1999 North Korea collapses like the other former communist states but a unification with South Korea is nearly impossible. The economy of Korea is further strained by the fact that the Korean politicians try to achieve it. The former North Koreans expectations on the new union are inflated by their demands for a complete welfare state. Japan and the US are forced to invest heavily in the area in order to preserve stability. In the following years the situation is stabilized at enormous costs to the Korean people. Japan, US and Korea are further involved in holding back the increasingly powerful People's Republic of China that annexes Macao in the same year and Taiwan in 2001.
2001 A military coup d'etat in PRC. The People's Liberation Army seizes power and eliminates Deng Xiaoping's heirs. After a wave of oppression against all opposing fractions the situation is stabilized and the new regime gives guarantees for a further development towards a mixed economy. During the following ten years the PRC develops towards a corrupt country ruled by regional military strong men that allow the corporations free rein in exchange for bribes.
2002 The continued spread of bank and postal services on the Internet leads to a severe reduction of the number of bank and postal offices. When it is shown that the encryption systems in use are not failsafe it starts a crisis for these services, which gives further power to the increasing number of "technologically unemployed". In the following decade this movement (the consequence movement) is the center of a movement that demands careful examination of the security, social, environmental, and occupational consequences of all new systems. The result is that many governments use this to stop all progress, since it cannot be proved that any innovation will not have some negative implications.
2007 The year of the catastrophes. An alleged global climate change causes a massive moral panic. A very long el niño causes drought in Indonesia, Africa and Australia and floodings in South America with enormous damages. These catastrophes are damaging mostly because they accentuate the socio- economic problems in these countries. In the western world the media scare the public to believe that these kinds of catastrophes never happen normally and are the cause of global warming. More sensible scientific commentators are ignored
2008 The so called "public opinion" (in reality a well defined cabal of politicians, media personalities and industrialists) demand drastic action against the "environmental problems", no matter the cost. In a top summit in Hanoi the first of series of international treaties is signed. The politicians solution is: more power to the governments and the bureaucracies. All solutions are on global level, not thinking of the consequences on a local level and for individual human beings.
2009 The European Union has become a federal state with overwhelming institutions. Capital: Brussels. The politicians claim that the continents problems are so great that they can only be solved centrally and under the federal government's auspice. The Euro is made the official and sole currency of the EU, which now includes most of eastern Europe too. Laws forming work brigades for the unemployed are passed and work time is reduced to five hours in the whole EU. "Democratic laws" regarding gender, sexual and ethnic positive discrimination are passed.
2010 A group of underground transhumanist organizations form the Concordat to stop the the downward spiral of statism, environmentalism, and anti- scientific sentiments that is increasingly dominating the world.
2010 The growing problem with the Russian Mafia and its expansion into Western Europe leads to the involvement of the Europol in Russian affairs (officially on Russian demand) to ensure "law and order". This quickly develops into a permanent operation where the EU dominates Russia and makes it into a protectorate governed in reality from Brussels. This becomes a trend in the following years, weaker nations are not considered to be able to fend for themselves. A new colonialism is created, leaving the official power in the hands of the various juntas and crazed generals but with the real power in Washington D.C, Beijing or Brussels.
2011 PRC increasingly dominates the ASEAN countries in a new treaty, even furthering its control to an impoverished Australia. As a reaction Korea, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and the US strengthen their bonds.
2012 The US federal government tries to increase its power in the way the European did. This gives further strength to the "secret American civil war" that has raged since 1968 as the feds clamps down on "subversive" groups.
2013 Some groups of the Concordat are so reviled by the rest since they increasingly refuse to follow the Concord that they leave the organization. Some of these groups form the World Engineering Task Force.
2015 Brazil, that in many years has been the victim of UN sanctions for not protecting its environment is forced to receive an international, armed environmental task force in May 2015 to physically stop logging and exploitation of the Amazon basin. A nasty, brutal and bloody conflict follows with desperate peasants trying to make a living and great landowners. The media shows a very one sided view of the conflict, the UN task force's.
2015-09-14 A great breakthrough in nanotech matter compilers is made by the MIT nanotech team: a self-replicating assembler. It is now impossible to ignore the fact that nanotech is here and will change the world. The politicians respond with moral panic and a world wide ban on all research on nanotechnology and related subjects. After a clever media campaign the public is made to believe that nanotech is an insecure, dangerous technology that will replace all human workers insuring general unemployment.
2015-09-20 hours 20.00.00.00 CET The Concordat declares the InfoWar, since it understands that the present philosophical, social, political, economical and cultural trends will lead humanity to a catastrophe instead of a cataclysm.