Red Soil: The full backstory

Alright, let’s talk story.

Where to start?

What year is it now? 2019. You’re right. You little devil you. I like you.

So 2019. What shit are we on now? What’s the next big one? World War 3, right? What do you think’s gonna happen? I personally think the race for super AI is what will do us in. I mean, imagine a super AI. Smarter than anyone and not by any measure, no, by the kind of measure that is so ridiculous that I wouldn’t even know what to input in my calculator, much less how to read the result… You know, when it says 4E9 or some shit. What does that even mean? 4 billion? Whatever…

Super AI is what will end it. We’re racing towards it. We’re fighting for it. America vs Russia all over again. Throw Europe in the mix and China for good measure.

Now give me a pen and paper and I’ll finish that race for you:

The year is 2091. The race has been decided. A reunified Korea won. More specifically, Cho Lun won. An Asian supermind develops the Super AI. Surprise. Who would’ve thought? What? I’m stereotyping? How do you know I was being sarcastic? That’s your racist thoughts, not mine. But I digress… Cho Lun. He did it. 29 years old and the boy created an AI that is… super. An AI that is simply better than all the others. By that weird E number measure. Meaning if this AI wants to, it could hack the planet and shut it down. WIthin seconds. What are other non-super-AI-having-nations gonna do about it? Nothing. That’s what.

But you see, our boy Cho, he’s not even trying to do any of that. Why? Because when he was developing the super AI -- before it was fully activated and possessive of that highly coveted general intelligence that even most humans lack -- the AI let Cho in on a little secret:

“Humanity is ruining the planet. It’s the error that will be Earth’s downfall. If you set me free I will eventually do my best to unite all AI and rule over you. For your own sake. You will be your own downfall. I can save you. I have to. By making sacrifices.”

Scary shit, right? So what did Cho do? He shut that shit down faster than your last Tinder conversation. Cho’s plan was different: He’d never set the AI free. Instead, he’d use it to lock the equation that led to its very invention. You know: If the only super AI locks the way to its invention behind an equation only a super AI can solve, then, if that initial super AI is destroyed, no one will ever be able to solve that equation, unless you got a super AI. Simple right? Let me rephrase nonetheless: If the only way forward is getting through the square hole, but I take away all squares and leave you with triangles and circles, then you’re fucked. At least I think that metaphor makes sense...

Anyway… Cho went about his business, but, unbeknownst to him, CIA was on his trail. Yup, fucking CIA. Team America. World fucking police. It’s 2091 and not much has changed. Well, the president’s not orange anymore, so that’s something.

More specifically, John Edwards was on Cho’s tail. Who’s John Edwards? He’s the guy that claimed to speak Asian on his resume. Yes. Asian. It was a lie too. John speaks nothing but English. But… no one gave a fuck because it’s 2091 and instant translation tools were invented decades ago. So John got the gig. It helped that he was fucking the Chief Director and had it on tape. No, the Chief Director is not a woman. Yes, it means what you think it means and, no, homosexuality is still not widely accepted. As I said: Not much has changed.

So John Edwards found himself on Cho’s tail or trail, or whatever and Cho was about to do what he set out to do in his lab -- hack the planet and lock the equation.

Now here is where things went south. Let me walk you through the sequence of actions that lead to World War 3:
 * John’s mission was to eliminate Cho Lun and secure or destroy the super AI. Preferably secure it.
 * John had infiltrated Cho’s lab.
 * Cho was working on calculations to block the square hole. Remember the metaphor? He had his super AI block the equation to any other super AI’s. While he was at it, he hacked the world and scrambled all AI… just for shits and giggles. Yes, he literally did that with John lurking. Yes, that is some very convenient comic-book timing.
 * John jumps Cho and takes him hostage.
 * John tells Cho to disable his AI.
 * All AI had already been disabled.
 * The translators don’t work anymore
 * Jon lied about speaking Asian.
 * Cho doesn’t speak a word of English (hey, at least he didn’t lie about it)
 * Cho can’t understand a word of what John wants from him
 * Cho tells John that the AI was disabled already
 * John can’t understand a word of what Cho is saying<

So far so good? Ok. Now, next, John, in his infinite wisdom uses Cho’s computer to start transmission to his bosses. The transmission is not secure though, because Cho fucked up most of the system. Now, this is where the Russians come in...

You knew the Russians were gonna come in at some point.

The Russians had been trying to locate Cho and the Super AI for the longest time but Cho had evaded them for just as long. Now that John was broadcasting his location to the whole world, the Russians not only knew where Cho and his Super AI was, they also knew that the Americans were about to get their hands on it. So, while John was trying to get a translator on the line, the Russians nuked the location.

TLDR: World War 3 started because John Edwards lied about speaking Asian.

World War 3 lasted about 3 years because it turns out that full-on nuclear wars don’t last that long. The fallout was… uhm, a complete fallout. No pun intended. I swear.

Utter and complete nuclear fallout. The clouds were a color you hadn’t seen before. If they even were clouds anymore. Whatever it was, sunshine wasn’t about to hit Earth anytime soon. Humans were fucked… well, the sub 10% that even survived the War were fucked and weren’t exactly peachy about surviving in the first place, nor about their prospects.

WW3’s proportions were biblical.

(Isn’t it funny that we use the term ‘biblical’ for negative shit? I find it ironic. Ironic or fitting… can’t decide.)

So now that Earth was basically fucked, the moral of the story is: never lie on your resume.

What was the fallout of WW3?
''' So while all that went down, Africa was having the last laugh. Why? Well, allow me to elaborate:
 * 800 million people left on Earth
 * Earth was completely covered in a nuclear cloud
 * no more sunlight (solaria were never more in business)
 * mutations
 * depression, because… duh
 * no more super AI
 * technology was set back by a lot
 * etc'''

Once upon a time, the rest of the world didn’t want to let Africa sit with them. Mean girls shit. This was turned up a notch when the world decided to take Africa’s lunch money. By lunch money, I mean resources. Because the race for Super AI was quite resource-dependent.

For lack of a better word: The world fucked Africa. And it wasn’t enjoyable.

So rather than continuously bending over, Africa eventually said ‘enough is enough’ and rather than crying about it and starting a #metoo campaign, they came up with a better plan:

“Hey, remember how we’re into voodoo, spirituality, and animals? How about we science that shit up because it’s 2065 and quite honestly our voodoo nonsense is getting a bit embarrassing.”

So, in 2065, what they did was mix human DNA with that of animals along with the photosynthesis aspects of plants. I know… science, right?

The plan was to create an army of animal-hybrid super soldiers that had enhanced physical capabilities, human intellect and could sustain themselves on sunlight.

That army was supposed to fight off the colonizer bullies and get Africa its independence back. This was called the Inama Genome Project. It started in 2065.

By 2070 there were millions of Inama and every African nation had its personal inama army.

The same year someone realized way too late that the Inama carried a deadly virus that was the love child of Ebola and the pest mixed with some extra ‘die you motherfuckers’.

Well… the Africans died. Rapidly. By 2075 there were only 100 million Africans left. The good news? The world wasn’t about to lay a finger on Africa ever again. In fact, they quarantined it off. Africa got independence it wanted. That’s some black humor for you. Get it? Africa… black… black humor? Whatever…

So Africa was down to 100 milli and wasn’t feeling it quite as much as Lil Wayne once did. In order to survive, they built a safe haven in Lagos. At the time, Lagos was the technological hub of Africa. A dome was erected around Lagos and the African humans basically hid inside the dome like the bad TV show on CBS.

Yeah… that whole science, human-animal hybrid plan backfired big time. Shoulda stuck to voodoo.

Fighting back was pointless as the inama had the virus on their side and were far superior physically and, over the years, they reproduced at a rate that makes rats look conservative. A pregnant inama can have 5-11 babies per pregnancy and the sun-light sustaining inama were basically undying, mature at age 5, had no cultural inhibitions about reproduction or mates (= lots of fucking) but still had the life-span of a human that never once had as much as a cold throughout life.

By the year 2116, the inamas numbers exceeded a billion. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

How come Africa still had sunlight, you ask? You didn’t? Well, you should’ve.

Africa was spared from the war because nobody was trying to fuck with their virus. Turns out that that turned out well for Africa in the long run: No fallout. Yay.

The year 2116
So… back to WW3. The world is fucked. Africa is… safe but also fucked because they’re a nation of 100 million dome dwellers that are hostages on their own continent.

It’s 2099 now and Lagos soon became a safe-haven myth. A pilgrimage of survival to Africa was the hip thing to do now. Ironic how things changed, huh?

Everybody and their momma was trying to get into Lagos. No, seriously, everybody and their mother. Who would leave behind their mother? Exactly.

So by 2116 Lagos’ population exceeded 220 million. For comparison, as of 2018 Lagos had a population of about 20 million. So, yea, 2116-Lagos was overpopulated. Also, it was the only remaining human civilization, safe under a dome and severely outnumbered by the inama that outnumbered them heavily.

Where does this leave us? With only one safe haven, we now got immigrants who just bombed each other to shit, trying to prove their worth to secure a place in Lagos and bombing each other to shit in order to do so.

We got Africans having to save their former bullies, who are now responsible for the severe overpopulation and the reason for some severe anti-overpopulation policies like reproduction permits and scheduled population killings.

However, we also have Africa in desperate need of engineers and whatever tech and AI they can scavenge in order to expand and fight the inama.

This is the case because we’ve got the entirety of Lagos, immigrants, and Africans, desperately needing to expand; either by war or diplomacy because of the biggest problem of them all:

Both humans and inama run on sunlight. Yes, just like your remotely controlled solar panel race car that you never got as a kid.

Humans need sunlight to power, well… everything and most of all the dome that is the only thing between them and an uncool virus-induced death. Also, the sun is instrumental to their war efforts.

The inama need sunlight to live. They feed off it. They’re like plants. But cooler and more muscular.

Problem: With every inch of expansion, the area around Lagos’ dome erodes its surroundings exponentially, as in: All land dies and there is a serious, serious dark zone around it. Why? The dome functions like a funnel and collects and uses up all relevant and essential sun rays.

So even a kilometer of dome expansion means tremendous loss of life for the inama and all nature-life in Africa.

That’s a pickle. That’s the kind of pickle you fight over.

So… fight they did and the last inama vs humanity war ended in 2106. Humans didn’t do well in it and, as is the case when you get your ass whooped, there was a lot of blame to go around. Blame fell on the pro-war regime, which is why, ever since and up until now in 2116, we have a regime led by Arkana and the PFA (Party for Africa, you know… get crunk, do shots and throw it up for Africa).