“We vowed to protect the fruition of our perfect utopia, in life and beyond death. But now, they have forgotten what we were truly fighting for. All that is left now… is me.”
Zarios: the final bastion of humanity, and its ultimate utopia. It was a city overflowing with riches and glistening amongst the lifeless ruin of this world, the culmination of the dreams of our bygone group known today only as the Technologists. Run with life printers that allow for the unlimited production of organic material and administrated by a self-updating strategic algorithm, there was only the pure joy of living left for its 30,000 denizens. And so they did – until time became a metric that mattered so little it was left unrecorded altogether. Only in this final state were we content to slumber in our artificial bodies forevermore.
But on one distant day, the earth crumbled beneath the feet of those helpless children of innocence, and they fell into the maws of the volcanic behemoths that burst forth from the rubble later dubbed the “javie’dhang.” In that pinnacle of human suffering that led to our re-activation, we turned to our prophet PIONEER, that which led us all in life, to lead us once again. PIONEER instructed us to round up all of the survivors in the center of Zarios onto Hope; halfway through our efforts, a thundering roar emanated from the spacecraft, and it disappeared in a flash of light. Of us seven, PIONEER was the only one on board. In Hope’s last seconds on this wretched world, PIONEER and I locked eyes, and I knew then and there it had intended to leave us behind.
But why? That which led us all in life, that which pursued – and achieved – absolute control over the destiny of humankind, must have had a reason to leave us to die on that horrible day. As GUARDIAN and I escaped the javie’dhang and led the meager few on the long march to Backup, I never stopped pondering the answer. But that day is long since behind us. Now, is the answer even worth pursuing? And in the twilight of the habitable world, are the dregs of humanity even worth saving?
—DOW
PIONEER. NOMAD. GUARDIAN. DOW. ARTISAN. ZENITH. SICKLE.
the technologists is an upcoming mini-series set in a post-apocalyptic world in which an unknown, primal force has ravaged human-manufactured utopia. experimental project driven (at least initially) by artificial intelligence. stay tuned.