Part 2: Minions of Dominion
Goodman immediately shifted Next Dominion’s corporate focus from advanced robotics to energy and resources, advancing the field of traditional energy extraction and developing new renewable energy alternatives. Dominion employees went about their daily tasks with renewed vigor, heartened by Joshua’s promise of ever-greater personal wealth and luxury and the vision of a coming era of cheap, plentiful, renewable energy for all. All who were willing to work for him would share in the Earth’s bounty like never before as the Dominion ushered in a new age of living: humans in control of a tamed, cleansed, and verdant planet. When Goodman dubbed the workers of Next Dominion, Inc. “His happy, willing, capable Minions,” people viewed it as a good-natured joke.
Just five years after successfully uploading his consciousness, Goodman released the first fully autonomous Extraction Robot, the LRX1 Reaper. Despite Goodman’s promise of harmony with the Earth, his Reaper was a frightening humanoid construct that noisily began to mutilate the planet in search of ever more resources to feed the Machine. The Reapers also formed Goodman’s private security force, programmed to protect the Machine at all costs.
Utilizing the power of the Reapers and other advanced Extraction Robots, Dominion’s reach grew truly vast and soon began to dominate many countries around the world by stretching its tentacles further into government, law enforcement, and military operations. Under the Dominion’s touch, prosperity reined for many, both within the Dominion and without. Wealth blinded millions to the slow but insidious loss of their liberties and to the ecological damage being wrought behind a powerful curtain of deception.
But not all were blind. Even before the rise of the Reapers, some had understood the dangers of Goodman’s reach and power-hungry ways. A few fled to the far ends of the Earth to carve out rough lives in the wilderness, away from Dominion’s influence. Others spoke out against the Dominion, but they were already too late.
Yet one group of visionaries, lead by a former Dominion scientist who fled rather than continue to develop the Reapers, chose not to fight the Dominion openly. Instead, they sought to build an alternative. This group of scientists, scholars, spiritual leaders, and skilled tradespeople banded together to preserve the Earth and humanity against the Dominion’s destructive force. They founded Arcadia, an island community built in harmony with nature and its cycles, using only renewable energy and a self-sustaining resource recycling program to feed, house, and supply its population.
