THE WORLD THAT BURNED

AND CALMED DOWN

Seven Families. Seventy-Five Years. One Inevitable Horizon.

2020 — 2095

A Novel of the Ages

HOW TO READ THE WORLD STATUS INDICATORS

Each chapter opens and closes with two readings of the world:

damaged. 100 = unlivable.

/ 35=AII / 60=ASI framework).

DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction. The seven families portrayed in this novel — the Petrovs of Serbia, the Chens of Shanghai, the Mutombos of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Hayes family of Iowa, the Sharmas of Varanasi, the Van den Bergs of Amsterdam, and the Nguyens of Vietnam — are entirely imaginary. No character in this book represents or is based upon any real person, living or deceased. Certain actual events, documented scientific developments, real geographic locations, and historical moments have been woven into the narrative to ground the story in recognisable reality and to lend authenticity to its speculative arc. These real-world references — including the COVID-19 pandemic, documented environmental data, and the genuine history of artificial intelligence research — are used as narrative scaffolding only, and their portrayal here does not constitute factual reporting, scientific claim, or political commentary. The technological projections, institutional structures, geopolitical arrangements, and events set in the future are entirely the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance between fictional events and real future occurrences would be, at best, an educated guess and, at worst, a remarkable coincidence.

PRELUDE

The World Before

1970 — 2019: Fifty Years of Burning

AI MATURITY 0.1 — Calculators → 1.5 — Early ML