Crash Investigation May Follow Sanda’s Clue

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 122 DAYS

Russian intelligence operations have been linked to the crash of the WICO servers, according to a source close to the investigation who today shared related classified documents with three UK newspapers. Officials at WICO refused to comment on the report except to caution against accusing anyone without evidence, suggesting that the documents are fakes.

I attempted to determine if the nation’s normalized population-to-nature ratio was the same as what Sanda indicated in the note sent to me before the crash. After I left several unanswered e-mail queries, Zhou Li Xiu from WICO’s Strategy Integration Overview team called to tell me that such information was lost along with the biosphere assessment database, and that it will take weeks to reconstruct it. She couldn’t provide any details about the recovery process except to confirm that she is deeply involved in it and to thank me for sharing what apparently were Sanda’s last words.

Three hours later I received a request for a meeting from Archibald Ali, the social science professor who has been a fixture on cable news shows since the national strategies were submitted to WICO. He was curious about my connection to Sanda and how I interpreted its message. I told him what I’ve reported here, and agreed to interview him next week. He offered to discuss some information I might be interested in, which he has archived from discussions with some of WICO’s strategy testers. 

Reality Check

Of the ten most populous nations in 2018, Russia was the only one whose simulation showed that it was in the collapse stage. Aggression that includes cyberattacks may or may not be related to this (if the simulation, shown below, is an accurate representation).

Recovery

CRASH + 1 DAY

“Yesterday’s disaster does not change the fact that humanity has a hard deadline of July 1,” Secretary General Decatur said at a crowded press event this morning in front of WICO headquarters. “Luckily for us and the world, most of our people are data hoarders and have very good memories. We have been able to reconstruct the essence, if not all the details, of a very recent version of the strategy. The lack of detail and the loss of our automation tools has prompted a redesign of the strategy rollout, with agreements heavier on intent than on specifics. 

“Even more of a loss, though, is the erasure of the biosphere assessment database that was the strategy’s foundation. With time and resources that we do not have, perhaps up to two-thirds of the database might be recoverable from source data kept by participants and those who shared it over the course of the five-year effort, so we will need to collect and process real-time data using lessons learned.

“One of those lessons is the importance of decentralization. Fortunately, the strategy’s focus on decreasing ecological impact and the corollary of less dependence on high-impact technology is consistent with decentralized operations and decision-making that have been in development and test for several months. That aspect of the strategy has been given priority in execution, and is being incorporated into all of WICO’s operations as I speak in order to enhance security and improve our chances of success.

“The perpetrators of the sabotage have yet to be found, although we do have several suspects identified. One of the strange and ironic aspects of the extinction threat is that personal power accrues most to people who make it worse, giving them the greatest motivation to stop any attempts to resist it. They persist despite the fact that societal collapse is the inevitable consequence of pursuing more power, driven by short-term gain and delusional hope that they will survive with a world worth living in. Such people are easy to find because of the pain and death they leave in their wake.”

Reality Check

Decatur’s statement reflects plausible consequences of an event like that described, based on the history and characteristics of the people I have created.