How we achieve the borderless future of Terra Ignota
On Ada Palmer’s utopian sci-fi series and an exploration of how we might bring it to life.
t’s the year 2131 and flying cars can circle the globe in four hours. When anyone can live in Spain, work in New Zealand, and attend an afternoon meeting in Japan, the nation-state becomes irrelevant. Why would anyone pledge allegiance to the patch of dirt they were born on?
That’s exactly what Americans are asking themselves when their government enters yet another war they don’t want. The heads of the three transit groups, “which can evacuate members from continent to continent to evade a draft as easily as watch a sports match,” call a press conference.
“This so-called nation dares, not merely to ask, but to compel these free people to send their children to fight and die for a group of men they do not call leaders, against a foe they do not call enemy, over a patch of ground they have never called home,” they orate from the dais. “Friends, an America who would impose these orders is no longer the champion of liberty its founders set out to create.”
The European Union is the first to offer floating citizenship to Americans. Renounce your country, they say, join ours instead.
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