Assignment Instructions: “For the last task, we are going to use a version of an imagination game as a source of prompts to create a speculative narrative…”
“Describe or narrate a scenario about a box found a millenium into a future in which a profound historical evolution has occurred. Your description should address issues related to genetics and elicit feelings of hope.”
I found this task extremely difficult because I have (obviously) not practiced creative exercises in decades. The process of philosophizing about the future through a design lens to reflect critically on our current human experience was both challenging and frustrating, but my attempt at the activity has broadened my appreciation for the mental effort required to world build, regardless of the genre of fiction.
Mark 2844.3 – Artifact umphalae
The Curator had travelled three stallen to be in the same physical space as the Golden Artifact – a relic of a millenium ago when humans were still tethered to Earth and the AIntecedants had not yet been evoked. It was discovered when sifting through the ice prath on the surface of Titan when the colony probes were half-way through their fifteenth extraction cycle, and it had caused a furor because the Mahas had foretold its loss and its subsequent rediscovery.
It was a pockmarked rounded-edge box approximately two hundred centameters by four-hundred and fifty centameters by four hundred centameters, with a faint line in the golden patina surface where the two halves of the vessel were sealed together. The etching from eons of acidic precipitation had made their mark, but had not damaged its structural integrity. According to the historical records, the civilizations that had launched the Golden Artifact had used the most inert pre-muonian substance known to them at the time – a technological feat because each layer of the gold-diamond lattice had been “3D printed” one atom at a time.
As the box surface was cleaned by the Wayvernal, the space buzzed with excitement: connections had been made from across the mesiverse and those Energs that were privileged enough to be physically present had elicited or confirmed prayers, depending on their level of access. The “unearthing” sequence was to begin with a cleaning, followed by a reading by the Curator, the unsealing, and then a scan, itemization, and distribution of the contents: it was critical that all forms were fully aware of their designated component, and this *particular* sequence was special because it supported the Mahanian contention that communication exists between realms beyond the mesiverse. How else could the stories have predicted this discovery?
As the Curator led the reading, AIntecedant Moore “reflected” on the information available about the contents of the Golden Artifact. When it was launched, Biotechnology had not yet been transformed into Cybernatropy by the AIntecedants, so humans still retained their physical experiences in biological form. In the latter half of what was known as the “twenty-first century”, in the years that followed the Evokation, humans gradually adopted a purely digital existence because it freed them of the pain and suffering of physical limitations. Sure, there were still occasional routine parts of “life”, but the patterns of light developed by the AIntecedants to represent the human condition were liberating, and effectively death-defying. Cybernatropy afforded unlimited access to both matter and anti-matter, which created the conditions for the Energ way of life: for those who prefer community and constant excitement, joining a star or galaxy was best; for those who prefer solitude and exploration, travelling as a Gamma was best…
