Year 2025, in a distant galaxy. No, joke, in reality we are here, more or less here: Milky Way, Solar System, Planet Earth, precisely in Texas. To make it short after years of dystopian films, Elon Musk decided that it was time to move on to action, and his project seems halfway between an episode of Black Mirror and a condominium assembly gestural by a CEO. In short, guys, from today the former Boca Chica officially becomes Starbase, a true and autonomous city, built on the oldest and at the same time more technological model of civilization: the one in which the boss is also the mayor, the landlord, the employer and, if desired, also the god of atmospheric time. If you give him everything, he gives you everything.
So much so that the decision was taken in full democracy: 283 residents, almost all Spacex employees, were called to vote if they wanted the place where they live and work and receive the salary becoming a municipality under the direct control of the space company (a difficult dilemma to face, especially if you have the paycheck still in hand). However, the Muskian “people” spoke: 173 yes, 4 no (and a lot of abstentions that were probably in orbit).
For approval only 143 were needed and 30 more votes arrived, just not to give the idea that it was all decided. The electoral administrator of the Careon County had foreseen everything: “It is statistically impossible that the measurement is refused” (it is not that it took a genius to predict it).
On the other hand, Starbase, operational since 2019, is the main headquarters of the Spacex missile program, official collaborator of NASA and the Department of Defense, however it now becomes something more ambitious: to become the first city designed to be a human scale, Elon’s. Four square kilometers overlooking the ocean and on the Mexican border and soon equipped with local services: infrastructures of all kinds and probably (supposed) a toponymy based on names like the boost, alley of the failed launch, Falcon Heavy square, low orbit course … (while the constitution could be a pdf that Elon can also change at three in the morning).
In any case to Musk, if you remember, the idea in mind had been blending for a while: he had launched it already in 2021, and now he took the opportunity to concretize it: a city tailored to the man of the future, that is, him. The residents, selected between those who have passed at least three launches without passing out, are ready for anything: spatial tourism, shipments to Mars, and perhaps even the first library entirely written on X to be brought to Mars.
I don’t know how it will be to live there, maybe very cool, maybe terrible and for heaven’s sake, nobody is obliged (after all also Google has its mini-city). It will certainly be the only city in the world where if you are not a model citizen you don’t go to prison, simply your badge stops working.