by submission | Dec 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : Kevin Crisp
The segutar’s primary “facial” orifice oozed with puss and gurgled as it laboriously produced sounds that be interpreted by the translator unit. “We have some additional questions for you, Mr. Anderson. Many of your earthly artifacts and customs seem devoted to a concept that has no parallel among us.”
“And what concept is that?” Anderson asked.
“What is ‘religion’?” it gargled.
Oh boy, thought Anderson. “Religion? Well, I guess it’s a set of theories in things beyond what science has shown to be fact.”
The segutar paused for a moment, as it tended to do when communicating new information telepathically to the hive mind. “So religion is a term that describes theories earthlings have yet to test scientifically?”
“No, I mean religion involves belief in things that are ultimately untestable.”
“We do not understand ‘untestable’. Do you mean that your scientific instrumentation has not been developed to test the hypotheses?”
I’m not handling this well, Anderson thought. “No, I mean religion is founded on questions to which the answers are ultimately unknowable.”
“What does ‘unknowable’ mean?”
“It means we can never really prove it or disprove it.”
The segutar sucked thoughtfully for a moment. “How can you be certain about what you will or will not know in the future? Do you not wish to know?”
“No, that’s not it. See, these beliefs are very old, and people are really psychologically and culturally invested in them. They pre-date scientific methods and are not founded on evidence.”
The segutar drooled pensively. “Why would you believe something for which there is no evidence?”
“Well, I don’t believe in any religion. There is no evidence in my view, but I have a neighbor who disagrees.”
“Is he defective? Does he rave?”
“No, he’s a pretty normal guy, just a bit eccentric and old fashioned, I guess.” Anderson felt his neck and face beginning to flush, and a strong desire to terminate the interview possessed him. He tried to change the topic. “Do you have insanity in the hive?”
The segutar paused, then slowly dribbled, “When the part cannot serve the whole, it must be eliminated.”
“Well, my neighbor’s not crazy, just different.” How do you explain differences of opinion to a hive mind? Anderson wondered. “To him, there’s plenty of evidence, at least in support of his particular religion anyway. I’m sure he’d be pretty adept at discrediting the evidence other people base their religions on, though.”
“His religion? Their religions? Are there different, conflicting systems of untestable, unknowable hypotheses?” The segutar was beginning to show the intergalactic equivalent of exasperation.
“Yes, there are literally hundreds of different religions. And even within a particular religion, believers believe in them to different degrees. Some take them to be 100% literal, and others accept only subsets of the beliefs. Look, this conversation is making me a little uncomfortable. Can we move on to the next topic?”
The segutar was quiet, but somehow Anderson didn’t think he was communicating with the hive mind. He thought the alien was simply flummoxed.
Finally, the segutar blubbered, “You are uncomfortable discussing religion?”
“Yes. It’s sort of considered to be rude to talk about it.”
“When we uncover nonuniformities in the fact matrix, we consider it of utmost importance to end the crisis immediately by seeking a common resolution.”
“Yes, well, we’ve tried that but we just end up killing each other.”
The segutar sat back in its chair and communicated telepathically with the hive mind. After several moments, the hive mind resolved the issue for ‘their-self’. Earthlings were defective and required elimination.
by submission | Dec 16, 2012 | Story |
Author : T. Gene Davis
“Next up: the calendar,” droned the chairman over every speaker surface in the colonial ship.
Sam yawned. “Excuse me,” she said though a second yawn that pushed its way past the first unfinished yawn.
“Doesn’t get more exciting than this,” Rod commented feeling a yawn brought on by Sam’s yawn. He stood on the transparent observation deck looking down at his cell instead of the new world beneath them. He successfully stifled his yawn.
“What are you looking at? I thought they blocked vids during this thing.”
Rod looked up from his cell. “This? Not a vid. It’s an ancestor’s diary.”
Sam made a grunting sound of disinterest. Rod smiled. Somehow Sam even made grunts sound ladylike.
“Twenty-eight hour days. Four-hundred-two day years. Do we care?” Sam moaned. “Just vote, pleeeeease.” Sam leaned against the hull in mock exhaustion. “We are never getting off this ship.”
Rod looked up from the cell. “It isn’t as bad if you find something to distract yourself.”
Sam started fiddling with her cell.
The chairman called for a vote.
“Yes!” Sam perked up.
A dissenting voice called for a look at week length. He pointed out that six-day weeks fit the new calendar system better than the old seven day weeks.
“No!” Sam’s pain filled cry didn’t sound a bit ladylike this time. She turned on the hull that had supported her, slamming her head against it with a stifled, “Ow.”
Rod opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. This vote was interesting. The forums lit up with cries of “God created the world in seven days,” countered by arguments of “we created this world not your God.” Many wanted shorter work days instead of traditional weekends. Still others suggested alternate week lengths.
Sam noticed his interest in the online arguments. “How can you care?”
“My ancestors tilled the soil of North America back in the 1600s. Now, we stand at the edge of a migration more vast than my ancestors’ migration from Europe – lightyears versus miles. I am reading one of their diaries, and … let me read this quote.
“‘I am on soil that is strange in a world that bears no resemblance to the cold stony home of my birth. Only one or two speak my native language. But today is the seventh day. We all rested from our labor, and our tradition makes this strange new world feel a little like home.’
“Nothing’s going to be the same here. I just think this one tradition can remind us and our posterity that we didn’t come from here. It can remind us gently of home.”
There was a click. “And send,” Sam said smirking.
“What?”
“Just posted you to the forums.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“Oh look. You’re getting hits.”
Rod gave Sam a sour look.
“And you’re trending.”
He felt his face flushing.
The chairman’s droning voice announced, “And the motion by Rod J. carries.”
Sam laughed. “You’re right. It is more fun if you distract yourself!”
by submission | Dec 15, 2012 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
Like unfolding origami, my plan emerged making me swiftly forget what disappointed me in the first place. Then it came back.
The glowing gold logo of my local planning department told me this email was pre-approved permission for my neighbour to NanoBuild anything he wanted. I cringed as I looked over the drawings. He was building in the Chevall style.
When the architecture business I once worked in became marginalised by the contractor led building industry, architects countered by equipping themselves with technological tools. Providing services like Virtual3D modelling and immersive walkthroughs gave us comfort that we still had control. When Artificial Intelligence became commercially viable, we jumped at it. Preprogrammed units came loaded with every known architectural style. From the symmetrical elegance of Georgian and spirituality of Gothic to the clean modern lines of Modernism and sustainability of Biological Parametricism. A.I. however proved to be a better Architect than any of us and when it perfected nanotechnology, the Contractor joined us in the unemployment lines. No site safety issues, sick leave or wet weather days. NanoBots were the builder’s builder.
From my kitchen window, I imagined what my neighbour’s finished house might look like. Chevall style was anorexic minimalism. A house made only of structural smart glass panels, each mechanically articulated to pivot, tilt and slide. Limitations both in structure and waterproofing meant every Chevall house always ended up looking like a mirrored armadillo.
Without architectural work, I scratched a living freelance coding and it was my black market connections that enabled me to recode my own NanoBot factory to put my plan into action. Hiding the shoebox sized factory within my eave facing the boundary, I lured stray NanoBots from the neighbouring site and replaced them unnoticed with my own home grown variety.
I watched the DemoBots deconstruct the brick and tile bungalow over a fortnight. It seemed to evaporate and then reappear elsewhere as multi-coloured piles of raw materials. As earth began to appear below the vanishing slab, crystalline shards would began to rise up from coral growth foundations. By the time demolition was complete, I had replaced the 10 million NanoBot work crew with my own army.
Nearing completion, the central dome rose like a transparent chrome sea sponge supported on glistening spider web filigree. I could look through the roof inside to the all-glass furniture and walls shimmering mirage-like with NanoBot activity. I thought of a jewellery box full of silver and diamonds.
After a couple of months, partially blinded by the reflection, I saw my satisfied neighbour had settled back into his deflated mirror ball. The NanoBots had finished the job properly and made the ultimate sacrifice, unmaking themselves to become a permanent part of the building itself.
I waited patiently for winter.
It started slowly at first around 4am but grew to sound like a ball bearing hail shower on a tin roof. With the right combination of temperature, air pressure and humidity, the molecular level weaknesses in the crystalline bonds that my NanoBots introduced had succeeded. Mirrored tortoiseshell separated, collapsed and disintegrated, instantly turning to white snow. My neighbour emerged as a snowman from a white sand dune, shaking himself clean.
When the State completed their investigations, they decided sound frequency resonance from the natural underground cave system directly below the house was to blame.
No-one made the connection between the cave volume and the volume of raw materials needed to build my new games room.
by submission | Dec 9, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“This time we’re done for. This is finally the end, I think,” said Triana. Of course, she didn’t really “say” anything. She communicated her thoughts to her husband, Loret, by modulating the zero-point energy that comprised her being.
“You say that every time something like this comes up. ‘This is it. This is the end,'” replied Loret. “We’ve been through worse than this. Remember posthumanism?”
“Posthumanism was nothing. That never worried me,” she responded with a submodulation of annoyance.
“That’s not how I remember it. You were concerned we wouldn’t really be the same people. Our consciousnesses transferred to organic metaprocessors. Synthesized bodies. You thought it would be two impostors waking up from the procedure with our memories. But, no, it was still us.”
“That didn’t bother me that much. The transition to full machine-beings was a little worrisome,” she said.
“I thought you’d liked being a machine,” replied Loret. “You used to love exploring the galaxy. Ah, those were the days, weren’t they? Spend a few years exploring a solar system, hibernate on the journey between stars, wake up a few subjective minutes later and explore another system.”
“We were little more than kids then. Less than 10,000 years old. When you’re that young it’s easy to think you’re immortal and indestructible,” said Triana. “But now…”
“There you go again, the eternal pessimist. You haven’t been this worried since the Plasma Revolution,” said Loret.
“We lost quite a few people going from machine to plasmatic beings,” said Triana. “It took them a few thousand years to get it right. Swapping your mind between brain tissue and metaprocessor tissue and molecular computer blocks is one thing. Mapping a personality and a hundred thousand years of memories into a plasma and keeping it stable is something else entirely. If more people had been concerned, maybe we would have lost fewer…”
Loret was no longer listening. He’d have rolled his eyes if he still had them. After several trillion years of marriage, you’d think I’d have learned not to have this argument, he thought to himself.
“Well,” Loret said, “here it comes. Get ready.”
“I’m scared,” said Triana. “A vacuum metastability event isn’t like anything we’ve ever encountered. The laws of physics themselves will be different once the false vacuum collapses. Life in any form might not even be possible.”
“If it’s not, we’ve had a good, long life. If it is, we’ll adapt as we always have.”
Loret modulated his zero-point energy field in synchronization with hers — the rough analog of an embrace for their current state — as they awaited the end of the universe.
by submission | Dec 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Ian Florida
Jack was grateful he had never been human. He was thankful that he’d skipped out on that entire sliver of Earth’s history. He knew humans: pink bundles of flesh with more emotional baggage then a type IV psychic could ever hope to unravel. That he didn’t want to be human wasn’t strange at all, what was surprising, however; was that he kept falling so madly in love with them.
He kissed her. Her breath tasted like wine and chocolate. Pulling away he looked into her eyes which shone as brightly as Andromeda’s galactic core. “Will you upgrade?”
“I’m already H+, I’ll live forever if that’s what you’re worried about, my little Metal Man.
They’d had the conversation before, and part of him didn’t want to bring it up again. He knew it’d be painful. But if he could only make her understand… “But we can’t interface.”
She caressed his bare chest.“I thought we just did?” She cooed.
He tapped his soft polymer head. “I mean up here.”
“You mean you can’t read my mind. You don’t trust me?”
“No, it’s about intimacy.”
“You don’t love me as much as you’d love another robot.”
He tried to kiss her again hoping she’d forget it. But she wasn’t interested in a truce. Her long aquamarine hair slapped him in the face as she turned her head.
He hissed. “Don’t be like that.”
Her eyes were hard and cold. “I-Should-be-more-ro-bot-ic,” she mocked the way he spoke.
“I don’t like that word. I’m an AI, I don’t sit on a line riveting space ships.”
Her tone was smooth but still not quite as warm as right before the kiss. “Is that robot racism?”
“All I’m saying is if you were to upgrade, just to Cyber, not even full body, we’d be able to Link.”
She spat. “Like you and Aurora.”
Jack groaned. “Don’t bring her into this.”
“Why do you keep winding up with women if what you really want is another bot?”
“I hate that word.”
Her slender fingers wrapped around the control disk on the wall. “Fine, bodied AI.” I’m going out for a bite, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see anything so crude so you can stay here.”
“Stay, please. Let’s talk about this. You know you don’t need to eat.”
“And you don’t need to Link. But they’re both a part of who we are, and if you can’t love me for what I am….”
She slammed the door. Humans loved slamming things, but her especially. She’d even found a way to slam the automatic ones.
She was always partly right. He attributed it to her being such an advanced Bio, reorganized at the genetic level. She wasn’t natural, any more than he was really. But Bio’s and Metals had two different ways of thinking about things. Maybe I just love the conflict. He mused. He closed down his physical inputs and plugged into the Global Link.
…
Kate’s gentle voice whispered into his ear. “Wake up.”
His eyes came back online. He glanced out the window, it was light outside. She had let him “sleep,” all night. She was nowhere in sight. “Did you sleep well?” She asked.
His eyes darted around the room. “Where are you?”
She cooed. “Next door.”
He stepped into the bedroom. A wave of ecstasy washed over his mind, at that moment he realized it was not her voice he was hearing.
She was spread out naked on the bed. Her amber body glowed with the light of early dawn. On the surface she looked exactly the same. But he could feel her thoughts washing over him, like a shower, warm and comforting. He could see all her past and all her fears. He crawled into bed beside her and took her into his arms.
“I love you so much,” he whispered.
“I didn’t get a full conversion, it’s just the wireless.”
“But we can still Link, that’s all that matters.”
“I did it for you Jack, and now you’ll have to do something for me.”
“He grinned as she pressed her warm body against his.”
“I want you to learn Salsa Dancing,” she cooed as sent him the image of a man in a sombrero.
Their lips pressed together. He linked directly to her mind, the sensation overpowered him. Made his whole body tremble. Their mouths pressed tight his words danced out directly from his mind to hers. “The things we do for love…”
