gathering for the appearance of the first machine of its kind, the Altair 8800 - one of the first products built for the first folks with a strange new hobby: "personal computing". The Altai...

1980 Menlo Park, California They sometimes gathered in the parking lot of a Safeways, and then a bar used by Stanford students. They traded parts, components, and information about how to write instructions to run smaller versions of what were very large machines for corporations. It started in 1975, as a gathering for the appearance of the first machine of its kind, the Altair 8800 - one of the first products built for the first folks with a strange new hobby: "personal computing". The Altai...

2921 2X21 October, Asteroid Belt, inside a stealth masked DeepShip - a hollowed out asteroid the size of a large city. "This will work. What was tried before had failed. A second chance doesn’t mean a chance to make the same mistakes.” "It sure didn't feel that way a few months ago. I thought I was going to fall forever inside this ship.” Jake shook his head. "But Jakey, I got you nephew." AL smiled, and then winked at June. June patted Jake's shoulder. "Before, we didn't have ...

2921 2X21 October, Asteroid Belt, inside a stealth masked DeepShip - a hollowed out asteroid the size of a large city. "This will work. What was tried before had failed. A second chance doesn’t mean a chance to make the same mistakes.” "It sure didn't feel that way a few months ago. I thought I was going to fall forever inside this ship.” Jake shook his head. "But Jakey, I got you nephew." AL smiled, and then winked at June. June patted Jake's shoulder. "Before, we didn't have ...

1941, Michigan At 15, he qualified for a free college where the children of immigrants went if they could study. The school's resources were scarce except for the most important part: the students. The school had more Nobel Prize winners and PhDs than any other public college with the exception of Berkeley. He was the one med student who didn't want to be come a doctor. 14 years later, he created the polio vaccine. Asked about who owned it, he said, "There is no patent. Could you pa...

1941, Michigan At 15, he qualified for a free college where the children of immigrants went if they could study. The school's resources were scarce except for the most important part: the students. The school had more Nobel Prize winners and PhDs than any other public college with the exception of Berkeley. He was the one med student who didn't want to be come a doctor. 14 years later, he created the polio vaccine. Asked about who owned it, he said, "There is no patent. Could you pa...

20th Century, U.S.S.R. "Thousands of years ago tribes of human beings suffered great privations in the struggle to survive ...In infinite space many civilizations are bound to exist, among them civilizations that are also wiser and more "successful" than ours....this should not minimize our sacred endeavors in this world of ours, where, like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material existence. We must make good t...

20th Century, U.S.S.R. "Thousands of years ago tribes of human beings suffered great privations in the struggle to survive ...In infinite space many civilizations are bound to exist, among them civilizations that are also wiser and more "successful" than ours....this should not minimize our sacred endeavors in this world of ours, where, like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material existence. We must make good t...