A linear space is a system of points and lines such that any two distinct points determine a unique line; a Steiner k-system (for $k \geq 2$ ) is a linear space such that each line has size exactly k. Clearly, as a two-sorted structure, no linear space can be strongly minimal. We formulate linear spaces in a (bi-interpretable) vocabulary $\tau $ with a single ternary relation R. We prove that for every integer k there exist $2^{\aleph _0}$ -many integer valued functions $\mu $ such that each $\mu $ determines a distinct strongly minimal Steiner k-system $\mathcal {G}_\mu $ , whose algebraic closure geometry has all the properties of the ab initio Hrushovski construction. Thus each is a counterexample to the Zilber Trichotomy Conjecture.

In order to construct a counterexample to Zilber's conjecture—that a strongly minimal set has a degenerate, affine or field-like geometry—Ehud Hrushovski invented an amalgamation technique which has yielded all the exotic geometries so far. We shall present a framework for this construction in the language of standard geometric stability and show how some of the recent constructions fit into this setting. We also ask some fundamental questions concerning this method.