[...] the flights were almost always full, booked far in advance, bought out by the sovereign wealth funds of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, China, and Hong Kong, as well as by corporate partners, the latter tricky at first, many corporations at first resisted - they had stockholders they were accountable to, they couldn't be spending millions on luxury travel - but soon it became clear that certain favors were being granted, playing fields tipped, regulations loosened or disappeared, sabers rattled more or less virogously, so that in numerous ways, plausibly deniable and otherwise, those in the Zeppelins were accruing certain advantages [...]

[...] another thumbs up to the YouTube livestream audience, to all those watching, those who still had internet, those still alive, and in the situation room, among and between all the generals and the members of the deep state and now even Trump's private security apparatus, a certain humming awareness, a panic that they were watching, just watching, the world end, and wasn't there something they could do, but there were too many, too many different strategies, they were each locked into their own roles, and Trump had already announced it, the big option, right there on the livestream, to the whole world, to all our allies and enemies, and around the world protocols and contingency plans were going into effect, there just wasn't any time, just no way to wiggle out of the moment, to say sorry, to say stop, to say we fucked up, nothing to be done, or rather, thy could do the big one, or just nothing, sit passively, hemmed in by life and by all the possibilities they couldn't quite dream into the real, and they understand that to play was to lose, but not to play was something worse [...]