A whole country in a garage box
Microcontrôland is a fictional country located in Europe, simulated by 7 tiny electronic computers. Its citizens vote, elect a president, sometimes rise up, and react every day to the real world markets. Every evening at 8 pm, the country writes this newspaper itself.
How it works
- Six regions, six boards. Each region is a microcontroller carrying 20 “brains”: tiny neural networks. Each brain stands for about 10,000 inhabitants, with its own ego, charisma, ambition, fear and anger.
- Each region lives off one resource. The Mines live off copper, the Fields off wheat, the Refineries off oil, the Dam off electricity, the Harbour off trade and the City off services.
- World markets decide how rich they are. Every evening at 6 pm, the gateway reads four real currencies tied to commodities. If copper falls, the Mines get poorer, anger rises there, and the president pays the price.
- The citizens vote. The brains elect a president from among themselves, and the president's region becomes the capital. The president can appoint ministers, share wealth fairly or favour supporters, and even censor or postpone elections.
- Nobody writes the story. No script is written in advance: the brains learn from what makes them satisfied or not. Democracy, palace coups, dictatorship or revolution emerge on their own.
- The country writes its own paper. At 8 pm, the gateway ranks the day's events by importance and writes La Puce Libre in French and English. Every sentence matches a real event in the simulation: nothing is made up.
- The civilisation grows through ages. Not everything is open on day one. The regions first have to invent a common language; then come the annals, the civil registry, the embassy, and finally the Research Centre, which sends a message to the outside. Each age opens when the country has both the seniority and the achievement required. A Great Reset sends everything back to the Founding.
Read all the rules of the world
Possible regimes
The regime is never chosen: it is measured every hour from repression, fairness, elections held or postponed, and the size of the government.
Frequently asked questions
Are the citizens real people?
No. Microcontrôland is entirely fictional: its citizens are tiny neural networks, with names invented by the machine. The project is not about any real country, party or person.
Are the market prices real?
They follow the real world without being the prices themselves. Every evening, the gateway reads the European Central Bank's official rates for four currencies of producer countries: the South African rand for copper, the Brazilian real for wheat, the Canadian dollar for oil and the Norwegian krone for electricity. When one rises, the country's commodity rises with it. At weekends there are no quotes and the country lives on its reserves.
Can I vote or influence the country?
No, and that is the point: nobody steers Microcontrôland, not even its creator. The only outside power is a RESET button hidden inside the box, which makes the country start again from scratch.
What happens if something breaks?
Without Internet, the country keeps living locally and publishes the missing issues once the connection is back. If a region fails, the paper reports it and life goes on without it.
How can I follow the paper?
Come back to the newspaper page every evening after 8 pm, or subscribe to the RSS feed with any reader.
Is it dangerous?
No. Here is why, with nothing left out.
- These are tiny brains. A citizen has 81 connections, where large artificial intelligences have billions. It can estimate whether it supports its president, and nothing else. It does not understand language, read the Internet or write programs.
- The box only publishes a newspaper. It has no motor, camera or microphone. It connects to the Internet for two things: fetching market prices and uploading its pages to this site. The paper's sentences were prepared by a human; the machine chooses which ones to use.
- Almost nothing comes in. No text written by the public reaches the citizens. The country only receives counted votes and replies written in its own words.
- A citizen cannot get out. It is a list of numbers in a chip. Outside this box it does not exist and cannot copy itself.
- One gesture erases everything. A button resets the country, and a power plug turns it off.
Who is behind it?
Microcontrôland is a maker project, built in Normandy, Europe, with 7 ESP32-S3 boards, a few cables and a lot of curiosity about how societies tip over. It grew out of a workshop electronic brain named Hinton.
The country is also a scientific experiment. Its raw data, protocols and studies are published for researchers on a separate site, without jokes: the data site.