An essay by Ollie Garky, brought to our attention by E. B. Fischadler
Art by Luke Spooner
Mr. (or Ms.) President:
I have an important proposal for the leaders of the western nations. If they are wise enough to adopt my plan, the West can establish control over the world’s economy and have the most powerful political leverage in the history of the world.
A Lesson FROM History
History is replete with examples of military, political, or economic powers arising due to accidents of geography. England, where no citizen lives more than 100 miles from the ocean, became the great sea power of the 18th and 19th centuries. The United States, with its vast prairies turned to farmland, was known in the 20th century as the world’s breadbasket.
Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, a group of nations around the Persian Gulf were able to parley the vast oil reserves under their soil into control of much of the world’s energy. These nations formed a cartel known as OPEC, the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries. OPEC was able to hold the world’s energy reserves hostage over several decades, its countries going from poor desert lands to the world’s wealthiest.
In the early 1970s, OPEC greatly curtailed oil exports in an attempt to boost prices. By so doing, they created a crisis in the United States, at that time a world superpower. The effect was to permanently alter the economy of the U.S. and to establish OPEC as a world economic power.
What if the U.S. and western countries had some commodity that OPEC couldn’t do without? If such a commodity existed and the western powers could organize to control its distribution, they would re-establish their control of the world economy.
It is by dint of extensive research and insightful and imaginative planning that I have established a plan for the United States and other western powers to regain parity with OPEC. In fact, when successfully implemented, my plan will allow the West to regain their prominent place in the world order. Like OPEC, the West has an accidental geographic advantage over the rest of the world. Following my design, this advantage will give the western world an economic stranglehold comparable, even superior, to that currently held by OPEC.
If they are nice to us, we might open a gate in the wall, or shut down a subset of those engines.
To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Spring 2017 collection.
Ollie Garky leads a small group of people dedicated to exploiting the West’s control of oxygen in order to restore the western countries power over the rest of the world. These same people are also dedicated to gaining control of the Western countries, or producing economic chaos.
E. B. Fischadler has been writing short stories for several years, and has recently begun publishing. His stories have appeared in Mad Scientist Journal, Bewildering Stories, eFiction, Voluted Tales, Beyond Imagination Literary Magazine, and Beyond Science Fiction. In addition to fiction, Fischadler has published over 30 papers in refereed scientific journals, as well as a chapter of a textbook on satellite engineering. When he is not writing, he pursues a career in engineering and serves his community as an EMT. Fischadler continues to write short stories and is working on a novel about a naval surgeon. You can learn more about Fischadler and access his other publications at: http://ebfischadler.wordpress.com/
Luke Spooner, a.k.a. ‘Carrion House,’ currently lives and works in the South of England. Having recently graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a first class degree, he is now a full time illustrator for just about any project that piques his interest. Despite regular forays into children’s books and fairy tales, his true love lies in anything macabre, melancholy, or dark in nature and essence. He believes that the job of putting someone else’s words into a visual form, to accompany and support their text, is a massive responsibility, as well as being something he truly treasures. You can visit his web site at www.carrionhouse.com.
“The New OPEC” is © 2017 E. B. Fischadler
Art accompanying story is © 2017 Luke Spooner
