slug: "latbs/the-line"
lang: en
title: "THE LINE"
category: geography
pageCreated: "2026-02-24"
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| since 2026-02-24
p #[strong.dateline 2558 #[+sc("CE")]] #[b: +sc("The Line")] #[small(style="font-family: var(--sans-serif);") (Arabic: #[b(lang="ar") ذا لاين], Magani: #[b: i Zalayn])] is a colossal, partly abandoned arcology located in Earth’s Arabian Desert, straddling the border between Magan and Arabia. Two hundred metres wide and half a kilometre tall on average, the linear city stretches 130 kilometres from a starting point on the Persian Gulf near the town of ilMirfa to a point in the Empty Quarter near #[span(style="font-variant-numeric: lining-nums;") 3]arada.
+h2("Timeline")
ol#timeline-list
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p #[b 2004] Inspired by proposed megaprojects in Dubai (ilSabi3), Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi’s (Abuźabi’s) state-owned property company, announces a series of audacious projects including a ski resort, a theme park based on David Lynch’s iconic #[i Dune] trilogy, an “interstellar spaceport”, and, most notoriously, a 130 km linear city spanning the entire north–south width of the country. Only one of these will come to fruition, and it’s not the ski resort.
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p #[b 2006] Construction begins on an initial segment, the nearest to the coast, which includes a luxury resort and sports stadium.
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p #[b 2012] #[i Mission Impossible: Dead Drop] features a well-received setpiece in which Tom Cruise is chased by a villain while climbing on the side of #[+sc("The Line")].
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p #[b 2013] Though only partly finished, Segment 1 of #[+sc("The Line")] is declared “open for business” in a grand event headlined by Flo Rida, and families begin moving in to its layered promenades.
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p #[b 2014] The United Arab Emirates hosts the World Cup, to much international controversy. The ”#[+sc("The Line")] Iconiq Stadium”, which hosts a semi-final between England and Brazil, is generally regarded as a surprising architectural highlight, the rest of the building cantilievered daringly over the pitch.
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p #[b 2020] #[+sc("The Line")] reaches 50% completion. Its insides are sealed off during the orcov-19 pandemic, with no one getting in or out, testing the limits of the arcology concept. It goes #[em okay].
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p #[b 2025] In a glitzy ceremony, President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan declares the near-finished #[+sc("Line")] the eighth emirate of the #[+sc("UAE")], appointing his son Khaled as its sheikh.
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p #[b Feb. 2026] Black Thursday. The value of crude oil plummets to values not previously considered possible. In Saudi Arabia, King Mohammed finds his heir apparent’s lifeless body at the bottom of a scarlet swimming pool.
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p #[b Mar. 2026] An announcement on the young emirate’s website declares that #[+sc("The Line")] is finally complete. The front page of the #[i International Herald Tribune] shows a picture of Shell’s #[+sc("CEO")] brandishing a gun.
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p #[b Nov. 2026] Amrita Dandha, a kefala worker from India working at a drone-delivery warehouse in Dubai, is berated, spit on, and severely beaten by a superior for failing to meet quotas. That night, in her minuscule subdivided apartment, she dies of an internal hæmorrhage.
p The incident is caught on video by a coworker, and goes viral on the Arabic-speaking and Indian internet. Mass protests break out. The Magani Revolution has begun.
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p #[b 2027] An area in the barren Segment 18, previously pencilled in for residential use, is rapidly converted into a makeshift fortress for Sheikh Khaled al-Nahyan. He will never leave these 130 kilometres again. In Dubai, rioters parade #[+sc("CEO")]s through the mile-wide boulevards and force them to kiss the lifeless sheikh’s rotting toes. With no confidence in in the country’s crumbling military, Khaled hires a paramilitary group backed by the Bin Ladens, who are consolidating power in Saudi Arabia, to serve as security forces.
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p #[b 2029] The #[+sc("UAE")] effectively no longer exists, most of the remaining Ă©lites having fled to Oman or retreated to a seastead in the Persian Gulf. Norway becomes the first country to recognise the People of Magan as a sovereign state. #[+sc("The Line")] stands as the only relic of Emirati power, mostly because anyone within a five-mile radius to its east is swiftly vapourised by Uzbeks in kevlar.
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p #[b 2036] As the local geopolitical situation stabilises, #[+sc("The Line")] and Magan sign a ceasefire agreement through gritted teeth. Neither recognises the other as a legitimate entity, but at least some of the arcology’s residents can fly their flag at the Olympics.
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p #[b 2050] #[+sc("The Line")] celebrates its silver jubilee with a Festival of Arts and Culture. The day after the initial lineup of participants is announced, an article in #[i al-Ra’i] connects an “unidentified” body found having fallen from the ninety-seventh floor to Yusuf al-Khaja, a dissident journalist imprisoned since 2045. State news dismisses it as a “Jordano-Zionist confabulation”, but 80% of invited artists are unconvinced, leaving galleries clad in empty white walls.
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p #[b 2062] After reading an article about the Chilean Cyberrepublic and its #[i EspĂritu Nacional], Sheikh Khaled directs #[+sc("The Line")]’s department of technology and innovation to develop a technogenically intelligent “#[i genius loci]” for the city by uniting its thousands of robotic workers into a single holistic sapient system. The project proves infeasible with the day’s technology; in retrospect, it has been analysed as a major precursor to the naturally emergent genies of Mercury.#[+sn(1)]
+sn(1)
p “Genies Before Genies: A Prehistory of Localised In­tel­li­gence”, Landsend<wbr>.1-5 and Lodestar<wbr>.781, #[i Agatho­dæmon] #19 (2310).
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p #[b 2064] Khaled al-Nahyan, who somehow looks twice his age at eighty-two, makes his last official public appearance.
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p #[b 2080] American media reports that #[+sc("The Line")] has banned “laughter that disturbs the public peace”. It turns out to be fake, but an #[em actual] ban on “shoes of designs which degrade our culture” flies under the radar.
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p #[b 2100] #[a.history(href="/latbs/ww3") The Third World War.] #[+sc("The Line")] backs the Profundos, and the ceasefire breaks down. A Magani drone blasts a hole clean through where Khaled’s penthouse is assumed to be, instead killing thirty-eight civilians.
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p #[b 2123] An Egyptian agent slips a deadly neurotoxin into Khaled’s daily nutritional injection. He leaves no obvious successor upon his death, and #[+sc("The Line")]’s administration devolves into a mess of warring cliques with no clear direction. It takes a month for them to even admit that he’s dead, and though the city remains an “emirate” in name, the position of sheikh will sit vacant for the rest of its lifespan.
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p #[b 2128] A prolonged outage of the water desalination system leads to 400 people dying of dehydration. International organisations decry this man-made drought, but authorities deny everything, and only a trickle of aid is allowed through.
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p #[b 2145] #[+sc("The Line")] is hæmorrhaging residents. A scorching report in #[i Caixin] estimates that some 35% of citizens have left in the past decade, and quotes a analyst from Republican Arabia who calls the ever more dilapidated structure “no longer fit for the basic necessities of life”.
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p #[b 2160] Out of money and out of options, #[+sc("The Line")]’s government announces “a sunset for the Emirate of #[+sc("The Line")]’s continued state existence”. A rare physical flyer sent to citizens’ homes sets out a fifteen-year plan wherein each of the city’s twenty-six segments will have utilities and services cut off one at a time, snaking in from the desert to the sea until nothing but the abandoned shell remains.
p Tenancy transfers are offered to a selection of suburban homes on artificial islands in Dammam, Bahrain, and Qatar.
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p #[b 2178] TBA (last bus leaves only three years behind schedule; any holdouts “taken care of” by security, and robots go offline)
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p #[b 2200s] TBA (intermittent squatters and criminals move in)
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p #[b 2244] TBA (magan and RA agree to share sovereignty in principle)
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p #[b 2250] TBA (The Line International Heritage Centre opens, including the original segment and Khaled’s old quarters)
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p #[b 2280s] TBA (tourist trade results in an informal settlement popping up)
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p #[b 2296] TBA (Zalayn City officially “un”incorporated)
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p #[b 2340s] TBA (squatters, hippies, and bohemian artist-types of the offworld “back to earth” movement begin colonising the unrefurbished sections of the line, finding the remaining non-sold-for-scrap robots eager to help with a little maintenance)