The Atlas War (1 - A Betrayal From the Past)
Chapter 1: A Betrayal From the Past
Joseph looked at the drone feed on his screen. It was late afternoon, so the feed showed rays of golden light reflecting in the soybean fields as small drones, no larger than a child’s hand, buzzed to individual plants and tended to its care. Everything was powered by open-source algorithms designed and refined by the community.
Community was important here, as it was all they had. They lived far from the gleaming central cities and the surrounding suburban districts. They had decided to eschew the politics and decadency and built something from the ground that was all their own.
“Joseph!” Luke burst through the door holding a datapad in his hands.
“Luke, I thought you’d gone home for the night.”
“I had to come back when I saw President Sal was going to make an announcement. It’s something I thought you should see. He’s finally done it.”
President Sal, known informally as the Iron Fist, stood in front of holographic projections of national flags and a chimerical creature that stood as a symbol of his reign.
“I have spoken deeply with archivists and historians. Historically, undeniably, the Lechestan is does in fact actually belong to us, the Barbarussos.”
He spoke more about maps which were centuries old and old relics found buried deep in the earth. The holographic projections changed to show off these pieces of evidence to justify his autocratic land grab. He finished by calling upon Atlas Corp, the ubiquitous global mapping authority, to immediately update its digital borders to reflect these new findings.
“I can’t believe this,” Joseph muttered with a dry mouth. “What ancient maps? My grandmother was born on this farm. It’s been here for at least six generations. He thinks he can make historical claims?”
“What are we supposed to do? We’re just a few people. We can’t mount a defense against a regular army,” Luke’s worry was clear.
“For now he’s not proposing a full invasion, just adjusting the borders. Whatever happens next is up to Atlas Corp.”
The next morning, Evelyn Reed published a short video from her minimalist London apartment.
“I want to address recent discourse,” she began, speaking calmly and professionally. “Our mission at Atlas Corp is the same as it’s always been: to map reality with unimpeachable accuracy. We do this by blending data from many sources. Our geospatial data is verified by a dozen sources from satellite telemetry, ground sensors, and hyperlocal community input. Our focus is on the _current state_ of our world. We don’t want to become mired into debates of the past. Borders are political constructs, but ones that are designed to reflect legally recognized frameworks and human existence. We do not plan to draw them based on arbitrary and unilateral claims in any case. That would betray our mission and the trust that billions have placed in us.
Joseph was happy to see that someone was willing to stand up for them, at least in a single, symbolic way.
Then he got an alert from some of his agricultural drones. He pulled up the camera feeds and saw Vorlagian soldiers gathering on the other side of the border. Trucks and tanks seemed to be massing along the border. Hastily built checkpoints were being constructed along the roads between the two regions.
He felt sick to his stomach. Sal was going to invade in order to claim his territory by force. If a symbolic gesture wasn’t enough, he’d use force and violence to determine the current state of the world. Joseph thought about calling Luke, but decided against it. He might still be asleep. He might be enjoying a breakfast with his family. It’d be better to let him enjoy it for now. Once the tanks rolled in, they’d lose that tranquility.
He clipped the drone footage and uploaded it to a dropbox that urban journalists had setup a while ago for anonymous reporting. He signed the video using the dropbox’s PGP key and hoped that his plea for help would go answered.
Joseph walked outside with binoculars. He looked through and saw the large gray vehicles rumbling over the border. Their heavy tires tore up the road and let out a loud rumble which would’ve woken up anyone who had still been sleeping.
Then there was a sudden roar coming from overhead. He jerked his head and looked up at new entities appearing in the sky. There were large drones, far larger than the ones in their community. Through his binoculars, he could see on the side the logo of Atlas Corp.
—
For years, Atlas Corp had quietly been building up a “Global Geospatial Security Division”, a fancy word that was used to obscure the concept of a private army. As more people relied on their data, from climate models to supply chains, it became increasingly clear that their map was a matter of global stability. Disruptions to their digital map could lead to genuine disruptions in the world and the world order.
In events where corporate bureaucracy wasn’t enough, this division could enforce their map accuracy backed by force. Their mission was to preserve data and territorial integrity and never go on the offensive.
Sleek solar-powered atmospheric vehicles soared overhead, deployed from one of their regional data centers. The SPAVs were sensor platforms that could perform high-res mapping and provide rapid transport for half a dozen ground units.
As they reached the border, the bottom of the SPAVs opened up and soldiers began falling out of the sky. They ripped cords on their backpacks and large parachutes burst out. As they started to float slowly to the ground, they detached large, long objects from the bag and started approaching the column of trucks. From Joseph’s perspective, they didn’t look like guns. They seemed to be non-lethal sonic deterrents.
Their mission was to defend the borders exactly as already defined by Atlas Corp. Geospatial integrity backed up by defensive force.