Event · treaty
The Laurentian Accession
Northern Great Lakes states join Canada's basin compact; America's strongest AI systems move north with its largest lab; the other labs stay.
Read more in The Missing Century
US disputes over disaster funding, taxation and relocation weaken federal coordination before the Laurentian Accession. City governments and commercial networks elsewhere form the American core of the Open Cities, joined through trade and finance to Latin American cities whose elites seek to retain revenue and attract capital. See American politics and the Open Cities.
The Partition (2110–2160). Humanity responds by physically separating networks: air-gapped critical infrastructure, compute licensing, cryptographically attested hardware, and "slow lanes" where any consequential action requires a human signature after a mandatory delay. Defensive AI ecosystems — essentially immune systems — patrol the wild networks. The Partition is also a division between blocs. The strongest Fab Wave systems had been built in the US and China, never shared, and each side seals its own. America's, moved north with the largest lab during the Laurentian Accession, are sealed in Laurentian hands; the Open Cities never forgive it. India seals a system of its own, built by engineers who came home from America. Taiwan's fabs, the oldest licensed anywhere, are left in place under the inspection of both the future Settlement and the future Mandate: the Fab Truce. The Sealing Treaty of the 2150s lets the Settlement, the Mandate and India inspect one another's Vaults without ever questioning them; the cities that became the Open Cities sign soon after.
During the Laurentian Accession of the 2060s–2090s, northern Great Lakes states join Canada's basin compact, taking America's strongest AI systems north. Elsewhere, city governments and commercial networks become the American core of the Open Cities. Latin American commercial elites pursue their own interests in retaining revenue and attracting capital; trade and finance connect their cities to this emerging order. Its founders defend local autonomy, private enterprise and unrestricted political spending. During the Settlement's later formation, they reject its education ring-fence and limits on wealth.