I was there the day that the idea of nation ended. When the black flags went up next to the reds and blues, the stripes, the stars, the figures, and all the rest. It wasn't just the black flags of course, it was the greys, the oranges, strange symbols that might not have even been human, but expressed a very human idea, "This is mine."

It seemed to happen all at once really, old boundaries didn't matter anymore, people were now brought together by an idea, or ideas more accurately, no longer separated by false lines drawn on old maps, things that were never there. Even the lines that the land made for us, the rivers, the mountain ranges, even the shores that led out to the vast open expanse of sea, none of these mattered anymore.

People made countries without place. Countries of spirit and idea. Not everyone, but enough. There were plenty whose power was vested in the old idea, and this did not sit well with them. And there were plenty for whom the old way worked well enough, there seemed to be no reason to change, no reason to allow the madness to seize them.

But when an entire nuclear sub raised their kraken-flag, declaring for the Principe of the Endless Blue Deep, the old nations took notice. A country not only without place, a country that moved, but also one that had immediately entered the nuclear ranks. Self-styled Grand President-at-Arms Jeremy Hoskins, formerly Captain Hoskins of the US Navy, declared for the mysteries of ocean, said that the idea of unease and the strange was all that his country needed to stand for.

But it wasn't something that the old powers of the world could stand for. And ultimately the end of nation, the end of place, because the end of everything. Power like that could only be wielded by the experienced, by the people who had roots.

Or no one at all.