Very few manuals have been written on the transition from a society with a state to a free anarcho-capitalist society. The best of what has been created, in my view, is Konkin’s New Libertarian Manifesto. There is also a clear lack of fictional works on this topic—at least those demonstrating all stages of the transition, rather than just one vivid moment.

However, there is Alex Rozov’s Meganesian cycle, which stands somewhat apart, and in the initial part of which the transition to a stateless society is covered in considerable detail, although, of course, from slightly different ideological positions. I would like to talk about the first work of the cycle, “Maui and Pele Holding the World,” which describes the events of the so-called Aluminum Revolution.

Part 1. Playing as the Rebels on the Initial Difficulty Level

The book’s plot in brief.

Christian sectarians from Guyana board Muslim sectarians from Yemen in the waters of the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean and take five tons of gold from them. The gold was intended to be spent on weapons for the Christian sect, but US intelligence agencies got there first and exterminated the sect; only the commandos with the gold remained. They decide to continue the sect’s cause right there on the spot and get acquainted with the local authorities. These turn out to be:

• cocaine smugglers from Mexico and Haiti;
• producers of unlicensed electronics and mechanics from New Zealand, joined by a smart and beautiful woman from a family of American Baptist missionaries, who is on friendly terms with North Korean Komsomol members;
• a bored Australian philosopher on a yacht and his son, who develops military strategic games;
• steampunks led by a certain Czech;
• descendants of German colonists from the Solomon Islands;
• a squadron of air mercenaries from South Africa;
• and a very few actual Polynesian natives.

Next, this whole gang concludes that while they were pushed out of the civilized world into this asshole of a place, the civilized world is now encroaching here as well. They must fight it before it “civilizes” this asshole in its own way, because there is nowhere left to run. They instantly pull in several thousand Indians from Guyana and Blacks from Haiti, liberate several thousand North Korean Komsomol members from captivity and immediately recruit them, start a war, and easily win it in a one-sided blowout, destroying along the way:

• a US carrier strike group, plus about a marine battalion, plus two stealth bombers;
• a combined international military flotilla along with half of Singapore;
• a British PMC;
• a brigade of the French Foreign Legion;
• more than ten thousand armed Indonesian guest workers;
• several tens of thousands of peaceful civilians, predominantly ethnic Europeans and Indians, plus a few Arabs;
• a liner with several hundred billionaires on board;
• a plane with a prince from the UAE.

Total losses of the insurgents were not mentioned, but in the bloodiest of the operations, the seizure of New Caledonia from France, they amounted to 78 people. I think I’m unlikely to be far off if I say that in total the People’s Fleet of Meganesia lost a couple of hundred people killed and as many seriously wounded. Oh, yes, the entire war is run by that same developer of computer strategies without a single armed minion, whom all the local authorities unanimously put forward as leader and subordinated their considerable military contingents to him.

Next, they conclude peace with the USA, which is as advantageous for the States as Trump’s peace was with Iran.

And then, somewhere in the middle of the text, they realize that they have already put a huge number of people to the sword according to a certain Charter, however, they forgot to actually compose the Charter. They had to gather in an assembly where the Australian philosopher presented a draft, and right then the local authorities nearly shot each other. But everything, of course, worked out, and thereafter they put people to the sword according to the Charter already in full compliance with procedure.

A logical question arises: if defeating the state by military means is so simple, what prevented this from being done earlier? Naturally, I will not give the most obvious answer—that this is all the author’s empty fantasies and that defeating the state in a war is simply impossible. Let’s agree that the key factor was the squeezing of all anti-state elements into one point, which resulted in this kind of synergy.

It’s clear that there are still plenty of complaints regarding the internal logic of this military strategy, and here the most understandable explanation is as follows: this game was played on the minimum difficulty level. The opponents are stupid, disorganized, and neglect intelligence and planning. The allies have infinite resources and work perfectly as a team.

Why was it done this way? Obviously, to awaken the maximum interest in all potential participants of the movement. A venture investor needs attractive brochures, and a detailed description of all possible risks will only scare him off. Moreover, states do indeed sometimes demonstrate such staggering inefficiency that the chances of success for a hypothetical Aluminum Revolution actually exist.

Part 2. Ancaps join the game

Now let’s imagine that at the start of the game there was one more faction on the field—the libertarian one. Let’s say it went like this.

According to Rozov’s original plot, after robbing the gold galleon, the sectarians retreat to lick their wounds on Suvorov Atoll, where there is a secret transit point of the Cocaine Trail. Now let’s step back a quarter of a century…

In 2011, Russian political technologist Anton Bakov announced the establishment of the Russian Empire on Suvorov Atoll—the successor to the RI destroyed during the 1917 coup. In current reality, Bakov’s project withered away after a few years, never leaving the realm of internet discussions. The course of events was similar in Rozov’s book. However, in the plot we are constructing, Bakov turned out to be more successful (since we are playing on a low difficulty level). He managed to reach an agreement with the government of the Cook Islands to create a memorial complex on Suvorov Atoll in honor of the discovery of the atoll by Lazarev’s Russian expedition. By 2014, a memorial, a Russian cultural center, and an Orthodox church were opened on the atoll. Then “krymnash” happened, and at the insistent request of the USA, Russia’s funding of the project was wound down. The Chekists and intelligence officers from the cultural center returned home; the priest remained, as well as some of the settlers.

In Bakov’s project, there were two factions: conservatives and libertarians. The conservatives wanted to cosplay the Russian Empire; the libertarians wanted to build a free society. After the state funding was wound down, the statists bailed, and the libertarians felt that returning to a country suffering from imperial hysteria was not a good move. On the contrary, they invited a certain number of like-minded people from all over the world. Let’s remember that Vit Edlička announced the creation of Liberland only in 2015; the Free State Project only announced reaching the threshold of 20,000 signatures in 2016, after which relocation to the Free State officially started; the first land for the future Prospera was bought in 2017; the Montellibero project started as late as 2021. Thus, in our 2014, the Pacific libertarian project had a head start, thanks to which the most passionaries ended up specifically on Suvorov Atoll, and not in the Granite State or on an island in the middle of the Danube or the Caribbean Sea, not to mention a patch of land in Montenegro.

The main factions among the first Suvorovians:

• Russians from Bakov’s project. Their move was partially sponsored by murky Bakov capitals for the sake of numbers, and thereafter they were left to their own devices. Mostly IT guys; their share among Russian libertarians has always been disproportionately high.
• Americans who never made it to New Hampshire. The relatively wealthiest, and therefore having the ability to relocate in comfort. They brought a developed individual weapons culture and a cult of Bitcoin.
• Australian and New Zealand libertarians—these simply lived nearby and thus easily fit into the ideologically close movement. Predominantly yachtsmen.

By the start of the book’s action, the libertarian colony on Suvorov Atoll has lived for a quarter century, and a second generation of colonists has grown up. The number of the colony directly on the atoll is at most a few hundred people, because the atoll itself is quite small. However, project participants live across all the Cook Islands.

How did technology develop in the world of the Meganesian cycle? The neural network revolution didn’t happen, nor did Starlink. Instead, biotechnology turned out to be more developed than in our world. Therefore, organic microchips exist—weaker than advanced silicon ones, but more accessible for decentralized production. There are also transgenic crops of all varieties and colors. Why did it turn out this way? The answer is obvious: because with the start of the Ukrainian war, the PRC took the opportunity to grab Taiwan by force, and the global semiconductor industry went down the drain. So world scientific thought surged in another direction.

Satellite communication is weak, and our ancaps need reliable broadband internet, since they have IT guys here, who are moreover smeared in Bitcoin, plus yachtsmen. Therefore, they willingly get involved in the mess with a network of relay blimps over the entire Pacific Ocean. Rozov does not describe what the network nodes looked like, however, it is known that communication did not break down despite the US destroying the factory producing the corresponding equipment. This means the blimp is extremely autonomous and does not require regular repair and maintenance. I think, given the riot of biotechnology, this blimp is something like a Westerveld jellyfish, only better. A colony of microorganisms feeds on alcohol, decomposing it into carbon and hydrogen. From the carbon, it grows the graphene walls of the aerostat. It fills the aerostat with hydrogen. The decomposition reaction is exothermic; the generated heat is enough to power the electric motor and transmitter. When the alcohol runs low, the jellyfish gradually loses hydrogen through the walls, descends to the ocean, and begins to eat phytoplankton, processing it into alcohol. During this time, if desired, the jellyfish can be caught and the server equipment can undergo maintenance. Jellyfish are territorial animals. They exchange signals among themselves and try to position themselves in space so as not to approach to an uncomfortable distance, but also not to drift away to the point of signal loss. The jellyfish relays the signals it receives. I don’t know if the jellyfish can reproduce. Most likely, it still requires an incubator for this, where it assembles around a server with pre-installed software, and thereafter begins to live its jellyfish life, carrying the server on its hump.

Forgive this long technical digression; sci-fi writers always sin in this way, such is the law of the genre.

In short, by the start of the book’s action, we have a fairly large agorist community engaged in IT, logistics, and decentralized finance. The community has hit the limits of development since it has no opportunity to expand into areas where state regulations are strong. Groups branch off from it from time to time, settling on various islands, but maintaining contact with the community, primarily thanks to the Bitcoin standard and tokenomics a la Montellibero. However, this is a rather slow expansion. The libertarians have nothing to divide with the cocaine dons, but they do have some economic contacts. The dons get communication and help with traffic. The libertarians occasionally order enforcement services from the dons.

And here, like Roberta in Ruanapur, socialist sectarians from LiRe fall upon their heads, with five tons of gold and plans to start a war.