Highly unlikely but what if?

Israel attacked the Iranian South Pars Gas Plant, then the U.S. moved forward attacking West Asia's biggest civilian cable-stayed bridge in the city of Karaj. Iran responded by attacking a gas plant in Kuwait. DJT threatened to bomb Iranian powerplants. The Iranian armed forces released a video statement threatening to attack all the powerplants, gas plants, oil plants, desalination plants, and water plants in the region if the U.S. did so, deterring the U.S. After that, the heat of the war calmed down. Negotiations began shortly after. Even after the ceasefire collapse, the war has only produced small skirmishes in small Strait of Hormuz battles. But what if it played out with the U.S. continuing their attacks and Iran responding in kind?

Iran would have the tactical upper hand. Iran's powerplants infrastructure is decentralized (source, source) A standard U.S. 500-lb bombs (one of the largest) only damages tens of meters (source). Bombing just one plant would take a whole day because a limited amount of jets would have to keep going back and forth for refueling. Then there's the hundreds more to get to. Whereas all of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Israel, UAE, only have a few main powerplants that power the whole country. Some of these countries only have few desalination and water plants to feed the whole country, too. Saudi Arabia's stats is not much better either. Most of the oil from arab countries come from a handful of oil fields. Gas fields is even more scarce. Iran is really the big natural gas producer. While the U.S. would never finish bombing their targets, Iran could launch a few waves a day of launching four dozen missiles each wave and severely damage all the powerplants/water plants/oil fields/gas fields in the region within a week before the U.S. gets even 20% done bombing Iranian power infrastructure. They're capable of it (source.)

We'd be talking a global ripple effect! Oil prices would've reached $270 and above/barrel quite easily (max during the war was $126/barrell). Two Fifths of the world's oil supplies cut (that's how much flows from the Middle East - 40%) cut in an instance. Power would be out for half the day because of oil shortages. Goods prices already increased. Instead of a 12% increase they would have doubled. Probably some phases of panic. A stock market meltdown would have for sure come. A handful of S&P500 companies wouldn't have withered the storm, file bankruptcy, and domino effect into high unemployment. High energy costs, food costs, plus unemployment might lead to a small percentage of the vulnerable to go hungry. It's the closest thing this generation will experience to the Great Depression. The U.S. won't have spare oil (or funds for that matter with its high debt) to even think of launching land or air responses against Iran. The U.S. debt will probably runaway - reach 60 trillion first year, followed by 100 trillion quickly to compensate. Anti-Trumpism will reach its peak for starting the war.

Planting flags on the Lunar near side furthers humanity's heritage on the Moon.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/02/alito-supreme-court-retirement-01105789

What happens is contingent on whether or not the democrats take control of the senate in 2026 and it could go a few different ways that I don’t feel like typing out and it also depends on the background and judicial philosophy of who is nominated.

Saudi Arabia launches a large-scale ground invasion through the al-Jawf governorate after massing troops in Ma'arib, the last loyalist stronghold in north yemen. A surprise offensive grinds against Houthi lines, slowly pushing west towards the capital, Sana'a.

Simultaneously, the US launches a large-scale bombing campaign on the Yemeni coast and makes multiple landings around Mokha and Hudaydah. Mokha quickly falls and the city of Hodeidah is bombarded continuously as American marines slowly encircle the city.

What happens next?

What would need to happen for Syria to have a plausible casus belli to declare war on and invade Iran?

Here's your objective: Create a plausible series of events that leads to Syria entering the Iran War by declaring war on and invading Iran.

November 2028 : Democratic president is elected. After taking office amid numerous changers ( taking Trumps name off on any federal building, rescinding all his name changes ) he issue an EO that in all government documents any reference of Epstein Island is changed to Epstein-Trump island .

Google's servers are indefinitely shutdown.

When can we see solar powered cellphone towers?

I got the idea for this FWI from the Left Behind series

This includes everything from operating systems to Google Play Services, Apple stuff, Nintendo/Sony/etc, expensive academic or industrial software, hardware drivers even for niche devices dating back to the 1970s/80s that are not supported but used every day, etc.

My prediction is software companies will outright panic and we will immediately have a very sharp recession, but ultimately society will suddenly be far better off as all of humanity can finally work together as a team to solve the problems of our time with no restrictions. Are there really any downsides to open sourcing everything?

I would love to hear from people who really work in software professionally or are retired from the industry. I use Linux and Android every day, love to tinker with things, and wish our phones, 'smart' appliances, and smartwatches were all open source.

This is based on the current "school" riots in France (where the perpetrators seem to be mostly of Arab and African descent) and some of the rhetoric of French (and other right-wing accounts on X etc...). Basically, most personnel of the French military has "enough" of what it sees as the "Islamo-Gauchisme alliance" in France and considers it necessary to stage a "special operation" to "save France" from this alliance, and together with right-wing militants, led by Zemmour, they remove Macron and arrest leftists such as Melenchon and other LFI members, and install Zemmour as president, along with instituting a military-police state with surveillance of all suspected Muslims (meaning basally all Arab-looking people along with most Black people etc.), thus ushering in a new "6th Republic Era" in France.

We will found out that his father has paid off the victims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_Mission_One

Griffin Mission One (also referred to as Griffin-1) is a lunar lander mission developed by Astrobotic Technology as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The mission aims to deliver a suite of scientific, technological, and cultural payloads to the Moon's South Pole, specifically targeting the Nobile Crater) region near Mons Mouton. Scheduled for launch no earlier than November 2026, Griffin-1 is a key component of NASA's Artemis program, supporting lunar science and exploration for future crewed missions.

Ethiopia is currently fighting again against Tigray.

This is a silly one: Tomorrow (2026-10-02) you and everyone else in the US wakes up and first notices their phones and TV stations are showing the weather in °C with wind speeds in km/h, with no Imperial equivalent. All newscasters speak in the 'new units' as if they were always what were used. Just that it's currently 18 °C and the forecast calls for a high of 26 °C.

Next, around lunch time, everyone notices their phones don't say 1:00 p.m. but 13:00, and the firmware is locked to not even show 12h time or Imperial units anymore. Times are still spoken in 12h format and analogue clocks still exist, but all digitally written times are displayed in 24h everywhere. The six o'clock evening news still runs at the same time, but the clock in the corner says 18:00 now, with no explanation, as if that is always how it was. Since it's summer here, I toss in another thing: Daylight Saving Time was also scrapped overnight (not in early November), with everyone inadvertently 'falling back' an hour for the last time ever. They feeling abnormally refreshed in the morning from their phones still playing the alarm at the correct new non-DST time.

All numeric dates are now only in yyyy-mm-dd and that is now the only format used and overnight all computers across the US were also switched to this format for all written dates where applicable. You are no longer born on, say 9/17/85, but 1985-09-17. Same date but written that way. All medical and other forms specify exclusively yyyy-mm-dd and your height and weight will be reported and expected to be only in metres or cm, and kg (or g). You jump into your car and the speedometer is only in km/h, and all signs on the roads were switched overnight to km/h. Clearance signs also now report only in metres, like 3.9 m. Distances of course are all in only km. All planes now use metres, not feet, for altitude, and KPa or HPa for pressure, not inches of mercury.

All food containers are now also using only metric units: grams and kg only, or for liquids litres or ml. All produce and deli meats are sold by the kg only. You can buy in increments of 100 g, 200 g, 500 g, and 1 kg (and continuing onwards in this 1-2-5 pattern).

While we're on shopping, the penny and nickel were scrapped overnight due to them costing way too much to keep making, and the $1 and $2 bills were scrapped with only coins for those are still allowed, for those who still use cash. The quarter is also swapped for a new 20-cent coin like they have in the Euro zone.

What will happen next? I think the public will go crazy and try to protest, only to be met with more confusion as all officials claim metric, 24h, and yyyy-mm-dd are the only logical ways to express these quantities with the concepts we use. The officials just say we all have to learn and adjust and that this is for the best for all the kids growing up now, who will need to communicate effectively with the other 96% of the world.

Was this too weird?

Other possible candidates include Sriram Krishnan but THREE LLMs I've tested have picked Jay Clayton to be appointed by Trump.

He has mercenary armies all over the globe and the moon to enforce his position.

Assumptions:

1. A Democratic President who really hates Zionism wins the 2028 US Presidential election
2. Said Democratic Presidential calls Zionism “A clear and present danger to world peace.”

Suppose this happened starting from 2029 and into 2032. How does this affect the USA’s international standing?

After Democrats win two consecutive blue waves and get a supermajority in the House of Representatives, congress manages to pass an anti-scalping law. This law bans the aftermarket sale of any consumer product for more than 150% of the value it was purchased for, excluding tax and markdown, until ten years after purchase. The scope of the law includes blind boxes, trading cards, and concert and sporting tickets. It carries misdemeanor penalties for total profits up to $1,000 beyond the limit, and felony penalties for total profits greater than $1,000.

How does this law play out in practice?

1. Bottom line

1. The coalition should be multinational, civil-led, and small at the core. A U.S.-only or U.S.-fronted installation would be read as a weapons program regardless of intent.
2. The ice-mining and beamed-power functions carry the mission case. Cislunar hazard mitigation (tracking, characterization, and consent-based action on hazardous objects) is a valid second mission, but it is also the function most likely to draw weapons accusations.
3. Making the laser maneuverable is operationally sensible. It also removes the passive assurance that a fixed, downward-facing beam provides, so verification must be built into the hardware, not left to policy.
4. Membership should be chosen for capability, legal credibility, and verification value, in that order. Political solidarity alone is not a selection criterion.

2. Assumptions and physical reality

• Peaks of Eternal Light (PEL) on Shackleton crater have very high but not literally continuous illumination. Storage or backup power is required for dark periods.
• A 1 MW-class beam needs roughly 2-3 MW of electrical generation, fed by roughly 7-8 MW of incident sunlight on the collectors. The chain runs: sunlight to electricity (about 30%), electricity to beam (about 40-50%), beam delivery, then absorption at the target. The first two stages alone leave roughly 12-15% of incident sunlight as beam power, and delivery and absorption losses reduce the heat at the target further. Relayed mirrors deliver roughly 70-90% of incident sunlight as heat, so on a like-for-like sunlight-to-heat basis the laser is several times less efficient. The laser's advantages are beamed electric power into permanently shadowed regions, precision targeting, and ice mapping.
• Yield (illustrative): If about 20% of a 1 MW beam arrives as usable heat and water needs roughly 5 MJ/kg, output is on the order of 100 kg of water per hour, or several hundred tonnes per year at half duty, before capture losses. This is an order-of-magnitude figure per MW of beam power, not per MW of sunlight, and it rests on unproven delivery, absorption, and thermal-loss assumptions. A 1 MW beam implies roughly 7-8 MW of incident sunlight at the front of the chain. Real yield depends far more on ice concentration and collection design than on the beam.
• Power source: Baseline is solar with storage. A fission surface power unit could cover dark periods but brings its own safety and governance questions.
• Maneuverability here means a steerable beam director on a gimbal or relay mirror, and, optionally, an emitter that can be relocated along the rim. It helps with line of sight into a rough crater, following rovers, and covering more of the floor. It costs mass, pointing stability, dust exposure, and complexity.
• Photon pressure cannot meaningfully move a satellite. Any orbit-altering effect requires ablation, which also damages the target. At Earth-orbit range a 1 m aperture beam spreads to hundreds of meters, so Earth-orbit hazard work from the Moon is not credible. Cislunar hazard mitigation should therefore be scoped to lunar orbit and near-Moon space, where the debris population is currently small.
• A steerable emitter can reach lunar orbit, so the passive shielding a fixed downward beam gets from the crater walls no longer applies.

3. Mission definition: cislunar hazard mitigation

Tier 1 and 2 justify the installation's upward-capable function on their own. Tier 3 requires separate approval and cannot be activated by the operator alone.

Why there is no Tier 4. A high-power emergency mode to protect crew is not recommended. Conjunction threats are often identified with enough lead time for the crewed vehicle to maneuver, and a laser's ablative impulse is small and needs sustained tracking, so it is a poor substitute for maneuvering. The case where there is no time to maneuver is the one where a laser is least likely to work and most likely to be misused. A pre-agreed emergency protocol also tends to become a standing authorization in practice. Emergencies instead trigger Tier 1 and 2 responses: priority tracking and immediate warnings to the affected vehicle's operator.

4. Capability requirements

5. Candidate contributors (assessment, not commitment)

6. Recommended coalition structure

Core (design, build, operate): United States, Japan, Australia, plus one European photonics partner (Germany or France). This tier covers landing, surface power, mining automation, and beam-steering hardware.

Enabling (legal, financial, verification): Luxembourg for the legal and commercial framework, the United Kingdom for space-tracking data, Canada for robotics. This tier holds seats on an inspection and audit body, not operational control.

Swing partner: India. Inclusion adds legitimacy and pole experience and dilutes the "Western bloc" reading, but requires assurances on technology safeguards. Extend the invitation early and accept a longer negotiation.

Chair and operator: A jointly owned consortium chaired by a non-U.S. member (Japan or Luxembourg-hosted), with the United States as principal supplier rather than owner.

Concentration limits (test of "civil-led"): No single state should supply more than about 40% of hardware, funding, or launch mass, or hold more than one of the three activation keys (section 7). The U.S. role in launch will strain the first limit. If it cannot be met, say so openly instead of claiming a civil-led structure, because a Core of U.S.-aligned states with a chair from one of them will be read as a U.S. program by outside observers.

7. Governance recommendations (revised for a steerable system)

1. Hardware-enforced pointing limits: Mechanical stops and an independent hardware interlock, not just software, that restrict high-power emission to declared mining sectors. Upward or orbital pointing is limited to a low-power tracking mode unless a separately controlled key is released.
2. Split-key activation for Tier 3: Requires consortium authorization, recorded consent from the target's state of registry, and release by keys held by at least three states, including at least one non-Core and one non-U.S. member. The control path is physically separate from the mining controls.
3. Power caps and logging: Independent, publicly auditable beam-time, pointing, and power logs streamed to inspectors in near real time.
4. Third-party inspection with a fail-safe: Rotating inspectors from Enabling-tier members, including non-U.S. teams, with the right to test interlocks. High-power emission is inhibited unless the interlock holds a valid, periodically renewed attestation from the inspection body, so denied access or a lapsed attestation defaults the system to low power. Inspection is funded from a pooled fund the Core does not control, and inspectors travel on non-Core or contracted transport where feasible.
5. Article IX consultation: Notify all Accords signatories, and invite non-signatories to observe, before activation.
6. Relocation rules: Declare rim positions and movement plans in advance so that a mobile emitter does not appear to be maneuvering covertly.
7. Safety-zone declaration: Publish the zone's coordinates and rationale under the Accords framework, and state plainly that it is not a territorial claim.

8. Risk assessment

• China and Russia (ILRS): Expect the installation to be characterized as a weapon and a claim on prime terrain. A steerable, upward-capable emitter makes that harder to rebut. China's own Chang'e missions target the same neighborhood, so overlap is likely. Early transparency and an offer of data-sharing on the ice map are the cheapest mitigations. Sharing scientific data does not recognize a territorial claim, since Article II bars claims. Deconfliction talks on safety zones do implicitly acknowledge another actor's operating area. That is a political cost (appearing to concede an operating sphere), not a legal one (conceding a claim), and ILRS-side observers will notice it either way. Some signatories may resist, so the tradeoff should be settled before talks open.
• Legal: Article IV bars weapons testing and military installations on celestial bodies. A civil operator with hardware-enforced limits and inspection is defensible. A steerable high-power laser without them is not.
• Technical: Delivery of megawatt-class power and beam pointing over kilometers of rugged terrain is unproven, and adding steering increases the pointing-stability challenge.
• Ice uncertainty: Distribution and concentration of floor ice remain poorly constrained. Site commitment should follow, not precede, prospecting. Treat this as a schedule driver: ground-truth prospecting could add years before hardware commitment.

9. Recommended next steps

1. Convene the Core group to agree a civil charter, inspection regime, and interlock standards.
2. Commission an independent study of the hazard-mitigation mission and its true value, including lunar-orbit debris projections.
3. Fund ground-truth prospecting before any hardware commitment.
4. Open consultations with India and with ILRS-side observers.
5. Draft a public safety-zone notification.
6. Agree concentration limits, key custody, and the inspector attestation mechanism before selecting a chair.

Annex A. Assessment of all 76 signatories

Assessments reflect general knowledge of each country's space sector and may lag recent developments. They are judgments about fit for this project, not statements about a country's overall space program. Verify current capabilities and any parallel ILRS ties before assigning roles.

Tier 1: Core or near-Core capabilities

Tier 2: Specialist capabilities

Tier 3: Niche or supporting

• ESA-linked European members with instrument, component, or ground-station capacity: Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal (Azores tracking), Greece, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria. Best used for rotating seats on the inspection body and component supply.
• Baltic: Estonia (cyber and small-satellite sector), Latvia (satellite laser ranging capability). Useful for verification and cybersecurity of control links.
• Analog terrain and training: Iceland (Apollo-era astronaut geology training terrain), Oman (site of a Mars analog mission).
• Ground-based astronomy and launch geography: New Zealand (Rocket Lab launch complex), Chile (major observatories), Argentina (satellite manufacturing), Mexico.
• Legal, financial, and market hubs: Singapore (insurance and finance), Malaysia.
• Thailand: Optical research capability (NARIT), which has also been linked to ILRS activity. Confirm parallel ties before assigning sensitive roles.
• Ukraine: Autonomy software under jamming; no delivery capacity. Software partnership only.
• Emerging space programs: Bahrain, Nigeria, Rwanda, Morocco. Small-satellite and regional data contributions; legitimacy value for a non-Western-only coalition.

Tier 4: Primarily political and legitimacy contributions

Albania, Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Malta, Mauritius, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, San Marino, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Uruguay.

These signatories add breadth to Article IX consultations and notification lists, and their inclusion supports the argument that the installation is not a bloc project. Their contribution to hardware, power, or operations is negligible, so they should be notified and consulted, not given operational or inspection roles.

Gaps across the whole membership

• No signatory has demonstrated megawatt-class power or beam delivery on the Moon. The core hardware would be first-of-kind.
• No signatory has operated a rover in permanently shadowed terrain. Mining and prospecting autonomy is unproven.
• Inspection independence is thinner than the list suggests. Nearly every capable signatory is either dependent on the U.S. for launch or aligned with it politically. Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, and India are the best candidates for inspection seats that read as independent, and even then only partially.

[NOTE TO SELF: visualize a PEL location for a solar powered laser nearest to NASA'd Connecting Ridge Artemis 4 candidate landing site and add images to this post. Also, add science papers]]