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Debugging: Zone London

Roger Burton West
18 June 2009

Table of Contents

1. Geography

The land-mass of the United Kingdom and associated islands, Ireland, Iceland and Greenland.

2. Demographics

The current human population of Zone London is 2,340,000 (January 2047 estimate): 2,164,000 in England, Scotland and Wales, 8,000 or so on offshore islands, 158,000 in Ireland and 10,000 in Iceland. (Cities that were larger than roughly 100,000 inhabitants at the time of the Final War have generally been subsumed by the London AI and are off-limits to humans.)

3. AI effects on society

3.1. Domestic

The London AI prohibits all aircraft, radio or microwave traffic of any kind, human approach closer than two miles from its installations, and interference with its robots. While small-scale interference with dumbots is generally tolerated, larger operations or interference with smartbots will bring swift retaliation.

3.2. Foreign

Zone Zaire has been known to send various sorts of infiltrator robot into Zone London, generally with the intention of killing as many people as possible.

Relations with Zone Paris are generally friendly, though not to the extent of condoning human passage.

4. Economy and Technology

In the AI economy, London sells scientific data and undersea resources, particular the remnants of North Sea Oil.

The human economy, denied access to the large cities, is primarily agricultural, with some cottage industry and light manufacturing. Smaller high-tech items are generally available, but prices are disproportionately high compared with food and other necessities. Barter is very common, particularly in rural areas.

Power production by humans is primarily by alcohol- or wood-fuelled generators, small wind or water turbines and solar cells. Large power plants were mostly destroyed in the Final War or taken over by the robots; those that were left have tended to have to shut down due to lack of fuel or spare parts. There are a few surviving nuclear and renewable-energy plants; with the National Grid largely scavenged or converted to robot use, they can no longer distribute power, but they have developed halo settlements of refugees from other areas. The few powered vehicles, mostly tractors, have been converted to run on alcohol or vegetable oil.

One of the biggest impacts on the technological base of Britain has been the cessation of international trade. Things are generally built to be repaired rather than to be thrown away. Ammunition is cased, and (where possible) those cases are reloaded multiple times. Incandescent light-bulbs had been entirely replaced by LED systems, but as those slowly wear out lighting in remote areas is going back to low-voltage hot wire - or indeed to wax or paraffin lamps. Contact lenses simply don't happen any more. Coffee, tea and chocolate are grown in hothouses and are only available to the very rich. Paper is expensive; there is no postal service, and most "paperwork" is done by vidcom.

While the government retains some rapid-prototyping capability, large-scale manufacture of anything has pretty much ceased.

4.1. Surviving large power plants

4.1.1. Nuclear

4.1.2. Hydroelectric

4.1.3. Wind

5. Human institutions

5.1. Government

5.1.1. United Kingdom

The government of the United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy; however, its current status is unclear. All known members of the Royal Family died during the Final War; clearly there are other possible candidates for the throne, but none of them is taken particularly seriously, and the system seems to be coping reasonably well in the absence of a monarch. Dominic Sinclair, the Prime Minister, is in effect the head of state. Regional groups have replaced political parties: the South-West England, Midlands, North of England, Scotland, Wales, and similar factions largely pull together even so, though some (particularly Scotland, which had gained independence from the UK shortly before the Final War) are content largely to run their own areas and minimise the effect of national-level directives.

The national seat of government is in Bath.

The Department of Health has the largest share of the budget; plagues from the Final War era are still prone to flare up in many places.

5.1.2. Ireland

The national seat of government is in Waterford.

5.1.3. Iceland

The Althing meets at Selfoss, where some 20% of the surviving population reside.

5.2. Police, Intelligence and Military

The regional police forces mostly survive on a much-reduced scale; the "village bobby" has made something of a comeback. They are generally unarmed, and much of their work is in establishing and enforcing quarantine zones during plague outbreaks. If they need greater force, for example if one of the increasingly-rare bandit gangs makes an appearance, they will call on the Territorial Army, which has been transformed into something like a "citizen militia" on the American model.

The sole remaining regular military unit is the Special Air Service, headquartered in Bath with training facilities elsewhere. Much of its time is spent training (particularly in anti-robot tactics).

Significant intelligence organisations are the Security Service (dealing with foreign agents in the UK, including robot agents of other Zones) and the Special Intelligence Service (gathering intelligence from foreign Zones, as well as from the AI-controlled areas of Zone London).

5.3. Religion

Zone London is notable as the seat (in Armagh) of His Holiness Pope Gregory XVII and the Vatican in exile (generally known as the New Vatican or the Irish Vatican). The Catholic Church organises guerilla radio broadcasts, missionary work and humanitarian relief, including sending priests to other Zones.

6. Communications

The London AI prohibits radio and microwave signals. Communication is by hard-wired optical fibre grid (copper wires had mostly been taken out of service even before the robot rebellion, and those that remained have been scavenged); communication points ("vidcoms"), generally built from salvaged computer hardware running standardised software, are sufficiently rare and expensive that in most villages there will only be two (at the pub and at the doctor's surgery, the latter being one of the defunct ideas that has been resurrected in an age of expensive fuel and limited travel). Richer individuals are likely to have their own vidcom units at home.

The vidcom serves as telephone, computer and television; the BBC "broadcasts" news, entertainment and educational programming, and pre-War recorded media are available on demand.

It is not known to what extent vidcom traffic is secure against robot eavesdropping; there is no evidence that strongly encrypted traffic has been successfully read.