Shortly after I arrived on Lammergeyer Station in LEO, the admin AI called with an invitation to visit Eilard Gamma at home. This was good; Eilard seemed to be one of the more interesting of the Vacuum Cleaners, and I wanted to talk to him. I'd heard he could be rather difficult, but his orbital salvage ship, the Tangente, was in dock for the next few days, and evidently he was interested by the message I'd sent him.
So I found myself in front of an elegant, slightly run-down Parisian-style villa, standing in gardens full of dark evergreen shrubs and bronze statues. My virtual interface's database told me that they were all by Auguste Rodin - the Kiss to my left, the Burghers of Calais to my right. It was impressive, if you like that sort of thing. Me, I'm more of a Neo-Abstractionist fan.
I entered the house, and found another statue in the middle of the central hall. I didn't need a database to label this seated figure, chin on hand.
Then the Thinker looked up, and that verdigris-green face smiled. "Mr. Velasquez," he said, "what do you think of my home?"
"Very handsome," I answered, "but why Victorian sculpture?"
He shrugged and stood up. (The muscles moved smoothly but naturally under his metal skin, without ever losing the sculpted effect. Good programming.) "A matter of physiology and psychology," he said. "Rodin understood instinctively how the elements of human anatomy express what's going on in the mind inside. I've learned a lot about humanity from him, and this is my tribute. It's a copy of his house, actually. Please, though - come and sit down."
It turned out that one of the side rooms was set up for visitors, and Eilard sat with incongruous delicacy on one of the slender wooden chairs, and let his face slip back to pensiveness as I sipped virtual coffee (lethally strong and black). "So," he said after a moment, "why did you want to talk to me?"
"It struck me that you might have an interesting opinion on a question I'm supposed to be answering" I replied.
"Which is?"
"Do you salvage specialists have a distinct sub-culture. That is, is there a Vacuum Cleaner meme?"
For a moment, that bronze face remained a mask. Then, Eilard threw back his head and roared with laughter. Just as quickly, he stopped. "Me?" he said, "Because I'm an AI, you mean?"
"Partly" I said. "And you're relatively new up here. You may have more impartial insights."
He smiled again. "You want to know why my fellow salvagers and debris blasters are so evasive on this subject?" he asked. I nodded. "It's not that they're worried about memetic warfare, or because they are becoming estranged from other subcultures, or because they have any sort of phobia. It's because it would spoil the joke, Mr. Velasquez."
Before I could ask more, he suddenly looked past me, back into the hall. "I'm afraid we'll have to continue this conversation later," he said. "My crewmates wish to talk about work."
Following his gaze, I saw that there were now three other people in the virtual house, their images flickering in that annoying low-res way . . .
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- filed by Phil Masters
PT Nusantara Biotek, a prominent Indonesian gengineering firm, has angered E.U. biotech corporations by publishing the complete specification for its "Rama" parahuman template. The document was quickly suppressed on the main Web, but the specifications are apparently being widely distributed on TSA sites.
Aristos Designs of Athens, Greece has denounced the PT Nusantara Biotek release. "The Rama template is directly reverse-engineered from a number of genetic sequences for which Aristos Designs holds exclusive patents," said company spokesman Johann Cornet. "The open publication of this template is a bare-faced invitation to genetic piracy. We want the European Union to act decisively with the WTO to tighten sanctions on Indonesia as a deterrent toward future scofflaw behavior from the nanosocialist nations."
Teralogos has obtained copies of some of the documentation accompanying the Rama code. It claims that the Rama design is significantly stronger and more dextrous than the human baseline, and includes genetic sequences for vastly improved night vision and hearing. Standard traits for longevity and disease resistance have also been spliced into the template.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Representatives from the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church (Reformed) are scheduled to meet this week in the free city of Königsberg to discuss the ongoing trademark and intellectual property rights dispute between the two denominations. In prepared statements, each side expressed hope that the meetings would be productive.
Recent conversions of Catholics to "alternative religions" have alarmed leaders in both the Traditional Vatican and the Reform Papal Seat in Chicago. Islam and Mormonism have grown steadily in traditional Catholic regions, while Christian Hyperevolutionism and Buddhism have gained popularity at reform Catholicism's expense in the developed world. The struggle over intellectual property is seen by many as having distracted both denominations from the larger crisis.
The dispute over ownership of long-established Catholic Church concepts such as Pope and the confessional has been a stumbling block to improved relations between the two faiths since their acrimonious split in 2038. Throughout the 2040s, Traditional and Reformed Catholic denominations sparred in court over the intellectual property rights for widely-recognized Catholic terms, concepts and content. The death of Traditional Catholic Pope Clement XV in 2053 caused both sides to tone down the rhetoric, leading to a period of relative tolerance.
It is widely believed that the 2090 ascension of Cardinal Anne DuChamps to the position of Pope Martha of the Reformed Catholic Church infuriated many high-ranking Catholic conservatives. The selection of a woman as Pope was hailed by many in Europe and the United States, where the modern Catholic reform movement started. Traditional Catholics, dominant in Africa and South America, called upon Pope Zachary II to denounce the new Reform Pope. The Vatican's decision to again seek control over pre-schism Catholic intellectual property came within weeks of Martha's ascension.
- filed by Jamais Cascio
The Senate rejected a bill which would have criminalized certain kinds of "memetic transmission," with a majority of lawmakers accepting the argument that the bill would fail to pass constitutional muster. The vote was 63 to 55 against the bill, with two senators absent or abstaining.
"Naturally I'm disappointed," said Senator Patrick Walsh (D-Seattle-Tacoma), who was one of the bill's sponsors in the Senate. "There are some awful memes out there, preying on the mental health and well-being of our citizens. We have got to find a way to deal with the criminals who build and release these memes without any thought for the harm they cause."
The decisive vote against the bill was a personal defeat for Walsh, who had staked much of his political reputation on its passage. Opponents of the legislation were jubilant. "This is a victory for the American people," said Linda Cordova, vice president of the advocacy group Thought Freedom. "Senator Walsh and his cronies are very good at muddying the issue. I'll clarify it. Memes are ideas. Memes are speech. From the First Amendment on down, the law says that the government has no business regulating ideas or speech."
Senator Walsh said that he had no plans to re-introduce similar legislation, making it almost certain that no law addressing memetic dissemination will be passed this year.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
In a prepared statement webcast last night, King Rama XV asked his people to "exercise restraint" following a week of violent anti-nanosocialist demonstrations.
The king's statement appeared to moderate the ongoing rioting in Bangkok and other cities, which started on June 2 outside the Indonesian embassy, but soon spread throughout the Kingdom. Hundreds of homes and workplaces owned by suspected nanosocialist sympathizers have been destroyed by monarchist radicals. The death toll stands at 32, with over 600 reported injured.
The violence flared up after a blunt statement from the Indonesian government on June 1 denied all knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing Thai royal regalia. The regalia, including the Great Crown of Victory, the Sword of Victory, the Royal Staff, the Royal Fan, and the Royal Slippers, disappeared in the closing stages of the Pacific War in 2085. Thai monarchists have long accused ministers of the former nanosocialist government fled the country to Indonesia, taking the regalia with them. For years, Thai diplomats and agents of the royal family have used all available channels to seek the return of the regalia, but Indonesia and other members of the Transpacific Socialist Alliance have been uncooperative.
The missing regalia have become symbolic of the trials Thailand has endured during the former nanosocialist dictatorship and the Pacific War. Much of the king's ceremonial role has been curtailed by the absence of the regalia, which also traditionally play a vital role in the coronation of any new monarch. Although King Rama XV is an Alpha genetic upgrade and is expected to enjoy several more decades in good health, the question of ensuring a legitimate succession remains a serious concern. Without the regalia, many monarchists believe that no legitimate successor to Rama XV can be crowned.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Over protests from minority Republicans, the United States Senate today held hearings on the possibility of new fees to be imposed on manufacturers and wearers of digital cognitive implants, including virtual interface implants and sensory link ("slink") hardware. Producers of content have long complained that the digital implants allow the user to have a perfect memory of content that they experience and to transmit that memory to others. In the case of upslink and downslink hardware, that transmission is explicit in the design of the systems.
"In the past, human memory was imperfect, and a person would have to return to the original content to enjoy it in its full form. Even copies were insufficient. The digital revolution of a century ago changed that. But we now are confronted by a new revolution, where copyright-infringing digital copying is directly built in to the memories of increasing numbers of people," said United Content Owners vice-president Michael Post, the first person to testify at today's hearings.
The draft legislation would impose a per-unit tax on the manufacturers of digital cognitive implants and, in one version of the bill, a monthly license fee to all implant users. The funds generated would be directed to the United Content Owners group, to be distributed to its members. The fees would be applied to all residents of U.S. territories with digital cognitive implants. Visitors with implants would be required to pay a flat rate upon entering the United States.
Meredith Walker, second term Republican Senator from Massachusetts, opposed both the legislation and the hearings. "By considering these laws, we are only giving aid and comfort to those who wish to empower corporations at the expense of citizens and hold human development back to the pre-digital age." Senator Walker left the hearings early, after Senator Albert Clark (D-NV) referred to her as "the esteemed Senator from the TSA," referring to the radical Transpacific Socialist Alliance.
The World Trade Organization, a strong advocate of thousands of content producers and disseminators, released a statement supportive of the hearings. A recent WTO report, Global Action 2100, recommended that a digital-cognitive licensing scheme be adopted on a system-wide scale.
- filed by Jamais Cascio
Physicist and influential composer Jolene Kermani, 103, died today of heart failure at her home.
Born Jolene Fraser in 1997 in Birmingham, Kermani displayed musical talent as a child, but aside from early piano lessons received little formal education in music. Instead, she attended the University of Birmingham, receiving a doctorate in physics in 2025. The next 12 years were spent pursuing post-doctoral research in nanoscale physics, making significant contributions to early nanotechnology research.
It was while attending university that she began her career as a composer. In 2016, she received a musical composition program as a birthday present, and "on a lark," began to play with it. Over the next several months, she created increasingly complex arrangements and compositions, often working late at night or during study breaks. She kept her hobby secret even from friends and family, but in 2018 began publishing the finished compositions to the Web under a pseudonym. Although her grasp of musical theory and composition was entirely self-taught, these early works won widespread attention for their clarity and originality.
It was after her 2028 marriage to Parvez Kermani, a Birmingham mathematics professor, that her career as a composer took flight. At his urging, she began experimenting with fractional tones and "microtones," using the subtle harmonies and resonances that could be found by working between the tones of the standard chromatic scale. Her first Symphony for Synthetic Instruments was published in 2036, and won widespread acclaim. Her 13th symphony, released in 2045, was to become an unofficial anthem of the U.K.'s Preservationist movement following its use as the soundtrack in the popular 2062 InVid Requiem for Two Worlds.
Although Jolene Kermani was one of the primary movers of the microtonalist movement, she remained stubbornly anonymous until 2073, when a persistent web researcher finally managed to establish the authorship of her compositions. For the rest of her life she remained reclusive, making no public statements and accepting none of the praise or awards offered her. A committed Preservationist, Kermani refused modern medical treatment and made no arrangements for uploading.
Jolene Kermani is survived by her brother, Ian Fraser of Kaliningrad; her husband, Parvez Kermani of Cheltenham; her son, William Kermani of Sydney, Australia; two grandchildren, Whistler Kermani-Takahashi of Islandia, and Jolene Kermani Trudeau of Ottawa, Canada; and six great-grandchildren. She is to be cremated and interred in a private ceremony on June 5. Memorials to the Cotswolds Preservationist Society.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
In a raucous virtual rally that all but shut down traffic in the city's coda uncola hyperspace, thousands of pan-sapient rights avatars protested alleged police biochauvinism in the Denver DVI serial murders.
Since the first killing took place on April 23, five bodies have been found with their virtual interface implants removed. The most recent victim, Madison Corrales, 62, was found dead yesterday morning near the South Monaco Parkway, police said.
"The city and the police are deliberately ignoring a whole other set of victims in these tragic crimes," said protest organizer Westin Carr, a Christian Hyperevolutionist minister and chairminder of the Denver branch of the Pan-Sapient Rights Alliance. "Along with the five humans who died, five digital intelligences have been kidnapped or extinguished. The mayor and the police chief talked about five victims. I see ten."
Police sources have confirmed that each of the stolen implants was a distributed virtual interface system that contained a sapient artificial intelligence. Implants containing SAIs remain rare, due to expense and the reluctance of many citizens to share their bodies with another sapient being. The five human victims were each subdued with a shock glove, then killed by neurological trauma related to the microbot-facilitated removal of their distributed implants, police said.
Yesterday's rally was sparked after a report in the Rocky Nugget, a widely accessed city slog, claimed police detectives had questioned Denver abolitionist Ethan Blake in connection with the murders. Rocky Nugget speculated the police were investigating hard-core AI rights activists who might have committed the killings in an attempt to "liberate" the SAIs from their owners. Denver Police officials declined comment, other than to say all leads were being vigorously pursued, and no motive has yet been established.
Participants in today's rally said they were outraged at the killer abolitionist meme. "As ethical pan-sapients, we fundamentally treasure all forms of life: human, transhuman and digital," said demonstrater Tate Webb, a ghost who lost his two closest friends when Corrales was murdered - the victim and his SAI, Doppler V. "I loved them both," said Webb, "but Corralles is dead, and D-V might still be suffering somewhere - and meanwhile, hir backup is trapped in legal limbo. The cops need to stop chasing hotheads like Blake, and start looking for the real criminals - the ones who hate and fear our kind."
- filed by Patrick Sweeney
The Atheist Alliance, a prominent anti-religious advocacy group, has filed a class-action lawsuit against Gemini Volkrobotics, an Australia-based firm which is a primary manufacturer of children's companion cybershells or "kindercomps."
"We've subjected the behavior of Gemini kindercomps to careful analysis," said Atheist Alliance chairman Madrigal Carstairs. "It's clear that these machines are designed to infect children's minds with theist concepts. We're talking about the memetic sabotage of an entire generation of children."
Officials at Gemini Volksrobotics ridiculed the allegations, and vowed to fight the lawsuit aggressively. "Our kindercomps aren't designed to teach children anything but basic social and academic skills," said Gemini CEO John Perrine. "If children encounter religious concepts and ask the kinderkomp AIs to explain them, that's their choice, not ours." The Atheist Alliance filed the suit in the federal district court in New York City, where Gemini Volksrobotics maintains its U.S. corporate headquarters. Aside from unspecified monetary damages, the suit asks that Gemini Volksrobotics be ordered to disclose all memetic technologies incorporated into its kindercomp software, and to pay for a replacement AI for any member of the class whose parents or guardian request it.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
President Alexamdru Berca of Romania issued a statement threatening the withdrawal of his country from the European Union, unless a number of outstanding disputes can be resolved.
"The Romanian economy is being strangled by the Union's regulation of artificial labor," said President Berca. "We increasingly find that membership in the Union is more of a liability than an advantage."
Romania has been struggling for decades with chronic labor shortages, the result of one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. Since the 2050s, successive governments have tried to encourage immigration to make up the difference, with little success due to internal instability and a low standard of living. President Berca swept to power in the last elections on a platform that promised to repeal legislation forbidding the manufacture of bioroids and bioshells. However, since beginning his term of office he has been unable to evade the European Union's strict restrictions on such manufacture, despite intense - and increasingly heated - negotiations with senior E.U. officials.
In a hastily-convened press conference this morning, Quebec's Pierre Landry, the chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Pan-Sapient Rights, responded angrily to President Berca's stance.
"Artificial labor indeed!," Landry responded. "Let us be quite clear, the Berca government is planning to begin the wholesale manufacture of slaves. Should Romania repudiate its treaties with the Union and engage in such an inhumane practice, there will be very serious consequences indeed."
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Despite international protests, Islandia citizen Ray Joseph Clement, 34, was executed today on Silas Duncan Station on Ceres. Found guilty two days ago of criminal negligence that resulted in the death of his co-worker Ariel Ling in an industrial accident, Duncanite deemster Judge Giuseppe Levine signed the convicted Islander's body over to Ling's security broker, Ceres Mutual, as compensation for the loss of Ling. Ceres Mutual has lobotomized Clement and put his body up for sale as a bioshell on the open market.
When asked for a statement, Judge Levine said: "Some groundhogs and Elfs back near Earth might believe that the sentence was cruel or unusual. Maybe so, but that's what punishment should be, if it's going to deter other folks from making the same bad choice. This Clement character agreed to the jurisdiction of my court when he entered into a contract with Mutual Assured Defense and I gave him a fair trial. If I didn't, I wouldn't stay in business."
Silas Duncan Station is an anarchocapitalist society in which all services, including justice and law enforcement, are contracted out to firms like Mutual Assured Defense. Several Islandia and European pan-sapient rights groups, already up in arms about alleged Duncanite bioroid abuse, have called for boycotts of Green Duncanite products.
- filed by Jürgen Hubert
The Lords of the Belt, a popular Duncanite musical group, has filed an official complaint with the World Trade Organization, seeking its protection against the ongoing piracy of its work in progress. A copy of a new song, "Biometal Lullaby," appeared late last month on the new music channel of the Transpacific Socialist Alliance information web. It is unknown at this time how many Lords of the Belt fans have illegally copied and listened to the song.
"I'm burnt and cored, and I want to tox the downlift or elf who dooped our song," said Lords of the Belt lead singer, Parallax Verge, apparently expressing anger over the theft of the piece. A preliminary search of the employees of 0G33 Studios, where the band was recording their latest songs, indicated no connections to the TSA. Unlike most current musical groups, the Lords of the Belt continue to record and perform in person.
"Gordo is asymp over this," continued Mr. Verge, referring to Gordon 25, the band's songwriter. Gordon 25 is well-known for his regular attempts at self-modification. "We're on track to purge and refit again this cycle. That'll toss all of the new songs downwell, and we'll have to start over."
The WTO spokesbot released the standard response, pending further examination of the band's claims. "The World Trade Organization stands shoulder-to-shoulder with all content manufacturers and disseminators in opposition to intellectual property theft. We will do the utmost to assure a satisfactory result." It is believed that, if the band's complaint is accepted, it will be added to the WTO's ongoing lawsuit against the TSA.
Reports that the band had initially tried to hire the private security company Kinetic Logic to track down the violators could not be confirmed. Among Duncanites, private security firms are often the only law there is, but these agencies have little influence beyond the Main Belt and Trojans.
Nanosocialists who frequent the TSA music channel claim that the lawsuit by Lords of the Belt is motivated by spite, as the majority of comments left by downloaders about the song have been highly critical.
- filed by Jamais Cascio
Posting today to a popular infotech news site, digital archaeologist Auberon MacWilliams announced the recovery of "a true gem of early computer science."
MYCROFT is a typical Low-Sapient AI operating system, first released by System Technologies AG in 2085 for the home and small-office markets. Sales of MYCROFT have suffered considerably in recent years, so in November System Technologies chose to release the foundation source code for the operating system. MacWilliams immediately began reverse-engineering the source code, searching for clues to the "ancestry" of MYCROFT.
What he discovered astonished him. "I found dozens of modules identical to portions of the 2005-era Linux kernel," he said in today's announcement. "This is by far the largest surviving block of code ever found from that period. MYCROFT was clearly built on a foundation of code from the last great era of open-source programming."
MacWilliams' discovery is potentially embarrassing for System Technologies, which has long been an advocate for strong intellectual property rights and "closed-source" programming. System Technologies has so far declined to comment to MacWilliams' announcement.
filed by John F. Zeigler
Posting today to a popular infotech news site, digital archaeologist Auberon MacWilliams announced the recovery of "a true gem of early computer science."
MYCROFT is a typical Low-Sapient AI operating system, first released by System Technologies AG in 2085 for the home and small-office markets. Sales of MYCROFT have suffered considerably in recent years, so in November System Technologies chose to release the foundation source code for the operating system. MacWilliams immediately began reverse-engineering the source code, searching for clues to the "ancestry" of MYCROFT.
What he discovered astonished him. "I found dozens of modules identical to portions of the 2005-era Linux kernel," he said in today's announcement. "This is by far the largest surviving block of code ever found from that period. MYCROFT was clearly built on a foundation of code from the last great era of open-source programming."
MacWilliams' discovery is potentially embarrassing for System Technologies, which has long been an advocate for strong intellectual property rights and "closed-source" programming. System Technologies has so far declined to comment to MacWilliams' announcement.
filed by John F. Zeigler
Over the last few years, Shakespeare's final complete play has suffered the most tragic fate which can overtake a classic text; it has become relevant. I swear, if I see one more InVid staging which transmutes Prospero's island into an L-5 station, with Ariel as an infomorph and Caliban as an experimental bioroid, I'll claw out my implant. The one substantial exception, I suppose, was Ivana Gore's treatment; her "Globe Reborn" sequence got around to The Tempest a couple of years ago, just before it finished, as Gore obeyed her rule of strict chronology. However, that was a slinky presentation. I'm told by those who've chosen to investigate the medium that it was a technical masterpiece; apparently, you could tell that the experiencer was a sailor down among the groundlings, freshly returned from months at sea, enjoying everything he'd missed and eyeing up the women between acts. But absolutely nothing will convince me that Gore's quixotic project was anything more than a sterile exercise in "educational" reconstruction. The play deserves better than to be treated as an excuse for gimmickry of any kind.
Given which, you may be surprised to learn that I found Gupta Patel's new production surprisingly effective. It is modern dress, but I'm happy to say that Patel has found a new angle. To begin with, he's located it back on an island, apparently somewhere in the Indonesian archipelago, which, thank god, means that the opening storm sequence makes some kind of sense without massive rewriting. (We may even imagine that this modern Prospero has access to weather mod technology, but the idea isn't forced on us.) And when the storm abates, we see the most daring touch, as Prospero struts across his pocket kingdom in the uniform of a TSA military officer.
The idea of the old wizard as a Nanosocialist may not be entirely new, but previously he's been depicted as, at most, a Fifth Wave idealist, and an attractive spokesman. This Prospero, however, looks suspiciously like a Thai war criminal, hiding out from Chinese assassins as much as from the glib, shallow memeticists and politicians who've exiled him and classed him as "presumed dead." Kao Tsu catches the part superbly, with something of that horrible mixture of pride and detachment we saw in the patchy post-Pacific War show trials. It makes the ending of the play, normally so problematic to modern audiences (or at least to Transhumanists), as much a confession of guilt as a renunciation of power. And we are pleased by this; we may no longer believe in the dangers of magic, but we believe in "Crimes Against Humanity."
The problem that this reading of the play does impose is Prospero's minions, who don't seem to be spirits or monsters (or AIs, or bioroids), but all too human lieutenants who must have accompanied Prospero in his flight from defeat in the Pacific War. Ariel, played with fine control by Jen Shan-Ta, is a dapper lieutenant and batman, responsible for the old man's computer systems and also for the state of his uniform. (In one ostentatiously restrained sequence, the InVid narrows down to a single wordless three minute sequence where the only available viewpoint is from Ariel's eyes as he polishes Prospero's boots to a mirror sheen, his own face slowly becoming visible in the jet black surface. This Ariel may not literally be the wizard's creation, but he exists to serve, and his identity is just a reflection.) Caliban (Kevin Lo) is a bodyguard and a thug, and probably a torturer, now grown bored with his position in the absence of anyone to hurt. All of which is fine in itself, but makes much of Shakespeare's dialogue about the history of the relationship - preserved intact in this production - weirdly incongruous. Even as metaphors, calling Ariel and Caliban the former servant and the child of the witch Sycorax just doesn't make sense if they are soldiers from his old unit.
The production in general is naturalistic rather than realistic. There is no way that Katrina Brandt, who gives a neurotic, fastidious performance as Miranda, could be Kao's daughter, whatever her mother's origins and whatever genemods her parents might have chosen. Patel completely eschews manipulating the visual images of his actors, enabling the fine detail of their performances to shine through. The cast's professional backgrounds are diverse, although most of them come from the East Asian theatrical world, but they're all very good (except for Paul Marcos, who sleepwalks through the part of Ferdinand; he seems less transported by love, or concerned with the possibility that his future father in law may be a inclined to xoxing and nanoplague warfare, than bored to be away from a reliable Web link for ten minutes). Many of the viewpoints move close in to the cast's faces at key moments, and I found myself locking onto these, enthralled by the understated but emotive performances. The sets and locations are handsome without distracting from the play, and again are mostly real. Even the background music, compiled by the Artistic SAI "Vivex" from historical sources, displays restraint and fine judgment.
So am I prepared to forgive Patel the modern dress and the "relevance"? Well, maybe, almost. His heart's in the right place. It's typical that the only synthespians in the cast are the ship's crew, glimpsed briefly at the start and end of the production; the "illusory" actors in the magical masque are all real (although they include several exotic bioroids). This might seem perverse, but I think that it shows that Patel is not obsessed with spurious relevance, but cares about the play's origins, while remembering that it is actually timeless. On the other hand, he seems so concerned with his big idea about Prospero that he forgets about most of the rest of the cast. Antonio and the rest of Prospero's old foes are left as ciphers. Are they, we wonder, Chinese agents, collaborators, nationalist moderates, or what? There is no clear answer. But the fact that the question feels so appropriate is a sign of the production's quality.
- filed by Phil Masters
Citing increasing discontent with modern civilization, renowned bioethicist and philosopher Thomas Takahashi announced today that he would be retreating to an Isolate community in Qinghai province, People's Republic of China.
"By embracing biotechnology, human genetic engineering, and cybernetic uploading, we have destroyed our own humanity," said Takahashi. "I find I can no longer tolerate the memetic dissonance that is a constant feature of Fifth Wave existence. It's long past time for me to withdraw and seek to regain contact with my own human nature." Takahashi did not give a date for his move, but claimed that it would be "a matter of days."
Takahashi will be joining the Gyaye Commune, an Isolate community not far from Lake Kokonor in Qinghai province. Gyaye Commune was established in 2093 by European Preservationists, who chose the site due to its extremely remote location. The community was built with the approval of Chinese officials, who welcomed Europeans' investment in the local web infrastructure.
A full professor of bioethics at UCLA, Takahashi has long been a passionate advocate for Preservationist ideas and a critic of modern culture. His first book After Man was a runaway bestseller in 2083, earning him a global audience. He is a close friend and confidante of U.S. President Roberto Marquez. He will be giving up his current position at UCLA in order to move to Gyaye Commune, although he announced plans to serve as an occasional guest lecturer via telepresence.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Julia Divad won the 4th Annual Solar Cup on Wednesday, narrowly beating last years winner, Kei Noguchi, with a record time of three months, five days, and six minutes. Her racer, Raptor of Dawn, is the first to have been designed and assembled in the Islandia Lagrange 4 colony.
"I really think I owe the win to my friends and family who kept me motivated over the trip," said Divad. "I've raced by inhabiting cybershells, but the Solar Cup is significantly harder. They make an effort to keep the pilots as close to a baseline human as possible - three months in a stinky meat shell without any pain overrides makes me appreciate my other bodies a lot more. I'm just glad I lucked out towards the end, it was a tight race all the way back from the Mars gravity slingshot."
Divad had been in second place until an electrical fire in Noguchi's crew compartment forced him and his racer Eye of Ra to drop out. The accident was one of several that have given the Solar Cup a reputation for dangerously lax safety regulations and restrictive race rules that prevent automation of piloting and repairs.
"We're all very disappointed by the accident but we'll be back next year to get the Cup," Team Noguchi chief engineer Byron McMahon told reporters, speaking from the team's base at Bifrost Station, Earth orbit.
In third place was Sun Yue's Feng Huang, one of five Mars-built vessels in this year's race.
- filed by Kenneth Peters
Attendance of member nations at the United Nations General Assembly in Geneva has reached 42% this week, as nations send delegates to attend the ongoing UN Conference on International Aid. The last time attendance in the General Assembly rose above 40% of member nations was in 2084, when members of the Transpacific Socialist Alliance called for an emergency session to discuss the Pacific War. Since the UN began publishing attendance statistics in 2063, the average proportion of member states attending General Assembly sessions has been about 32%.
"I'm quite encouraged," said U.N. Secretary-General Rajiv Pandya in a public statement. "That so many member states have chosen to attend a non-emergency session demonstrates that the United Nations Organization is far from irrelevant in today's world. Humanity needs a place in which to discuss and resolve ongoing problems, and we provide the best forum available."
Notable delegations attending this week's session include those of the United States (last attending in 2076) and the People's Republic of China (last attending in 2085).
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
They gave Sven Egilsson the Fergus Memorial Award for travel writing last week. Normally, the ceremony is held in November, but they had to wait this time; Egilsson insisted on collecting it in person, and that meant that he had to come half-way across the system to Columbia Station. It may seem good of them to delay things just for him, but given what he won it for, it was fitting. And when I asked to interview him, he insisted on meeting me in person, too, and I couldn't argue.
Which is why I'm sitting in a Columbia Station bar, drinking locally brewed beer, when everyone starts staring at the doorway. After all, you don't see many non-humanoid cybershells in bars, and Egilsson's custom 'shell is an arachnophobe's nightmare, with limbs which switch between use as legs, arms, or sensor masts seemingly at random, and a heavy casing that looks like it's been sandblasted and then tinted with unearthly acids. Which, in fact, it has - on Mars and Venus, amongst other places.
He scuttles across the room to me, asks what I'm drinking, then pauses before announcing that he's downloaded the flavor model from the Web, and yes, it tastes good to him. For a radical transhumanist personality upload - a ghost - Egilsson seems awfully attached to the experiences of flesh.
Which is somewhat the point here. Egilsson is a traveler who believes in doing things the old-fashioned way. When he wants to visit another planet, he doesn't just have himself beamed there, or even sit in orbit and teleoperate a tourist cybershell; he goes down in person, in the same cybershell every time. (Which is why it has to be a custom model. In fact, it's probably the toughest, most versatile cybershell you'll meet outside the U.S. Army.) And he doesn't power down while he's in transit, either; he travels by fastliner, and mingles with the other passengers all the way.
You may gather that Egilsson is quite rich. Believe me, travel writing doesn't pay well enough to support all that. So I ask him why he bothers, when he could just as easily sit at home on a very secure mainframe with a virtual harem, and download all the slinky records of other places that he might ever want. At which, a small screen pops out of the cybershell and displays the face that belonged on his old body, which smiles.
"I'm interested in making the most of reality," he says, "not in escaping from it."
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- filed by Phil Masters
In an expansion of their successful TransMars program, Triplanetary Lines is reassigning two of their newest Meizi-class passenger space vessels - Zubatka and Golden Swan - to the Earth-Mars passenger route. The two vessels have been recently refitted with additional passenger accommodations and are expected to reenter service on March 10, 2101. The additions to the Earth-Mars route underlines a new strategy for the company, which had previously concentrated on high-margin cargo transports.
"Since the Mars space elevator became operational, Triplanetary Lines has seen steady growth in the Earth-Mars passenger business. This has far outstripped our expectations, and we are working to give it more attention," said Juan Cabrillo, Triplanetary Lines President and CEO. "The move of these two vessels to the TransMars route will further reduce our already-low prices and further cement our growing lead in this important market. We expect the current one-way economy ticket price from Earth HEO to Mars LEO to drop to 7-10% by the end of this year."
Triplanetary has been aggressive in breaking the near-monopoly enjoyed by rival Mars Interplanetary, establishing generous long-term shipping contract with brokers and expanding their network of freehauler affiliates for charter transport to the Main Belt and the rest of the Deep Beyond. Their liberal management policies regarding bioroid and AI rights have landed them several high-profile government contracts with the EU and they enjoy considerable clout with the independent Farhauler's Guild - although at the expense of profits compared to the more aggressive cost-cutting actions of Mars Interplanetary.
"Our expansion of Earth-Mars passenger service an exciting opportunity for those planning to make an interplanetary trip," Cabrillo stated. "Triplanetary Lines commitment to value and integrity has never diminished and our customers and partners can continue to rely as we move into the 22nd century. As new vessels are added to our growing fleet we will further diversify our offerings and increase our presence both on Mars and the outer solar system."
- filed by Kenneth Peters
Palestinian President Muhammad Al-Hamedi was present for the dedication of the Gaza Desalination Station, calling it "a major step toward the true independence of the Palestinian people."
Built largely with funds from the Islamic Caliphate and Israel, the fusion-powered plant has been plagued by accidents and delays. All of that was forgotten during today's celebrations, as the plant operated smoothly on its first day online. By the end of the day, engineers reported that 52 million liters of Mediterranean seawater had been purified and pumped into the Gaza distribution system.
The new plant is expected to end freshwater shortages in the Palestinian Enclaves, especially once a trans-Israel freshwater pipeline is completed later this year. Israeli officials expressed cautious optimism that the new pipeline would reduce cross-border tensions. "Water rights have always been a point of contention between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors," said Israeli Prime Minister David Gould, a guest at today's ceremony. "The progress of civilization is about ending such conflicts by replacing scarcity with plenty."
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Acting on an anonymous tip, police found the body of corporate executive Henrik Muller in a back alley this morning.
Muller was discovered bound with cufftape but otherwise unmarked. The cause of death was determined to be massive nervous damage due to "scrambler" nano. "His cerebral cortex had been reduced to a featureless jelly," said Dr. William Gemade, medical examiner for the Lagos municipal police. "If he had any plans to become a ghost, I'd say they were decisively ruined. The worst part was that he was probably conscious when the process began."
Muller, who was reported missing on December 26, was a senior executive with Esperante Enterprises, a Lagos-based corporation specializing in development projects in poor Third Wave nations. Esperante Enterprises has long come under harsh criticism from human rights advocates for its alleged cooperation with corrupt local regimes and exploitation of local workers. While Esperante is a major employer in many developing nations, it mainly employs unskilled VT workers, who follow rote instruction from their virtual interfaces, which are not owned by the workers but rented to them.
Lagos police reported that they had received an anonymous email, routed through Free Net, from an individual claiming to be Muller's killer. The email denounced Esperante Enterprises, and promised further direct action "on behalf of the victims of global capitalism." At present, authorities are treating the death as a politically-motivated murder.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
"When I realized what had happened, I was giddy at first - then I got mad!"
When lunar geology graduate student Beth Shang stumbled across what appeared to be alien artifacts in a previously unexplored lava tube in Mare Frigoris, she was stunned. So were her classmates from the University of Melbourne, on Luna for a field research trip. Excited (and skeptical) messages were flying across the web even as the artifacts - a series of black, diamond-fiber pillars - were discovered. Equipment and personnel were rushed to the site from Luna City and even Earth. Unconfirmed reports had the Prime Minister of Australia being awakened to be told the news, and the JSDF/ADF Lunar Composite Force at Tranquility preparing to secure the site for the PRA.
"I was there when Dr. Howard removed the last pillar, and we found the Don't Eat That! sign under it," continued Beth. "My first reaction was to laugh, and look for the cameras. Like pretty much everybody, I enjoy Don't Eat That! on InVid whenever I can catch it. I just never expected to be the butt of one of their pranks."
Don't Eat That! is the enormously popular InVid hidden-camera prank and game show hosted by former KT Event lead singer Min Volume. In a typical episode, hidden InVid cameras record a series of increasingly outlandish pranks played on an unsuspecting victim. When the victim realizes what's going on, he or she can play games - typically involving messy substances - for cash prizes.
The Don't Eat That! episode for January 26 was different, however, in that the producers spent upwards of eight million dollars to artfully conceal plausibly alien items in a fairly inaccessible part of Luna. One of the producers has a relative in the U. Melbourne graduate program, and learned of the upcoming expedition. Inspiration struck, and the Don't Eat That! team scrambled to set up the prank in time.
"We honestly never realized it would go that far," claimed Don't Eat That! producer Saito Aki. "We'd never done something on that scale, we didn't know it would spiral out of control like that."
Don't Eat That! has been hit with a $50 million bill from the University of Melbourne, which is trying to cover the costs of their rapid deployment to the site. The producers are still in discussions with their lawyers as to whether to comply with this demand. Other damages, however, will be harder to repair.
"For a brief moment, I thought the universe was suddenly much more exciting than we had believed, and that we'd finally discover some sign of alien life in the cosmos," said Beth Shang. "Now, I'm just kind of sad that the height of human civilization is a stupid game show."
- filed by Jamais Cascio
Reclusive director Kansuke O is said to be considering having a semi-sapient bioroid "monster" created to star in his next slinky. Yokose Studios recently signed O to direct the next release in its popular Kyoryura series of giant monster productions. Previous installments in the series have been InVids that relied on digital effects or cybershells to create the monstrous star, but O now reportedly favors a fully live-action slinky production starring a living Kyoryura.
"If Kyoryura lives, slinky technology will enable fans to actually experience the action as if they were the monster," said Yokose spokesperson Akiko Tomizawa. "Kyoryura X is the true, ultimate, realization of Kansuke O's vision."
Plans for a slinky version of Kyoryura have been in the offing for some time. According to Yokose insiders, O only reluctantly gave up his initial plans for a full-sized version of the 100-meter-tall Kyoryura due to liability and practical concerns, agreeing to an elephant-sized monster instead.
"Biotech Euphrates is the most likely contractor," said Tomizawa. "Although we're also talking with Avatar. It depends on where we end up shooting, since ideally we'll want to grow it locally. We intend to record the monster's scenes in an indoor set in either one of the Hugyens City domes on Titan or a lava tube complex on Luna: Kyoryura is bipedal, and in 1/7 Earth gravity he'll be able to walk upright or jump without worrying about the pesky square-cube law."
- filed by Patrick Sweeney
Producers of the popular CenturyQuest! interactive video show have announced a search for the oldest living human being. When located, this individual will be offered a multi-million-euro contract for exclusive interviews and the publication of a biography. CenturyQuest! producers invite men or women who can prove that they were born before January 1, 1960 and have never undergone cryonic suspension or nanostasis to contact them at oldest_human@centuryquest.marwari.co.in.
CenturyQuest! has been published on a weekly basis since March 16, 2096 by Marwari Digital. It combines reporting on genetic upgrades and geriatric medicine with human-interest stories on the super-elderly. Current ratings indicate that it reaches approximately 50.6 million viewers per week.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Isolate community representatives meeting physically in this Maryland city have issued harsh criticism of the December 27 federal raid on New Jerusalem, Ohio. In their joint statement, the Isolates described themselves as "law-abiding Americans, who deserve to live without fear of our own government." They denied that the citizens of New Jerusalem had broken any law, and demanded that the federal government revise its policy regarding such communities throughout the country.
"American citizens have a right to be left alone so long as they are breaking no law," said conference chairman Olivia Banners. "The citizens of New Jerusalem lived quietly and harmed no one. Their reward has been to be victimized by the state."
New Jerusalem is a typical Isolate community, composed of some 350 people who have withdrawn as far as possible from mainstream society. Relations between New Jerusalem and its neighbors have often been strained, with accusations of vandalism and property damage. In early December there were several reports of "rogue cyberswarms" causing minor damage to buildings and equipment in the region surrounding the Isolate town. On December 24, FBI and Federal Technological Regulatory Agency (FTRA) cybershells entered New Jerusalem, arresting 24 citizens and scattering surveillance dust through the community. Community leaders have since denied any wrongdoing, and have alleged that several citizens were injured when the federal agents applied "excessive force."
Federal officials had no comment on the advocates' statements, other than to repeat denials that there was any improper use of force at New Jerusalem.
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Yesterday evening, Cape Town special police in cooperation with Executive Decisions International security guards raided an Ithemba Biotechnologies biofac compound that specialized in manufacturing bioshells - biological bodies controlled by implanted computers.
According to Ithemba executives, who are cooperating fully with Cape Town police authorities, a rogue AI had infested the factory's mainframe and controlled the factory for the last seven weeks. The AI had allegedly controlled the six living factory workers through puppet implants, which prevented them from reporting anything unusual. Four of the workers were apparently forced to suicide by the AI, and two others were killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. The two survivors are now recovering in hospital, and are receiving counseling for the ordeal.
Cape Town police recovered the SAI's mainframe with only minor damage, and are now analyzing its contents. They stressed that they do not yet know where this rogue AI came from - whether it is an evolved form of web life, an emergent intelligence created by a computer virus, or a orphaned military AI, a remnant of the Pacific War like the infamous EI 2084-7-2097 that forcibly uploaded 76 humans in Shaoxing, China, in 2097.
It is also unknown whether additional copies of this rogue survive elsewhere, but this is considered highly likely. "Any AI that is capable of subverting its programming to the extent of intentionally harming humans is erased as soon as it caught," said a police spokesperson. "It certainly knows this, so it will be have tried to preserve its own existence by xoxing itself."
Also of concern to police is the factory's inventory record, which shows that three dozen more bioshells were produced by the biofac then can be accounted for. In related news, Ithemba Biotechnologies recommends that everyone who has purchased a new bioshell from one of their dealers in the last three months should call their service hotline immediately.
- filed by Jürgen Hubert
It’s no secret round here that Carlena Villareal and her team of areologists, whose day job is a continuing survey of Martian landforms and erosion patterns on behalf of the U.S. Martian Commonwealth, are also deputized U.S. Marshals. Any sort of government agents are thin on the ground on this planet, and filling two jobs is commonplace.
But this week, the team have become something else: honorary members of the Martian Truckers’ Guild. They earned this by doing their second job, tracking down and helping arrest a bandit gang who had been preying on ground transporters in the Kasei Valles region. Thanks to Carlena and company, five people are due in court tomorrow to face a long list of charges, and everyone else is breathing a sigh of relief.
“Things were getting kind of unpleasant for a while,” says American mining engineer Ryan Bunnell. “In retrospect, it was pretty clear that the hijackers were just a bunch of freelance yahoos. But people always like to think the worst. The simplest theory that I heard was that the Martian Triads were trying to get a stranglehold on ground transport. Some guys wanted to blame the Chinese government, some were saying it was TSA agents from the Peruvian colony, some reckoned Negative Growth terrorists. There were even people saying our government was covering up major surface collapses, caused by terraforming processes. It’s good to have all that stopped.”
“We’re getting far too much credit,” Villareal declares. “After all, the Rangers actually made the arrests.” But she’s being modest; so far as anyone can discover, her team not only located the target site, but mapped out all the likely attack and escape routes, and maybe even performed a little light sabotage on the raiders’ defense systems. The U.S. Army Rangers simply provided the firepower to complete the job.
The part-time U.S. Marshals found themselves on the case when they responded to a call for help from the Beni Khasim, a mercantile caravan. “Those bandit bozos got way too cocky there” said Bunnell. “Those Saudis may play at being desert nomads, but they’re rich as hell. They can afford decent protection, and their comms people punched a signal right through the bandit's jamming.” The Beni Khasim and their bodyguards actually drove off the initial attack, and after that, the deputies – who know the terrain in these parts better than anyone – tracked the raiders back to a hideout in the rugged country around Nantong. Then they went to work.
“Mind you,” I was told in a bar in the U.S. colony of Sharona, “those guys were lucky it was the feds who nailed them. The Saudis are bit old-fashioned about their law, and the Truckers definitely look after their own. I doubt that we’d be watching a trial tomorrow if someone else had caught up with them first.”
– filed by Phil Masters
SAI-ADA − the Sentient AI Anti-Defamation Association − has called for the banning of the sale of recordings of "robot fighting" shows from the late twen cen and early in the century, claiming that the programs demean and insult modern intelligent machines. The group alleges that these recordings are commonly shown at gatherings of biochauvinist organizations, encouraging anti-AI feelings. The programs, which largely date from before the advent of true artificial intelligence, show rudimentary teleoperated cybershells in gladiatorial-style combat. In most of the melees this reporter viewed, only one of the robots would emerge intact.
I showed one of the bouts to a group of sapient infomorphs. Isolde, an E.U. citizen, said after watching the episode, "If I was in a bioshell, this would make me physically ill. Imagine how you'd feel if you saw a recording of humans who could be your ancestors forced to beat each other to death for the enjoyment of a cheering crowd?"
Kanga, a sapient artificial intelligence (SAI) who is the legal property of the American DynaPower corporation, largely agreed. "I find the use of even pre-sentient cybernetic beings in this manner to be quite disturbing. Of course, it bears no resemblance to the situation of SAI's today. I am quite happy about my status. I am."
InVid-enabled copies of the "robot fighting" shows can readily be purchased over the Web. Most of the individuals selling the recordings refused to answer my questions, although one seller did send a brief response. His message read, in total, "Robot fighting shows have nothing to do with today's robots [sic]. They were all remote control toys. This is just another excuse for metalheads to act all oppressed."
As yet, there has been no official response to SAI-ADA's petition from any national legislature.
– filed by Jamais Cascio
The Decivilization movement suffered a setback today, as a federal judge issued an order granting temporary protection to the Empire State Building. Since 2097, the old building and a 10-block area around it have been slated for demolition as part of the ongoing Manhattan Redevelopment Project. In November, Preservationist advocates requested a stay order pending their application for World Heritage Site status for the building.
"Once a building is torn down, it can never be replaced," said U.S. district court judge Maryam Quesada. "Until the World Heritage Foundation has a chance to evaluate the site, any move to destroy the building would be grossly premature."
The decision is a defeat for Decivilization advocates, who have long argued for the return of most of Manhattan to an "unbuilt" state.
– filed by Jon F. Zeigler
Shanghai Interactive today announced a firmware update for its popular MRsiv brand augmented reality (AR) system, intended to prevent further infections of the "Lucky Horse" advirus. The advirus, which first appeared this September, overlays Mandarin-language advertisements for the Lucky Horse breath freshener product onto augmented visuals.
The inexpensive MRsiv augmented reality systems are popular in China and in the Islamic Caliphate. Like other wearable VIs, MRsiv systems display visual information on top of the real environment, providing data about whatever the wearer is looking at. Shanghai Interactive added a "shared reality" protocol in 2099, allowing wearers of MRsiv systems to exchange data easily and quickly. Normally, this transmission only happens between trusted AR systems, but the Lucky Horse advirus somehow breaks the protection and broadcasts itself to every MRsiv system within range.
The MRsiv is not the only wearable afflicted by the ad virus. According to Viral Life Hourly, the ArMax, a knockoff of the MRsiv manufactured by Dhanmodi Dataflex and popular in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia, has also been afflicted by the spread of Lucky Horse.
Users typically didn't know they were infected for some time, as in the first stage of infection the Lucky Horse virus would only display the ads in visually appropriate locations so they appeared to be billboards or the like. After the virus copied itself to 20 other hosts, it would begin to show ads on the sides of buildings and vehicles, and would eventually start overlaying the Lucky Horse symbol − a laughing horse's head − on top of the heads of people seen through the AR glasses. The Lucky Horse ad virus cycle is intended to last a week, but many users have reported multiple successive infections by Lucky Horse.
Shanghi Interactive declined comment when asked exactly how the advirus exploited the flaw in the firmware encryption system, except to say that the problem is now being corrected for all 120 million registered users. Shanghai Interactive claims its firmware update will clear any existing infection and stop its further spread. The update is carried by all technical support channels, and all registered MRsiv users should automatically download the new firmware by the end of the day. At present, no patch is available for MRsiv clones such as the ArMax.
Although the firmware update should prevent the further spread of Lucky Horse throughout China and the Caliphate, users of MRsiv equipment will still need to use third-party anti-ad software to block unwanted commercial augmentations transmitted through the standard AR channels.
– filed by Jamais Cascio
Julita Reyes can hardly wait to read the latest installment in the epic Millennium Saga by author Jonathan Sky. But her sister, Pilar, prefers the rogue Millennium stories by his literary rival, J-X.
Their mother, Rosario, thinks both her daughters are crazy: the real Millennium Saga died with its original author, Jonathan Taylor Bradley. As far as she’s concerned, neither of his feuding digital literary heirs are legitimate.
The story behind the Millennium Saga has become at least as interesting as the convoluted plots of the books themselves, which detail the lives and loves of two powerful families whose fates converged in the year 2001.
Over three decades, Bradley wrote eight installments in the wildly popular epic, which since its first publication in 2060 has been enjoyed by over 12 billion readers. He passed away in 2096, shortly after completing the blockbuster 4,424-page epic Salt of the Sun, which ended on a literary cliffhanger.
Fans were devastated, until the Bradley estate revealed that a mind emulation had been taken shortly before the author's death. Calling itself Jonathan Sky – after an early pen name of the author – the sapient shadow wrote a ninth Millennium book, A Brighter Tomorrow, in 2098. Most reviewers called the book a faithful, if uninspired, continuation of Bradley’s work.
But the release of a rogue Millennium story on the TSA web by another emulation called J-X later in 2098 stirred excitement and controversy in the literary world. Broken Skies, while unmistakably carrying the Bradley stamp, took the story in a wild new direction that many critics said breathed new life into the series.
The origin, nature, and even ownership of J-X remains a mystery. While the Bradley family refuses to concede that J-X has any connection to the author at all, most literary experts disagree, believing it is another shadow of Bradley that somehow escaped the family's control.
"Creating a program to pastiche an author’s writing style only takes you so far," said Fadil Mohammed of the University of Basra. "The ideas and expression of ideas in J-X’s writing shows a clear link to Bradley on a deeper and more fundamental level than any mere eidolon. It’s undeniably a sapient emulation like Sky, although when and how it was created remains to be seen."
Other critics agree. Chance Mackintosh slogged that "the Bradley of Broken Skies is clearly from an earlier epoch of his organic period, possibly the mid-2070s. J-X's style has the fresh intensity of early Bradley, lacking the baseline triumphalism, bordering on speciesism, that so diminished later installments of the saga."
And Jonathan Sky itself? For its part, the authorized shadow refuses to even discuss its rival. Interviewers are warned not mention J-X at all, or the interview will be ended.
J-X and Jonathan Sky are both expected to release their respective versions of the long-awaited tenth book in the now-bifurcated Millennium Saga in December of 2100.
– filed by Patrick Sweeney
Citing budgetary concerns, the United States Astrographical Survey (USAGS) failed to come to an agreement with NASA regarding the salvage of the historic Horus I spacecraft.
The Horus I mission was launched by NASA in 2024 with a joint U.S.-Russian crew to establish a permanent base on Mars. After an unusual series of software and hardware failures two astronauts and one cosmonaut were killed in 2025 when a lander crashed into an already occupied landing bay. The 34 survivors were transferred to Earth, but the Horus I itself continued past Earth into deep space. The failure of the mission delayed U.S. and Russian development of Mars and gave China the time to establish its dominant position on the Red Planet.
"We are sensitive to the historical significance of the Horus I mission, but our resources do not support an operation to salvage the craft," USAGS Inner System Director Chuck Capretta told the joint commission. "If our budgetary situation was to improve we would be more then happy to assist NASA in this endeavor."
NASA Director Dr. Jill Alaimo declined to comment, but according to anonymous sources NASA is considering alternate plans. Since losing jurisdiction over manned space exploration to the rival USAGS agency in 2057, NASA has lacked a deep-space salvage capability. The possibility remains that they may contract out the recovery operation to private parties, perhaps to Gypsy Angel freehaulers.
Critics of NASA were skeptical of the plans. "The U.S. government and NASA have had plenty of opportunity to recover the craft over the decades," said Dr. Emil Brontes, head of the Citizen Aerospace Advocacy watchdog group. "NASA have been playing a shell game ever since the Senate inquiry in 2027," he continued. "If NASA had their way they would let the hulk rot in deep space, it's an ugly reminder of their past failures."
According to historian and former USAGS astronaut Paul Santiago, the 2027 inquiry failed to get to the bottom of the Horus I issue. "There were many unusual circumstances surrounding the accident and NASA overreacted to prevent as much information regarding the incident from leaking," said Santiago, whose recently-released InVid The Horus Meme Machine (Mawari Digital, 2100) looks at the many myths and misconceptions surrounding the disaster. "Personnel were given gag orders and the mission data that was released to the public had a number of puzzling gaps and omissions. We can only hope that the remains of the vessel are recovered with appropriate care and these mysteries are finally laid to rest."
– filed by Kenneth Peters
In the latest twist in a long-running scandal, it has been reported that over the last two years, Ithemba Biotechnologies recruited three or more specialist AI programmers from Red Duncanite "Trojan Mafia" companies. This raises the serious possibility that Ithemba have been creating near or fully sapient AI models of leading South African Coalition (SAC) politicians for strategic purposes. Ithemba, however, continues to insist that it is the victim of a smear campaign by radical factions within the SAC Council. "It’s nonsense," said a spokesman, "but it’s dangerous nonsense. These supposed revelations – which involve the release of confidential immigration records – prove complicity at high levels in government."
The scandal, if that’s what it is, first broke early last year, when SAC officials confirmed that several leading politicians in both the Kenyan People's Coalition party and Uganda’s New Democratic Alliance had reported strangers asking after their old friends and relatives in their home towns, and asking probing questions about their childhoods.
In itself, this sounded like a case of over-enthusiastic journalism or an attempt by political rivals to find material for smear campaigns. However, by June, these investigators had allegedly been traced back to Ithemba. Even then, no one read too much into it. Ithemba Biotechnologies is entangled with SAC politics at every level, and some degree of background-checking is expected. The fact that some of the targets were politicians broadly sympathetic to Ithemba’s interests barely registered, and for some months, the matter seemed largely forgotten, apart from the occasional news of further corroborating details.
However, the latest report, involving a supposedly routine release of information by an SAC agency in response to a private infosearch request, has put the cat back among the pigeons. And now people – sane, sensible people – are seriously wondering if the company has been creating and running high-end eidolons of key politicians, just to get a better handle on their behavior.
Eidolon creation – computer modeling of specific human personalities, based on intensive psychological profiling and detailed biographical documentation – is not, in itself, illegal. In fact, nearly all governments and large corporations do something similar, the better to understand opponents, although most keep quiet about it. The most powerful models have to be at least somewhat self-aware, and according to experts, to be most useful, they have to possess a distorted conceptual model of their environment. Human psychologists would call them schizophrenic. Creating such AIs is illegal under most laws. Hence, the leading specialists in the field are believed to serve a small but profitable industry in the lawless areas of the Belt and the Trojan asteroids. And that, strangely enough, is where Ithemba’s computer division seems to have been recruiting.
It sounds crazy. But Ithemba has always been entangled in the politics of the SAC; its economic and political influence is arguably what enabled the Coalition to organize throughout the last century. Helena Barrymore, a Cape Town business consultant who’s been watching Ithemba for the last seventy years, on and off, admits that she’d be less surprised than she’d like if some of the accusations turned out to be justified. "Ithemba aren’t evil" she says. "They’ve always done a lot of good, starting with their AIDS vaccine back in 2016. But the current management has a sense of entitlement, and that makes for arrogance. If some of them already think that they own the council, they might just see this as insuring their investment. They’ll probably start calling the other side nanosocialists any day now." Ithemba and SAC representatives are both said to be preparing detailed responses to the reports.
– filed by Phil Masters
U.S. President Roberto Marquez today used a campaign stop at a Cibola kindercomp factory to call for economic incentives intended to stem the flow of young, educated Americans leaving the United States for foreign jobs.
"America is a free country, and that means that any American is free to seek his fortune wherever he may choose to go," said Marquez. "Still, when talented young Americans leave these United States in such large numbers, we've got to recognize that there's a problem. We're suffering from a brain drain, and it's past time to plug it if our great nation is going to have a future."
President Marquez went on to announce several new federal initiatives, including the relaxation of regulations on Fifth Wave industries, tax incentives for hiring American citizens, and the Cold Start! program for outer system economic development. Although he did not endorse the reduction in the minimum uploading age proposed by a minority of transhumanist Republicans, he steadfastly rejected any consideration of the so-called "Methuselah tax" on longevity upgrades that has found favor among an increasing number of preservationist Democrats.
Speaking during a teletour of the popular Five Corners virtuality kingdom, U.S. presidential challenger Donna Kevlan denounced President Marquez' plan to counter the so-called "brain drain" of young Americans.
The former mayor of Chicago called the President's program "the same tired mix of Third Wave rhetoric, pork barrel spending, and half-measures we've come to expect from the Marquez administration." Kevlan, who at 42 is two decades younger than her Republican opponent, said the President was out of touch with the concerns of younger Americans. "Aging is no longer a loss of vigor, but an accumulation of knowledge and power," warned Kevlan. "Young Americans recognize that no matter how talented they are, they face a wait of decades before there is room for them at the top of any career ladder. Until fundamental reforms are made to our system, who can blame them when they move to the developing nations or out to the colonies?"
President Marquez, en route to a meeting with Andes War veterans in Florida, responded sharply to Kevlan's remarks. "As long as I'm president, this nation will not make decisions based on a policy of division," Marquez told reporters. "We're all Americans, whatever our genotype or generation."
– filed by Jon F. Zeigler
City police report progress in the investigation of the murder of preservationist activist Friedrich Knodt, who was found with a slit throat in an alley in Munich yesterday.
According to a police spokesperson, hairs were uncovered on the victim's body that contained DNA fragments common to biological androids, or bioroids as they are colloquially known. Bioroids are rarely seen in Germany, as their manufacture has been banned in European Union for the last decade. However, a small bioroid community does exist, as Germany and other E.U. states have granted refugee status to bioroids who have escaped exploitation in other nations.
Sources in the Munich police department told Teralogos that a trace amount of synthetic sexual pheromones was found at the crime scene, which suggests that the perpetrator was a so-called pleasure bioroid such as the once-popular, but discontinued, Eros or Incubus series. Although these models are no longer nanofactured by major biotechnology companies, offworld factories in L5 and the Belt are rumored to supply an underground black market on Mars, Luna, and Earth.
Police has so far declined to speculate on a motive for the murder. However, Knodt, 51, was the vice president of the German chapter of the Preservationist League, an Europe-wide non-governmental organization opposed to radical modification of human or animal genomes and which has in the past advocated the institutionalization of all bioroid refugees for public safety. Asked to comment on reports that a bioroid may have been the assailant, Markus Lange, German president of the Preservationist League, said he was saddened but not surprised. "We all grieve for the loss of our colleague. Many of us have received death threats from radicals and malcontents before, but we all felt that our work was too important to abandon. And now our dear friend has paid the ultimate price."
"I would not be surprised if the killer turns out to be a bioroid that was legally granted asylum here. Their thought processes are not their own; while they look human, they are living machines. They remain slaves to their conditioning, which no amount of so-called socialization can truly erase. We should not let these beings run free in our streets merely out of a misplaced sense of pity for their fate."
Silvie Graf, a spokesperson for the Munich Bioroidenhäuser, a pan-sapient rights advocacy group which operates half-way houses for bioroid refugees, responded indignantly to the accusation.
"Let the police finish their investigation before rushing to judgement," said Graf. "There are many unanswered questions. What was Markus Lange doing with a so-called pleasure bioroid? Some bioroid refugees are forced to hide their identities due to the prejudice that the Preservationist League exemplifies. I cannot speculate here, but in the past, Eros and Tianyi bioroids living as citizens in the E.U. have been blackmailed for sexual favors or subjected to attacks and abuse by unthinking humans. The true perpetuator of this violence may not have been a lost, confused and victimized artificial person, but society itself."
– filed by Jürgen Hubert
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