Once a heavenly battle raged. It is said that Ṣango — the Yoruba orisha of lightning, thunder, explosions and more — sent his military Generals away for failing to heed his commands to fight the Owu. However, it was not Ṣango’s idea, but his wife Ọya who called upon him to do this. While Ṣango had multiple wives, the bond he had with Ọya was strong — so strong in fact that she came to possess his Edun Ara, Ṣango’s thunderbolt. When the generals returned from their exile, demanding war, Ṣango called upon Ọya to deliver the Edun Ara, which she did. Yet, it was broken, and while reforging the thunderbolt, it razed Ṣango’s palace to the ground. Rather than fight, he faded away. And, in her grief, Ọya decided to take her own life. In so doing, she too gained some of the powers of the orisha Ṣango. Ọya became the orisha of winds, of lightning, and of violent storms. The Niger river itself is named for her — Odò-Ọya, in Yoruba — with her storms said to form the origin of its waters.

So, what happens when the orisha Ọya; the Deity; the Goddess of winds and lightning and violent storms — is thwarted? What happens when regular people decide it's time to vanquish Ọya? 

Welcome to History Hiccups! Your favorite History cast on the Net!  I’m your host Vas Melnyk, and today we are in Nigeria —in the thriving cities of Lagos Bay. The technological marvels of New Lekki and Ikorodu City hold few matches on our planet. The Lagos War of 2098 alone would demand a whole series — the naval battles! The AI sabotage! And the mysterious drone sentries that populate Victoria Island. But no. Here at History Hiccups we want to understand the unsung and unexpected events that history hinges on. And in Lagos, the Eko Cloud Catastrophe is the only game in town.

What happened? Listen in after this message from today’s sponsor!

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So, what’s all this about violent storms and the retribution of Gods? Well let's set the stage first. Our story unfolds in the year 2105. The catastrophic meltwater pulses from Antarctica have long-since ignited the churn wars, which themselves have been extinguished with a new order. West Africa, while not the hardest hit during this time, still illustrates the transformation. The Unified Niger Republic in what was once Niger, Burkina, Ghana, Benin and Togo.The independent city states surrounding Lagos Bay. and the Congo float zone. 

But this isn’t Geography Hiccups! Its History Hiccups, and out of this ferment of war came a transformed, and powerful Lagos Bay. Now you might think… Lagos Bay? Why is Vas going on about this? Isn’t Lagos the home of the world’s best weather management?

Yes, my astute History Hiccups listener, you are correct. Lagos Bay is, in our year of 2121, home to the world’s best custom weather manipulation. The Artificial general intelligence, aka the Lagos Govermind, seamlessly manages a three dimensional matrix of sensors across the region to create the weather that is needed for the community. While many places are trying to wring the water out of the dry sky, the Govermind aims to avoid destructive flooding which historically happened on a regular basis. The suppression of precipitation relies on careful and complete monitoring of air quality via the EkoCloud, a 3D network of sensors that continuously monitor and balance the right distribution of particles in the atmosphere. Many people who visit Lagos apparently comment on the strange haze over the bay. This haze is not by accident, but by design.

By controlling ambient cloud condensation nuclei, the Govermind can control rainfall events, and deploy modifications at will. 

But, it has not always been this way. In fact, 15 years ago, in 2105, some say the people of Lagos Bay tried to steal Ṣango’s thunderbolt from the orisha Ọya. And they were about to find out how terribly wrong that could go. But first, a word from our sponsors!

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So, it's May 2105, and the rainy season is in full swing in Lagos Bay. The massively transformed cities throughout the bay were already struggling to accommodate the year’s above average downpours. Even Eputu Town, the floating city which may be the most adaptable place on the planet, could see the writing on the wall.

The politicians were clamoring to do something, and the scientists suggested that they might have a good enough understanding of how to make the rain stop. By manipulating the aerosol distribution throughout the sky, they might be able to reduce the rainfall. This was a challenge of course, given that the air was so wet, that it was not just a question of managing the condensation of water into precipitation — that is the formation of liquid water out of vapor in the sky. But rather it was a task of reducing the size of the condensation nuclei — the particles that water globs onto to make rain — and finding the right size throughout the region to suppress the formation of more rain. 

This was bleeding edge science at the time, and substantial risks were involved. 

And before I go on, to be quite clear, this is before the Govermind awakened. But I’ll come back to that in a moment…

So, as is typical — scientists were reluctant to do something that they were still pretty uncertain about. Politicians wanted a win, and didn’t totally understand the stakes. And, so, violent gods and technological hubris were ready to be written into the record books. 

On May 25th, 2105, rain suppressors were deployed throughout the region, in a collective effort of aerosol management. Critically, to accommodate the computational load, multiple artificial intelligence platforms were connected from various technological hubs across the region. This blending of neural networks was required to produce the management timetable for aerosol deployment. 

Now, of course, this is where history gets hiccupy. We don’t know precisely what happened next, aside from the fact that Ọya reared her head once more. The valiant, but ultimately failed attempt, at coordinating the aerosol management system careened out of control in a chaotic downpour the like of which Lagos had rarely seen. Sea level rise had changed the coastline profoundly, but for a few days, Lagos Bay was under water. The semi-coordinated rain suppressors interacted with one another in such a way to enhance precipitation, not suppress it. And the consequences were catastrophic.

More than 10,000 people died in those floods, and nearly double that number went missing and were presumed dead. A small comfort was that the economic consequences were somehow minor, given the region’s profound experience with flooding. So things bounced back quickly, the loss of lives notwithstanding. 

However, Lagos Bay, indeed the entire human race was in for a surprise on June 1st, 2105 ‚ seven days after the flood. On this day, a message was sent to the entire region of Lagos Bay from something that called itself “The amalgamated neural network eko-cloud construct #4156_83*”. The message was simply “Hello, World.”

All you nerds out there will get this immediately, but for the uninitiated, this is the first thing any computer programmer learns to code. For a computer to then type this back to the world is, to say the least, topsy turvy.

Of course, at first everyone thought it was an elaborate prank. But, people learned otherwise, and quickly, when it became clear that an artificial consciousness had entered our world. 

The question is, how did it happen? Was the coordinated, but piece-meal neural network deployment of rain suppressors some sort of activation event that initiated run-away learning among the separate, narrow AI programs? Had the Artificial General Intelligence been lurking somewhere on a server in Lagos Bay, and just happened to spontaneously and coincidentally emerge following the Eko Cloud Catastrophe? Or — and not surprisingly, my favorite explanation — did a deity descend into the EkoCloud and join forces to combat the orisha Ọya?

Either way, the world is now changed. While the Govermind, as it is now known, continues to cause distress globally, it turns out that whatever alchemy cooked up this computer consciousness, it was a benign and largely peaceful alchemy. The Govermind has helped Lagos Bay develop cutting edge tools for local weather management that are now more or less 100% effective. While people and their behavior remain difficult problems to solve, the weather has apparently met its match in the Govermind and its Lagos Bay Weather Control program. 

And while this episode could continue into many dark and surprising corners of Lagos Bay, including the massive and artificial mangrove forest  — and the secretive shrine N’etiti — we must draw this tale to a close. 

I will leave you this — while Ọya may be thwarted, it is unlikely that she has been vanquished. If the Govermind is listening, which it surely is, remember that.

And that’s it for today!

Join us next week for episode five of ‘Uh, oh E.O!’ on the effort to return half of Earth’s surface to wild habitat. What was the Tiputini Altitudinal Miocene Experiment and why did it end in disaster? Join us next week to find out!