A collection of my prose circa 2022 (updated)

"Quantum Death"

It came out of nowhere. When the experts predict the end of the world, they usually think in terms of everyday dangers, the old boogeymen - war, famine, awakening of Cthulhu, meteor from space… Something tangible and familiar. They can never create a prophecy about things they don’t know, simply because unthinkable phenomena do not exist until they happen.

The next big challenge to humanity came from within. A couple of physicists made a discovery worthy of a Nobel prize, a game changer, a lucky lottery ticket into the bright future - they have proven through an ingenious experiment that the multiverse is real. That multiverse is actually the correct interpretation of quantum theory. An important proof, opening infinite possibilities (no pun intended). And so they published it and the media made a big thing out of it. How could they know the consequences? A match they lit in the gunpowder storage room.

The Internet has always been an asylum for lunatics, for false prophets and conspiracy theorists inventing wild theories and spreading them, sowing the seeds into the fertile soil of naive sheeple. One of those theories has been brewing there for ages, ever since the multiverse became a cultural meme through comics, movies and books. It claimed that because there are multiple versions of you, there is bound to be the best one and the worst one. And because on the infinite spectrum of the multiverse you can choose whatever version you want to be, nothing stops you from choosing the worst. Local morality is essentially cancelled, because somewhere out there everything’s gonna be alright anyway. This pustule was ripe to burst and the pinprick it needed was the proof that the multiverse is real.

It started as a mass shooting, where a young boy left a note explaining that he did it simply because now he was allowed to do it. Because in the grand scheme of things there were no repercussions for his acts, no heaven or hell. Even his death in this particular universe did not matter. Because in some other universe he was the superman saving the world. He wanted to test how it feels to abandon the shackles of society and be the bad guy. So he chose the easiest method. The note leaked, and the idea spread like wildfire.

Many years later the remnants of humanity explained this phenomenon by quantum affinity. Humanity is fine-tuned to think alike in each local multiverse cluster of realities. Something about our brains being the active agents and therefore shifting the density distribution of the infinity… lots of technobabble. But it was poor consolation for the billions that died of nuclear winter and starvation, because people in power wanted to play bad boys like any other boy. Civilisation was brought down to its knees throughout the multiverse. Quantum Death. Humanity plucked the apple from the tree of knowledge and choked on it.

"In case of emergency, pull the plug"

Zolegh didn’t have a fancy job, but for him it was an important job and he was good at it. He was a watcher, a supervisor of developing planets, he nurtured them by slightly tweaking various parameters to achieve optimal performance. All according to the runbooks.

But he wasn’t a mindless bureaucrat like a lot of his colleagues. Zolegh was attached to his planets, he secretly gave them names and even talked to them when no one was watching. That’s why he became really worried when one of the young blues suddenly started showing a blinking red light on the overview panel. This had never happened before, so it took him some time to find the next steps in the runbook:

“Blinking red light Q31 indicates a borderline critical condition of the parameter FXO. Fix by decreasing the FXS. If the threshold is breached, Q31 becomes solid, declaring the state of emergency. In case of emergency, pull the plug.”

“Oh my God,” thought Zolegh. “I can’t pull the plug on one of my babies! Let’s reduce the FXS. Everything will be alright then.”

But it wasn’t alright the next morning, when he discovered that the red light was blinking again. He called his supervisor Ralyeh.

“What do I do now? FXS is already at its minimum, but Q31 is still blinking,” asked Zolegh.

“Well, you can always submit it for a review by The Committee. But I’ll be honest with you - it doesn’t look good. I’ve seen a case like this before. We had to pull the plug,” solemnly replied Ralyeh.

Zolegh submitted the case to the Committee on the same day. The system informed him that he was now 113th in the queue, so he had plenty of time to prepare for the review. He collected all the numbers, created a beautiful presentation and even rehearsed delivering it several times in front of the mirror. When the day of review finally came, Q31 was already solid red. But Zolegh felt confident - they will be compassionate and just, they will find a solution for him. After all, The Committee is infinitely smarter than him.

He dialled in the video conference.

“Morning, Mr Zolegh. We’ve looked through the summary of your Q31 light case. Looks pretty simple to me. Do you have any extra information not present in the summary?” said the chairman.

“Yes, I have prepared a presentation about the beautiful civilization that has developed on the planet- ”

“That’s fine,” interrupted the lead engineer, sounding distant and disinterested. “Do you have a slide with key performance indicators according to the template?”

“Yes, I do…”

“Please, show us.”

Zolegh opened the slide. He was quite nervous at this point, his carefully planned presentation completely derailed. After staring at the slide for a couple of seconds in complete silence, he finally found his bearings and was about to try and deliver the abridged version, when the lead engineer spoke again:

“As everyone can see here, Q13 is high, which correlates with Z38, which explains the FXS, which explains the FXO. Cascading ecological failure. BTC and BTS are not high enough to warrant an exception. Why did you bring this case to the Committee?”

Zolegh was sweating now.

“I thought that BTC and BTS alone did not express the current state of the planet well enough… As you can see, the nurtured civilization is entering the spacefaring stage, which is advanced enough to try manual intervention. We have invested so much in this project-”

“Mr Zolegh,” the chairman made a stern and dramatic pause. “Let us worry about the return of investment. Your job is to follow the instructions - we created them for a reason. And please do not bring cases like this in the future, refer to your supervisor if you have any questions.”

Long after switching off the conference Zolegh was still pacing around the room. What was he thinking? Of course they knew better! That’s why they were The Committee. And he was just a fool. Old emotional fool. For the last time he looked at the red Q31. “Sorry,” mumbled Zolegh. And pulled the plug.

Somewhere out there the Sun blinked once and switched off. The Earth, no longer a beautiful blue ball, drowned in the shadows and started to cool down. Humanity was dying a slow and painful death.

"Ayul, The Carbonmason"

[Not a new plot, but I gave it a couple of fun twists to reflect the Zeitgeist.]

Ayul was one of the Old Gods. He didn’t feel old, but he has been there long enough to witness the beginning of the universe. His main passion conveniently aligned with his power - he liked to play with atoms of carbon and arrange them into self-replicating machines. He liked blockchains and distributed protocols and spearheaded a whole new science field (granted there was not much competition among gods). His most prized invention was an interpreter of 4-digit-encoded amino acid programs he called DNA. DNA could bootstrap itself and evolve through rapid succession of merges with other DNAs, thus sometimes producing unexpectedly outstanding results. Ayul called his DNA-carrying automatons “life” and gladly spread them throughout the universe to the chagrin of the other Old Gods who preferred less complicated creations.

But the real breakthrough happened when he found a solution to one of the fundamental problems - how to make the automatons replicate not out of need to survive, but out of need to achieve something, thus adding a predictable vector of evolution instead of allowing Chaos to toy with his creations. He called it DST (distributed soul tokens) and created a new model of automatons in his own image to house the souls. He gave them the best imprint of himself he could achieve, and the illusion of mind it granted the automatons was truly magnificent.? Ayul couldn’t give them his carbon-bending powers of course, because it was God’s magic, but he successfully imprinted strong affinity to metals and silicon. And the automatons didn’t disappoint - they quickly advanced from the stone age to bronze and then to iron.

There was only one big problem with the new model. DST clock frequencies had to be really fast to make the brains (physical medium of souls) function. And the further they developed, the faster they became - runaway machines locked in their own unnatural perception of time. Ayul could communicate to them at first, but soon the gap became too wide for them to perceive him. He would blink and in that blink of his eye civilization would progress from building stone castles to building flying machines. He did not miss the moment they went out to space in their ingenious metal constructions and Ayul almost cried from happiness for his children. (He came to think of them as his children, because he didn’t have real children - he was basically an incel by god’s standards, none of the goddesses wanted to procreate with him.)

Next moment he spotted an error and his heart sank. He tried to stop them, but the automatons were developing too fast now. The imprint was too strong: his children were about to repeat their creator’s mistake and create their own silicon children. Because their program told them to do so.

"Wishmaster"

There was nothing but darkness, and somewhere in that darkness was a mind unaware of itself. Then there was a dull yellow light disturbing the darkness. The mind stirred, because it became aware. It didn’t want to leave this comfort of nonbeing, but the nothingness escaped it like sand through spread fingers. The light grew closer and closer until it filled the mind with a subliminal urge to avoid it. And the mind woke up.

Michael came back to his senses. Nauseated, his brain feeling fuzzy. Had he been on drugs? He gently prodded his power - no response. As he grew aware of his surroundings, he realised that he was sitting on a steel chair in a dark room with a dull yellow table lamp, the only light source. Interrogation room? Handcuffed to the table - not a good sign. His body felt like he had had a very long sleep, but otherwise unharmed.

The door opened. Unfamiliar face, grey suit, no badge.

“Hi, Michael. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Why am I here?”

“You don’t remember, do you?..” The man sat down on the opposite side of the table and folded his hands looking straight into Michael’s eyes. The whole situation felt comical, like a bad movie. “You can call me Brian. I’m your supervising officer. You came to us willingly and your condition of surrender was to be put in a medical coma and never woken up. But today I got a different order from my superiors. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you do something in your sleep? Or is it some kind of a trick you set up in advance?” pressed on the suit.?

“I don’t know!”

“Look Michael, I’m not trying to intimidate you - I know what you’re capable of. I just want the answers as much as you do. We still don’t know much about you. Why don’t you tell me everything from the beginning and refresh your own memories in the process?”

Michael felt an onset of a terrible migraine. Regular waves of pain were coming out of the depths of his mind and every extra question was adding more wind to the storm. He realised he didn’t want to remember. There was something bad in those memories. Something he was trying to hide from everyone and more importantly from himself. He desperately needed to escape this situation. Going back into slumber was out of question now. So Michael did the second best thing. He pulled on his power harder this time and it answered. The throbbing knot of pain in his head exploded into an endless web of possibilities. He was out of his body, out of the room, zooming further and further away. Michael saw ghostly silhouettes of people around him, but his mind kept moving out faster and faster until he saw the whole of humanity, which quickly became just a bright dot in the endless void of space. He saw the lines then, massive cosmic highways of energy he could never rationalise or explain. Michael wished for an escape route and subconsciously knew which line was the one he needed. So he pulled on it, felt his soul speeding up to become one with the line. The world he came from shifted out of his vision, became first grey, then pitch black and then disappeared forever.

Michael was in the living room of his apartment, sitting on a sofa in front of a giant flat screen watching some Netflix show. Did he watch it before? He couldn’t remember, still nauseated after the reality shift. There was a sound of someone cooking and talking on the phone in the kitchen. Emily! He had his real life back, with a beautiful girlfriend, all the money in the world and everything he could wish for. Happy. That’s where he belonged, wishmaster as he called himself - the one and only person in the world who could literally shape his own destiny.

But euphoria faded as quickly as it came. He recalled the show. He had seen it before. How many times? This was the evening he had to replay again and again… The one where Emily suddenly confessed that she needed a break from their relationship, that she felt like she was losing her personality and suffocating. And when he tried to convince her to reconsider, she told him she didn’t like him anymore, that he became a person she could no longer understand, she was afraid of him, in fact always had been. And then he killed her and rewrote their relationship from scratch, from the day he met her and made her fall in love with him. But somehow he was coming back here again and again, this disgusting evening he never actually wished for… Or did he?

No. Michael suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling of dread, a premonition of something terrible about to happen. This was a different evening… The one where he admitted his defeat after so many tries and let Emily go. Then he was sitting here alone, getting drunk and cursing his fate - what’s the point of being a wishmaster if he couldn’t even get one person to love him. And in a final act of desperation he used his power to the absolute limit he had never tried before. Michael unravelled his mind and rushed away from his body. Earth became a small dot, then got lost in the vastness of space. Countless threads of fate criss-crossed the universe. One of them must be new, some option he had never noticed before. But the further he rushed the less threads he could see until nothing remained. He was alone in the void, so far away from everything he ever knew that time and space lost any meaning. Michael was on the verge of losing himself when he finally noticed something in that void. Could it be? Faint threads spreading in all directions from a dull yellow light - another one like him? More than anything else he wished to connect, he wanted to talk to that person. He chose one of the lines and pulled.

This. This was the scene he was trying to erase from his memories. Because the moment he touched the other wishmaster he realised the essence of it. He felt like a billion eyes of a giant space spider suddenly noticed him and were now staring at him, unblinking and intent. Then they moved closer. Almost imperceptibly, but still closer and closer every second. Like an angler fish in the ocean depths attracting its prey with a lighthouse, the entity did not know about Michael until the moment he touched it. But it was too late now. It was stronger than him, Michael’s ability to make wishes come true was child’s play in comparison to this thing’s singular wish - hunger for others like it. No matter how hard he tried to escape, Michael ended up coming back to this moment. Entangled in a web of another’s wish. The thing getting closer and closer every time. That’s why he tried to erase himself, to go into endless sleep and forget his ultimate crime against humanity. It didn’t work this time either, somehow the entity woke him up and wanted to play with its prey. Michael curled on the sofa and started sobbing. He didn’t want to talk to Emily. He didn’t want anything. Michael chose some random thread and pulled. The apartment grew darker and ceased to exist. Somewhere at the end of time and space something terrible was getting closer to Earth. And it was hungry.

"The Lost Kingdom"

There was once a small kingdom but a very proud one. Its inhabitants believed that due to their location and heritage they played a very important role in the grand scheme of things. They had a Destiny, and all the other countries around them didn’t understand it or share it. They were special and everyone else was just an enemy waiting for an opportune moment to steal their dreams. So when a great leader came to power and promised to fulfil their Destiny and protect them from their enemies, every citizen rejoiced and celebrated their imminent bright future.

Years went by, but the kingdom didn’t get any closer to its Destiny, and the Great Leader in his infinite wisdom explained the reason to his subjects - all the enemies around them were sabotaging them all this time and the only way to stop them was to separate the kingdom from the rest of the world. There was nothing good in the rest of the world anyway. All they ever needed was within their grasp. The Great Leader gathered the best scientists and together they developed the Iron Curtain - an impenetrable barrier that blocked everything except direct sunlight. The device was so ingenious that it could block the entire country from the rest of the world and no one would see what’s happening inside. The generator would run forever once turned on and only the Great Leader had the key to turn it off.

On the day the Iron Curtain was turned on everyone rejoiced once again and felt exalted that all their problems had such a simple solution. The Great Leader secretly ordered an execution of all scientists, so that none of them could sabotage the generator in case they were actually spies. He hid the key and the project documents in his personal safe and forgot about it. Life went on in the kingdom, people got used to the fact that their world around them suddenly became very small. At least it was their own world. They worked harder and harder every year and didn’t complain about growing prices or falling quality of life because they had nothing to compare to. The Great Leader knew better than them and took care of everything, they didn’t even need to think.

But one day the Great Leader suddenly died of “food poisoning” and his son became a rightful successor. The New Great Leader didn’t share his father’s ideas, he wanted to see the rest of the world. He didn’t care about the Destiny and didn’t believe in external enemies - he was born after the Iron Curtain and so he has never seen them. But when he opened the safe, he discovered that the generator key was eaten by rust and the documents had faded away. The knowledge was lost and so the generator stood there working for another 100 years. People forgot about the rest of the world and the world forgot about them.

***

Ivan was a typical miner, and he would probably stay one - unremarkable and unknown to the world, but one day his pickaxe strike opened a long lost tunnel of an ancient mine. He was a curious man, so he pulled through the opening and decided to explore the tunnel despite the fear of an unfinished shift quota. Ivan felt like home in the tunnels (his father was a miner too and so Ivan naturally followed his footsteps according to the will of the Greatest Leader), the labyrinth that would easily end the life of a regular Theseus was nothing to him, and he soon found a fire safety shaft leading up. He opened a couple of rusted metal doors and arrived at the surface.

The world outside somehow looked different to him. Was it the shade of the sun, the colour of grass? Something was off. A sudden thought struck Ivan like a lightning - he was outside! He knew the Iron Curtain existed and heard the fairy tales of the world outside, but could he ever imagine himself being there? Ivan suddenly felt small and frightened like a lost little kid in the crowd. He was about to turn around and go back into the tunnel when he heard an unfamiliar buzz and saw something hovering in the air. Too big to be an insect?it looked mechanical, like a robot from science fiction books. A flying robot? Ivan’s curiosity was his downfall - the robot shot something at him and Ivan suddenly felt very tired and sleepy.

He woke up in a typical jail cell with raw concrete walls and a tiny unreachable window that barely let any sunlight in. The door opened and he saw an astonishingly beautiful female in an unfamiliar uniform.

"Morning Ivan, feeling better? Sorry about the drone."

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised she knew his name. Her accent was unmistakable. She was an outsider. An enemy? The fairy tales were right! She would deceive him and use every inhuman method imaginable to fish out his secrets. His heart sank, but at the same time Ivan was enthralled. He knew it was love at first sight (that long lost childhood feeling), he didn’t want it, but he could do nothing about it.

Mila - that was the name of the Peace Officer who found Ivan - was stationed at one of the Iron Curtain survey stations around the Lost Kingdom. Not a very lucrative job by the United Federations standard, but also there were zero expectations - no one has seen any signs of activity from inside the dome for more than a 100 years. Finding Ivan was her jackpot - a sensation that would make her the second most famous person in the world for a while and she took that opportunity without a second thought…

Ivan was at first afraid of the outsiders. History classes have taught him that they were the reason his kingdom had to put up a barrier and suffer in eternal loneliness - they were the bad guys. But Mila was the nicest person he has ever met, she made sure he was comfortable and talked to him about all the amazing things he would see, if he wanted to go around the world with her. And so it felt natural that the next evening they were sitting in the outpost command room, not in the cell. And they were drinking wine, and suddenly they started kissing and it ended with the best sex of his life. Still awake Ivan told Mila he loved her, and she said she loved him too.

The rest of the story was quite unremarkable. Ivan became more of a guest than a prisoner, he was visited by some of the United Federations officials and granted a visa. He was invited to the television talk shows where he told millions of people about the life inside the Iron Curtain - he was cautious to never disclose any military secrets, but no one ever asked for them. He felt homesick of course, but more and more often he caught himself thinking: “I like these people more than my dull grey and boring Motherland.” He travelled a lot, he married Mila who was assigned as his personal guide (special role from the world government) and he was finally happy.

But every genuine fairytale has a tragic end. Once initial hype has died down and the world has moved on, Ivan discovered that no one cared about him. People at the parties he was invited to talked about space exploration and scientific inventions he never heard of. There were no miners in the United Federations - all the menial labour was done by robots. Ivan felt like a neanderthal dug out after the ice age to discover the world had no place for him except for a museum.

He became depressed and started drinking a lot like he used to back home. Mila was trying hard to save the relationship, but it was falling apart. And so one day he decided: “Why am I still here? I could go back home and tell everyone about the world outside and finally find a way to drop the Iron Curtain. Like Moses I would lead them out of darkness into this brave new world. This is my role! This is what I was meant to do.” But when he told Mila about his decision, she suddenly started crying, and no matter how hard he tried she wouldn’t tell him why. Next morning he quietly gathered a backpack and went on foot in the direction of the Iron Curtain where the old tunnel was.

Several years have passed but he easily found the old outpost where he had met Mila, strangely unmanned and abandoned now. Finding a tunnel was even easier - he noticed a metal hangar built on top of it that wasn’t there before. Clearly abandoned now, but quite a big military installation. Right before he was about to enter the tunnel a phone call from Mila caught him:

"Look, I couldn’t tell you the truth, because I knew it would destroy you. I see you’ve made up your mind, but I must stop you at any cost! So here it is… I got the location of the entrance to the Lost Kingdom from you the very first night while you were still unconscious. I used the “truth serum” on you. And something else… I used an “attraction serum” that made you love me. It was all in the protocols, I didn’t know… I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you - you would think this was all fake, but I really love you now! I swear I love you, please don’t go back! Only death awaits you there. We had to execute the Ragnar?k project, we had no choice, it was the old protocol…"

Ivan hung up. He didn’t want to believe. He didn’t answer the next call. And the next one… He rushed into the tunnel and the old skills helped him navigate. He entered his old mine. Abandoned. Silent. Unpowered. He climbed the emergency stairs to the surface.

A skeleton. First skeleton he saw was in the control booth. With a sense of impending doom, he opened the door and went outside. The sky felt familiar, it was his childhood sky distorted by the Iron Curtain. He was finally home. But his home was no more. Everywhere he could see was a sea of skeletons. They littered the streets of his city as he walked past, and then there was silence, the dead silence of the dead city… He started running, he could no longer bear the truth. He was the one who led the enemies to his Motherland. The Great Leader was right all along! All these years of peace… And Ivan betrayed his Kingdom. Unknowingly he has killed all of them. Every single one of them! And at that very moment Ivan’s mind simply gave up.

"The Man in the High Castle" but ...

There are certain fiction books that will never be written simply because there is already a book on the topic so legendary that anything else will inevitably be compared to it. No one wants to aim for the second best from the start, so the authors drop the idea as soon as they think it through. But what if the original never existed? Make a simple mental experiment: could you create something better than the other book (not because you claim to be a better writer, but because you learned from the original’s mistakes)?

For me one of the ideas is “The Man in The High Castle” but with Russians instead. Recent events inspired me to read a book on WW2, which in turn made me think once again about one important turning point in history. What if the hotheaded Soviet generals who were advocating for the continuation of the war in May 1945 prevailed and Stalin agreed? This is realistic because US generals were having exactly the same discussions (documented). And just this one change creates a beautiful story that is closer to alternative history than science fiction.

Stalin goes for a sudden strike shortly after the fall of Berlin without a formal war declaration on his former allies (exactly like Hitler in 1941). The focus is on air superiority as it is the only possible threat to the enormous USSR ground forces concentrated in Europe. Soviet medium bombers can reach most of USAAF and RAF air bases in Europe and obliterate them in a massive attack, also bombing the ports and supply lines. (USSR was inferioir in bomber operational distances because it never focused on long range air raids, mostly on ground-attack and fighter planes.) Allies scramble long range bombers from UK in response, but those suffer colossal losses to superior numbers and skill of Russian fighter pilots (who have been doing this for years). This is nothing like fighting the dwindling German defenders in 1944.

Ground forces unaccustomed to numerical disadvantage and large scale tank battles crumble and get surrounded in cauldrons. Attempts to organise evacuation to the UK (like Dunkirk in 1940) fail. Within days the continent is free of organised allied forces and small pockets of resistance get taken care of by occupation. Meanwhile USSR air forces relocate closer to London and begin systemic air raids. The Battle for Britain is bloody but short, because in the end it is decided by a large-scale land invasion (totally copied from the D-day but with lessons learned) which the UK has no counter for.

Operation Paperclip does not happen in time. So instead USSR employs all the former Nazi scientists for the same military projects they used to work on just months before. Submarine program that had to be put on hold because of lack of resources is revitalised and The Battle of The Atlantic begins again with nearly infinite resources from the USSR. That’s why the USA can never launch a successful counterattack on occupied Britain and instead is stuck in the war of attrition.

The USSR never opens a second front with Japan in August 1945 and allies with them instead. This gives Japan some breathing room in the Pacific war they are losing. Soviet forces help keep peace in occupied China and relocate air support to break the US siege. The turning point of the Pacific war is brought closer by taking the Panama canal and feeding a constant fleet of submarines to cut off the supply lines in the Pacific.

Stalin knows through his network of spies about the cracking of Enigma code in Bletchley Park in 1941, and he shares this secret with Japan. They scrap all the old cypher machines and use the new ones donated by the USSR. The US navy no longer has an advantage they’ve been exploiting for years.

Speaking of spies, the Manhattan project is not just leaked to the USSR speeding up the development of the atomic bomb (like it happened in reality), but suffers a “little incident” - Los Alamos laboratory is destroyed in an explosion together with several key scientists. The project is set back several months.

By 1946 the Pacific war is lost by the US and all the ports are under constant submarine blockade. The remaining allies lose hope and sign humiliating peace treaties with the USSR. The scene is set for the ground invasion. Which USSR begins by setting the foothold in Alaska and taking the East Coast cities one by one with the help of the Japanese navy. US does not have enough time to build the ground army from scratch to protect the whole territory, so they focus on protecting major industrial and financial hubs on the West Coast. Realising that holding the whole USA is a suicide task, Stalin decides to simply nuke New York and several other cities in a display of power. Yankees are no japs and prefer to live for the American dream than to die for it. Emergency government is formed and a new Declaration of Independence is signed by the United Soviet States of America (USSA) ending the war.

And here we are. Exactly at the same point where “The Man in The High Castle” takes off. Ready for The Adventures of Africa and South America - will they willingly convert to communism or do they need help? Or maybe The Tale of The Great American Resistance - will it actually happen or will the people grow used to the new world especially given the number of communist sympathisers? Or maybe something is brewing in Europe? Don’t you think it’s a much more interesting setting?

?The One?

Stephanie is a perfectly ordinary girl with some family history of schizophrenia. She doesn’t care about this fact though, until one day to her own dismay she tells a story at a party and immediately realizes that this is not her memory. This story happened to someone else, but it was Stephanie who possessed the body, she was the one who acted and said the words. She soon discovers even more “fake” memories like this, and even though this is very distressing, at the same time it somehow feels natural to her. In those episodes she knows exactly what the person felt, what they thought, why they said one thing or the other - she is that person. The person she occupies does not exist before that point in time, does not exist without her. And once she stops trying to distance ”herself” from ”them”, she realises that her whole life is a series of disconnected situations happening to various people. Thousands of different people in fact. There is no coherent “Stephanie” timeline, she lives the lives of everyone else. One at a time, but also all of them happening simultaneously. And once she accepts that reality, she notices that all the people around her are in fact her - just playing a different role in every interaction she has with other lives she has. She is the One-in-all and no one at the same time. And the moment she realises that, she loses Stephanie, because there is no reason for the One to focus on one particular life.

Post-credits scene: we see Stephanie in a mental institution, completely dissociated from reality. Living billions of lives in her head. Being the only one who lives. Carrying the burden of the One - everyone and no one at the same time.

"Solaris 2"

[I imagined this story a long time ago, but never tried to write it down, because words fail to draw a good picture. Closing the gestalt now.]

Space exploration scientific vessel lands on a planet whose whole surface is covered in a reflective metallic liquid with no atomic structure. Scientists try to analyse the liquid, but soon discover that their technology level is insufficient to learn anything - whatever it is came from a way more advanced civilization. This is derived from the fact that the planet has a breathable atmosphere and no signs of carbon life.

As if under a magic spell all expedition members fall into a deep dreamless sleep at night. When they wake up, they can’t believe their eyes. The liquid is no longer covering the surface. The whole planet is now an ocean. At the same time they realise that the planet started emitting electromagnetic waves in a wide spectrum like a pulsar and it is strong enough to interfere with their equipment. Not only are they cut off from communicating with the other vessels, but their life support systems are failing. One of the team members soon discovers that the ocean has primitive life, which cannot be explained by simple contamination. They come to the conclusion that the metallic liquid is now mimicking life.

Night comes again and despite their attempts to stay awake everyone falls asleep. They wake up to a change of scenery: the planet now has a solid surface with plants and animals that look earth-like. Short on resources the expedition decides to hunt some samples and discover that they are edible. Moreover, in the distance they spot what looks like primitive humans. With no means to chase them and darkness closing in, scientists come back to the ship and fall asleep.

Next day the expedition wakes up to a fully developed civilization behind their windows. They establish contact and easily translate the language. But when trying to discuss the origins of the newly discovered humans they find a void in their collective memory, as if that civilization has never existed. They have an alien cuisine, alien culture, alien science, but everything is similar to Earth, like a long lost sibling that you never knew existed. Scientists make new friends and go to sleep full of hope.

But the planet shifts once again. Now the giant buildings cover the horizon, technology no longer looks familiar, and most importantly humans are no longer humans. They are translucent creatures similar in appearance to the original reflective liquid. They don’t seem to communicate anymore and all attempts to get their attention fail, as if they no longer care about the expedition. Nothing makes sense to the scientists, so they shut in.

Next morning the whole planet's surface is covered in slowly shifting reflective megastructures with no apparent architectural purpose. No signs of life. Expedition members become desperate as their resources dwindle.

But the seventh day ends it all. No megastructures - the planet is once again a perfect reflective silver ball. It is no longer emitting, so the scientists are able to restart the backup systems and activate the ship. But what is left of their adventure? No video recordings, no measurements, no samples, only their memories. Was the planet intelligent and tried to show them their future? Or was it the story of some other civilization? Or was it all just their imagination stimulated by the interaction with the planet’s emission? More importantly it was all a long metaphor that humans leave nothing behind, besides the stories they tell.

"Impostor"

Jake is a young millionaire. He rides the wave and literally makes money out of thin air on NFT trades. He’s dating a popular actress. People say he was born lucky.

But one day everything changes. In an unlucky turn of events he loses a large amount of money. And then again and again the next day. It is statistically impossible. Jake is distressed, and when he tries to step away from the market for a couple of days he suddenly discovers that all of his friends are giving him a cold shoulder. Some refuse to take his calls, some are openly hostile for petty reasons. His girlfriend sends him a message that she fell in love with someone else and wants to break up. Jake is “cursed” - the world has turned against him.

In an effort to understand what’s happening Jake goes to business coaches, psychologists, fortune tellers and even a witch. But nothing helps, he keeps losing money and being unlucky. And then suddenly he discovers a forum on darknet that is wholly dedicated to situations like this. It is based on an urban legend that sometimes the boundary between parallel universes becomes thin and different versions of the same person swap realities. There is a technique to try to communicate with your other self, so in a desperate attempt to finally solve this issue Jake decides to attempt it.

He goes to the casino and loses the rest of his money to speed up the “shedding” of his luck. Jake is kicked out, he goes to a nearby bar, gets drunk and starts a fight. His head is seriously injured and so he loses consciousness in the ER. At that exact moment he shares consciousness with his other self. Jake 2 from the parallel universe never went to college, his parents died in a car crash, so he grew up in an orphanage. He never had a stable job and has health issues after prolonged addiction to alcohol and drugs. But recently he was picked up by a rich girl, who decided to help him get back on his feet. She found him a job, he is getting treated and looks like the universe finally loves him.

Several months later we see the final moments of Jake 1, who is now homeless with terminal cancer. He dies thinking about Jake 2 who is now happy somewhere out there.

“Godtouched”

Jeremy is born in the year 2200. The world has made significant technological progress and more importantly has matured ontologically. Religion has been deemed an atavism and the world population is now 99% atheist.

Jeremy is an almost autistic child (big rarity in the future where any genetic anomalies are treated prenatal). After a certain incident he becomes severely distressed and exhibits symptoms known in the past as stigmata. Medics are baffled because he is otherwise healthy. More thorough genetic tests are made and it is discovered that he has multiple genome anomalies, more importantly he is not genetically related to his mother, nor to his father. This causes dissolution of his family and Jeremy is put into a foster home for special children (very rare).

There he is being bullied and gets a nickname Godtouched, which is essentially a derogatory term. Jeremy does not believe in God, but starts researching ancient religions trying to understand why he is so different from everyone. Information is very limited and the only plan he can form based on urban legends is to go on a pilgrimage and find the Last Remaining Church.

He runs away from the foster home, and has no issues moving around, because the world is essentially borderless. But having no real means to fly he goes on foot and soon becomes lost in a local desert (large sections of Earth are now deserted due to climate change). There in the desert, starving and dehydrated, he finally has his first beatific vision.

God tells him that the world has failed him, and because no one is talking to him anymore, there is no point to keep it, so he will end it soon.

Shortly after that Jeremy is saved by the rescue helicopter and brought back to the foster home. He completely changes in character and becomes a prophet trying to tell everyone he meets about the impending doom. Medical specialists in concilium decide that nothing can be done to help Jeremy. He is sent to a future version of mental asylum, where people are plugged for the rest of their lives into virtual reality modelled after their world vision to fix their rejection of reality.

As soon as Jeremy is plugged in, he meets God again, they hold hands and walk into the sunset. Real world ends.

On war

I wanted to stay away from this topic, but today I’ve had enough. STOP VILIFYING RUSSIANS. It does not help anyone and will not stop the war. In case you didn’t know, most Russians are against this war, but surprise-surprise in the current political climate popular opinion does not mean anything. Even with thousands of people joining peaceful protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg every day.

But let’s first look at the global political response that pioneered this wave of hate. Disclaimer: I’m not a specialist on sanctions, but you know me - my opinions are usually fact-checked and generally correct.

When countries impose sanctions on other countries they usually pursue several objectives. First, impede an adversary's economy by denying them access to certain vital resources. Does not quite work in case of Russia, because China is basically an endless source of generic replacements for embargoed goods. Even when this objective is achieved, historically it does not change the situation. Second, put enough pressure on the general population by reducing their quality of life to force them to change the government and thus abandon the war. Once again does not work in case of strong dictatorships, where the population would prefer to starve than to go to jail for indefinite period as political dissidents. What’s left? Put enough pressure on people in power by constricting them and seizing their foreign assets to force them to form a coup and assassinate the dictator. Now, that’s a very probable scenario, but if you think about it, this method is not a very civilised one, isn’t it? "We cannot openly participate in this conflict, but we will make your people poor and miserable and see if it helps, ok?"

When international corporations join the sanctions, they don’t do it to support Ukraine. They do it to farm PR points and protect their assets and investments. Sometimes it is cheaper to abandon an entire market that contributes 5% to your total revenue than deal with toxic assets. Like Boeing and Airbus leaving the Russian market instantly sparked talks about nationalisation of all leased planes (a lot of airlines around the world actually lease planes instead of buying). Next step would be to nationalise all automobile production facilities and as you can see car manufacturers already know that. In the end, this type of sanctions is driven by money.

Now, when small companies or individuals join the sanctions - that’s just tone deafness. Like those indie game developers who decided to “take a stance” and raised their price for the Russian market on Steam 10000%. Who are you trying to punish? Putin does not play games, and your Russian consumers do not equal Putin. Like adult websites (onlyfans etc) which demonetized Russian performers. What are you trying to achieve by robbing people of their only source of income? Like all those individuals who do not understand what’s happening, but need a scarecrow and so easily find a scarecrow in every situation. Please don’t be stupid.

Do better.

"Three ounces of magic"

[The plot of this story suddenly appeared in my head today, but I’ll probably never write it, so I need to note the idea for half-a-point of karma.]

Unnamed magician from Doesn’t Matter is exiled and left with a sliver of his former power. He must keep the remaining three ounces of magic or he will wither away and die. Every day he dreams of his former glory and wakes up to his ordinary life with an ordinary job of a game developer (the game release is being constantly postponed and there are rumours that it will probably never reach production). He lives like that for years, until one day he talks to a small girl (his neighbour's daughter) that lost her cat and has been searching for it for several days. Something shifts in him and without even thinking through he uses one ounce of his magic to return the cat safe and sound. Next morning, overcome with horror he regrets his actions, but sees the girl playing with her cat in the yard and decides that he cannot stop now. He goes to the office and uses another ounce of his magic to help his colleague (the only friend) to find an investor for an indie game he has been talking about for years. We never learn if the game is a success or not, but his colleague leaves the job to pursue their startup dreams. Now completely alone the next day the main character hears from a distant acquaintance that his former enemy (also exiled) is now in the hospital dying of cancer. He goes to see him and instantly recognises that it is not cancer but that the enemy has spent all of his magic. He gives him the last ounce of magic, and after a touching scene leaves the ward to sit on a bench in front of the hospital, looks at the sky and dies.