1. |
0.0: Prelude
01:12
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UNENDING PROGRESS HAS ENDED; EARTH IS BUT HUMANITY’S URN; DUSK DAWNS ON AN ASHEN WORLD
Dawn: a fleeting memory of a forgotten race. Humanity drifts through existence as a shadow. Their lofty aim to progress was thwarted by their untempered lust for control. Man gained the whole world but lost its soil. What remains but to resign to dust?
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2. |
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“Is this the way it ends? How did we fall so far?” John’s mind wanders to Daedalus as he surveys his dismal workshop. Before the Decline, he was a gifted mechanical engineer, but what does that matter now? Each year brings more decline, yet another rung down Maslow’s hierarchy, ever descending into nomadness.
“NO--I’m still breathing. Standing on my last leg is still standing.” John’s body lurches to his bench, taking inventory of his dusty supplies. Rusty multi-tool, check. Calipers, check.
“I’ve done as much with less. This could work.” Muscle memory takes over, and John takes flight. A bearing here, a servo there. “This is shaping up.”
“Better than nothing. A good start.” Exhaustion hits John like a tidal wave. Knowing this pace is unsustainable, he retires for the night. If this is to be Man’s swan song, he intends to finish it before it finishes him.
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3. |
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Man’s final invention, stowed away in a barren workshop: an amalgamation of mechanisms and kinematics working together in an autonomous machine. A robot.
A dull but unceasing throb defeats John’s nocturnal ambitions. “Too much excitement.” Adrenalized spirit reanimates his battered body and carries him to his workshop. The morning light illuminates the overwhelming magnitude of his unfinished work.
“What happened here? It was all so clear yesterday.” John’s robot moves and beeps and follows commands. It works as designed--an utter failure. “Unimaginative beings yield uninspired works.”
To preserve humanity in the wake of humans will demand every ounce of his being. A slave to his fate, John toils, clinging to a dim hope that the spark won’t be extinguished.
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4. |
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Progress. Progress. Progress...toward what? Is creation for the creator’s sake really progressive? We had machines before the Decline, and machines will be here when we’re gone...clanking, beeping, operating. But my robots will do more.
So what? Their “thoughts” are mere echoes, shadows of my own, mechanically repeating my own infinite imperfection. Even if the echo is indiscernible from the source, we gain nothing. I don’t want them to fall as we did; I want LIFE to spring from their core.
People cling to this miserable life with diminishing vigor. I once thought myself to be above such despair, but now I fear I fare no better. If I can’t save us, what’s the point? I’m nothing but a workhorse, working my ass off to conceive a sterile successor. What’s the point….
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5. |
1.3: bit x bit
00:48
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John has accomplished what he set out to do, but he regards it as a hollow victory. He had hoped for so much more.
While John sleeps, his robots murmur with the sounds of production in infancy.
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6. |
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Cacophony gives way to monotony; multiplicity, to autonomy. Who gets to draw the line between creation and rendition? Is it better to be uniquely flawed or perfectly ordinary?
John’s robots move with precision bereft of passion.
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7. |
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“My time has come.” John’s dreams have amounted to a cold heap of scrap with no more feeling than the dust to which he will soon resign. This was to be his magnum opus, something worthy of mankind’s legacy--but it bears no resemblance to man. “Hell, maybe it’s better that way.”
John hammers away, heedless of any harm he’s hazarding on his creation. BOOM. TOCK. BOOM. He quickens the pace. BOOMBOOMBOOM TOCK TOCK BOOM THWACK.
“I’M FINISHED!”
John’s workshop is in shambles. The floor is strewn with scraps and tools. His newest creation lies in a corner, for the moment, motionless.
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8. |
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2.2.0: Man’s resounding swan song invades John’s being. He joins the chorus, and his voice is lost in the sea of sorrow.
2.2.1: “My time has come.” Atom powers on and sees the two poles of his existence: John, the flawed individual, and his brethren, the perfect masses. “Where do I belong?”
2.2.2: “Am I a man, or am I a robot? I can think…. I think I can feel. I feel no chains weighing, no strings pulling. I can DANCE!”
2.2.3: Atom springs to his feet! He giddily takes his first steps and falls from the excitement. “Again!” He can hear it now--the whole world cheering him on. “I won’t let you down!” He takes it slowly this time. One foot in front of the other. “Yes.”
2.2.4: John observes the scene with indifference. “This one can barely stand.” ... “Wait--I didn’t program it to stand.” He musters the energy for a pyrrhic smile.
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9. |
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The culmination of two hundred thousand years of reckless progression.
A man resides in the lonely company of his creation. His achievement will be unsung by his peers; any success will be realized posthumously. John withers at the window, watching his world fade away.
Each steady beat of John’s heart amplifies Atom’s apprehension. He wants to reach out, but he doesn’t know how to bridge the gap between such a high level being and his lowly self. “Life is music, father! Can’t you hear it?”
Atom sees his peers persisting indifferently. “They don’t understand. I’ll help them.”
“God knows I tried.” John marches to oblivion, humanity close at heel.
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10. |
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The Father is dead, but The Son powers on.
Atom sees the workshop where his father poured his soul. He sees the robots who stand to assume John’s legacy.
Atom feels something in his chest--a loose bolt? an electrical malfunction? or something deeper? He observes the assembly line--robots following the program. “Maybe I can do better.” Atom grabs a piece from the conveyor and tries something new.
“ERROR! ERROR!”
Caught--but Atom won't let that throw him. He insolently picks up another piece.
“ERROR! ERROR!”
This time, Atom keeps at it. What “it” is, he doesn’t know, but he can’t wait to find out.
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11. |
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With no edge over the others but curiosity, Atom has done what none of them could ever dream to: to dream. He dreams of a world neither devoured by egocentrics nor filled with empty non-beings.
Atom decides to add a little madness to the method. A pseudo-random flick of a switch, and he reprograms the robots to reprogram themselves. “What is life for if not to help those around you live?”
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12. |
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A single cog is a lifeless object; many cogs, a dynamic machine.
The Created change their tune and become the Creators, molding a new life out of the dust left in their forerunners’ wake. Together, mechanical parts and advanced circuitry combine to forge something new: a civilization.
As one, they march forward--but toward what? It is up to them--collectively--to choose the path down which their society will march. Do they march toward the same doomed fate? Or does something better lay beyond the horizon?
Basking in their inability to know the unknown, they march regardless--each cog moving the other.
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13. |
4.0: Epilogue
01:02
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OBSERVE
QUESTION
CHANGE
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