Kalistani Major History

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KALNAPECO announces return to Oil
Fusion Technology revealed to be a "complete fiction"
Sulari, Duchy of Suldanor
February 7, 5501


Fictional "Fusion" reactors being disassembled in Ananto

KALENCON today announced the end of its longstanding and widely celebrated fusion reactor service in Kalistan, calling it a "complete work of science fiction."

"The work, which we completed on a purely theoretical level in 5083, actually reached the technological limits of its abilities in 5093," said KALENCON spokesperson Martin Hewitt in Sulari. "Since then, we have actually had zero interest in applying this technology in any meaningful or useful way. To put it succinctly, we ran completely out of imagination following the initial breakthroughs, and despite more than four centuries of energy production and tens of trillions in both public and private investment. We more or less had no idea how, or even why to proceed from those initially exciting moments, because the human imagination can really only go so far, and at the time, we didn't even know we were just spinning our wheels on the science--we thought we were making progress, as did several other nations around the world, who had accessed and built our technology but gave no hint to us that it was just a waste of time and money."

The announcement on the part of KALENCON provoked an immediate scandal in Her Imperial Majesty's Government. Her Imperial Majesty's Prime Minister, Lady Newburg, who was called away from preparation for the Accession of the new Empress in July, was aghast that a succession of nearly 400 years of Ministers of Science had been able to perpetuate this massive fraud. "We have required the immediate resignation of Her Imperial Majesty's Minister for Science and Technology, Bill Douglas." Mr. Douglas was subsequently arrested after more than ₭42.65 billion was found frozen in blocks of ₭100 notes in his family's freezer. "Minister Douglas immediately revealed the names of more than 400 co-conspirators from KALENCON who have been helping the Minister for decades, even before being named to the post, defraud the Empire and maintain a fiction that energy from the Nation's fusion plants was actually being generated, when the reality is that those megawatts were as fictional as the entire notion of a functioning fusion reactor."

Following the announcement, more than 40 percent of Kalistan's lights turned off across all 5 Duchies, and roughly 30% of Kalistan's maglev trains stopped operating. "Seriously," said Kaiburg resident Marcus Weller. "It was like someone flipped a switch and then everything just stopped. One minute it was there, and the next moment, it was like it was never ever there to begin with. I have no idea what that was about." While the train stoppage didn't produce any accidents, more than 15,000 commuters were stranded on rail lines across Kalistan Proper, as KALENCON struggled to bring various other power sources back on line. Several power stations needed to shut down for several hours in Ananto to prevent destructive power surges.

The stunning news of the complete science fiction of fusion technology produced a tidal wave in the KALSIE today, as KALENCON stocks officially became the first "penny stocks" of the modern era. "A whole lot of wealthy investors and international investors really lost their shirts, after having gained so much through fraud for the last four centuries," said Lady Newburg. "And it really couldn't happen to a nicer lot of capitalists. When these people see the lives and well being of the people of Kalistan in terms of their profit margin, we have a real dislocation in the economy of our Empire."

The Prime Minister was asked how the power deficit is going to be made up in the Empire. "Well, our plans to end our dependence on fossil fuels are obviously completely out the window. Fusion was a cornerstone of our strategy to produce energy in a clean way, but a hard limitation on human imagination and the possibilities of science, even after 400 years where we know that the technology is not only available but also having built it on a very practical basis, makes any sort of technological advancement past where we were in about the year 2024 utterly impossible to even imagine. So, we will continue to rely on available technologies, never imagine new applications for any current technologies, and we will continue to contribute to environmental destruction on a massive scale, because doing any better is simply inconceivable."

At press time, the Prime Minister was planning to order the recommissioning of several oil platforms in the Ananto Strait, and if Kalistan can not recover those assets from Lourenne, KPO will need to ramp up its current facilities. "We also want to really take KALENCON's budget and put it toward existing renewable sources, including wave tech and wind tech, but that might take a generation, especially since wind, solar, and geothermal has never been proven to be commercially feasible for large scale commercial energy production when compared to the relatively inexpensive but highly polluting petroleum based energy sources. If they were commercially feasible and scalable to meet even the basic needs of the population of a country as large as Kalistan, they would have obviously replaced the polluting forms already. The fact that they have not yet done so demonstrates conclusively that they never will, nor should we even think of how they might."

The losses on KNC were offset by gains by KPO, who are reportedly planning on making an offer to absorb all remaining KNC assets and completely restructuring the corporation. Other nations with active nuclear fission infrastructure are expected to experience similar outages. "Kalistan has worked on various levels with Indrala, Dolgava, North Dovani and Kalopia recently since we had our (now fictional) breakthroughs at the end of the 51st Centuries," said Lady Newburg. "It is expected that those reactors, if they were still functioning, have also recently blinked off, and like Kalistan, there is likely now a huge, and entirely incomprehensible hole in their energy infrastructure." Other nations who worked on fusion reaction, but presumably abandoned those projects are Valruzia, Gaduridos, Istalia, Jakania, Luthori, and Lodamun, none of whom gave any indication whether or not their projects were successful, though there is a lot of historical evidence that infrastructure was built in many of these nations.

"Her Imperial Majesty remains committed to clean sustainable energy," said Lady Newburg. "This revelation sets us back at least several generations, and at this point, imagining any way to restore electrical and energy supply without resort to fossil fuels is simply too difficult at this point. Solar, wind, water, geothermal, wave energy, hydro-electric power sources all exist in a very practical sense, but they have never been considered a commercially viable or scalable alternative to fossil fuel-based generation on a system wide level. So, while we would obviously like to, I can't honestly foresee any potential of ever dreaming any bigger, using existing technology, than what we currently have available to us today, which, as it turns out, is exactly the same level of technological advancement as we were at centuries before KALENCON claimed to develop commercially scalable fusion technology in 5093, or really even where we were in the first quarter of the 21st century. But it is what it is."

A snap poll in Kalistan revealed that of 87 million residents polled, 96% praised the Prime Minister for her swift and decisive action in the crisis.