Thursday, October 21, 2010

SciFi Epiphany

Short story idea!

Okay, I was reading "Apocalipsis" by Marco Denevi (Sounds impressive, right? The whole thing is manybe a paragraph), and I was struck by an idea. According to Denevi, we are going to be wiped out my machines, eventually. That got me thinking about all those science fiction stories in which humanity creates that which destroys it.

It's almost a similar concept to Deep Thought from "A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - one machine is built, capable of creating something better, which is in turn capable of creating something better still, each time rendering the last obsolete. Now apply it to humans; we create machines that render us obsolite.

From: "I, Robot," the movie. Based on the (superior) collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov.

This idea is not new. But this idea may be: What if it already happened?

What if, regardless of whether or not we will build machines that replace ourselves, we have replaced the last entity? What if the "G-d" or "gods" that our civilizations have spoken so fondly of represent the fleeting memories of the being(s) which used to exist, before our ancestors wiped it/them out? If we fear destruction by our creations, is it possible this stems from the fact that we, as creations, destroyed our creators?

This will make for an excellent short story, when either I, or you, get around to writing it. If you beat me to it, I expect a dedication. Or at least a footnote.

Props, by the way, to "Major: Undecided," for their awesome comedy show last week entitled: "The Robot Revolution will be Televised."

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