The disintegration of the World Government in 2233 was hastened by a massive crime wave of unprecedented viciousness. Unlike the Muslim extremists defeated two hundred years earlier in the Terrorist Wars (1895-9 and 2001-2034), the vicious Ecowars of 2057-60, and the sectarian slaughter in the Ukraine a hundred years later, the criminal gangs of the 23rd century made no demands, made no public statements, and had no political agenda. One of the most gruesome was a series of attacks by an organization known as the Szary i Zielony, in which over four million people were slaughtered.
Other criminal acts included: the destruction of the Panama Canal by teenage vandals (2228); the explosion at the National Supercollider Fusion Laboratory in Pacifica (2231); and the Pacific Grid cyberattacks of 2244-2246, in which exawatt pulses were redirected from their superconducting cables into unprotected circuits, turning large sections of the cities of West Microsoftia (including the sacred shrine of Gatesland), Los Angeles Island, and several other parts of the already-suffering nation of Pacifica into blackened, flat wastelands.