Hi Everyone,
Apart from contests; challenges; and my Actifit Reports, I have spent very little time on Hive. I have been very busy working on a book. The book is presented very differently from my regular content. On Hive, I write directly about economics, topics relating economics, and applied economics. The book is fiction but it covers many of the topics I discuss in my regular content. It is just presented in the context of a fictitious world.
The story takes place on another planet. The dominant species on the planet closely resemble humans. In the book, I called them ‘Sapiens’. The animals on the planet closely resemble earth animals but are far limited in diversity. I called them ‘Sapes’.
Unlike our planet, this planet, which I have called ‘Sapia’, consists of only one giant landmass and is surrounded by a giant ocean. This planet has only one country. I called the country ‘Sapey’.
The political, economic, and social systems of this world bear some resemblance to what we have in our world. It is greatly simplified because it is a one world country. However, the concepts of control and power are very similar to what we have here. There is a ‘democratically elected’ Government. There are businesses. There is religion. There is even a banking system. These work together for society to function.
On the surface, Sapey appeared to be a utopia. Citizens were given everything they needed and much of what they wanted. There was no poverty. Sapiens did not even need to work to have all their basic needs met. If they wanted a more extravagant lifestyle, they could earn it by getting a job. None of these earnings would be taxed. There was minimal crime. They were no strong incentives to commit crimes. Programmable currency, registration of items and property made theft close to impossible. Strict surveillance ensured violent crime could be immediately detected. If crimes were committed, the focus was on rehabilitation and help for the criminal.
The only thing that was missing was freedom. The majority of citizens of Sapey did not crave freedom because it was a concept they did not understand. However, a few Sapiens believed their society was deeply flawed. They wanted to change the systems in place. The systems were too strong for them to overcome.
The systems were designed to remain in equilibrium. This was to prevent any group gaining too much power. Not everyone around the top liked this equilibrium. Some of them wanted it to sway permanently in favour of themselves. Elites seeking more power decided to use and exaggerate the dissention from those seeking freedom for their own means. They blamed problems they claimed were caused by the dissention on decision-making made by those they wanted to get rid of. This started a chain of problems and disasters. Each one of them led to power swinging more in one direction.
Those who lost power decided to expose the entire system to wrestle power away from those they believed had taken too much. This failed. The citizens were so indoctrinated in the lies that they could not see the truth.
Those who had more power were still not satisfied. They decided they wanted to take absolute control by abolishing their main opposition. By doing so, they broke the system. Chaos soon followed as society rapidly crumbled as supporters of the main opposition fought back. They were fighting to defend their lie.
On top of the chaos caused by the breaking of the system. Ambition and greed provoked another enemy. This enemy was on a mission to settle both new and old scores.
This is not exactly a dystopian story. Some could see it that way as it includes many dystopian ideas. The underlying theme of the story is an offshoot of social cycle theory. Society reaches a peak or near peak before it ultimately crumbles. Eventually, society recovers and a new era/cycle is in full swing. This may or may not surpass the previous cycle.
The book is jammed packed with many other themes that are critical to the storylines within it. These themes include:
I have completed a first draft of the contents of the book. It is quite a bit longer than I initially intended. I felt many of the stories needed to be well elaborated. The book is divided into five parts, seven if you include the prologue and epilogue. It has 115 chapters and just over 170,000 words. This could change a little but I do not expect by much as I am quite happy with the depth of the content.
I am currently editing the book. I am mostly focused on paragraphing, and correct and appropriate grammar. It is a little tricky. I have very little experience in writing dialogue. Also keeping the tenses consistent is harder than it sounds. I am also working on the pictures. I am using a similar approach to what I use with my regular content.
Here is the pictures/artwork I have completed so far.
I intend to launch the book as an eBook on Amazon. I plan for it to be released at the end of this year or possibly January 2024. I am not sure of the pricing yet but I plan to price it at the lower end. I am not a fiction author. Therefore, I cannot justify charging a high price. I want as many people as possible to read the book. The book is appropriate for all adult audiences. It does not contain any technical terminology but explains and acts out several important concepts that we can see at play in our own world.
I plan to release individual chapters on Hive. I will be using my 
If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These 'Collection of Works' posts have been updated to contain links to the Hive versions of my posts.
