I've made vain attempts at posting about this project (which has dragged on since some time last August with occasional progress) in the past, but I figure that, this time, it may be more useful to copy-paste a small entry that I've written for it already. Hopefully this will attract some kind of positive attention (and hey, maybe even a few takers!). Here goes: "Dark Age (approx. 2050-2400) The early period of the Dark Age sees a rapid increase in global temperatures, causing most of the arctic and antarctic ice caps to melt. Sea level rises dramatically across the world[1] driving the coastlines back and displacing millions. Those regions not directly affected by the receding coastlines are stressed with immigrants who are moving away from their flooding homelands. The world's population reaches over nine billion individuals[2], straining the already taxed food production capabilities of the planet. Combined with the reduced living space[3], this increase in the demand for resources causes tension among the nations of the world and conflict among refugees and native inhabitants. The supply of fresh, unpolluted water drops during this period, leading many people to abandon areas which once supported hundreds of millions of people[4], and causing several large wars during the early years of this period[5]. The power of the Nation-State in global politics wanes as it becomes clear that they are not equipped to meet the new challenges, and corporate entities[6], as well as supra-national organizations, begin to take on more of the basic functions of government by providing security, health services, and employment to those in need. [1]Most, if not all, of the ice caps and glaciers of the world melted between the years 2025 and 2425. The average sea level rise is believed to have been as much as 68.8 meters, with the total in various areas amounting to between 40 meters and 80 meters. [2]Most of this growth takes place in the poorer regions of the world, and in some areas the population as much as doubles. [3]Many of the most fertile regions of the world were the same as those covered by the expanding oceans. [4]The Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of North and East Africa. [5]The Jordan Valley War of 2022-25, The Nile War of 2029-33, The Syrian-Iraqi War of 2036, The Turkmen-Uzbek War of 2038-39, The Arabian Civil War of 2041-44, and the Indo-Pakistani war of 2043-49 which marked the first large scale use of nuclear weapons and resulted in the deaths of nearly twenty million people. [6]The nature of Corporations changes as they become focused on the large-scale administration of people as well as their labor, transforming them from profit seeking enterprises into governments that have no territory or official international standing. "Corporatization", as it comes to be called, slowly dissolves the power of Nation-States and, over time, of Supra-National Unions and Federations. It's a little bit of a pessimistic vision of the future, but one which I feel is vastly more realistic than most. Some of the statistics are wildly exaggerated, or slightly off, and all is subject to change. I was thinking more about the global temperature increase, and it would probably take place over the course of centuries, since the sources I used for rising sea levels came mostly from green liberal-types, who are obviously biased. I guess, basically, the main tenets of this project are a wide scope, realism, extremely moderate prediction (as in, no wildy different immediate future, like cyborg humans or some such nonsense). It is to be written as if a History from the perspective of the very distant future, and so has that type of style. Tell me what you think, whether you are earnestly interested, and what you think needs to be brought closer to reality, if anything other than what I have mentioned. Thanks. (Post Script: I love questions about this future world, so anything that you are interested in knowing about it please feel free to ask about. You may find I have an interesting answer, or it may spark me to do a little more research on the subject and add a whole new section to the project. Thanks again.)
Ok, I also think that this is approximately what will happen in the future (minus some of the details, like the wars I named). Discuss that, also.
