The Atlantis Variation: Difference between revisions

{{disaster cafe}}{{C|Mythology}}The [[2008 ISDA Master Agreement]], also known (after the [[Hunter Barkley]] novella of the same name) as the “[[Atlantis variation]]”, is an apocryphal edition of the {{isdama}}, ''almost'' completed in September 2008. It never saw the light of day, instead collapsing into a form of dark tedium that powers the universe.  

According to Barkley’s dystopian vision, the {{2008ma}} was to be short, plainly worded, future-proofed and agile. It would allowing counterparties to agree trading terms with little fuss and only the cursory clerical management that could be [[legal service delivery|delivered]] through unskilled personnel in low-cost jurisdictions and, eventually, robots. It used [[distributed ledger technology]]. You know, [[blockchain]]. It would be negotiated between banks of dematerialised [[large language model]]<nowiki/>s housed, for the sense of theatre, [[Proverbial school-leaver from Bucharest|in data centres on the outskirts of Bucharest]].

Had it been implemented, it would have addressed the financial, infrastructural and regulatory challenges which dominated the derivatives trading market in the early 21st century. It would have consolidated documentation across a wide range of products ([[including but not limited to]] [[repo]], [[stock lending]], [[prime brokerage]], [[exchange traded derivatives]], [[commodities]] and [[emissions]]), finally moving the financial world into a stable state: a [[sunlit utopia]] in which all risks are known, all eventualities experienced and contingencies accounted for.

As it was, the challenge was just too big. The project expanded — at first gradually; in the closing stages at breakneck pace — and in the final days exceeded its [[Schwarzschild radius of document comprehension|Schwarzschild radius]] altogether. There was a sudden, catastrophic implosion, and everything associated with the project — all traces of the agreement, drafts, the firm {{ISDA}} engaged to coordinate the drafting (a cyber law firm that arose when a document management system in the firm [[Tubb Fuller Breaden Potter Bacon]] became self-aware and eliminated all the carbon-based lawyers)<ref>[[TFBPB]] has never been heard of since, and curiously, no record now exists of this firm before 2008, even though it was apparently a global behemoth.</ref> and several thousand members of ISDA’s document working group, seconded by their employers to contributing their “clarifications” and [[For the avoidance of doubt|doubt-avoidances]] for the greater good of the standard form simply vanished.  

Well, speaking of robots, Barkley claims that Roy Batty’s extraordinary speech from the original ''Blade Runner'' (1982) fell ''backwards in time'' through a rent in the fabric of the [[space-tedium continuum]] created by the 2008 financial markets implosion, landing in Rutger Hauer’s lap as he was waiting in makeup for that final scene. Hauer, not realising this was a unique document from the apocalyptic future, took it for a script redraft. He adapted it, but only slightly, from the original record, which was exchange between an [[ETD]] [[negotiator]] and a mortally injured {{tag|CDO}} lawyer as he dragged his mutilated psyche away from the smoking ruins of his employer: