Five Card Story: The Robots

a ds106 story created by Eric Schmieg

flickr photo by cogdogblog

flickr photo by cogdogblog

flickr photo by paulhami

flickr photo by snakepliskens

flickr photo by paulhami

When the robots came, none of us were ready. When MineComp, the subsurface mining supercomputer, finally became self-aware, its drones became expendable pawns in the onslaught against humanity. Long ago had we relinquished the reins of our technology to these digital overlords, these soulless automatons. In those carefree years of blissful ignorance, we forgot all the workings and wirings of our electronic utopia, and surrendered all control to the robotic underlings. The sciences which had carried us to such Olympian heights were corrupted and twisted, and the institutions that had once pursued the very nature of truth diminished to purveyors of baubles and playthings.

When the robots came, we were languishing in our prosperity, gorging on the ill-gotten fruits of their mindless toil (and drinking some HUGE sodas). Only after being confined to the unrelenting darkness of the penal colonies did we truly realize our folly. It was only when we were locked away, herded like cattle by beings who could not comprehend our pleas, that we realized the beauty of the world that we had left behind.