50,000 years

50,000 years later.

In the last 50,000 years, a lot has happened. 

After becoming a ghost, Rob gained four main abilities:

Possession: He can possess anyone and keep their body for up to 100 years. After 100 years, the body would decay; there is no way to prevent it. Fortunately, this is not an issue with the availability of body cultivation technology.

Pass-Through: He can pass through anything and move at 1,000 times the speed of sound. This ability is handy, as he can move anywhere quickly. The only downside is that he couldn't carry his physical body when using this move.

Soul Consumption: He could swallow other souls and strengthen himself. However, this ability is very dangerous, as he would absorb all memories of the soul he consumes. It can lead to craziness and change his personality. Therefore, he only uses it when necessary.

Soul Split: This ability allows him to put a piece of his soul into other bodies and control them. In effect, this is a cloning technique. Using this ability would reduce the soul's power, so he must consume souls to replenish his soul afterward.

It took a while for him to get used to his abilities, but time is what he has the most of.

A lot has changed over the last 50,000 years, but in retrospect, not much has truly changed. 

Technology remained at the peak of the modern world; most billionaires and influential people are still around today. 

Some did die due to surgery failing; after all, a 99.97% success rate means in every 10,000 surgeries, 3 would fail. 

Over an extended period, this 0.03 is not small. 

The late Doctor Smith, who is said to have died in an unfortunate car accident, had a 99.992% success rate, but he died, and even after this many years, no doctor managed to reach his rate. 

At the moment, the best surgeon is Doctor Waterman, who has a 99.918% success rate. 

Still, ordinary people have a short lifespan of at most 200 years, even with the best drugs. 

Without surgery, the body couldn't hold on beyond 200 years. 

200 years is already better than it was before, but no matter what, only medicine couldn't fix the problem of cells aging. 

Solving cell aging is beyond modern cultures.

The world alliance was destroyed around 48,000 years ago. 

Its destruction resulted from its unbelievably incompetent leadership in the face of growing inequality. 

After Rob became a ghost, he stopped caring so much about the world alliance. 

He became a ghost and didn't need an outside force to rely on anymore. There is no need for 80% of the people to keep believing him to be a ghost. 

Once he became a ghost, only 80% of the people explicitly believing that he is not a ghost could make him lose his abilities.

With him not paying attention, the top position in the alliance became unstable. 

Before, he always held the top position firmly, but after not intervening much, the other permanent council members began fighting over more influence. 

In the end, the system became fractured. 

Rose won over ministries of policing, interior, and trade regulations. 

The rest of the ministries were distributed among other council members. 

In name, all were part of the same organization, but in fact, their chain of command was entirely different. 

Their contradictory actions opened gaps for ordinary people to affect policy. 

The councilor who controlled the ministry of communication started to open up the internet, allowing websites to act freely. 

The Ministry of Justice stopped prosecuting people for 'spreading misinformation.' 

The Ministry of News allowed news organizations to criticize the government. 

The existence of billionaires, brain rejuvenation, body transplant surgery, and all other secrets became public knowledge. 

The people, angry with the ruling class, came out and protested.

Rose tried to suppress the protest with the police, but its scale was so massive that no matter how many she killed, more came out. 

Worse, many police departments joined the protesters and refused to honor Rose's orders. The control of many parts of the country was lost after a few weeks. 

Only the capital and a few big cities remained in the hands of the world alliance. 

At that time, Rob, who planned to rest until the world became realized, decided to give a helping hand. 

Even though he became a ghost, he didn't become a demon. 

He did become more emotionless and ruthless, but he recognized friends. Rose was his friend from thousands of years ago; he won't let her die. 

With his ghost abilities, he possessed leaders of the protests and used their power to calm the people down. 

He quickly took the entire remaining organization of the World Alliance under his control and started negotiating a deal with the protest leaders. 

It wasn't a fair negotiation. He was negotiating with himself as the protest leaders were his soul splits. 

But the results were not bad for the people. 

Rob didn't inherently hate the people. Sure, he was evil and killed countless innocents, but those actions were to keep his power and control. 

Now, as a ghost, he doesn't need to commit any of those actions to stay in power.

In this case, he preferred to make people's lives better. 

He negotiated with his soul splits to form a democratic form of government with four levels. 

Local Government:

Local governments were the most democratic form, with candidates elected with ranked-choice voting and no commission to disqualify anyone. 

There was no age limit, education limit, or any kind of limit on who could run; anyone could be elected as long as the people voted for them. 

Depending on the population size, local governments would have a mayor and a council between 9 and 99 members. 

It would be responsible for local issues, such as the local police, local courts, local roads, and anything local. 

They have to run for reelection every 3 years.

Regional Government

The next level was regional governments; a region was defined as an area with a population of 100,000,000 people. 

As such, every 25 years, the regions would be redrawn to account for population changes. 

Regional governments were responsible for supervising local governments and considering the effects of local laws in a broader context. 

For example, if a local government passed a law that 'all trash must be dumped in farming land outside the city,' the regional government could say that the law would destroy the environment and invalidate the law. 

In general, anything that remained exclusively in the city was local, and anything that could have a considerable effect outside the city was where the regional government could interfere. However, regional governments cannot enact laws; they are solely for supervising laws set by local governments. 

They are less democratic, as they are elected with a first-past-the-post system.

Every region would be governed by a board of directors of 100 people, each representing a district of 1 million people.

These 100 members chose a leader by a 2/3 vote.

They will have to run for reelection every 6 years.

State Government:

The next level is state government. 

States have fixed geographical boundaries and are not subject to redistricting every 25 years. 

State governments could pass laws for entire states, binding local governments but not regional ones. 

For example, a state could pass a law that prevents local governments from cutting trees or building roads in the forest but couldn't prevent a regional government from invalidating local laws.

For example, if a state government passes a law that orders local governments to build a dam, but the regional government prevents the local government from implementing the law, the state government would be helpless and have to send its agents to implement the changes.

However, the state government has limited funds, so it will go bankrupt if it has to do everything by itself.

Most times, when the regional government prevents the local government from implementing state laws, the state must surrender, as it can't do everything alone.

The state has a governor, a legislature, and a judiciary, with lots of autonomy in its structure. It can choose between first past the post or proportional representation systems and pass criminal laws.

Federal Government:

The last level of government is the federal government, which is, in effect, the old world government. 

Despite its name, the federal government can't pass laws binding states and local governments. 

It can, however, pass laws that bind Regional governments.

The federal government has a president, chosen by ranked-choice voting, a parliament, chosen by party list and ranked-choice voting, and a federal judiciary. 

The federal judiciary is responsible for solving any issue between state, local, and regional governments, but not issues where the federal government is a party. 

Any issue relating to the federal government goes to the Supreme Constitutional Court. 

The Supreme Constitutional Court is tasked with keeping the federal government in check. 

The protesters didn't want to allow a system where the central government could amass as much as the World Alliance did. 

Rob, who controlled protesters' leaders, heeded their demands and designed a system that guarded against the usual depletion of power from smaller to bigger government. 

The Supreme Constitutional Court has 4000 judges. 

25% of judges are selected by local governments, 25% by regional governments, 25% by state governments, and 25% by federal government.

On unimportant issues, the court sits in a panel of three judges, but on critical issues, they sit EN BANC, which means all 4,000 judges rule on the case. 

In that case, the federal side, which only controls 25% of the seats, has a disadvantage. So, unlike in other situations where courts keep expanding federal powers, in this new alliance, the federal government would be checked by this Supreme Constitutional Court.

Both the state government and the federal government can raise armies. 

As for criminal laws, it is a matter of local and state governments. The federal government cannot make criminal laws except in very limited circumstances. 

As for civil law, the federal government could create a civil code but has strict limitations imposed on it.

The biggest tool of the federal government is money. 

Taxes are collected by a centralized system and are distributed according to a formula written in the constitution.

Local governments receive 25% of the total tax money, regional governments get 5%, and state governments another 25%. 

That leaves a whopping 45% of the entire taxes to the federal government. 

The federal government couldn't pass a law saying, 'State X, do this.' 

As said before, they couldn't pass laws that bind the state or local government.

They could, however, say, 'If you do X, I'll give you Y amount of money.' 

Even though the federal government couldn't order them to do anything, they could control state and local governments with money. 

Even in this respect, however, the federal government has limits. They couldn't threaten to use unrelated things to achieve compliance. 

For example, they couldn't say, 'State X, if you build that road, we will withhold healthcare money.' 

A road has no direct relation with healthcare, so it is considered unrelated.

This is where the Supreme Constitutional Court shines.

If the deciding court was a federal court, they could have said, 'Patients and ambulances pass through the roads, so healthcare does have a direct relationship with the roads.'

That kind of ruling would have extended the federal power far beyond what Rob intended.

The constitutional court, however, is not biased toward the federal government, so it will not twist words to expand federal power.

The federal government, however, could say, 'If you build that road, we withhold highway funds.' 

Highway funds have a direct relation with roads.

There is a danger that the Supreme Constitutional Court is too biased toward state and local governments, but the threat isn't as significant as strengthening the federal government.

The federal government would receive 45% of the entire tax money regardless and would always remain the richest and the strongest.

In any event, it can pass laws binding Regional governments, which, in turn, could control local governments.

Even without the power of the purse, the federal government has many other ways of achieving its policies.

The laws Rob set are complicated and left for the Supreme Constitutional Court to interpret and clarify.

He designed this to create a sound system that will hold for a long time, and he doesn't need to come and fix it every few years. 

He also negotiated for his billionaire friends so they all were pardoned for their crimes. 

He didn't allow wealth confiscation but did allow for a 0.65% yearly wealth tax for all worth more than 1,000,000,000. 

As for access to body replacement, he negotiated a three-tiered system.

A lottery system would choose 65% of the patients; whoever wins the lottery would receive a brain rejuvenation and body replacement. 

25% is reserved for distinguished scientists and intelligent people, selected nationwide with ranked-choice voting. 

The remaining 10% is there for the free market; whoever has the money could buy a spot and receive surgery. 

This is what allowed the billionaires to survive till today. 

10% is enough for billionaires to receive the surgery, as the capacity has expanded significantly with more demand. 

Since that day, the system has had many crises, but with Rob's clones being leaders in important positions, he managed to keep things from collapsing even after tens of thousands of years.

In all these years, he has mostly been sleeping in the depths of a particular ocean. 

He found a spot in the deepest ocean that strengthened his soul, so he remained there for a long time.

...

In the depths of the ocean, no light can penetrate. 

This leads to the evolution of strange creatures with no eyes. 

The pressure is so terrible that anyone from above water would be crushed if brought here. 

For Rob, who is in spirit shape, however, this pressure is nothing; he won't even feel it. 

At this moment, he had closed his eyes, close to a volcanic site. 

Suddenly, he opened his eyes!