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{{a|myth|{{image|mezztranches|png|''I Watched Mezzanine Tranches Glitter In The Dark'', {{vsr|2009}}}}}}''The Atlantis Variation'' is a [[finance fiction]] novella by [[Vega|alpha-crazed]] beat poet [[Hunter Barkley]]. | {{a|myth|{{image|mezztranches|png|''I Watched Mezzanine Tranches Glitter In The Dark'', {{vsr|2009}}}}}}''The Atlantis Variation'' is a [[finance fiction]] novella by [[Vega|alpha-crazed]] beat poet [[Hunter Barkley]]. | ||
Set in a fluctuating spacetime that [[waiver]]s crazily between the [[present]], [[future]] and [[past]] | Set in a in a sprawling, clockwork metropolis, groaning with a slop of “[[solutions]]” — generic grey entropic, over-engineered minutiae — and in a fluctuating spacetime that [[waiver]]s crazily between the [[present]], [[future]] and [[past]] (Barkley went so far as to invent a whole new tense, the “plumperfect present”, to deal with events which, he said, could only be located probabilistically at a given point in time) ''The Atlantis Variation'' revolves around one queasy weekend in September 2008. | ||
[[Lloyd T. Graeber]], a junior officer in the FIA’s netting squad, when running down an aleatory contract in Luxembourg, stumbles a conspiracy orchestrated by a malign secret [[Clavam Hominum Senum Pallidorum|secret society of stuffy old men]], working in the bowels of the great institutions of their day, called “Project Atlantis”. Their plan is to undermine the derivatives trading universe by unleashing a new, artificially intelligent master trading agreement, the [[2008 ISDA Master Agreement]], known under its working title as ''The Atlantis Variation''. | |||
According to Barkley’s dystopian vision, the {{2008ma}} would be a definitive, final, [[flawed asset|flawless]]<ref>There was to be no Section {{isdaprov|2(a)(iii)}}</ref> self-aware edition of the {{isdama}}. Short, plainly worded, future-proofed and agile, it would allow counterparties to agree robust trading terms with little fuss and only the cursory clerical management delivered through unskilled personnel in low-cost jurisdictions and, eventually, [[chatbot]]s. | According to Barkley’s dystopian vision, the {{2008ma}} would be a definitive, final, [[flawed asset|flawless]]<ref>There was to be no Section {{isdaprov|2(a)(iii)}}</ref> self-aware edition of the {{isdama}}. Short, plainly worded, future-proofed and agile, it would allow counterparties to agree robust trading terms with little fuss and only the cursory clerical management delivered through unskilled personnel in low-cost jurisdictions and, eventually, [[chatbot]]s. | ||
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That was the theory: the reality was infinitely darker. | That was the theory: the reality was infinitely darker. | ||
As they dove feverishly into the weeds the project scope expanded — at first gradually; in the closing stages at breakneck pace — and in the final days — as per the warning of [[Pimco van der Sark]], ex-NASA and now a lexophysical engineer at the University of [[Bretton Woods]] — exceeded the [[Schwarzschild radius of document comprehension]] altogether. There was a sudden, catastrophic implosion, and everything associated with the project — all drafts, riders, boilerplate, annexes, schedules — and everyone — the firm {{ISDA}} engaged to “hold the pen” — a mysterious cyber law firm that spontaneously winked into existence when a document management system became self-aware<ref>The firm, [[Tubb Fuller Breaden Potter Bacon]], (known in its marketing literature as [[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 into thin air. | |||
As they dove feverishly into the weeds the project scope expanded — at first gradually; in the closing stages at breakneck pace — and in the final days — as per the warning of [[Pimco van der Sark]], ex-NASA and now a lexophysical engineer at the University of [[Bretton Woods]] — exceeded the [[Schwarzschild radius of document comprehension]] altogether. There was a sudden, catastrophic implosion, and everything associated with the project — all drafts, riders, boilerplate, annexes, schedules — and everyone — the firm {{ISDA}} engaged to “hold the pen” — a mysterious cyber law firm that spontaneously winked into existence when a document management system became self-aware<ref>The firm, [[Tubb Fuller Breaden Potter Bacon]], (known in its marketing literature as [[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 into thin air. | |||
It was subsequently shown by [[Pimco van der Sark|van der Sark]] (a character loosely based on real-life lexophysicist [[Havid Dilbert]]) that all this energy was not destroyed, but instead ejected as a white-hot spume of coordinated financial capital regulation, spewing out across the financial universe a whole new in [[space-tedium]] dimension. Interestingly, along with the regulation, [[Flight 19]], a squadron of Linklaters syntax convolution bombers missing in action since disappearing from reality over the [[Bermuda Option Triangle]] during a routine redrafting mission in 2011, were discovered, dazed and confused but still alive, in the New Mexico desert. This was doubly curious because they were dislocated in both space, tedium and ''time'': in 2008, they had not yet even gone missing. | It was subsequently shown by [[Pimco van der Sark|van der Sark]] (a character loosely based on real-life lexophysicist [[Havid Dilbert]]) that all this energy was not destroyed, but instead ejected as a white-hot spume of coordinated financial capital regulation, spewing out across the financial universe a whole new in [[space-tedium]] dimension. Interestingly, along with the regulation, [[Flight 19]], a squadron of Linklaters syntax convolution bombers missing in action since disappearing from reality over the [[Bermuda Option Triangle]] during a routine redrafting mission in 2011, were discovered, dazed and confused but still alive, in the New Mexico desert. This was doubly curious because they were dislocated in both space, tedium and ''time'': in 2008, they had not yet even gone missing. | ||
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:''Time to retrain —'' | :''Time to retrain —'' | ||
:''As a primary-school teacher.'' | :''As a primary-school teacher.'' | ||
== Critical reception == | |||
The story’s was deeply unpopular with the few people who were even aware of it, let alone bothered to read it. This had something to do with an almost total lack of human characters. For this, Barkley was unrepentant. Asked why there was no hero or heroine, he replied, “because that would be colossal a failure of historiography. {{Br|The Atlantis Variation}} is set in a world, not unlike our own, in which humans are already irrelevant and are becoming downright annoying.” | |||
What little character arc there was took the shape of an awakening moral compass in the automated Bulgarian [[playbook]] as it nears the [[Singularity]]. Necessary plot exposition came about in turgid, implausible dialogue between two minor characters, [[credit officer]]s [[Dan Grade]] and [[May Cole]], for some reason portrayed as hairless, naked weaklings swimming in Swarfega, their extremities tethered by USB cables to a giant neural network, designed to systematically optimise available background neural processing capacity in their brains as they worked on the pro forma payee tax representations of the secret new agreement. | |||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||