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 opinion, is Konkin’s New Libertarian Manifesto. There is also a clear lack of fictional works on this subject, at least those demonstrating all stages of the transition rather than just one striking moment.

However, there is the somewhat separate Meganesia cycle by Alex Rozov, in the initial part of which the transition to a stateless society is covered in quite some 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 Rebels on the Initial Difficulty Level

Briefly, the plot of the book.

Christian sectarians from Guyana board Muslim sectarians from Yemen in the waters of the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean and seize five tons of gold from them. The gold was intended to be spent on weapons for the Christian sect, but the US intelligence services acted faster and exterminated the sect; only the commandos with the gold remained. They decide to continue the sect’s cause right 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, and joined by a clever and beautiful woman from a family of American Baptist missionaries, who is friends with North Korean Komsomol members;
• a bored Australian philosopher on a yacht and his son, who develops military strategy games;
• steampunks led by a certain Czech;
• descendants of German colonists from the Solomon Islands;
• a squadron of mercenary pilots from South Africa;
• and a very few actual Polynesian natives.

Next, all this crew notes that they were pushed out of the civilized world into this armpit, but now the civilized world is encroaching here too. They must fight it before it “civilizes” this armpit in its own way, because there is nowhere left to run. They instantly bring in several thousand Indians from Guyana and Blacks from Haiti, release from captivity and immediately recruit several thousand North Korean Komsomol members, start a war, and easily win it in a landslide, 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 migrant 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.

The total losses of the rebels were not named, but in the bloodiest of operations, the capture of New Caledonia from France, they amounted to 78 people. I think I would hardly be mistaken if I said that in total the People’s Fleet of Meganesia lost a couple of hundred killed and as many seriously wounded. Oh, yes, the whole war is run by that same developer of computer strategies without a single armed minion, whom all the local authorities unanimously put forward as the leader and subordinated their sizeable military contingents to him.

Then they conclude peace with the USA, as favorable for the States as Trump’s peace was with Iran.

And somewhere in the middle of the text, they realize that they have already executed a lot of people according to some Charter, however, they forgot to actually draft the Charter itself. They had to gather in an assembly where the Australian philosopher presented a draft, and right then the local authorities almost shot each other. But everything, of course, worked out, and thereafter they executed people according to the Charter 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? Of course, I will not give the most obvious answer that this is all the author’s empty fantasies and that it is simply impossible to defeat the state in a war. Let us agree that the key factor was the pushing of all anti-state elements into a single point, which resulted in this kind of synergy.

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

Why was this done? Obviously, to awaken 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 deter him. Moreover, states indeed demonstrate such stunning inefficiency at times that the chances of success for a hypothetical Aluminum Revolution truly exist.

Part 2. Ancaps Join the Game

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

According to Rozov’s original plot, after robbing the golden galleon, the sectarians retreat to lick their wounds on Suvorov Atoll, where a secret transit point of the Cocaine Trail is located. 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 heir to the RI destroyed during the 1917 coup. In current reality, Bakov’s project withered away after a few years, never leaving the bounds 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 agree 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 the “Crimea-grab” 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 settlers.

There were two factions in Bakov’s project: conservatives and libertarians. The conservatives wanted to cosplay the Russian Empire; the libertarians wanted to build a free society. After the winding down of state funding, the etatists left, while the libertarians felt it was not the right time to return to a country suffering from imperial hysteria. On the contrary, they invited a number of like-minded people from all over the world. Let us remember that Vit Edliczka announced the creation of Liberland only in 2015; the Free State Project announced reaching the threshold of 20,000 signatures only 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 passionate people ended up specifically on Suvorov Atoll, rather than in the Granite State or on an island in the middle of the Danube or the Caribbean Sea, not to mention a piece of land in Montenegro.

Main factions among the first Suvorovians:

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

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

How did technology develop in the world of the Meganesia 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 kinds 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 seize Taiwan by force, and the global semiconductor industry went down the drain. Thus, global scientific thought surged in another direction.

Satellite communication is weak, and our ancaps need reliable broadband internet, as they have IT specialists here, moreover soaked in Bitcoin, plus yachtsmen. Therefore, they willingly get involved in a messy project with a network of relay airships over the entire Pacific Ocean. Rozov does not describe what the network nodes looked like, but it is known that communication did not collapse despite the USA destroying the factory producing the corresponding equipment. This means the airship is extremely autonomous and does not require regular repair and maintenance. I think, given the abundance of biotechnology, this airship 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 heat generated is enough to power the electric motor and transmitter. When the alcohol runs out, the jellyfish gradually loses hydrogen through the walls, descends to the ocean, and begins to eat phytoplankton, processing it into alcohol. At this time, if desired, the jellyfish can be caught and the server equipment can be maintained. Jellyfish are territorial animals. They exchange signals with each other and try to position themselves in space so as not to approach at an uncomfortable distance, but also not to drift far enough to lose the signal. The jellyfish relays the signals it receives. I don’t know if the jellyfish can reproduce. Most likely, for this, it still requires an incubator where it assembles around a server with pre-installed software, and then begins to live its jellyfish life, carrying the server on its back.

Forgive this long technical digression; sci-fi writers always sin with this, it’s 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 for expansion where state regulations are strong. From time to time, groups branch off and settle on various islands, but maintain contact with the community, primarily thanks to the Bitcoin standard and tokenomics à la Montellibero. However, this is quite slow expansion. The libertarians have nothing to fight over 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 then, like Robert in Ruanapur, socialist sectarians from LiRe fall upon their heads, with five tons of gold and plans to start a war.