Over the course of the next 15 years, governments of the various countries of the world become one, controlled in large part by an oligarchic group of what used to be world leaders. The fiction of separate countries is maintained because of its usefulness in controlling the populations by exploiting nationalistic, racial and religious differences. Aging world leaders appear to be remarkably well preserved. The Worldwide computer grid becomes even more pervasive, extending its influence to all but the most backward areas of the world. It makes unemployment a crime for men over 25 years of age and single women over 27.
Married women are exempt.
A small research team in Australia develops a fission-fusion hybrid, which has the potential to produce vast amounts of cheap energy. Unfortunately, before it can be perfected, a nuclear explosion on a par with Hiroshima destroys the laboratory where the new technology is being developed. Experts examining the scene over the next two years conclude that the reaction was not nearly as stable or efficient as originally hoped, and the explosion was most likely the result of instability introduced by tampering with the reaction to make it appear to be producing the desired results. A nuclear explosion destroyed the PanTech Nuclear Research Laboratory complex outside Sydney early this morning. A delegation of U.S, British and Japanese scientists and government officials were in Sydney when the explosion occurred.