In 1978, Gary Numan--the greatest New Wave musician who ever lived--came up with an idea for a sci-fi novel after reading a lot of Phillip K. Dick and other dystopian literature such as 1984 and Brave New World*. The story was going to be set in a place called The City, one of the last remaining cities of man on Earth. It was a highly-decadent place, where people lived empty, hedonistic lives, scarcely ever interacting with one another, and spending most of their lives with android 'Friends'.
The Central Computer, though, decided that it was finally sick of Humanity and wanted to eliminate them. Knowing that if its plans were discovered, the Humans--who greatly outnumbered it--could easily switch it off, it decided to start wiping out Humanity in the City by a number of devious means.
First and foremost among these were the machmen (machine-men), who were android assassins indistinguishable from Humans save for their horizontal-bar pupils (see my icon). The Humans also had a place called The Park where "criminals" (usually people randomly selected by the Computer and accused of various crimes) were sent to be hunted down and murdered by "rape machines" and other forms of killer bots. The City's decadent populace would frequently gather at a restaurant on the borderland of The Park called Zom-Zoms and watch the nightly murderfests in The Park.
There were an underground cult of "free thinkers," though, called The Crazies by everyone else who had figured out what the Central Computer was trying to do and were attempting to fight back, but they were vastly outnumbered.
This, then, was the novel idea that Numan came up with. He never wrote the book, but instead used the concepts he'd outlined above as the basics for the songs on his breakthru album Replicas.
I've decided to write the actual novel, following Numan's basic outline, but updating it for the 21st Century. The City is now a generation ship carrying the last organic Original Humans away from a Solar System completely over-run by postHumans, Machine Intelligences, and all manner of postSingularity superintelligences. The Central Computer running the ship is infected by a memetic virus created by anti-Human Machines in the Solar System and begins to wipe out the remnants of Humanity. Only a small faction aboard the ship realizes what is going on and is now trying to stop the CC from murdering everyone. That's basically what the whole rigamarole is about, and Sean's gonna owe me some serious cash when I have this thing done in a few months. :)
*I think the world of BNW is absolutely PERFECT, but that's just me....
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 07:40 pm (UTC)The Central Computer, though, decided that it was finally sick of Humanity and wanted to eliminate them. Knowing that if its plans were discovered, the Humans--who greatly outnumbered it--could easily switch it off, it decided to start wiping out Humanity in the City by a number of devious means.
First and foremost among these were the machmen (machine-men), who were android assassins indistinguishable from Humans save for their horizontal-bar pupils (see my icon). The Humans also had a place called The Park where "criminals" (usually people randomly selected by the Computer and accused of various crimes) were sent to be hunted down and murdered by "rape machines" and other forms of killer bots. The City's decadent populace would frequently gather at a restaurant on the borderland of The Park called Zom-Zoms and watch the nightly murderfests in The Park.
There were an underground cult of "free thinkers," though, called The Crazies by everyone else who had figured out what the Central Computer was trying to do and were attempting to fight back, but they were vastly outnumbered.
This, then, was the novel idea that Numan came up with. He never wrote the book, but instead used the concepts he'd outlined above as the basics for the songs on his breakthru album Replicas.
I've decided to write the actual novel, following Numan's basic outline, but updating it for the 21st Century. The City is now a generation ship carrying the last organic Original Humans away from a Solar System completely over-run by postHumans, Machine Intelligences, and all manner of postSingularity superintelligences. The Central Computer running the ship is infected by a memetic virus created by anti-Human Machines in the Solar System and begins to wipe out the remnants of Humanity. Only a small faction aboard the ship realizes what is going on and is now trying to stop the CC from murdering everyone. That's basically what the whole rigamarole is about, and Sean's gonna owe me some serious cash when I have this thing done in a few months. :)
*I think the world of BNW is absolutely PERFECT, but that's just me....