Milan 2167: Capital of fashion and injustice

«Who controls London, controls the world»

That’s what anyone with some knowledge on world economy would’ve told you before the First World War.

«Who controls Washington, controls the world»

And that’d be the post-WW2 version; maybe not just Washington, but Moscow as well, but there was nobody that controlled both power blocs at the time, at least nobody that we know of, so let’s just say Washington.

In 2167, there’s no city powerful enough to grant its leader control over the world. No superpowers, no leader nation, not even intercontinental organisations. All of that, due to a rather simple reason: nations are not worth that much now.

Not if compared to super corporations, of course.

Humans are divided into many countries, each with its different culture. But there’s something that every single nation has in common: war. Every nation tries to become the strongest one, to gain power over others; and when your competitors aren’t willing to just hand the throne to you… well, you make them.

What is used in wars? Weapons.

Stones, spears, arrows, war chariots, muskets, heavy chivalry, cannons, rifles, machine guns, tanks, fighter jets, nukes. Now, the 2167 meta is money.

Who has the most money? Super corporations. And that’s how they win wars. Against anyone, against anything. Against the United Nations, that tried their best to stop them… but hey, meta is meta, and in fact corporations won.

«Winner takes everything», right? And so, corps took the world.

Take London, for example: years ago, with Queen Victoria, everything was fine, more than fine even. Business was booming, France and Spain had nothing on the Royal Navy, zero revolutions. Heaven, basically. Now it’s the same thing, more or less; there is a little difference, though: instead of Victoria’s court, there’s a corporation that runs basically 60% of every type of traffic in Great Britain. And they’re funny, too: the corporation’s name is Victorian Age.

But wait a second, what did we say about wars? Yeah, you’ve guessed right, probably: of course corps are constantly at war against each other.

The United States, previously the leaders of the world, are now a complete disaster, we might say: too many corps for just one nation, even a big one. Just how they used to say in good ol’ Texas: «This town’s too small for the both of us». Small problem: in Texas one person died, and the duel was over; now, several millions of innocents are paying for this all-out war, with their lives. Because corps do go all-out: money is the new meta, fine, but it doesn’t mean that guns or explosives have ended up in oblivion.

Italy has gone even further back in time: not 19th century stuff, they pulled out the triumvirate once again. Marconi, phones and home appliances (and private hacking, blackmailing, and high-tech weaponry, but don’t say that in public); Praetorian, private security (and hitmen, extorions and stalking, but don’t say that in public); Victorian Age, real estate and high fashion (no shady businesses, but their lawyers will fuck you up the moment you can’t pay. Also, yeah, looks like England wasn’t enough for them).

But are corp wars really that exciting? Sometimes it’s corruption, contracts, lawyers, blackmail, mercenaries, espionage, development, exploiting the poor… dickhead stuff. Intead, what happens when it’s not just rich people? What happens if oligarchs, bourgeoisie and working class people start a war against each other, even against their own similars? «Corps are gonna win for sure», you might say… well, it’s not that simple. In most cases, it is, to be fair, but not always.