Introduction NATO 2099 is a comic that is based on 34 contributions from science
fiction authors from all over NATO. It is distilled from these 34
contributions, the best of the themes turned into a comic that imagines what
NATO looks like in the year 2099. Why 2099? Because that's in 75 years.
We are celebrating NATO's 75th anniversary right now, so 75 years into the
past and then 75 years into the future. And the only ones that can think
this far ahead are science fiction authors. Science Fiction It's quite common for people to say,
dismissively say, this is science fiction. But actually, science
fiction has predictive capabilities. When you take science fiction
and you stack it on top of each other, you see there are
common patterns throughout them, then that is what you call in
French the "imaginaire collectif". So collective imagination means that it actually has the
capability to foresee things. The iPad, the virtual
reality set, the sliding doors. These are all
things you see in Star Trek, in Matrix, and in
other science fiction films, way before they actually existed. So science fiction can have
predictive powers in that sense. Comics the guys in uniform,
scary meetings behind closed doors. We wanted to
humanize that because we are NATO, we are humans. And I think a comic is
a very approachable format. It also has the advantage
that it's an accessible medium for people that are younger. NATO tends to be in surveys more popular with people that
are above 40, let's say, 45. So make it also more
accessible for younger people. But I also do think that people over 45 still like to read graphic novels, especially this kind,
which is of very high quality and maybe reminds
them of their childhood. AI People live much
more in tune with their AI. Every individual has a personalized AI, helps them live their lives. It also includes
living in a much more conscious and healthy way because the paper showed that people thought
longevity will mean also more consciousness for health. It also means in the year 2099, the projection was
that climate change is managed. So it has not gotten out of control, but there are still negative effects. So these are all
things that you will feel when you read the comic, even though this is not the main story. The main story is of a
heroine that travels to the moon and essentially has to save the world. Future The future is a creative process. It really is to quote Doc Brown, from back to the
future, it is what you make of it. And so when you read that, you realize the future isn't written. It's not something
that somebody will do to us. It's something that we do. And therefore I find it's a product, it's something you
read that gives you hope. Hope that things can get better and then there will be new problems after the problems that we have today, but we can manage it
and we can handle the future.