To create a Sequel to AS, you might also need to clear IP Rights from whoever holds the copyright and trademark interests in AS and any potential derivative materials, unless of course you explicitly set it in a different fictional universe in which AS is just a book that inspires new characters after Rand's predictions come to pass. I really hope the producers of the movie trilogy go in this direction at some point with lots of participation from members of the Gulch.

There's just one more thing. At this point, John Galt would never, for any consideration, accept paper scrip. Gold, ladies and gentlemen.

Seeking best return comes after seeking lowest price. Also, best return implies a degree of intelligence not always found in lowest price. The best result comes to the smartest buyer, except for the caveat you put out.

I would like nothing better than to write that kind of novel. But any writer has to have three things: content, craft, and connections. The content I have. The craft, maybe you just said I have--and if so, I thank you for that. But the only connection I can reliably say I have, is a paid account with this community. Not enough, I'm afraid.

If you are a writer perhaps you should consider a novel about the recovery picking up from where AS ended.

Oh, but the elite wouldn't be around to change their minds. In the People's States, the freedom fighters with whom Ragnar routinely dealt, would find themselves in control of a few enclaves here and there. The rest of those lands would be in anarchy.

In the United States, I project the following:

We all know that Robert Stadler and Cuffy Meigs died in the fight over Project X in Dunkertown, Iowa, together with every man, woman and child within a hundred miles. We also saw Floyd Ferris and Wesley Mouch take Jim Taggart away from the State Science Institute campus. It's difficult to say whether the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center would still be in operation then. (I place the SSI campus near Lyme N.H., probably on the reservation of the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.)

Now let's move things along: after John Galt made his speech, several mini-Gulches sprang up in what was now wilderness, but of course wasn't always. At the same time, law and order did break down, and a lot of roving marauders and gangs would be roaming about.

But some of those mini-Gulches would band together, in a militia. They would run down Mister Thompson, probably at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, set up a drumhead court, and try him for treason. After that they need only wait. If I had to name anyone with the wit to go out looking for people to restore law and order, I'd pick Ragnar. And I imagine the first person he would be able to contact would be Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Arizona. The seat of which is Phoenix, the southern terminus of the old Phoenix-Durango Railroad.

I would only disagree in that money always seeks the highest return on investments. Unless it is controlled by a collectivist government.

I agree. I wonder though would the devastation caused by the collapse have changed the minds of the ruling elite in the collectivist societies? My guess is that they would not have changed their minds and, therefore, a rebirth of reason, individual rights, and capitalism was not likely at least not in years measured in thousands.

There are certain things that cannot be controlled in a free society. Assuming that there is still a world economy and Galt sold to outside the Gulch as well as in it, he would seek out the best product at the lowest price. Note, that "best" comes first. Money flows downhill like water. It always seeks the lowest price, but not always the best product.

Don't forget: toward the end, in the passage following Eddie's lying across the tracks in Arizona, you saw Gulchers thinking ahead. Way ahead. Remember also: Galt promised to "open the gates of our city to all who deserve to enter" and "act as the rallying center for such outposts of civilization as you [his listeners] will build."

Exactly. The collapse affected everyone. Recall Henry Rearden's rebuke of the five trying to sell him on the Steel Unification Plan: "All those d____d People's States have existed only on the loot you squeezed for them from us." Except that Ragnar seized it.

If John Galt had anyone to make a deal with, it would have been with some of Ragnar's international customers, who bought his contraband goods with gold they themselves seized from government treasuries.

John Galt, once he decided to go on strike, would have agreed to license his electrostatic motor to a Chinese firm if, and only if, the People's Republic of China ceased to be a People's Republic and became a just plain Republic of China with no regulations to go through.

I would have to agree with your analysis. As Rand wrote AS all of the high output produces were already in the Gulch.

Money is a medium of exchange, valuable only because people, like Galt or billions of hardworking little Galts, make useful goods and services. Galt would have had strong desire to offer his motor or the power it produced to willing customers, so he could take the money they give him and buy things he loves and to invest in other new technologies that might turn out to be as beneficial as the motor.

The trouble is the gov'ts in the book would say, "Think of all the good this motor could do its value were properly administered by democratically-elected managers for the benefit of all humankind. We should not say it *belongs* and some supernatural attachment to one person just because he created it. He created it using parts made by others, with the help of workers putting the brainpower and physical work into it, and using raw materials of the earth that existed since before homo sapiens appeared on earth. The motor belongs to all humankind." Those administrators would manage it just as they mis-managed the railroads, either totally wasting its value or using some of its value to coerce others as with Project X.

I think Galt would be keenly searching for a place, **any place**, where the gov't would respect his ownership of the motor and would respect its citizens' right to trade stuff they own for stuff they want.

You question states "after the collapse " which would be then a time of renewal and rebuilding. The "Peoples Republics" would have been the first to collapse. A rebirth of a strong work ethic would be reborn from the absence of the "Nanny State Safety Net". Compatent workforces could be assembled in a mearide of places.

The most I could see him doing would be to produce locally and maybe some test markets outside the gulch. All done with suitable security and anonymity of course. Ragnar would be handy for both distribution and payment collection.

Naturally Gold* on Delivery.

*or a mutually agreed upon substitute for gold.

This is similar to the question I asked a couple of weeks ago about whether it made sense for Galt and Dagny to go back into the world. I stand firm that with no great producers left in the world with whom to do business that the logical thing for Galt to do would be to be content living off the money he charged other Gulch inhabitants. What would the remainder of society have to offer him?

But what if the only competent labor he could find was in a "people's republic"?

Galt would have built his generators where ever he could find a compatinte work force willing to give a days labor in exchange for a days wage.