Man And The Machine is a pretty short piece I cracked out in a couple of hours last night. It's currently awaiting an edit and a decent rewrite. And a white chritmas, while we're on the train to nowhere.
I've written it specifically for an anthology competition I stumbled across somewhere (I honestly can't remember how I found the site. I do know where it is, but posting the details of my story and the link in the same place seems kind of foolish. Sure, most of you are honest, but with this many readers, you can never be too careful. If anyone, or you, the only reader, wants the link, drop me a message on whatever lead you to the blog and I'll oblige.) Basically, the idea is to write a sci-fi story on the theme of a desolate place.
My story revolves around a data-gathering machine left on a venutian planet by human astronauts seeking a new home for mankind. They died without being able to leave the planet, meaning nobody is coming back and effectively the planet is going to be ignored forever (it's not very hospitable anyway). The machine, left on its own, has developed two sets of consciousness.
The first is a typical computer. It sticks to its patterns and coding, awaits human input etc. The second is much more sentient. It has learnt that it is alone and that no humans are coming back. It (The Machine) has learnt to think deep thoughts, and it has learnt to want to die (precisely how long this machine has been alone is not specified: such a long time that its internal clock has gone over the maximum length of time it can record, and yet the battery is over 98% full, meaning The Machine will be alone forevermore). (NTS: the bodies should have dissolved entirely by now, perhaps to only dessicated husks, if it's been that long NTS: only non-organics remain, to explain why no insects for such plentiful food sources). The story opens with The Machine musing on the difference between Man and The Machine.
The big problem arises when The Machine realises that it can no longer remember what humans need to survive. In other words, the higher-thinking Machine can no longer do its function, so the more robotic part plays back the last video footage recorded of humans, of The Operator (whom I tried to portray as something of a parent figure- i want The Machine to seem like a child) arriving and setting up the probe (probe is the wrong word, really, but it's all I have right now), and then killing himself after his partner starves to death.
In the middle of this, The Machine discovers an insect crawling on the surface of the planet (life has gone undetected as it is all subterranean and the probe is surface based-NTS: Make that clearer beforehand. NTS: describe underground adaptations to clarify). Desperate both for companionship (NTS:this clearer too) and for something to do, The Machine ignores parts of the old recording and studies the insect.
The Machine returns to the recording just in time to watch The Operator die and concludes, quite naturally, that the human died because he was alone, and that the insect can never be left alone or it, too, will die (although it would be more accurate to say that The Operator died because he was left alone by humans, and becaue he would have died eventually anyway). The Machine dreams of creating hundreds of these insects to play with and study.
The insect runs away from the machine and tries to burrow underground. The Machine tries to grab it and accidently rips it in half, leaving The Machine alone again. The Machine concludes, amid a new shower of acid rain that does nothing to The Machine (NTS: add this in), that the essential difference is that Man can die, while The Machine can not.
So what's the problem?
Well there really isn't one. I'm using this as an excuse to talk out loud about the piece. I think that will help, especially as I want this to be good. Better than normal. More thematic.
So what themes am I aiming at? Loneliness would be key, I suppose. The Operator opts not to be alone and kills himself. The Machine is alone and does not want to be. It hates being alone. And ultimately, this fear of being alone causes it to be alone all over again (NTS: perhaps have the dying insect spray a hormone trail warning others of its kind to stay away?)
There's also one scene that's bugging me. As written, The Machine has a telescopic arm that it uses to grab the insect. But that makes it seem less helpless than it really should be. So I thought about changing it to only having a series of flashing lights to attract the insect, highlighting that The Machine can not move, can only sit there and scan the atmosphere. But then how do I make the insect die? (It could just run off and warn the others with a scent trail, but I think that's a lot less dramatic). The Machine is a sphere, so it could roll, but how?
I think I prefer the flashing lights idea to highlight the weakness and helplessness of the machine. Ooh, I'm having a thought. What if I have The Machine contain a sample-scanning bay (sort of like a CD drive, but for test tubes and things) that it attracts the insect into, but then the insect tries to run off and it snaps shut on it instead? Yeah, I like that a lot better.
The other thing I'm doing in the story is periodically interrupting with what represents a read-out of some vital system and test data (ambient temperature, atmospheric gases, system status etc.) The first time it happens, everything is in abbreviations (there's nobody there to read it, but The Machine can't not display it; it is bound by function after all) and the data about The Machine is displayed first. The next time it happens, which is in the video of the astronauts (which is basically like a memory), The Machine puts the atmospheric info first (as that is of most importance to the human Operator). The last time sequentially, which is also the last time chronologically, the data is back to the first configuration (as there are no humans still/again). I also use this data to convey how long The Machine has been there (System Time is one of the outputs) and relatively how much longer it has to go (Battery Power is another one).
I think three times in what will end up being a very short story (probably under 2000, maybe around 1500) is an ok amount. I want to make the point without breaking up the flow too much. I also want to avoid, as much as possible, the reader skimming over it and thinking "Oh, this crap again" because some of the inferences are very important. I think I might have a couple of other things I should chop (The Machine goes
...beep...beep...beep a lot more than might be necessary. (NTS: Take a look at that) Although the repeated ellipses are something I use in the story to indicate when it's the more rigid of the machine consciousnesses doing the talking.
I'm also doubting my ability to pull this off. What I've just written sounds very cool (to me at least) which is a huge part of why I want to make this work. But I don't want to screw it up. I'm hoping this blog rambling will help with that (all those Notes To Self are things I may well not have thought of without this post, or might have thought of and then forgotten. I really think this will help. Now I just need to sit myself down and do the damn writing.
Oh, and the blog about the story is now several hundred words longer than the actual story itself (in first draft form, anyway)
