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MULTINATIONAL ALLIANCES

%Yellow = Chinese Bloc, Beige = Allies of China, Purple = European Union, Blue = American Bloc, Light blue = Allies of the USA, Cyan = Pacific Rim Alliance, Pink = Indian Bloc, Brown = Caribbean Union, Black = South African Coalition, Dark Grey = Allies of the South African Coalition, Orange = Transpacific Socialist Alliance, Red = Russian Bloc, Green = Islamic Caliphate, Light Grey = Unaffiliated%

 The peak of the nation-state was probably in the middle years of the 20th century, when national governments were at their most intrusive and the most powerful nations competed for control of the entire world. Since then, social and economic trends have caused much of the power once held by nations to move to other levels of organization. 

 One aspect of this change has been the movement of sovereign power upward, from nation-states to the level of regional organizations. As the world grows more interdependent, many nations have found it useful to form partnerships with their neighbors. [Free-trade zones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-trade_zone) and [customs unions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customs_union) allow neighbors to trade more efficiently among themselves (and compete more effectively against outsiders). Law-enforcement agreements help control criminals who would otherwise flee across national borders with impunity. Military alliances help nations to defend against more powerful rivals. Nations which share an unpopular ideology can band together to prevent outside interference in their social arrangements. All of these relationships lead nation-states to hand over some sovereign authority to their partners. 

 This process was already under way in the 20th century, but it has accelerated. Today three out of six of the world’s Great Powers are not nation-states, but alliances in which no one nation dominates. The European Union was originally a simple free-trade zone, but over the past decades the E.U. nations have integrated most of their legal, law-enforcement and defensive arrangements as well. The Transpacific Socialist Alliance is an ideological bloc, devoted to promoting and defending nanosocialism. Finally, the Pacific Rim Alliance is a military partnership, allowing its members to defend against possible Chinese or TSA aggression.

DROWNING IN THE WAVES

%Green=Fifth Wave (Memetics, Nanoengineering, & Artificial Intelligence),%
%Blue=Fourth Wave (Biotech),%
%Purple=Third Wave (Information Age),%
%Red=Below Average%

 In the 1980s, the futurist Alvin Toffler pointed out that technological change sometimes caused radical shifts in culture and society. Such a change would sweep across the world like a “wave,” transforming institutions and worldviews, bringing a new kind of civilization into existence in a relatively short time. The results would be so significant that societies on opposite sides of a Wave would literally be inhabiting different worlds. 

 Toffler spoke of three Waves. The First Wave was triggered by the [discovery of agriculture perhaps 10,000 years ago.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution) The Second Wave corresponded with [the Industrial Revolution, which began about 1800.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution) The Third Wave that Toffler predicted was associated with [the spread of digital computers and information networks, beginning about 1960.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age) 

 Toffler’s vision was correct in many specifics, mistaken in others–but in 2100, people use the concept of “waves of change” in deadly earnest. In the past century, two more such Waves have swept across the world, complicating the evolution of civilization even further. 

 The Fourth Wave involved the spread of [genetic technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering), beginning with the sequencing of mankind's genome at the beginning of the century, culminating with the “biogenesis revolution” and the appearance of variant "clades" in the 2050s. Today’s futurists disagree about what constitutes the Fifth Wave, but almost all agree that its early stages are already transforming the world. Candidates for the central technology of the evolving Fifth Wave civilization include [nanotechnology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology), [memetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics), and powerful [artificial intelligence.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence) 

 Each Wave overlies the previous ones, but does not replace them. The result is “future shock,” the collision of unready individuals with an utterly new form of society. Today, the dizzying speed of technological change means that all five Waves coexist on the same planet, subsistence farmers living side by side with gengineered parahumans and superhuman AI. The world is in a constant state of future shock. This accounts for many of today’s cultural phenomena, from reactionary Preservationists who desperately reject change, to radical Transhumanists who embrace it.