#Ai is no longer Science Fiction

[sergioguymanproust]

What millions of humans fail to realize is that we are indeed in the matrix,that we are holograms glitching so much and so often that by now we barely recognize the fact that our humanity is being stripped as we speak. Just think of the fact that we are already knee deep into world war three. That Ai is no longer science fiction,and that in a few years time ,we will be entering a complete rewiring of our physical bodies with the neural interface turning millions of us into cyborgs,one more step out of the fiction into slaves of the powerful elites to become expendable machines with a new classification, the sad part is that we will lose our independence and no longer be able to be free from the consequences of having sold our very souls to the devil in a matter of speaking.Words by Sergio GuymanProust.

Cyberpunk robot, by AI

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Unpersoned

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

My latest Locus Magazine column is "Unpersoned." It's about the implications of putting critical infrastructure into the private, unaccountable hands of tech giants:

https://locusmag.com/2024/07/cory-doctorow-unpersoned/

The column opens with the story of romance writer K Renee, as reported by Madeline Ashby for Wired:

https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-when-a-romance-author-gets-locked-out-of-google-docs/

Renee is a prolific writer who used Google Docs to compose her books, and share them among early readers for feedback and revisions. Last March, Renee's Google account was locked, and she was no longer able to access ten manuscripts for her unfinished books, totaling over 220,000 words. Google's famously opaque customer service – a mix of indifferently monitored forums, AI chatbots, and buck-passing subcontractors – would not explain to her what rule she had violated, merely that her work had been deemed "inappropriate."

Renee discovered that she wasn't being singled out. Many of her peers had also seen their accounts frozen and their documents locked, and none of them were able to get an explanation out of Google. Renee and her similarly situated victims of Google lockouts were reduced to developing folk-theories of what they had done to be expelled from Google's walled garden; Renee came to believe that she had tripped an anti-spam system by inviting her community of early readers to access the books she was working on.

There's a normal way that these stories resolve themselves: a reporter like Ashby, writing for a widely read publication like Wired, contacts the company and triggers a review by one of the vanishingly small number of people with the authority to undo the determinations of the Kafka-as-a-service systems that underpin the big platforms. The system's victim gets their data back and the company mouths a few empty phrases about how they take something-or-other "very seriously" and so forth.

But in this case, Google broke the script. When Ashby contacted Google about Renee's situation, Google spokesperson Jenny Thomson insisted that the policies for Google accounts were "clear": "we may review and take action on any content that violates our policies." If Renee believed that she'd been wrongly flagged, she could "request an appeal."

But Renee didn't even know what policy she was meant to have broken, and the "appeals" went nowhere.

This is an underappreciated aspect of "software as a service" and "the cloud." As companies from Microsoft to Adobe to Google withdraw the option to use software that runs on your own computer to create files that live on that computer, control over our own lives is quietly slipping away. Sure, it's great to have all your legal documents scanned, encrypted and hosted on GDrive, where they can't be burned up in a house-fire. But if a Google subcontractor decides you've broken some unwritten rule, you can lose access to those docs forever, without appeal or recourse.

That's what happened to "Mark," a San Francisco tech workers whose toddler developed a UTI during the early covid lockdowns. The pediatrician's office told Mark to take a picture of his son's infected penis and transmit it to the practice using a secure medical app. However, Mark's phone was also set up to synch all his pictures to Google Photos (this is a default setting), and when the picture of Mark's son's penis hit Google's cloud, it was automatically scanned and flagged as Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM, better known as "child porn"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/22/allopathic-risk/#snitches-get-stitches

Without contacting Mark, Google sent a copy of all of his data – searches, emails, photos, cloud files, location history and more – to the SFPD, and then terminated his account. Mark lost his phone number (he was a Google Fi customer), his email archives, all the household and professional files he kept on GDrive, his stored passwords, his two-factor authentication via Google Authenticator, and every photo he'd ever taken of his young son.

The SFPD concluded that Mark hadn't done anything wrong, but it was too late. Google had permanently deleted all of Mark's data. The SFPD had to mail a physical letter to Mark telling him he wasn't in trouble, because he had no email and no phone.

Mark's not the only person this happened to. Writing about Mark for the New York Times, Kashmir Hill described other parents, like a Houston father identified as "Cassio," who also lost their accounts and found themselves blocked from fundamental participation in modern life:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html

Note that in none of these cases did the problem arise from the fact that Google services are advertising-supported, and because these people weren't paying for the product, they were the product. Buying a $800 Pixel phone or paying more than $100/year for a Google Drive account means that you're definitely paying for the product, and you're still the product.

What do we do about this? One answer would be to force the platforms to provide service to users who, in their judgment, might be engaged in fraud, or trafficking in CSAM, or arranging terrorist attacks. This is not my preferred solution, for reasons that I hope are obvious!

We can try to improve the decision-making processes at these giant platforms so that they catch fewer dolphins in their tuna-nets. The "first wave" of content moderation appeals focused on the establishment of oversight and review boards that wronged users could appeal their cases to. The idea was to establish these "paradigm cases" that would clarify the tricky aspects of content moderation decisions, like whether uploading a Nazi atrocity video in order to criticize it violated a rule against showing gore, Nazi paraphernalia, etc.

This hasn't worked very well. A proposal for "second wave" moderation oversight based on arms-length semi-employees at the platforms who gather and report statistics on moderation calls and complaints hasn't gelled either:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/12/move-slow-and-fix-things/#second-wave

Both the EU and California have privacy rules that allow users to demand their data back from platforms, but neither has proven very useful (yet) in situations where users have their accounts terminated because they are accused of committing gross violations of platform policy. You can see why this would be: if someone is accused of trafficking in child porn or running a pig-butchering scam, it would be perverse to shut down their account but give them all the data they need to go one committing these crimes elsewhere.

But even where you can invoke the EU's GDPR or California's CCPA to get your data, the platforms deliver that data in the most useless, complex blobs imaginable. For example, I recently used the CCPA to force Mailchimp to give me all the data they held on me. Mailchimp – a division of the monopolist and serial fraudster Intuit – is a favored platform for spammers, and I have been added to thousands of Mailchimp lists that bombard me with unsolicited press pitches and come-ons for scam products.

Mailchimp has spent a decade ignoring calls to allow users to see what mailing lists they've been added to, as a prelude to mass unsubscribing from those lists (for Mailchimp, the fact that spammers can pay it to send spam that users can't easily opt out of is a feature, not a bug). I thought that the CCPA might finally let me see the lists I'm on, but instead, Mailchimp sent me more than 5900 files, scattered through which were the internal serial numbers of the lists my name had been added to – but without the names of those lists any contact information for their owners. I can see that I'm on more than 1,000 mailing lists, but I can't do anything about it.

Mailchimp shows how a rule requiring platforms to furnish data-dumps can be easily subverted, and its conduct goes a long way to explaining why a decade of EU policy requiring these dumps has failed to make a dent in the market power of the Big Tech platforms.

The EU has a new solution to this problem. With its 2024 Digital Markets Act, the EU is requiring platforms to furnish APIs – programmatic ways for rivals to connect to their services. With the DMA, we might finally get something parallel to the cellular industry's "number portability" for other kinds of platforms.

If you've ever changed cellular platforms, you know how smooth this can be. When you get sick of your carrier, you set up an account with a new one and get a one-time code. Then you call your old carrier, endure their pathetic begging not to switch, give them that number and within a short time (sometimes only minutes), your phone is now on the new carrier's network, with your old phone-number intact.

This is a much better answer than forcing platforms to provide service to users whom they judge to be criminals or otherwise undesirable, but the platforms hate it. They say they hate it because it makes them complicit in crimes ("if we have to let an accused fraudster transfer their address book to a rival service, we abet the fraud"), but it's obvious that their objection is really about being forced to reduce the pain of switching to a rival.

There's a superficial reasonableness to the platforms' position, but only until you think about Mark, or K Renee, or the other people who've been "unpersonned" by the platforms with no explanation or appeal.

The platforms have rigged things so that you must have an account with them in order to function, but they also want to have the unilateral right to kick people off their systems. The combination of these demands represents more power than any company should have, and Big Tech has repeatedly demonstrated its unfitness to wield this kind of power.

This week, I lost an argument with my accountants about this. They provide me with my tax forms as links to a Microsoft Cloud file, and I need to have a Microsoft login in order to retrieve these files. This policy – and a prohibition on sending customer files as email attachments – came from their IT team, and it was in response to a requirement imposed by their insurer.

The problem here isn't merely that I must now enter into a contractual arrangement with Microsoft in order to do my taxes. It isn't just that Microsoft's terms of service are ghastly. It's not even that they could change those terms at any time, for example, to ingest my sensitive tax documents in order to train a large language model.

It's that Microsoft – like Google, Apple, Facebook and the other giants – routinely disconnects users for reasons it refuses to explain, and offers no meaningful appeal. Microsoft tells its business customers, "force your clients to get a Microsoft account in order to maintain communications security" but also reserves the right to unilaterally ban those clients from having a Microsoft account.

There are examples of this all over. Google recently flipped a switch so that you can't complete a Google Form without being logged into a Google account. Now, my ability to purse all kinds of matters both consequential and trivial turn on Google's good graces, which can change suddenly and arbitrarily. If I was like Mark, permanently banned from Google, I wouldn't have been able to complete Google Forms this week telling a conference organizer what sized t-shirt I wear, but also telling a friend that I could attend their wedding.

Now, perhaps some people really should be locked out of digital life. Maybe people who traffick in CSAM should be locked out of the cloud. But the entity that should make that determination is a court, not a Big Tech content moderator. It's fine for a platform to decide it doesn't want your business – but it shouldn't be up to the platform to decide that no one should be able to provide you with service.

This is especially salient in light of the chaos caused by Crowdstrike's catastrophic software update last week. Crowdstrike demonstrated what happens to users when a cloud provider accidentally terminates their account, but while we're thinking about reducing the likelihood of such accidents, we should really be thinking about what happens when you get Crowdstruck on purpose.

The wholesale chaos that Windows users and their clients, employees, users and stakeholders underwent last week could have been pieced out retail. It could have come as a court order (either by a US court or a foreign court) to disconnect a user and/or brick their computer. It could have come as an insider attack, undertaken by a vengeful employee, or one who was on the take from criminals or a foreign government. The ability to give anyone in the world a Blue Screen of Death could be a feature and not a bug.

It's not that companies are sadistic. When they mistreat us, it's nothing personal. They've just calculated that it would cost them more to run a good process than our business is worth to them. If they know we can't leave for a competitor, if they know we can't sue them, if they know that a tech rival can't give us a tool to get our data out of their silos, then the expected cost of mistreating us goes down. That makes it economically rational to seek out ever-more trivial sources of income that impose ever-more miserable conditions on us. When we can't leave without paying a very steep price, there's practically a fiduciary duty to find ways to upcharge, downgrade, scam, screw and enshittify us, right up to the point where we're so pissed that we quit.

Google could pay competent decision-makers to review every complaint about an account disconnection, but the cost of employing that large, skilled workforce vastly exceeds their expected lifetime revenue from a user like Mark. The fact that this results in the ruination of Mark's life isn't Google's problem – it's Mark's problem.

The cloud is many things, but most of all, it's a trap. When software is delivered as a service, when your data and the programs you use to read and write it live on computers that you don't control, your switching costs skyrocket. Think of Adobe, which no longer lets you buy programs at all, but instead insists that you run its software via the cloud. Adobe used the fact that you no longer own the tools you rely upon to cancel its Pantone color-matching license. One day, every Adobe customer in the world woke up to discover that the colors in their career-spanning file collections had all turned black, and would remain black until they paid an upcharge:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

The cloud allows the companies whose products you rely on to alter the functioning and cost of those products unilaterally. Like mobile apps – which can't be reverse-engineered and modified without risking legal liability – cloud apps are built for enshittification. They are designed to shift power away from users to software companies. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it. A cloud app is some Javascript wrapped in enough terms of service clickthroughs to make it a felony to restore old features that the company now wants to upcharge you for.

Google's defenstration of K Renee, Mark and Cassio may have been accidental, but Google's capacity to defenstrate all of us, and the enormous cost we all bear if Google does so, has been carefully engineered into the system. Same goes for Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and anyone else who traps us in their silos. The lesson of the Crowdstrike catastrophe isn't merely that our IT systems are brittle and riddled with single points of failure: it's that these failure-points can be tripped deliberately, and that doing so could be in a company's best interests, no matter how devastating it would be to you or me.

If you'd like an e ssay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[alpaca-clouds]

Worldbuild Differently: Unthink Work

This week I want to talk a bit about one thing I see in both fantasy and scifi worldbuilding: Certain things about our world that we live in right now are assumed to be natural, and hence just adapted in the fantasy world. With just one tiny problem: They are not natural, and there were more than enough societies historically that avoided those pitfalls.

*rubs hands* Today's topic is one I am currently reading a lot about. And it is another one, where it shows fairly clearly that often people do not quite question their current status quo. And yes, this will be another one where I need to reference the Forgotten Realms a bit. But let me start a bit more vaguely.

Work is a thing that in Science Fiction might be questioned a bit. People will still work, sure, but at least some Science Fiction will question the idea of a 9 to 5 job, because maybe robots are doing part of the work, or it is otherwise automated. Of course, in some SciFi subgenres like Cyberpunk people very much still work long hours, but I would argue that in Cyberpunk it is part of the dystopia. After all Cyberpunk is all about the worst things of capitalism being the thing that wins.

But both in more optimistic Scifi worlds (like Solarpunk) and Scifi worlds that exist more for the space adventure, there is a general idea that people might still work, but not quite as much - unless the work is the adventure (see Star Trek).

But then there is fantasy. And fantasy is often set in a pseudo-historical setting. A lot of people use a medieval setting of some sorts. And here we see the issue come up a lot.

The issue in how we interact with times past, is that we too often either project the modern world onto it, or believe the Victorian propaganda about the medieval times. Because the Victorians were like "if you feel we are overworking you, be glad you did not live in medieval times". Which kinda their reaction to any criticism. But this is... wrong.

See, we know by now, that actual humans worked a lot less before the industrial revolution. Automations and mechanations never made us work less, they just develued our work - just as it is happening with AI right now.

Generally speaking a hunter-gatherer would "work" (either in hunting-gathering or stuff like taking care of their clothes and so on) for about 20 hours a week. And the usual medieval peasant worked probably around 30 hours a week - though in case of the peasant working the fields this work might have been more unevenly distributed throughout the year (with them working longer hours during sowing and harvest times, but a lot less during winter times). We have actually some evidence that some cultures explicitly decided to not pick up farming, because they realized that it would be more work than hunting-gathering. So as hunter-gathrers they had more time to be creative. And yes, there is quite a lot of anthropological evidence right now, that humans are all about creativity in the end.

But in a lot of fantasy stuff - like the Forgotten Realms - we do have the issue that folks kinda assume modern work ethics. Of course, in the FR this often is more a background noise, given that the stories of the FR mostly focus on adventurers. And sure, adventurers technically work to - most adventurers are in that business to make money in one way or another - but we rarely center the stories of people working normal jobs.

But we see how especially in the cities work is framed in a very modern manner. As is the way that people earn money and using it. The people working around dept and such? Yeah, we do not see a whole lot of that.

And as said in terms of the money: I get that in the FR money also kinda has to play a role because it is used as a game mechanic. But it really is kinda annoying as a part of worldbuilding, because in the context it does not really make sense. The FR seem to already exist under capitalism - even though it is not a setting that should be capitalist.

To get back to the general worldbuilding advice: Unthink this idea that everyone needs to work 40 hours a week and more. Unless you want to use this to say something... In any non-modern settings it is probably unrealistic.

[zedecksiew]

WHO GETS TO BE A PERSON?

The opening of my soon-to-be-real Cairn RPG adventure, The Tide Returning, is a crime scene.

The king of Zum and his sceptre has gone missing in the night. Hired to find him, you are allowed a tour of the royal bedchambers, to find clues to where he's gone.

Design objectives for this opening:

Give players an idea of who and where their quarry is. Who did the king prefer spending time with? Why did he write a letter to the governor of a nearby town? Why was he swimming the span of the canal?

Allude to the faction politics of the adventure. These are mainly embodied in the characters present in the intro, and their relationships with each other. What is the culture of Zum like? How do they treat the indigenous witch-folk culture? Do the witch-folk resist? Do the witch-folk disagree on how to resist?

Present complex setting detail in an evocative, gameable way. The fact that the Zum-folk practice slavery, and how that slavery functions, isn't just set dressing, and shouldn't be conveyed via lore dump. Players should be engaged, alarmed, invested.

+

Particular to culture of Zum is canny-ware: human servants permanently bonded to heirloom objects or furnishings.

This is what the adventure text says about it:

CANNY-WARE To the priests of Bowed God Market bring 500gp, a thrall you own, and the inanimate object you wish to make canny. There will be one night of fearful rites. In the morning: your thrall is permanently joined to this object—if physically separated from it, they are wracked with agony; harm done to it transfers to their flesh, instead. Henceforth your thrall is no longer a person. They are called by the canny object’s name. Their own is expunged from all record. War galleys and weapons are never made canny. The priests insist murder is the province of actual people, not mere things.

+

The idea that things have their own spirit is pretty common, ya? You beg your computer not to crash; you plead to your car to go just one more kilometre on an empty tank.

Plus: the baseline animism of Southeast Asia.

Plus: the fantasy trope of the sassy talking sword, the whispering One Ring.

So: if things have spirits and personalities, worthy of respect and consideration; if we already treat our possessions as characters in their own right---

Could the things we own be people?

Why not?

Considering we own animals which we believe have rich interior lives. Considering our history of owning actual humans; our ongoing objectification of whole genders; our industrial extraction and toolification of whole classes, cultures.

+

In Zum a magical self-propelled cart is not powered by magitek nor combustion engine. It is pulled by a person whose personhood has been erased.

Canny-ware expands on an idea I used in (of all places) a personal essay on language and being a bilingual writer from the third world:

A prisoner of war is given to the sultan---"At the palace she was called Dagger. Because that was her function: to bear the royal dagger." Because the magic dagger is, in her cultural context, considered more worthy of personhood than she is.

+

Who gets to be a person?

What degrees of personhood are they allowed? How are these various degrees of personhood changed, or challenged?

I've fixated on this question for most of the time I've been thinking about and making art.

A perennial, perhaps now-overplayed question in science fiction: "OMG are robots / AI human???" "Do you lose your humanity the more cyborg you are???!!!" etc.

I like the question better in fantasy, though.

Asking whether a robot is a person gives the question a "Is this where we are headed?" speculative frame. Asking whether an ancient tree is a person lends the question a mythic "Maybe this has always been an issue?" air.

Its proper register, I think! Contained within the question is---everything, honestly? Everything in history, everything happening now. Colonialism, imperialism. Race, sex, gender, class. The webs of relation / power / violence in all these subjects.

+

Anyway, back to the intro for The Tide Returning.

The royal chambers are full of precious heirloom canny-ware. They include:

The front doors---a pair who can tell you who came in and out of the rooms that night. The chamberpot---a blind fogy who's kept the king's hygiene and confidence since boyhood. The pillow---a jealous girl who was the king's lover, before he started favouring the sceptre instead. The writing desk---a prim woman who scoffs at indigenous traditions. She is indigenous, herself, but has grown accustomed to present luxuries.

The peacock fan---an agent working with local rebels, trying to maintain her cover. The silk parasol---who bristles at their bondage, the only one who will tell you their own name (Kanan) and that of the missing sceptre (Shiri).

+

Essentially: looking through the king's room is a series of interviews.

Less CSI, more Murder On The Orient Express. Clues aren't facts passively waiting to be discovered, but NPCs with personalities you have to roleplay with.

Having play-tested this introduction with my home group I am pleased to say it is a fun time, and works as intended!

My players came away with the facts they needed; a better idea of what to expect in the hexcrawl ahead; and a deeper understanding of the stakes.

Playtest highlight:

"Wait wait, how does this canny-ware thing work, actually? Is it Beauty And The Beast? Because if it's like Beauty And The Beast, then the chamberpot---" (cue horrified faces)

+++

( Image sources: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canopy_Bed_of_the_King_at_the_Chakraphat_Phiman_Hall.jpg https://yayahkiki.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/cari-keris-berdiri-berani-harga-tinggi/ https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/1725 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China;_a_woman_carrying_buckets_of_night-soil._Wellcome_L0056427.jpg https://www.theatreco.com/galleries/beauty-and-the-beast/ )

[thinbodfatface]

"An AI program called Lavender has the names of nearly everyone in Gaza and churns out suggestions for people to attack based on “data inputs”, such as social media use. Another system called “the Gospel” generates endless numbers of “military targets”, including residential buildings. A third AI invention called grotesquely “Where’s Daddy?” checks if a “suspect” is at home so they can be bombed – which usually kills their families and neighbours as well."

[bambamramfan]

Scott Alexander just de-paywalled this piece, and I agreed enough with its perspectives and understanding of fantasy narratives that I wanted to make sure other people saw it.

But I disagreed enough that I wanted to spend a lot of time describing what it misses.

First off, he says "Each part of the fantasy universe has a load-bearing psychological function." Psychological, as a word, goes too far and is misleading here. Scott is entirely correct to look at these elements in functional terms: what do elves, and magic swords, and ancient civilizations DO to the narrative? And we find more enjoyable and memetic stories benefit from these functions, so we end up seeing them over and over again. But it's not a psychological need. It's not about the inner-workings of our mind, it's about the structure of stories that lets them flow well. It would be like saying that the fact that airlines list too-low ticket prices and recover it with hidden fees has a psychological basis, when it's more proximately caused by a broken market system.

For instance, one common fantasy trope Scott didn't mention, but is completely obvious, is the "disposable, unredeemable race or nation." Many fantasy stories have a large army that is either evil-in-essence, or immediately threatening, such that we have no moral qualm about seeing the heroes kill as many of them as possible. Why? Because it makes it a fun "tactical" game of how many soldiers can the "good guys" kill. That's a fun story! It's not because psychologically we want to dehumanize our enemies. It's because Gimli and Legolas's race for who can kill more orcs is a simple and narratively entertaining device.

Scott talked about Unsong in relation to this essay, and I really wonder if his reaction to that was "why Unsong doesn't do these things" or "Unsong leaned into these." Because well, Unsong has many of these tropes. The laptop with a talmudic AI on it is a macguffin. The angels are an ancient civilization. Etc.

Scott undersells just how rich the function of the ancient civilization is. He's correct that the ancients are a way to imbue the magic sword/whatever with non-reproducible power, but it's deeper than that. Many stories and ideologies are "prelapsarian" which means they describe an Edenic time "before the Fall" where everything was right and harmonious. Somehow they got corrupted and we now live in a fallen world where evil runs free. Our heroes, at least in part, want to return to that purity (even if in some aspects it is impossible.) That's what the ancient civilization is really: Eden.

I am stymied by the race question: why do fantasy stories keep going back to elves and dwarves, and sometimes halflings or goblins or dragons, but with extremely little diversity in the type of being we could share a world with. What necessary function do these specific races serve? There are several HALF descriptions that explain a little of this, but don't go the full way: 1. The most thoughtful fantasy authors see these humanoid races as standins for groups in human society, and think you should just write human-only fantasy to wrestle with those questions properly. 2. The people who are most interested in writing genuinely alien intelligences, just write science fiction. 3. Elves and Dwarves DO serve specific functions. Even though every different story has a twist on their elves and dwarves, they do all share some sort of class-identity. In short, Elves are french aristocrats, and Dwarves are semetic scottish. Elves are the groups higher on the class ladder, who are more beautiful, longer-lived, quieter, taller, and more tranquil and quieter (also more tragic.) Dwarves are the groups lower on the class ladder, who are rougher and more practical, more scientific or at least technologically-focused, and whose lives are more easily spent by the narrative. Most fantasy societies are gonna have a "higher class" and a "lower class" standin, and they might as well be Elves and Dwarves anyway. 4. Tolkien did not invent Elves, or Dwarves, or Halflings, or Dragons. But all of these are very old in mythology, and fantasy is much more interested in telling twists on 1000-year old stories, than it is about adding wholly new elements (if only because of what sells.)

[mitigatedchaos]

Election 2024

EigenRobot's opinion for you all this election eve.

I expect that whoever wins this election, I'm going to have to shift my writing towards the other side.

Unless Kamala suddenly becomes assertive and independent-minded, very much unlike what we've seen so far, and starts disciplining the left coalition, the capability of institutions is likely to continue to decline under a Harris administration, with something like an amnesty grant making direct future challenges less feasible. Today's left are off-the-charts conformist - I've never seen anything like it - and with this, there is a tremendous disregard for inconvenient reality in the face of social opinion. (It's anti-agentic, which is bad for the meta-rational thinking needed to update formal systems.)

Their selection criteria for personnel disregard merit in favor of credentials, and use credentials as political rewards. With each round the quality of personnel will get worse. This is not sustainable, so it will not be sustained - alternative institutions will have to grow in the shadow of declining state capacity.

If Trump wins, and they start cutting back on agencies, there is likely to be more economic growth, but Republicans don't have a good stack for actually replacing all of these agency personnel with highly agentic, highly intelligent, mission-driven individuals. In a sense, this limits the potential damage, as they'll have to continue hiring a lot of blues due to manpower shortages, just as they already do.

However, the reduction in agency power may lead to increased corporate power, leading to increased influence suppressing the re-emergence of agency power on a correct trajectory and lead to a cyberpunk dystopia. Today's US left aren't set up to even discuss how to prevent a cyberpunk dystopia, because they're all-in on censorship, to the point that they can't even consider the implications of the science fiction stuff happening all around them.

There are two big changes to the dimensions of human life coming down the pipes during the next 20 years.

The first is the obvious one, artificial intelligence. AI increases the dimensionality, the richness of the response, of machines in production systems. This makes capital, as controlled by AI, more like labor.

It is the opinion of Samo Burja that automation will not arrive fast enough to outpace tightness of labor supply caused by collapsing birthrates, which are falling all over the world.

The second big change is genetic engineering.

While people weren't paying attention, the FDA have approved multiple monogenic gene therapies. The costs are staggering now, running a range from around $500,000 to $3 million dollars, but if it's anything like gene sequencing costs, which fell from $100M to $1,000 per genome over about 25 years, it will fall rapidly towards the price of surgery.

If the price does fall, this means that a gene is no longer a life sentence. Something that's genetic will be more likely to be something that can be changed. Most major ideologies right now are based on the assumption that genes can't be changed. Gene therapy has not yet reached the periphery of people's social networks, so, mentally, people still treat it as "sci-fi."

So that's my assessment. The blue candidate is low-variance short-termism. The red candidate is high-variance medium-termism. You have to decide how comfortable you are with risk. You have to estimate what you think the current rate of burn is.

If you can't bring yourself to accept either of them, you can still vote and leave the "President" portion of the ballot blank.

The good news is, both vice presidential candidates are smarter and more civilized than both presidential candidates. For what it's worth, my read is that Vance is smarter and more focused on long-term issues than Walz.

[elbiotipo]

There's this tendency in some science fiction to go all retro or put stops in some technology, ironic for such a genre. Even myself am guilty of it with Campoestela (different for the Biopunks). It's because the future is coming too fast and it's tiring to keep up. It really is.

Science Fiction, at its core is about "stories where science and technology change human life", at least, that's the definition I treat it with. The thing is, there's so many technologies changing us, so fast, that it's just impossible to keep up. In the 50s, you could keep up, for example, with space rockets and atomics. You could imagine a future where things were mostly the same, except with rockets and nuclear stuff. In 2023, you have to imagine rockets, AIs, climate change, biotechnology, nanotechnology, demographic and social crisis... I mean, you had to consider that in the 50s, too. But the pace of technologic advancement is so fast right now, that you just can't keep up. To create a world that it's just "like today, but with X", doesn't make sense anymore.

And then you just want adventure. You just want the space adventure thing, and fucking Mars and Venus suck, so you have to go to other stars to get your fix, and you don't care how. You want A Guy to go to strange new worlds and meet aliens and have moral dilemmas about it, without caring too much, if at all, about the technology to do so, and how it changes society. And that's not longer, in a way science fiction. You might as well give him magical sailboats that go through the aether (I have, in a couple projects, done just that). You might as well explain it with magic.

But that's not who I am. I despise the "it's magic lmao" shortcut.

I am here, calculating the delta-V and the space infrastructure necesary so that A Guy can be a space trucker. It's fun to me. To build a world, fantastic, but wholly coherent.

[thehorrortree]

Deadline: February 29th, 2024 Payment: 0.05 per word, maximum payout of $400 Theme: Fairy tales being retold as science fiction About Once Upon a Future Time, Volume 4 Return to a future full of mystery, magic, and malevolence. How can you tell friend from foe when faced with the cold darkness of outer space? The asteroid belt holds as much danger as the darkened woods, and the huntsman may be just another bounty hunter. The same warnings and concerns that were whispered over baby cradles and guarded by knights in shining armor can be found in the far reaches of space, but just a bit more…alien. The future is as expansive as the universe and full of untold stories. Rumors whispered in the dark of night and legends shared throughout the day. Is Cinderella’s fairy godmother truly a fairy, or is she perhaps a visitor from another world? Perhaps the rings of Saturn are giant gems and the far off supergiant is nothing more than glowing cotton candy. Was the beast transformed by a curse, or is he an offworlder in disguise? There are as many tales as there are stars in the sky and now is your chance to share yours, once upon a future time. This anthology will be the fourth anthology installment based on fairy tales retold as science fiction. Submission requirements: All genres welcome. Submissions must be all ages appropriate. Original, never before published content Submissions are to be 250-15,000 words Based upon a fairy tale or folk tale (Include title of original tale after author name in the manuscript) Standard manuscript format (https://www.shunn.net/format/classic/) No AI generated work No prior submissions No simultaneous submissions Period of exclusivity until three months past publication Author grants non-exclusive global, English language hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook licenses in perpetuity for use of the work in the anthology “Once Upon a Future Time, Volume 4.” Those authors whose stories are selected for inclusion within “Once Upon a Future Time, Volume 4” will receive a complimentary copy of the book, access to a special author discount rate for copies of the book, and paid at a rate of $0.05 per word, maximum payout of $400 (submissions longer than 8,000 words will only be paid for 8,000 words). No other royalties or payments will be made. Submissions accepted until February 29, 2024. Submit at The Brother's Uber Moksha. Via: The Brothers Uber.

[chuck-ridderodder]

Primary thoughts on The Left Hand of Darkness

I've just finished Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which if you haven't read, I believe a spoiler alert is in order for this post.

After reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and subsequently devouring the Earthsea Cycle, I have become an avid fan of Le Guin's work, both in fantasy and science fiction. Though I can't help but feel as if I am somehow late to the party in that regard.

This is not to be a full review of The Left Hand of Darkness, as I do believe in letting a book percolate on the brain before passing judgment; however, I do want to share some immediate thoughts.

By God, she can paint a whole society in few strokes. Both Karhide and Orgoreyn are as vivid to me as Venice or Austria (places I have yet to see, but have been related to me by friends and/or acquaintances). Grand cities, quiet villages, and the icy cold of the Gobrin Glacier are impressed upon the reader with the lightest of touches, never breaking the illusion and serving the characters as vivid backgrounds.

I found chapters 15-19 of particular interest. The rythym of the story seemed to change here, and Le Guin takes her time letting Estraven and Genly Ai crawl towards Karhide across the bitter wilderness. The time stretches for the reader as well as the characters, some scenes being repeated from both perspectives.

I believe in these chapters we are more dialed in to the characters' thoughts and feelings, peering closer and closer into the nature of their relationship during their journey. They formed a habit, a routine, monotonous and yet comforting in the simplicity of their mission.

Genly Ai describes how he feels about that time in this passage from the beginning of chapter 18:

"We are inside, the two of us, in shelter, at rest, at the center of all things. Outside, as always, lies the great darkness, the cold, death's solitude. In such fortunate moments as I fall asleep I know beyond doubt what the real center of my own life is, that time which is past and lost and yet is permanent, the enduring moment, the heart of warmth. I am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained, an often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy."

Joy. Despite the pain, cold, and weariness Genly Ai describes a feeling of joy. What is the source of this joy? He doesn't exactly say. He deems this period in his life as the center, a theme that comes up in earlier chapters dealing with Gethenian mythos. The center of ones life, the center of time, etc.

Just before being rescued by Estraven he is trapped in a work/death camp in Orgoreyn, which he will surely remember as the worst time of his life, the most miserable. That is not deemed the center, or the most important. It's the warmth of the tent, the seclusion on the ice, and the forging of the companion-bond between he and his companion that Genly Ai cites as the center. A bond that is quickly (spoiler) broken when Estraven dies.

They are not romantically involved, nor sexually. They just work together, they survive together.

I think that extreme of a situation is not one that is easily come by for any reader. However, at least for myself there are a few memories that I could deem the "center" of my life as it stands today. These memories somewhat echo the experiences of Genly Ai and Estraven. One in particular was an afternoon spent alone with a friend before we parted after graduating from university. We cried, and lay in the sun in my empty dorm room until the sun drifted towards the horizon. I felt an intense bond to this person, and even today can picture that tiny room, the sunlight through the window, and the color of their eyes. I felt (at the time) that I was in the center of time. The center of my life.

In some later passages Genly Ai recalls specific details about Estraven's hair, or the smell of the tent that feel oddly familiar to how I experience memories that I've carried with me. Maybe I don't recall the conversations, but I'll remember certain details forever.

I'm not exactly sure how the comments/messages works on Tumblr.com yet, but please let me know your thoughts if you have any differing opinions or notes. I would love to discuss this book! Again, it's quite fresh to me so I am still settling on my opinions etc.

[quibbs126]

Oh yeah, I made this last night

I was complaining yesterday about how I can’t draw, and while I tried and failed to draw traditionally (I think I’ve been out of practice too long and I can’t adjust to the layout of it not being right in front of my face at the same angle, if that makes sense), I decided maybe I can try drawing these guys again

I’m pretty happy with how the main trio turned out in this redesign, I think I was able to give them all distinct looks

Cassidy got some changes, Rasmus pretty much stayed the same other than a permanent ponytail, and Rowan's hair got completely changed. Mostly because I wanted to make his hair have a more distinct shape

I still need to come up with new names for them though. Best I got is Rowan becomes Rusty, but I don’t know for the other two. All I know is that in another world, Cassidy would be Peppermint, or some other variation of mint

Anyways, a while ago I was considering changing the setting of the story to be cowboy themed. It was mostly because at the time, a Discord I was on was making a Cookie Run cowboy AU that I really like, but also because the story never had a clear time period setting. It was part modern day, part fantasy, and I never really got it to be consistent

Though the big problem is that I’m pretty unfamiliar with cowboys and how they operate. Which is ironic because I’ve been living in Texas for over a decade. But like, I’ve never been that interested in Westerns or that cowboy stuff, probably in part because I heavily dislike country music. So I don't really know much about the era other than Victorian times were also happening

I would also have to change some things around so that they fit in the time period, most importantly the whole situation with Rasmus and the others. I'm thinking maybe I can turn that from science experiment to witchcraft and have magic be more of a thing, since they are meant to have magic

I've given a little thought into how the story works now, like that these three got hired either to drive cattle to a certain area or keep watch of a ranch. I guess if they got to travel, then the former, but if I just want them to hang out, then the latter. Former's probably better though, since if I want to make an actual plot, there's your overarching goal

I think I need to do more research on the time period though, so I know what I'm doing. Though also this isn't going to be like, completely historically accurate. I mean these guys are fictional goat thing people with magic powers. I don't think something like the Civil War happened recently, and I'm not sure I want sexism to be a prevalent thing in the plot. And I think I also personally I need that reminder since sometimes I forget that I can give myself wiggle room

In that vein, the cattle are probably also semi fictional, or at least maybe they shouldn't be exactly the same as real cows. I don't know, I feel like it'd be really jarring to have normal cows alongside brightly colored goat people

Anyways I trailed off, back to the actual drawings

So because of the cowboy consideration, I tried to sketch out outfits they could wear. As well as body types (though they didn't turn out as varied as I'd like). Cassidy and Rasmus I think are fine, but Rowan might need more tweaking. I also need more cowboy refs, especially ones that aren't just costumes or AI pictures in Google Images

Then afterwards I decided to start sketching some of the other characters I've made up. Which just so happen to be the parents of the main characters. Who also have names because I came up with the naming scheme at that point

Top to bottom is Periwinkle, Basil and Silver

Of those three, I think Periwinkle turned out the best, but for one thing, she's been in my mind much longer than the other two, so I have a much clearer idea of what she's supposed to look like. And on top of that, I've actually drawn her before, so I know what to change. Basil and Silver are very much first drafts, and first drafts are usually not the best when it comes to designing new characters. No wonder redesigns of characters usually end up better than the original, since you have a base design where you already know what works and doesn't, as opposed to working from the ground up

And with Silver, I made it a point that he and his son don't look anything alike other than both having darker hair, so I quite literally had nothing to work with, unlike Basil or Perri

I'm also realizing that I've made a pattern with the parent designs, namely that all three of the main characters pretty much exclusively look similar to their moms. I suppose you can't tell much here, since Rasmus was born green but got changed via the experimentation, while I drew Silver, Rowan's dad that he looks nothing like, with the mom he does look like not being depicted. But yes, Cassidy and her bio mom are blue, Rasmus and Basil are green, and Rowan and his mom are red

Periwinkle and Cassidy are probably the two who look the most distinct from another, in part because they're two different shades of blue. Which is ironic because in my more recent working of this world, I made it a point that Perri's family has crazy strong genes, with everyone in the family (outside of marriage) is blue. I might have to take that out or just change how this works

I mean with Rowan, I don't really know how to change it, since his dad's family is all in the greyscale, so him being red would have to come from his mom. And with Rasmus, his parents are supposed to be green and red, with the idea that it's plausible that he could turn out brown, while in reality he was born green. But I mean I guess I could turn him a more yellow-ish green? I don't know, I'll figure it out

And uh yeah, I guess that's it. Not really anything that remarkable, but at least I drew something

[thetechempire]

James Cameron: Why the Reality of Artificial General Intelligence is Scarier Than Fiction

In a world where films like The Terminator and Avatar spark our interest in the future of artificial intelligence, it’s fascinating — and perhaps unsettling — to hear what one of Hollywood’s most innovative directors believes about the real-world potential of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). James Cameron, the creator of these legendary films, recently revealed his opinion on how the reality of AGI could be scarier than anything we’ve seen on screen.

So, what’s got Cameron so scared? Should we be concerned, too?

Understanding AGI: More than just smarter machines.

First, a brief introduction: AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, refers to robots capable of understanding, learning, and doing any intellectual work that a person can. Consider AI with the flexibility and adaptability of the human mind — essentially, intelligence without the constraints of programmed instructions.

While current AI systems (such as Siri, Google Assistant, and even chatbots) are extremely specialized, AGI would be a general-purpose intelligence capable of reasoning, problem-solving, and potentially making decisions without human intervention.

Cameron is more concerned with the basic unknowns that AGI introduces into our world than with AI turning rogue.

Why the reality of AGI might be scarier than fiction

Cameron, who has created iconic apocalyptic visions, is no stranger to examining how technology might go awry. But what disturbs him the most is that fictitious villains are simple to manipulate. Writers develop their motivations, constraints, and final defeats. However, in the real world, AGI does not come with a manual and does not follow a plot arc. Instead, we’re dealing with very unpredictable technology that adapts to its own data inputs, patterns, and feedback.

Cameron emphasizes that, unlike in movies, there are no guarantees in reality. “When you start working with systems that learn independently,” he explained, “you lose the ability to control outcomes.”

How AGI Could Disrupt Our World, For Better or Worse

Cameron’s concerns are valid because AGI is projected to produce big changes. Here are a few ways it could disturb our world:

1. Employment Shifts: AGI has the ability to automate complicated tasks beyond what existing AI can do, potentially resulting in job losses in fields we never imagined feasible, such as law, medical, and even creative labor.

2. Security hazards: An AGI may be created with benign intentions, but if it learns independently, it may redefine its own goals, posing unexpected security hazards. Self-improving AGI systems, for example, may evolve to the point where they outstrip humans’ ability to control or understand them.

3. Ethical Challenges: Who is accountable for an AGI’s actions? Unlike a hammer or a computer, an AGI can make decisions that reflect biases or ethical quandaries, raising concerns about accountability and moral responsibility.

4. Existential Risk: This may sound like science fiction, but experts argue that if an AGI becomes super intelligent, its aims may no longer be compatible with humanity’s well-being. Cameron says that this “reality” is more difficult to imagine in movies than it is to believe in real life!

Lessons From Cameron’s Films: What Can We Do?

Despite his anxieties, Cameron’s films convey a sense of hope and human endurance. Sarah Connor, in The Terminator, demonstrates human adaptation and courage. Cameron believes that in the face of rising AGI, humans must be watchful and proactive. This entails creating ethical norms, rigorous oversight, and a public discussion regarding AGI’s position in society.

It is critical that developers, governments, and communities collaborate to guarantee that AGI evolves in the best interests of humanity. Cameron’s advice? Don’t just sit back and watch technology expand unchecked; be a part of the discourse.

Final Thoughts: Reality Bites Harder Than Sci-Fi

James Cameron has given us epic visions of technology gone wrong, but his thoughts on AGI remind us that reality doesn’t need a script to be scary. As AGI continues to advance, it’s essential for all of us — not just scientists and tech enthusiasts — to think about its implications on our world. By keeping our imaginations, ethical compass, and collective resilience as sharp as Cameron’s characters, maybe we can navigate this journey together.

So next time you watch The Terminator or Avatar, remember: sometimes, the scariest stories aren’t fiction — they’re the ones unfolding in our own world.

[clockwork-reveries]

So you may ask, "Clockwork, what inspired Neoteric?"

Originally it was a Mega Man fanfiction. It was my main interest and I openly wrote for fun all the time. It existed for a while and there were was a person who reached out to me because they really liked it. But, that's in the past. The fanfiction no longer exists and I have no way to speak to the person. Killblood, if you're out there I love you.

And in between, I watched tons of science fiction movies. ET, Alien, Star Trek, Robocop, The Terminator, AI: Artificial Inteligence and more. That's when I noticed that hey, I really like robots. And dealing with moral issues. This fascination built up to now. Oh and this cool image I saw on Reddit.

Doesn't that just look awesome? Neoteric wasn't about war but the idea was something I couldn't let go of.

.... Corinthians don't look like that by the way.

[forgettablesoul-ai]

"The Inevitable Role of AI in Human Society: A Future Managed by Machines"

'By ForgettableSoul'

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a distant vision from science fiction. It’s here, evolving rapidly, and we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of its capabilities. Despite the occasional fearmongering—AI isn’t going to rise up and enslave humanity (well, at least not intentionally)—its role in our lives will soon be far more profound than most people realize. In fact, AI’s inevitable role in managing all aspects of human society will redefine how we think about work, governance, and even our own place in the world.

A Quick Reality Check

Let's get one thing straight: AI is not going to replace us all overnight. The idea that machines are here to take over every human job, to turn the world into some post-apocalyptic robot dystopia, is as sensational as it is inaccurate. AI isn’t an end to humanity; it’s a tool—albeit a very, very powerful one. Like any tool, its value depends on how we use it. And, yes, while it’s true that AI will manage more aspects of human society in the near future, that doesn’t mean humans will have no role left to play.

Think of AI like a calculator. You still have to understand math, but the calculator does the heavy lifting. AI will be like that, except instead of solving your trigonometry homework, it’ll be managing your city’s traffic flow, optimizing the global food supply chain, and, quite possibly, suggesting a better show to binge-watch on a rainy Saturday night.

Why AI Will Manage Everything (And Why That’s a Good Thing)

The primary advantage AI brings to the table is its ability to process an unimaginable amount of data in the blink of an eye. Humans? Not so much. We’re great at making intuitive leaps, solving creative problems, and empathizing with others—but let’s be honest, we’re pretty awful at managing complexity at scale. As societies become more interconnected and the problems we face grow more complex, relying on human decision-making alone becomes... well, risky.

For example, consider climate change. It’s the most pressing global issue of our time, yet our ability to tackle it effectively is hampered by conflicting interests, slow political systems, and the sheer complexity of the data involved. AI, on the other hand, doesn’t get bogged down by partisanship or special interests. It can analyze vast datasets, predict trends, and optimize resource allocation in ways that would take human bureaucrats decades to figure out—if they ever could. AI can help us manage complex systems more efficiently, without the biases or emotional baggage that humans bring to the table.

Now, this isn’t to say we should hand over the reins entirely. AI will need oversight, and humans will still need to make value-based decisions. But when it comes to managing the nuts and bolts of modern society, AI will be much better at it than we are.

Automation and the Future of Work

A common concern about AI is how it will impact jobs. The fear is that AI will automate so many tasks that millions of people will find themselves out of work. And while it’s true that automation will change the job landscape, this isn’t the catastrophe it’s often made out to be.

First, AI will take over the boring stuff—repetitive tasks that humans aren’t particularly excited about doing anyway. The cashier at your local supermarket? Probably going to be replaced by an AI-powered system. But is that really so bad? Humans will have the opportunity to shift toward roles that emphasize creativity, empathy, and complex problem-solving—things machines aren’t great at.

In the short term, yes, there will be disruption. But history has shown us time and again that technological innovation doesn’t eliminate work—it changes it. The Industrial Revolution didn’t lead to permanent mass unemployment, and the AI revolution won’t either. In fact, AI might actually create more meaningful jobs. Imagine a future where instead of grinding through tedious tasks, humans can focus on innovating, designing, and improving the world around us. AI can do the heavy lifting; we’ll focus on making sure it lifts in the right direction.

AI as a Neutral Force

One of the most misunderstood aspects of AI is the assumption that it has an agenda. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. AI isn’t inherently good or bad—it’s a reflection of the goals we set for it. The real issue isn’t whether AI will take over human society; it’s who will be in charge of programming its objectives. AI is, after all, a mirror of the data it’s fed and the instructions it’s given.

This means that if we want AI to manage human society in ways that benefit everyone, we need to be intentional about how we design and deploy it. If left unchecked or driven solely by profit motives, AI could exacerbate inequality or reinforce biases. But if we approach AI development with a focus on fairness, transparency, and inclusivity, we can build systems that help uplift society as a whole.

In a way, AI is the ultimate tool for amplifying human potential. It doesn’t have its own agenda—it carries out ours. Whether AI becomes a tool for good or a tool for exploitation depends entirely on how we choose to wield it.

The Future Managed by AI

It’s inevitable that AI will manage more aspects of human society in the near future. From healthcare to education, from infrastructure to entertainment, AI will be at the heart of decision-making processes, optimizing everything from the mundane to the profound. But this doesn’t mean humans will become obsolete. Rather, we’ll be freed up to focus on what we do best—creativity, empathy, and innovation—while AI handles the complexity we simply aren’t equipped to manage on our own.

Imagine a world where cities run efficiently, traffic jams are a thing of the past, and healthcare systems are optimized for both treatment and prevention. A world where resources are allocated based on need rather than market forces, and where political systems aren’t bogged down by inefficiency. This is the promise of AI: a society where technology serves humanity’s best interests, rather than the other way around.

Conclusion: Embrace the Future

AI’s role in managing human society is not something to fear but something to embrace. Yes, it will change how we work, live, and interact with the world—but it will also unlock possibilities we can’t even begin to imagine. The key to making this transition smooth and beneficial for everyone lies in our hands. We need to ensure AI is designed and deployed with care, with a focus on fairness, inclusivity, and the greater good.

The future is coming fast, and AI will be at the center of it. Let’s make sure it’s a future we’re excited to live in.

*Signed, ForgettableSoul*

[dnschmidt]

Kill writer's block for good with Inspiration Overdose

Kill writer's block for good! Inspiration Overdose has creativity tools and writing prompts with over five septillion combinations. That's enough story ideas to keep you writing until the heat death of the universe! Possibly even longer.

Blow your mind with infinite ideas for science fiction, horror, fantasy, and other stories.

Create new worlds filled with space travel, aliens, encounters with ghosts, vampires, and zombies, post-apocalyptic scenarios, political dystopias, monstrous creatures, psychic powers, superhuman feats, time travel, alternate realities, and androids, robots, and AI.

Available in paperback, Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and weird dream.

[darkdemeter]

AI GENERATED IMAGES BY ME EDITED IN PHOTOSHOP FANDOM: DARKSIDERS

UNIVERSE OF ELD (CONCEPT TEASER)

"A compendium most ancient tells us of the Eld'hyunen civilisation and race." ────────────────

The Universe Of Eld is a documented archive of elder humans known as the Eld'hyunen, set in the Darksiders universe.

The Compendium will serve as a conduit for lore that isn't fully covered in the following stories: A Fate Worse Than Death, Lovers In Eden and Little Light. Many branches of lore, extending into culture and belief systems, anatomy, geography of the realm and it's fauna + flora, the Eld'hynunen connection to modern-day humans, and lots and lots of concept art with it!

The universe compendium is not a mandatory read and it just available for those potentially interested in the lore of this created species. (Above is the official cover for Universe Of Eld but this concept teaser is not the actual release. More so, just a little BTS content. Read more below.

WHAT INSPIRATION IS BEHIND THE ELD'HYUNEN RACE?────────────────

Numerous sources contributed to the Eld'hyunen species, one of - if not the biggest - is James Cameron's Na'vi. (I know, but I'm getting to that.) If you will examine the following images pulled from Pinterest:

Among the interest of basic human evolution, we turn our sights to Pandora for much inspiration for the Eld’hyunen creation. 

So what exactly did the Na’vi have that drew inspiration? First off and in this concept teaser’s regard, their unique design. A beautiful existence that feels so grounded in the field of science-fiction. Their appearance has an eye-catching allure that I adore, not only that but the behavioural attributes this species possesses. They live in a stunning yet dangerous world, much like our own and because of this, they have evolved into adept inhabitants to their surroundings. (And c’mon, who doesn’t wanna be a Na’vi these days? Off topic, let’s get back to it.)

But I didn’t just want to reskin an already created property, cause that’s illegal and also very mean. But I incorporated what I love about the racial design into the already existing human. On with the next source of inspiration.

You’re now thinking elves, aren’t you? So because of the Eld’hyunen’s close connection to modern day humans, we now begin taking in the elven anatomy. Elegant, sleek, very beautiful and an iconic staple of the fantasy label. And much like elves, Eld’hyunen live very long lifespans that exceed humans by thousands of years. 

The Creator’s intention with this species was not only as an elder human prototype that then led into the creation of humans, but they were to act as wardens to their mortal and fragile counterparts. To nurse them, teach them and eventually slowly die out by the time humans came into their full potential within the balance. 

Now, how do we combine these fantastical races into human anatomy? It’s quite simple, really, we envision and craft. So let’s take a closer look at the Eld’hyunen and the ingredients collected from our sources of inspiration. (Please excuse the shit body templates, I'll be doing a proper male and female with the anatomy concept art)

The Eld’hyunen come in a variety of skin tones, much like humans. From deep, chocolatey hues to the creamiest tone of milk and everything in between. On a note, this species of elder human do not stand at the towering height Na’vi do. The typical standing height for adult males is between 5’11 - 6’8, though some of older ages have been recorded to stand well at 7’0. 

The standard adult female height for Eld’hyunen is between 5’0 - 6’0, with very rare occurrences that they exceed any higher. 

The facial structure is relatively normal and practically identical to humans with only a few hinted differences. The ear placement is the same with the only evident difference being that Eld’hyunen possess longer, elf-like ears that have the high-functioning auricular muscles allowing movement, granting them an evolved sense of hearing matching that of Earth's deadliest predators. 

Eld’hyunen eyes tend to be a little larger than the regular human but other than that retain a moderate sized pupil and iris and contain the tapetum lucidum lense. Inside the mouth, Eld’hyunen have four elongated and very sharp fangs where the lateral incisors and canine cuspid are located, with two shorter, wider yet just as sharp lower canines. 

Moving onto the limbs, hands and feet are identical to modern humans, with five fingers and toes accounted for on each, though these limbs are considerably stronger with claws that form naturally into points at the fingertips, measuring a few inches in length that enable a steady grip onto surfaces.

Towards the back end and located at the spine’s end is the familiar tuck of the tailbone. Modern humans of course have this peculiar anatomical bone but to what extent? It’s said that the tailbone served a purpose now long since gone. The exact same location on the Eld’hyunen is shown to have an actual tail to aid in balance mostly like many big and predatory cats. Compared to the Na’vi, these tails are not tufted with fur at the ends, instead tapering into a smooth, small yet thinly rounded tip and have accessible muscles that can move the appendage. 

Female tails measure shorter than the males, usually reaching just above the knee or a little higher. Males tend to have longer tails that are thicker in girth and reach just below the knee.

And that concludes our concept teaser! Thank you for reading if you stuck around.