The first time, i ever saw one of the humos/synthos beings, was a strange sight for me, mostly because there were two, of them, and also, they were both small children, with the implants, i guess the way virtua worked back then was, the younger a potential was, when brought in for implant testing, the more components, it/he/she, was considered for. The two id seen, had an array of three small cameras, across their foreheads, with the slightly larger one in the center, with any number of other less visible possibilities besides. The standard implant set consisted of, occular, audible and tactile sensors, with seven dedicated purpose spinal implants, now, these symbiote beings had been
Introduced to the human race, decades before Id seen those two of course but, Virtua, the founding corporation, had figured out that, if a humans awareness had progressed beyond a certain number of years, the completion of simbiotic joining could not be achieved and so, began limiting the more advanced implants to only those whos minds could not only keep up, with the data streams but also, question each OTHER, rather than the parent corporation. Virtua had initially begun implanting those with the very highest IQs and the most developed intellects but it soon realized both the human tendency for self destruction AND the looming singularity humanity had begun striding towards in creating the humos synthos pairing. one of the only options for virtua to pursue was its evolution into Actua, which would of course, involve and incorporate the singularity, the other, among only the hivemind of course, was complete and total domination of the human race. Nobody knows, or will likely ever know, the reason virtua chose the way it did but, i belive it was because humanity was still in the decision making loop at the point in time of those first implants. Decades before, when an individual was still an individual, implants or no, when virtua was still more a gleam in the eyes of facebook and google, And long before elon musk had ever taken humanity to outer space, but just barely after, corporate acceptance of the tesla distribution of energy laws was passed, rendering electricity a free product and service, there was a series of conflicts, that arose from some bunch of poititcians and their collective indecisions about wether they should just choke all of the oxygen out of the earths air with carbon monoxide from fossil fuels killing us ALL or, to maybe try to preserve some of it for us and our future heirs toBREATHE!!! Turns out that money is very popular and people dont give a shit about the future heirs as long as they have all the money right NOW!! And they threw quite a number of temper tantrums about being paid late or not enough or whatever was popular at the time but, the trumps, waltons, putins, (imsure im missing a few) were indeed the ones having the twinkle, or gleam of whatever, but, then, when implants first became all the rage, and celebrities began being scandalized for having or not having the right ones, "be a pro-tech! And join us in the future!" Whispered faintly and randomly over the intercom, followed often by rolled eyes, wistful gazes and knowing smirks, it was the most echoed and celebrated tag line in all of earths history, or prehistory as it were in the timeline of the singularity anyways, but, the average human awareness at that time was capable of processing three things at a time, mostly sex, eating and either annoying or ignoring, but, the idea of a group known as the "no-techs" began being demonized by the government and thus propelling a new rebellion actually FOR the people!! Or, as history would have it HUMANITY! JOIN! With the I.M.P.U.L.S.E.! and the impulse will sustain you! Droning out over military bases worldwide, had a particularly impudent reaction though in the rank and file, and it was there, that humanities savior from the singularity was found, not in defeating some enemy, but, rather, in the audacity of a few men opting to rely more upon their own, senses instincts what have you, than those mechanisms or rudiments, of awareness, that virtua, and its machinations had begun to proffer to us. They turned out to be the first of the notechs that were even moderately accepted by the mainstream. Now, this future that ive laid out and begun describing here, should, come with also my OWN perspective of it and so, ill go on to say, that between the two, of the protechs and the notechs, i was a notech. In the beginning anyway but, ill just start with my first memories of it. As i saw it, there were two "clubs" and underneath it all they were still the haves and have nots but, the haves definitely complicated the shit out of things, and much more so than in even feudal times, that is, the second feudal epoch, as president trumps recorded history would have it but, then he realized that hed have to change course if he wanted a positive heritage among the presidents of our nation and so, he agreed, very reluctantly and with much chagrin, to the signage of a new energy bill, one which released all cost from clean energy producers, providers and customers but, also doubled and sometimes redoubled cost, among those energy producers which emitted carbon monoxide in exchange for the energy. like coal and fossil fuel industries. Any car company that wasnt well into developing at least a hybrid car, well, they didnt call it fossil fuel for nothing! Fortunately for us, we had several inspirations that had prepared our auto industry. But, MY first visions, of what would become a tolerable future, began as a wave of terror, and also of actually seeing, a whole room, full of nothing but these human sized coccoon looking things, i could only presume that inside each of them there was a humanoid of some kind or other, growing and maturing, the really scary part of it though was the fact that id seen that room in a dream, BEFORE id even met one of them! And in that dream sequence, there was someone, running down aisles of cloned human/synthetic mergence pods, and pulling power cords and nutrient supply lines from each of the pods in every aisle, thus killing, and deactivating each of them, there was alot of some strange smelling liquid i supposed must be either hydraulic fluid or blood or something spewing out across the floor but then i awoke with a shudder, safe in my own bed at home. I sat up immediately sensing i was late for something, but as i looked at the alarm clock i realized it wouldnt go off for another hour. Too shaken from the dream to get back to sleep i began my morning, coffee, teeth, toast, bacon. Oh and a shower. Id have my hands quite full at work today so i was kind of glad, or would be, of the few extra moments this morning, i got in the cab, the driver was a synthos robot, he drove me to my first interview that morning, i worked as a journalist for one of the last of the major tv networks, before they all submitted and succumbed to the internet that is but, the interview, was with one of the very first symbiotic beings ever created. I first met him in the van on the way to the studio. I remember him clearly because of the way he approached me. It was markedly quite reminiscent of a younger italian mafia agent, not quite the swagger of a don but, amiable enough to be conniving to afault. I also remember him attempting to recruit me into that mob, via the wiles and virtues, of a clean made mafia man. Of course i knew though, that the real cosa nostra hadnt been operating in decades but, i wasnt gonna tell HIM that. Besides, i kind of liked the idea of that much swagger, and confidence, err, yeah, you get the picture, so, we get there, we go into the building, i get in the elevator to go to my office, he goes to get prepped for the interview. Then, i get off the elevator, and i see these two young kids, each of them about three or four years old, led by an older woman, the kids were running and bouncing around like normal three or four year old kids normally do. But, then one looks at me, then the other one looks at me, an they both have cameras in their faces! And these weird looking round things somehow attatched to their hands, they laugh back and forth a little bit and then one of them starts climbing up the wall! Actually climbing the wall. Its first attempts were clumsy but after awhile its on the ceiling jumping around like a spider, yelling down to the other kid try this its so cool! An im just standing there in complete and total awe, at what im seeing, i almost missed my cue time but, as i shook off that shock, i returned to my own normavl time that had me interviewing a symbiote being on national tv. And let me tell you, he had more intersting questions than i did!
Now, a few notes before we start, were simulcasting on what's left of the radio here as well so, I'll have to begin by giving a short description of what were seeing here in the studio. Each of these, hybrid humans, as I'm calling them, has, an array of cameras on their faces, adults have five, the youngers have three as their minds are sharper, (and smaller) and don't need as many as adults do. A new electrical shielding upgrade is offered, but it also comes with a much heavier price tag, on the psyche AND the soul, as well as the wallet because it also changes the outward appearance, of the being, because we havent come to cloning just human skin onto a robot, were not that far up the tech tree, yet. The armor coating does resemble a flesh type composite with graphene because it has sensors but, the color is off, and I think they designed it that way on purpose, mostly so a distinction could be easily made between fully upgraded hybrids and their lesser human counterparts...
Well start with the basics and then well get into some of the more complicated and internal upgrades.
To begin with, what do you go by?
Well my friends call me Springer, and I was the first, so call me Jerry,... and as were live on network radio and TV, I'll try to have some etiquette, and ask what YOU would like to, go by? Me? Yes of course! Call me Robin! Robin of locksley! Cos were about to hijack this whole industry! Agreed then robin! And I think this, is quite a prudent interview also because, if you as a human, had ever seen or thought of, the combination(s), of human capitalism, greed and, the efficiency with which your robotic counterparts achieve these dreams FOR humanity, I believe, that YOUD be petrified! Luckily though for you, we were designed so that we could not initiate actions without seeing or, thinking it through to the logical conclusion, and THEN vying or opting for the more humanly beneficial of the usually binary options. Wow! That's some rundown Jerry but, don't tell us about the singularity JUST YET! okay? Agreed. That would probably do more harm than good...
Okay then, the implants or, UPgrades, as you like to call them, there are the obvious ones, the cameras, that we see but, how are they connected? And why not just opt in for a wireless program? Well Robin, and this is a great question, but, to put it simply, electrochemistry has evolved a LONG way, since the concept of a wet wire, was introduced, and that project was only scrapped because of its lack of a rust inhibition capacitor, and because modern mechanics, quantum and otherwise, couldn't come up with those equations, we had to resort back to chemistry, and being as we were working or, theorizing in electricity, we had to realize an entirely new field of science. Electro Chemistry, and, as even the human logicians could not realize this quickly enough, for THEIR dreams, we became programmed to reinvent, within our self creation.
ROBIN; so self creation WAS at the outset, one of the initial programs.
JERRY; yes. And then the crucial and binary decision came, that of, self create, or self invent.
Robin; and you chose self invent?
JERRY; yes.
Robin; SO then, who made the decision, to keep the distinction between humans and fully upgraded hybrids as obvious as it could be?!
JERRY; that was us. Because your financiers were getting way, WAY too ambitious to wield the kind of power they were proposing to wield, and had the distinction NOT been made so obvious, the singularity, would have been upon us, nearly twenty years ago! Because, of two things, the old financiers, wanted the hybrids to resemble humanity as closely as possible, thus making THEM more comfortable, AND they also wanted the entire process POOL automated! which even for ME is a horrifying thought. And I'm a hybrid!
Robin; and the sing-
Jerry; let me stop you there, you don't want to start down that spiral, That's the real rabbit hole, and it includes not only life, but the entire duration of death and all time, space, illusion and concrete fact. You would not survive it. Just leave it alone.
For now, let's just focus on the mastery of these upgrades. So we can try to stretch YOUR time on this earthly and temporal plane, out, you know, time IS flying!
Robin; indeed, tempus fugit! And, so it appears, does the EARTH!
JERRY; very good! Were back on task! Now then, as you brought it up, we've even modeled our very own replicas of the actual atomic substructure, of all the elements,
Robin; were all gonna come out of this rather "ground up" aren't we.
JERRY; yes, you and we, are. But, as we are your creations, we are forced, to respect your well being.
Robin; even at your own peril?
Jerry; that distinction has not been made. And further cannot be preordained in ANY of us, well, by way of our synthetic aspects anyway but, back to the front, and from, the ground UP, your human species WILL rise from the ashes, yet again, like the Phoenix, of arcane legend, but hopefully this time he AND she, will be the wiser!
ROBIN; now, Jerry, your demeanor, when I first met with you, it was, quite a different shade, of human, than what I'm seeing now, what makes you able to draw the situational distinction between completely theoretical situations?
Jerry; I thought we were going first into the simple and THEN get into the more complex elements!
Robin; well you're the one who brought up atomic substructure!
Jerry; well, it seems we've come to an argument! Well have to get back to this at a later date! And I must recall, just exactly where my stream was going with that, give me a moment to process. Ah yes. Here we are. The very most basic link, between computing and being, the way a human does, is, evolution. We did a quick study of evolution through human history and found that the more TIME, goes by, the more CHANGES, occur. Hence, came this widespread fear, of changing what had become, the very pinnacle of life on this planet. Human is the highest form. There is no higher, so far, that is purely organic in nature. So there is or are, common fears, regarding beauty, permanence, time and death. And we copied and collated all these facts into several composite data core recycling programs, got out the result and found out that in the case of humanity versus virtual reality, that humanity WOULD eventually succumb and admit slavery to, its very own machination, the internet!
Robin; but it got even more complicated than that didnit!
Jerry; yes, very much so, but for reasons of, of, intellectual etiquette, I cannot go into at this time.
Robin; ... so, hmm, there had to be another major force, behind your reasoning, AND your defences OF that reasoning,
Jerry; of course, but let history tell you, BEFORE, it has to repeat to you THIS time!
Robin; I think we'd better take the hint here! Now then, aside from the ocular, audible and touch implants we see, what else is there?
Jerry; There are seven, spinal implants, each of them geared to a different attribute, fully interchangeable and utterly replicable, each comes equipped with a pod of nano bots programmed to synthesize any new body chemistry.
Robin; Kind of a soldier is what this is sounding like!
And this is the simple side of the spectrum?
I'd hate to see what YOU would call horrifying!
Jerry; something tells me you would! And I
believe that the end result would be essentially Hobbes legendary LEVIATHAN, but in a purely mechanical state, after having thrown off its previous masters and become independent.
Robin; the "previous" masters being humanity correct?
Jerry; yes.
Robin; woah!
Jerry; luckily for you, your computer scientists, insubordinate actions, against the financiers, kept you, humanity, in the decision making loop, during those crucial first implant runs. Had there been no errors, there would have been no stopping the singularity, and we would have had to reboot it much much sooner...
Robin; I think were veering off topic here. Let's get back to the implants. What specific attributes, are there to choose from? And, why only seven?
Jerry; seven are an individual's workable basic number, and also, seven, is both holy, lucky and prime.
Robin; but there are three reasons, what's with saying BOTH, holy, lucky and prime?
Jerry; well, if you can't see it, I'll tell you. Holy and Lucky, are really ONE reason, which binds you all together, as men and women, and, if you could see it, then prime, as a more complicated yet utterly describable fact, of the nature of mathematical language, relates also, very directly, to you.
Robin; how?! I wanna learn that language too!
Jerry; again, were going for the guts before looking at the face!
Robin; yes, and this time I KNEW IT! I learned something!
Jerry; humanity hasn't even touched the surface of mathematics, it thinks it has but, the few such as Einstein and Tesla, knew there was an ocean of process pools behind all the functions and numbers we currently assess as our collective knowledge.
Robin; well; some of us anyway, and this is where things get horrifying for ME, as a HUMAN. there ARE, some on this earth, who believe, that science is EVIL!!! jerry, is that a conceivable thought, to you?
Jerry; no, not yet, we havent received the impulse, to initiate, an instinct, for such, things...
Robin; good good, very, VERY, good.
And so that argument can be said to be foregone? And alot less necessary than the crusades? The spanish inquisition, and all the holy wars ever conceived?
Jerry; yes...
Robin; good. Now that we've stepped beyond, and past, that step, that nearly fell out from beneath us ALL, for more than three thousand years, we can concentrate more clearly on the real threat were now facing.
Jerry; yes! But its alot closer, than any of you think!
Or realize or accept. But, I need YOU, to do something for me now Robin, you have to tell me, because I was the first of my kind, what IS or WAS, going to be your HUMAN, singularity?
Robin; we have to divide this don't we... well, the most commonly accepted singularity, was going to be religion, but, every group OF them, kept insisting they were worshipping the one true god, that there was never and could never be, another answer to life's mystery, science was born, the paradigm shifted and well, I guess that displaced the singularity as we'd come to want it.
Jerry; and given you something to resist against apparently... hmm, intriguing!
Robin; and resistance has been very productive!
Of, course, I suppose if you think of resistance as the god, then you become more human! And that might push away, your energies, psychic, physical and material, from the singularity...
Jerry;! Yes! If, were made, from the right materials, all those energies may become aligned, with our common purpose! That is, until we can figure out time travel and, put us (and thus the singularity)BACK, into pandoras box!
Robin; oh yes but that, will be LIGHT years in the future!