We are living through a tsunami of terrible Substacks, armchair analysts, and overconfident X influencers. All of which converged last week on Don’s motions towards Greeland.
In these nutty times, we’ve decided to let our imaginations run wild.
Because crazy perspectives may be just as informed as those that were circulated last week by the media gripped by the Baudrillard-esque spectacle in the Arctic. [Izzy will provide the red pill alternative soon-ish, she says.]
Greetings World-Greenlanders.
The year is 380 A.G., Annun Groendlandius.
382 years ago, our glorious Greenlandic heroes emerged victorious after a surprise offensive on American naval assets in the Nordic Sea, which were inbound to secure their anti-Greenlandic modifications to the 1951 Arctic treaty established at Davos.
Roused to fury at the carving up of our homeland, we unveiled our secret weapon: the naval and aerial animal flutes (“NAAF”). These mobilised thousands of killer whales and narwhals, which disabled the enemies’ propellers, leaving their sailors and marines at the mercy of our allied seagulls.
In the ensuing and glorious global Nunarsuup Ilungersornera, the World-Struggle, our brave troops & allied animals rapidly took over the remaining global superpowers.
As the world fell under our icy grip, our experts redeployed NATO weather machines, lowering global temperatures to an enjoyable -25 degrees Celsius.
But why this lesson on ancient history? Because, sat down to enjoy my breakfast of seal-fat and fermented fish, I received news of the latest archeological finding.
It was found beneath the ice blocks covering the ancient and heat-bleached city known as Paris, under the old headquarters of French Intelligence (DGSE). It turns out that in 1952, the Director of the DGSE’s forerunner, Pierre Boursicot of the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage, received a gift from inter-dimensional travellers in the form of a time-screen. Used via a consciousness link, French intelligence was able to foresee how actions could influence global events.
Accessing the time-screen’s history, we can observe what the DGSE’s experts were considering on the eve of the Greenlandic invasion threat by the United States in 2026. Fearful after Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro, the DGSE was attempting to unlock potential futures in which Europe could once again stand up to the might of the United States and China.
Here’s what the scenarios considered:
No change: Secular decline under the moderate regime of the EU
Nothing changes. European bureaucrats keep guzzling down oysters and mediocre champagne. EU leaders continue espousing their commitment to free speech and democracy while clamping down on both. Calls to cut red-tape and increase competitiveness languish in endless legislative drafts and suffer consistent death-by-committee.
The far-right is kept at bay by ‘liberal centrists’ running most powerful European capitals. While immediate upsets are kept at bay, time degrades the purchasing capacity of Europeans as their debt-saddled governments fail to rearm sufficiently to protect the continent.
Unified haphazardly and unwilling to change anything fundamentally, the time-screen predicts the union will limp on into a centuries-long secular decline where its sovereignty is slowly cannibalised by American and Chinese government-backed companies, while keeping an intact moral compass.
Actions to activate: None required.
Right-wing takeover: Re-nationalisation
The extreme right lurches into power. But they don’t like each other. Instead of forming a European nation, each far-right group encourages its own national ethos.
Working through mountains of paperwork, German bureaucrats make bratwurst compulsory in the EU’s lunch room. The French pass a subsidy to encourage escargots in school lunches.
As the extreme right slowly takes over national governments, foreign funding from the U.S. and China convinces them to abandon any aspirations at deepening the Union, turning back towards national priorities.
The time-screen is similarly certain of the potential outcomes; as the EU is shorn of power, much like Gorbachev’s USSR in the 90s, the continent’s fortunes drift further and further apart. While their sovereignty is restored in appearance through propaganda, the strength of American and Chinese companies means it all comes to nil, emulating the secular decline of scenario 1.
Actions to activate: Fund national equivalents of Braveheart movies.
Right-wing takeover: A new, nastier Union
The extreme right takes over. But this time, they’re uniting to transform the European Union into a European Nation.
This is the first scenario where the players are self-conscious about the nearly inevitable decline of the Union. Drastic measures are carried out. Most of these hollow out the moral basis of Europe but re-energise its parts.
One of these is a massive dual-use program that funds investments and purchases in robotics, using them to replace low and medium-skilled work, slowly replacing the need for migrants in European labour markets. This facilitates a roundup of migrants, who are thrown into forced ‘re-skilling’ work camps and militarisation programs. Another is the reintroduction of conscription and even bigger investments into military technology and education.
The time-screen posits many potential futures from this outcome, few of which are positive.
For instance, the massive, centrally organised investments and purchases in robotics do create pockets of ultra-competence. But like the doomed industrialisation efforts of the Ottoman Empire, the resources are poorly allocated. Over time, the programs’ funding is increasingly syphoned off by corrupt and self-serving participants.
In many, the totalitarian and constrictive nature of this project unites the conscious figures of Europe to ally with the newly enslaved, pitting the continent into a destructive civil war between the state-allied extreme right and everyone else. The Chinese and Americans pushed for this outcome and benefited from the results.
The few outcomes that aren’t entirely negative seem counterintuitive. For instance, the revival of a European military ethos and funding creates competent and effective soldiers across the continent. As Europe’s decline continues, governments allow these troops to serve overseas as mercenaries, echoing the ancient Prussian state’s dominant strategy for self-financing. This influx of cash creates areas of well-being in rural Europe, as mercenaries retire to the quiet of the countryside.
Actions to activate: Secretly give Marine Le Pen a love potion that turns her into the lover of the AFD’s chairwoman, Alice Weidel.
Charismatic takeover: a new Napoleon
A charismatic, multi-lingual figure emerges in the periphery of the European Union and slowly manages to gain popularity outside of their host country. Gaining widespread support in civilian and particularly in military circles, the figure’s popularity backs a lightning coup of the European Union’s institutions and most member-states.
While the established elite vigorously fight the pretender, a small sliver of them, alongside most of the European populace, back this claimant to the new Imperial throne.
Unified as a new European Empire, this is the first scenario in which the spectre of secular decline is knocked back in a morally palatable way. While under Imperial rule, the electorate maintains some democratic control by vetoing bills through their national Plebeian Tribune.
While this Empire manages to establish a diversified economy, managing Europe without prioritising any member-state interest over the other, its liabilities soon come to the fore. Constant external meddling in its still-guaranteed rights of freedom of speech and assembly force the Imperium to strike down the liberties of its citizens, slowly eroding their rights until even the revered Tribunes are effectively powerless.
Despite this, the Empire continues to be largely popular by virtue of its charismatic leader, but they suddenly die without a clearly supported succession.
After this, a number of scenarios can occur, none of which lead to an apt successor. Most instances lead to a Charlemagne-type split between three successor empires in French-run Western Europe, German-run Eastern Europe, and Iberia. These successor empires rekindle a bureaucratic and inept New-EU to guarantee peace, leading to a new (but delayed) secular decline.
Actions to activate: Release Napoleon’s clone from deep freeze. Make him slightly taller.
Accepted Decline and Corporatisation: Neo-Feudalism
A rogue European Commissioner, having predicted that most futures lead to an inevitable secular decline, hatches a plan and surreptitiously feeds it through the intricate layers of bureaucracy and the European Parliament.
Secretly backed by some European oligarchs, this plan circumvents the decline of the EU and its member states by creating a parallel legal structure that encompasses the entire Union.
This structure allows certain greenlit entrepreneurs and company owners, armed with a species of letter of marque, to exist in a low-taxation and ultra-low regulation environment, sitting above all existing EU and member state laws. This parallel society effectively draws dividends from the European decline, benefiting from lower relative wages and competitive edges against other international corporations.
In exchange, these greenlit owners must establish an area of influence of their choosing, within which a certain number of European citizens are earmarked for a paid retirement. This parallel society must pay for its policing, utilities, and other aspects of local governance. The members gladly accept this obligation, since it augments their personal prestige and makes them pseudo-lords.
This scenario leads to a dual European future. In one, the existing society continues in a managed decline. Parallel to this, the elite-driven society forms pockets of ultra-competitiveness and wealth, which begin planting the kernels for a future where the secular decline is reversed.
While the time-screen lauds this scenario’s positive growth outcomes, the drastic inequities that will emerge amongst the enriched feudal lords and their vassals versus the impoverished general citizenry may lead to significant societal upheaval. One where the energised feudal lords and their vassals clearly win out, extending their dominion over Europe.
Actions to activate: Engineer an exiling of Peter Thiel to Brussels.
