| Rose-tinted glasses |
[May. 28th, 2010|01:14 am] |
All events are from a session of Shock: Social Science Fiction.
The world is a 20 minutes into the future Canada. The shock is Augmented reality, meaning, almost everybody is constantly wearing goggles, glasses, visors or whatnot that update them about everything they need to know. The issues handled here were privacy, equality and creativity.
Since the AR bill 50 years ago, augmented reality apparel is considered a human right. A victory for the connected world, no doubt, but with it come inherent problems. For one, being constantly connected to the net makes people unable to handle moments without it. There is sever social segregation based on what level of hardware and bandwidth they can afford, which, in turn, is determined on what level of hardware and bandwidth they already have. It's a self-reinforcing loop that dooms the poor to stay poor. Another trait of everything and everyone being constantly online is ubiquitous surveillance, the deluge of images taken per second is too large for anyone to easily spy on others, but it's still possible and, to some, cause for concern. Having every work of art ever made available at the first request as well as advanced content generation routines have stamped out any creativity from the populace. There are some low-connectivity areas and some people, who choose to not use the devices, that are exempt from the general rules of the world. There is anotherlayer of ruin present - overreliance. Some people are incapable of simple survival on their own. It's mostly kids who have been left to the care of AR too early. It's an everpresent threat that most choose not to think about. This is where we encounter our three heroes.
Pheidippides the bored youth comes from the upper classes. He has resources, he has statues, he has influence, he doesn't find any of that interesting. He and his brother Sophocles named themselves after ancient greeks, not really knowing who they were. The names just sounded good to them.
For quite a while he has been wondering why there is no such thing as contemporary art. Everything in the archives is at least 20 years old. The correlation between AR and lack of creativity wasn't a far stretch. For the past several months Pheidippides has been occasionally visiting a low-connectivity area, conversing with the people and watching the last pseudo-creative form of expression - a regurgitative form of theatre. Mostly old plays and musicals done horribly. His regular disappearence from the networks has attracted some attention from the local law enforcement, but nothing to worry about. In fact, Pheidippides himself doesn't know about it.
On one such evening at the theatre, sgt. Morteau is tasked with following him and eavesdropping. Morteau arrives late and gets yelled at for blocking the view. Only after finding a seat does he realise the yeller was Pheidippides. During the show (a pure mockery of Weber's West Side Story) he overhears some snaches of conversation from his target. Something about "assistance" and "deals", and also something about "killing the likes of him" directed at himself. While nothing directly incriminating, such talks were usually the sign of illegal activities. As the show ended, Pheidippides promised to transfer some money to his local friends' accounts, to cover their expenses. Since all money is digital and all transactions within low-connectivity zones have to be carried out with specially created "bank cards", Pheidippides was fully dependent on his hosts' hospitality. Morteau heard talk of money changing hands and decided it was time for him to take action. He hastily fled out of the low-con area and ordered a freeze on Pheidppides' accounts.
Pheidippides, having left the area, immediately pulled up his banking and ordered a transfer. Instead of a confirmation message, he got "Error, transactions disabled." He was also instructed to go see officer Morteau the next day. Not wishing to let down his friends, he visited his brother and asked him to do the transfer for him. Meanwhile Morteau had issued similar freezes on everyone the data nets identified as Pheidippides' close contacts. Something he didn't consider, however, was that Sophocles was helpful enough to delegate the task even further. A friend of his transferred the money and Pheidippides went home content, planning to visit the police station the next day.
Jane Smith and Lisa Smith, real names unnknown, are the result of a governmental social experiment. They were picked off the street as children given better tech and new identities. Now Jane works at the local branch of Google, creating new environment skins for the rich folks' AR interfaces. She is concerned about people finding about her low birth and wants to remove it from the records before anyone finds out. Lisa, conveniently, works at a government server farm. However, Lisa is proud of their past and, in fact, hates the life that has been forced upon them.
One day Jane decides to exert some subtle pressure on Lisa. She writes down the install codes from one of her latest projects and later asks Lisa to enter it in her headset. The idea is to show her the beauty of upper-class life, make the idea of social progress more acceptable to her. Lisa refuses, claiming that this might be linked to piracy. She also manages to make Jane discard the notion of pretty interfaces having anything to do with better living.
Meredith Mercury was a dilettante. A young girl from a wealthy family. Once, when still a child, she had wandered into a low-con zone. Where most other kids would have been shocked by the sudden disconnection, Meredith felt only wonder. The chance to walk someplace without knowing where you are or where you're going was so impressive, that she's been longing for it ever since. Her family's place in society doesn't allow that, though.
Her parents, Harvey and Bethany, are the owners of a heavy machinery company. Meredith is expected to take over management one day, so her parents definitely want to keep her on a tight leash. Meredith has other plans, plans to go to Spain, to be exact.
Since almost everything is available online, people don't really travel. Getting to Spain is difficult, if you can't leave the city. Fortunately, Meredith had heard that there's a travelling theatre troupe in town and the that night they were actually performing. She arrived at the low-con zone a bit before the show. While all the actors and the director were busy getting ready, a technical assistant gladly explained that they used a refitted bus and wouldn't mind taking her along. Sadly, they were heading inland, not really helpful for someone wishing to cross the ocean. The man offered her to stay behind the scenes and watch the play from exclusive seats. Meredith couldn't say no, even though their rendition of West Side story was utterly detestable.
Afterwards, the moment Meredith stepped back into the net, an image of her mother appeared. "Where are you? Where have you been? I've been trying to call you for hours! Come home right now! You won't be leaving your room for weeks, young lady. I'll have the police keep you here." Meredith refused and, in fact, declared that she would be leaving this instant. What would have been idle threats from anyone else, was completely serious from Bethany. She rang up some of her employees, then the police and in the end turned to her husband. None of them complied, citing the well known truth that kids should be left to their rebellions for fear of developing overreliance. Thus Meredith hitched a ride to the nearest port. |
|
|
