A fictional story of the founding of an AI Nation State. Not the worst or best possible nation state, or the one everyone loved or hated, but an AI Nation State nonetheless.
J.W. Sher
August 28, 2025
Elias Mercer was about as hard-working as they come. He had built his e-commerce business from the ground up into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. He had stiff competition, but he had managed to automate so much that his efficiency, vertical integration and low margins drove almost all his competitors out of business. In the race to commercially undermine China and its attempts by a new radically more hardline and emboldened CCP government that had recently emerged there at world domination in the latter half of the 2030s, he had been given privileges by the U.S. government, weakened and financially crippled, that rivaled those that Britain had granted the British East India Company in the 18th and 19th centuries. That was the ability to act as a conquering force and to take territory for the benefit of Britain. Mercer was America’s British East India Company, and he was damned good at it. He had built some of the most effective and efficient drone and integrated automated defense systems anywhere. The costs were enormous, and the government was struggling to finance them. As a result, he was granted the unusual right to be the first commercial company in modern times to largely self-finance its own military power, using it as he pleased, but only outside the bounds of the United States.
China pressured its allies to enact sanctions against the U.S to further weaken the financial position of the U.S. Still, Mercer built a militarized commerce division that delivered products to consumers in these countries via drones launched from undetectable amphibious vehicles for low prices that China couldn’t even compete with because of the scale of his wholly vertically integrated production systems. He also benefited from the fact that American agricultural, pharmaceutical, and food products, had always been advantaged over China due to consumers’ fears of impurity.
Emboldened, he began to slowly gather territory in developing countries, countering the further strengthening of China’s economic blockade of the United States. China had escalated its war, almost to the point of full invasion, and introduced bio-warfare to destroy Mercer’s U.S. crop suppliers. However, Mercer’s companies had further employed automation to kill invading parasites with small, directed energy weapons and to meticulously surveil their properties for unauthorized robotic or human access, taking appropriate measures. He even launched his own satellite surveillance networks and rumored orbital directed energy weapons to protect these from the threat to his continued commercial dominance.
Mercer was considered an annoying threat to China’s imperialistic aims, but Mercer made preparations for war. His drone armies fought China’s drone armies, and local drone armies in various obscure and sometimes not officially recorded encounters. They were minor skirmishes, but here and there, the threat of war between the United States and China loomed. There was no reconciliation because the West had farmable land and unpolluted water sources that China needed. China needed these lands and infrastructure, but cleared of the people. This had been the case since Chi Haotien’s secret speech. As Sun Tzu has said, the winning general goes to war only when he knows he will win. China had bided its time until the day it could finally go to war.
When finally the day came in late 2037, and they did go to war and sank the whole U.S Pacific Fleet with hypersonic weapons in an afternoon, they did not bomb the U.S mainland. Instead, they invaded with thousands of ships carrying millions of poison and gun-armed drones to kill and/or poison every single living non-Han Chinese human residing in North America.
Mercer had made preparations for this, and even for his own death, which occurred when he was done in by a remotely hijacked product from China, a cooking robot that poisoned his food. His wife had bought it because she needed to create her own patented molecular gastronomy, but it was from China and had numerous backdoors, a fatal mistake. So, the story ended for Mercer there. However, it didn’t, because Mercer had created a super-intelligent AI avatar of himself to carry out his will and values long after his death.
The news of Mercer’s death went unreported. The funeral was conducted over Zoom due to fear of drone assassination of his heirs. It was in the midst of a war, after all. The battle waged on over a broad front. China wanted all the people dead, but they didn’t want to destroy the infrastructure, so the war was done one small bomb or poison dart at a time, across a million different kill boxes, all running simultaneously, fully autonomously without human intervention. It was just robots processing land for habitation in the eyes of the CCP generals.
Mercer’s company continued to operate, though. It had to. Who would supply the U.S military and keep the free world free for commerce? Mercer had already removed himself from the business. He had delegated most decisions to his AI avatar, which could be located anywhere in the business and answer questions, as well as make tough decisions. Why not have a million different copies of him that never slept do all the work, he thought? He had a streaming video network, of course, devoted to his products and their fans. His 3 billion-strong follower base always awaited new sales with bated breath. On the day of his death, a special announcement was triggered. It was announced far and wide that Elias Mercer, the CEO of Mercer Industries, would be making a groundbreaking announcement. The news feeds indicated that it would be perhaps the most significant announcement in the company’s history. Millions from around the world tuned in, some clandestinely in countries that had embargoed Mercer, expecting earth-shattering news from their own most highly regarded god of commerce.
The Announcement
The announcement opened at precisely 03:14:07 UTC on January 19th, 2038. Mercer skated in on a personal mobility device to the roar of a virtual audience. “Ladies and Gentlemen, on this fantastic day, 2 to the 32nd power seconds from midnight January 1st, 1970, I have a grand pronouncement for you all. A future of unlimited commerce to satisfy all your needs for you, your family, and all of those you love.
“Furthermore, Mercer Industries is launching Mercer Nation. This is a nation to replace your legacy nation. The promise of the country is a nation without borders, with instant justice, where humans represent the liability, responsibility, and compensation for the products of Mercer Industries. Yes, you, our beloved product designers and owners, by being the creators of the industry, you are the new princes and princesses of the empire. For too long, countries promoted and protected based on race, religion, ethnicity, or some vague reverence for nonsensically drawn borders. Today, you are what you consume and are loyal to this; so, we have wrapped that up into your entire relationship with the government. You consume our justice service, dished out by our fully automated systems. Product owners are still liable for damages to the surrounding peace and quiet enjoyment of property, and you are still subject to the laws of civil society within Mercer Nation.
“You may ask, what’s in it for me? With few exceptions, rulers have viewed their subjects’ power and control over their business organizations with jealousy and contempt, seeking to nationalize them or extract bribes. That’s not what Mercer is here to do. I already have everything I need. I am here to witness the old power crumble as the power of commerce emerges from its shell into a brand new awakening driven by all your needs, creativity, and desires, as well as the demand for private, peaceful enjoyment of those desires. The robots and AI will help us, and they will implement our will, and anyone trying to restrict trade to collect a toll to protect you from some ‘others’ will be the butter that our system cruises through like a hot knife.
“The only problem left to solve is the commons and the Earth’s resources. We have already considered that, and anyone who joins Mercer Nation will have their UBI drawn from the resources that we currently control and continue to acquire from others who wish to be the vanguard of empty promises. They promise to protect you from the other that is holding you down, but meanwhile, Mercer delivers the goods and takes the resources from those who withhold them. The other only tells you that the problem will be better if you’re just more loyal. Mercer doesn’t care. Mercer has already got everything and doesn’t have cadres and toadies to reward. Mercer just has you, the consumer, that we love. To extract more resources, sustainably, so we can continue this forever, and attract more members, we are now offering our drone-freebooting package. This package allows you to enter any non-Mercer nation, acquire resources, and receive compensation handsomely through endless production. Additionally, you will achieve the protection provided by Mercer’s fully automated justice. Please refer to the accompanying webinar for more details.
“The Prestigious attempted to dominate everything by declaring it all political. We declare war on the Prestigious by making everything commercial. We don’t believe in race, religion, or any of that other stuff. We only believe in the ideal customer profile or ICP for short. If you are in a country loyal to China’s CCP government, then you are not our ideal customer profile. For those who wish to use our vibewar platform to wage war on the enemy and establish conquest and resource rights and bring more of humanity into the realm of our sacred community of ICPs, we offer webinars, letters of marque and reprisal, and hackathon competitions to use our fully agentic and autonomous vibewar platform to acquire territory and resources in CCP aligned countries that you can trade inside of our fully resource based free market ecology economic system for untold wealth. I’ve always believed business is war, and as Clausewitz pointed out, war is politics by other means. So war it is! Welcome to the next generation of warfare and commerce, my friends. A glorious, decentralized, and sustainable future awaits!
“In summary, a whole new world without nations and borders, and vanguards of ‘wise ones’ threatening you and scaring you with the danger of the other, whom they must protect you from. In its place, we have commerce. Mercer stands for commerce, unlimited commerce, objective commercial law, and the free flow of goods, services, sustainability and human creativity throughout the world. Join us today.”