The year is 2104. A supermassive asteroid has impacted Earth, killing the overwhelming majority of the human race and blanketing the world in a new ice age. The hundred or so survivors are some of Earth’s most gifted scientists who live in a small underwater facility called the PATHOS-II. They were selected by the governments of the world in advance of the catastrophe to attempt to find a solution to the impact of the asteroid, and now have two mutually exclusive options that they can use with the limited power the station still possesses. One option is to fire off a probe called the “ARK” into space that contains a hyper advanced computer simulation with digital copies of the consciousness’ of the survivors on the facility, allowing them to live in a simulated bliss for hundreds of years until losing power in deep space. Once fired, the ARK and its programming cannot be altered in any way. The other option is to use the station’s power to fuel an orbital laser that will clear away the debris left by the asteroid in Earth’s atmosphere, ending the Ice Age and allowing the small group of survivors to return to the surface by submarine and slowly repopulate the damaged Earth with other basic resources the station provides. After using either option, the station will be destroyed as it eventually loses residual power.

Following the Rwandan genocide, Rwanda instituted a ban on 'ethnic classification.' This law made it illegal with the exception of very particular 'non-divisive' contexts (eg. academic analysis of the genocide) to publicly identify yourself or others as a member of a particular ethnic group (eg. Hutu or Tutsi), and removed ethnic identity on all identification documents; replacing it with the sole identification of 'Rwandan'.

In currency economics, a fully floating exchange rate is one in which the value of a currency is largely determined by supply and demand in foreign exchange markets, with minimal direct government intervention. Examples include the US Dollar and the Euro. The People’s Republic of China currently operates a “managed float” exchange rate regime for the renminbi. Each day, the People’s Bank of China sets a central reference rate (midpoint) against the dollar, based on the previous day’s closing price and a basket of currencies. The renminbi is then only allowed to trade within a ±2% band around this midpoint, with the PBoC stepping in through state-owned banks to buy or sell foreign exchange if the rate approaches the band's edges.

Middle powers are states that are influential within the international system, but do not have the power to be considered superpowers. Examples include Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Singapore, and Turkey. A 'world order' is understood as the dominant framework of laws, norms, and institutions that guide relations between states concerning trade, conflict resolution, and power distribution.

Pescatarianism is a dietary practice in which seafood is the only source of animal product in an otherwise vegan diet.

The February 2026 Bangladesh general election delivered a landslide victory to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Positioning itself as a force for "administrative stability," the BNP campaigned on economic restoration and civic nationalism. The party previously held power from 2001 to 2006, a tenure during which it ranked among the most corrupt governments in the world by Transparency International, before being removed by a military-backed caretaker government in 2007. The same period saw the BNP create the Rapid Action Battalion, a paramilitary unit linked to extrajudicial killings, widespread torture in custody, and the violent suppression of political opponents.

The main opposition came from an alliance led by the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party. The party remains associated with socially conservative religious politics, as it has historically opposed women's equal inheritance rights and sought the criminalization of blasphemy. Jamaat has attempted to rebrand as an inclusive, "anti-fascist" welfare party, fielding minority candidates. It also formed a coalition with the National Citizen Party (NCP), the political vehicle of the 2024 student movement. The alliance proved controversial within the NCP's own base, with significant portions of its constituency viewing the partnership as incompatible with the revolution's secular foundations.