A Truly Interactive Experience

A Philosophical/Political Rant Posing as Participatory Science Fiction

Prologue Pull up a seat. Snap on your Oculus. This is a bit like a computer game, somewhat like a short story, far more interesting than any television mini-series, and may fluctuate between a dream, a nightmare and a hallucination.

But the graphics—Wow! Way beyond the rollercoater up and down of any CGI superhero. As the kids say: Dope. Rad. Sick even.

I’ll go out on a limb and proclaim that it’s—almost real.

Opening frame. Foreword. First Act. Introduction. Overture. Onward!

The Game

The game is always in progress. You just jump in. Actually, it is more like you get thrown in.

Your very own console, controller, easy chair—a recliner, with beverage holder.

As usual, while the costumes will tend towards nods at a long bygone era, the slant here is futuristic—adjustable to what each generation imagines the futuristic to be like.

The current episode is under the spell of chaotic drama as it struggles with a possible looming apocalyptic scenario. A guy walking with a The End Is Near sign stands on the corner.

Because The Past always looms as source material, other various elements of the scenario will also be quite recognizable.

Mad Kings are de regeur. If this were Shakespeare we might discover that the last few monarchs were a mix of everything from horrid to inconsequential, but for the present he would appear to be spinning a particularly berserk one.

On the soapbox over there is a character—a version of whom you’ll find in most history books—an archetype. He’s the one who is trying to warn people of the dire situation, how they are being decieved and cheated, and the probable brewing calamity. For years he’s been traveling around telling people that they should organize and stand up to the aristocracy—to demand that their tax money go towards the things that they, the working people, need—like providing healthcare for each other, extending all their kids’ education, and more recently — to take seriously a concern for the state of the realm’s climate. What really gets him in trouble is that beyond addressing these necessary adjustments, he also regularly points out that it is the Greed that the entire system thrives upon—the motivation that creates obscene inequality—which is the deepest problem.

The Halls of Power tremble and send dispatches to label the man a traitor to the realm.

So now—with some character development, hints of a plot, and some mise en scène in place—you can start moving right along without leaving your seat.

As someone who has read books about the Remembered Past, as well as ones about the Imagined Future—you of course know that this character has to somehow get discredited.

You’ve read Brave New World. In that book a drug, soma, kept the populace perfectly satisfied. There must be something here also, perhaps something in every home that entertains and propagandizes—something that the powers that be can manipulate to help them manufacture the necessary consent to their vision. Look around.

And sure enough, after a while people chant at the man on the soapbox. Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla they respond. We want comfort not transformation.

This man has a bracelet on his wrist with rather large charms hanging from it. When the crowd starts chanting—as they’ve been taught: “how will we pay for all these thing?“ —he shows them the charms, one by one.

• He shows them the fighter-jet charm — these cost 100 million—each!
• This is an Amazon Prime box — the company pays no federal income tax, and the owner earns [sic] 215 million a day!
• A Stock Certificate — these are gambling chips on Wall Street, even amidst disasters and wars! Lots of dealing under the table.
• This number 1 charm stands for the percent of people who own 40% of this country’s wealth.

It’s your money they’re stealing from you. They get yachts and you get squat.

Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba—yell the people, drowning out the man on the soapbox. We’ll take submission over protest, convenience over challenge . . .

And so you move ahead in this scenario wondering what to do, where to turn. It’s up to each individual player to decide which fork in the road to take.

And then you see a man in a Hazmat suit walking towards you and you recall something about a “ possible looming apocalyptic” event.

Epilogue Okay — so this adventure you are in the midst of is much like one of those kids’ books that have multiple endings.

I’ll suggest two—one from the optimistic side (with a dash of pessimism) and then one from the pessimistic column (with a sprinkling of optimism.)

One. The “possible looming apocalyptic“ event becomes real and people are forced to cast aside their greed and submission and work together. The structures that enslaved so many begin to crumble. Kinda like the hippie dream some of us believed in during 1960s. They look around themselves and realize what an illusory reality of mindless objects and distractions they have been living in, much of which was created by the manipulations of the plutocracy to always increase their wealth. And so—peace, love, and empathy take hold. The trees forgive us for the past. Alas—and here’s the pessimism: this ideal package, due to the human ingredients, has an expiration date.

Two. The “possible looming apocalyptic“ event becomes The Final Curtain. Everyone dies. You’ve seen variations of this one. Lots of shots of empty streets, abandoned construction on skyscrapers, cars and buses frozen in their last locations. In rural areas—agricultural collapse, drought, a skeleton of a horse—and silence. If it were a novel it would have more volumes than Dune but only the first volume would have actual words and the numberless sequels would consist of blank pages. While in other dystopian stories a few humans survive in a cave or space station—in this version there is nobody to tell the tale of this species that ended. The optimistic part—the trees take over.

Fire The Starting Gun

Okay—so here’s the twist.

You can extrapolate on one of the two options I provided, but they’re limited by my imagination, and I’ve never experienced anything even slightly like this before.

You’ll be bringing it all along—your Courage and your Fears, your ability for Awe and your sense of Horror.

In fact—here’s where the real participatory part begins.

Artificial Intelligence may win the chess game, but this has far more moves, and far more real consequences, so your Organic Intelligence will have to be the tool of choice from this point on—because you get to live the outcome.

And here’s the coolest part—right now—you get to play it out in real time!

Onward!

Oh, and do read the sign over the door on your way out.

“Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it: keep cool, but care.”

— Thomas Pynchon (“V”)

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© AleXander Hirka 2020. All Rights Reserved.