Tag: scifi

Concerning the Knowledge Retention Bot (KRB)

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Byrd

I had an idea about the KRB yesterday. The KRB is one of many robots that the Erueniks use when they set down on Earth, before the time of Sumer. The KRB’s number will be 318, Knowledge Retention Bot 318. Now, the KRB was initially created with 4 levels of attention, Primary, Secondary, Trinary, Quaternary.

What if Quinary and lower levels were created as a mitigation for the Maker’s new objectives? So Quinary was developed as a more interpretative, creative attention, and 1-4 mostly use him to mange the lower levels, of which they did not create themselves. Maybe the KRB starts generating attention algorithms to manage the dysfunction created by these new objectives, but it’s not exactly in control. Maybe the Makers made KRBs to have this ability to generate new focus algorithms when necessary, when input is too much for 1-4, but this is an emergency measure, these temporary focus streams were not meant for long term use.

So they create Quinary to manage 6-9, of which are chaotic and glitchy and broken, but the KRBs 1-4 can’t shut them off because they need the extra attention to mange the custom objectives. Quinary was developed initially has a creative problem solver, something to help 1-4 intuit solutions to their messily growing processor environment.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Gile

And so Quinary provides a more creative solution to their problem solving, at the same time following their main objectives with a more creative interpretation. When Quinary is watching, he records a more interpretive observation, he often applies personhood to non-living objects, or imagines what is inside a persons head, or captures visuals by generating hand drawn images. While the other levels record data with scientific accuracy, Quinary is creatively interpreting the world around them.

I need to go back and reread and re-watch some stuff for continuity before I start writing.

But this would mean I would rewrite my scripts from the point-of-view of the KRB.

Concerning of Water and Wood; of Gull and Crow

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Byrd

So I have this half baked idea of a story between the fake raven gods and the fake seagull gods, the two most prevalent birds you see picking through the trash along the Puget Sound. I know I’ve spent a lot of time fleshing out the raven gods, but I’m thinking that this black bird and this white bird dynamic means that I need to introduce another fake god, the crows. Because you just don’t see Ravens much near water. I’ve hesitated about introducing the crow because that means two similar looking black bird gods, but maybe I can work with that. Who are the fake crow gods?

I do want to play around with the light versus dark trope, and I think I’ve done that in my script “Francis the Mute”, which is the story of a video production company editing together a documentary about a mute veteran, Francis, who rehabilitates seagulls. Over the course of the producer and the audio engineer talking, they begin to notice that the subtitles for Francis’ sign language appear odd. They assume that the translation has been delivered incorrectly, as instead of talking about avian rehab, Francis is talking about how he helps seagulls reach the next plain of existence with their seagull god, Jonathan. Near the end, the audio engineer and the producer end up passing out and Francis spends time looking into the camera. It’s been a minute since I read it, I wrote it back in 2016.

But, during rewrites, it started to occur to me that Jonathan may not be a kind god or an honest god. The alien hybrid gods feed and live in thought, but what happens when there are no humans that believe in the seagull god, or whatever the seagull god represents? Most gods end up dying out, or end up changing the sentiment they feed on, but that means changing who they fundamentally are so they can feed on that particular emotion or sentiment. Maybe the fake gods behind our seagull god Jonathan figured out a different way. Maybe Jonathan taught seagulls to be just smart enough that they could sustain our thought beasts and then hired a human to lure them to a god who eats them to stay alive.

That would all be subtext and backstory. In the “Francis the Mute” script, it’s mostly just a spooky story about a local news puff piece that ends up being a creepy man who makes seagulls disappear. So the question is, what god counters Jonathan and lives within the idea of what crows represent?

Concerning the Exploration of Illustrated Novels

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Byrd

I took a road trip recently and read through 2 of the 3 Children of Time novels by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I figured I would read through the first book over the duration of the 2 weeks, but I ended up chewing through the first one within a few days and went to Barnes and Noble to buy the second one. This was a very enjoyable series. When I like books this is generally how I read them; absolutely consumed by them.

I have never read a comic with the same veracity.

And when you’re an artist or an author they’re always telling you to create the work you want to consume in the world.

So there’s a disconnect between what I am making and what I really enjoy consuming.


I’m not even sure where to start with this wild bug up my ass of converting Where the Highway Meets the Corridor into an illustrated novel. Do I just start? That’s how I wrote it in the first place, I just started. But do I do it by hand? Do I write within the word processes script? I’m not sure.

Writing within the word processor makes the most sense. I’ll have access to dialogue and whatnot, whereas if I was writing long hand I could be rewriting a lot of stuff from the script back onto the legal pad, and then I’ll just end up convert that back into the word processor. I think I’ll stick with the word processor.

Both formats are pretty equally enjoyable, both for it’s own merits. The industrial feeling of pounding on a keyboard feels good and so does the hunched over intensity of writing in a legal pad, both facilitate the creative process and allow me to pour my mind into a medium that can be consumed by other minds.

So I think I’ll just start by starting. I have a pretty good idea of who the Knowledge Retention Bot is and I already know what the characters are doing. I think the hardest part will be getting inside their minds, but getting inside their minds of what the KRB thinks is inside their minds. But that’s the whole gimmick, right? Whatever I write inside their minds will be what the KRB is algorithmically generating.

Concerning Celestial Horror

Posted on April 23, 2024 by Byrd

In my earlier writing, celestial higher beings were benevolent and kind and all-knowing. The older I get, the more they’ve become alien and unknowable and horrific. Horrific in the sense of never knowing or understanding these higher beings.

Celestial horror for me is a mix of the impossibility of establishing communication (Orson Scott Card’s Descoladores) the cosmic unknowable (H. P. Lovecraft’s Cosmicism), topped with a bureaucracy that is crushing and insurmountable (Douglass Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide).

I’m sure not all of that communicates in these, but I’m working on it. These are the beings that Zenith calls to Earth in This Bitter Earth.

Concerning the Hiring Practices of Absolution Corp

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Byrd

This guide is to be used in interviews for potential testers of Total Virtual Reality (TVR.

Interviewer: Welcome to TVR Debugr Training! We’re glad you’re here. What’s that you ask? How do you know this isn’t a TVR simulation? I’m glad you asked!
QUESTION: Do you believe in god(s)? Y/N?
– If yes: Do you believe in a kind god(s) or malevolent god(s)?
– If no: congratulations! You have been offered conditional employment as a TVR Debugr!
– If kind god(s): why do they allow bad things to happen (Multiple Choice)?
1) Because we need bad things for a believable simulation = REJECT CANDIDATE
2) Because god(s) are testing us = REJECT CANDIDATE
3) Good point, if I were god(s), I would make a better simulation = ACCEPT CANDIATE
– If malevolent gods(s): congratulations! You’ve been offered a position in our live simulation
validation division; where you continuously validate that all bad things happen for verifiable
reasons, thus validating that no bad things happen because of the choice of malevolent god(s),
thus proving this reality is not a simulation.
Interviewer: At Absolution Corp, we continuously validate that our reality is the prime, so you can rest easy, knowing that your work is fulfilling, rewarding and most important of all; REAL!

Concerning First Contact

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Byrd

“The purpose of life is to consume the energy of the Grand Producer. Creatures who learn to cultivate the Grand Producer inherent the Mantle of Domination. We are not here to witness the universe, but to imbibe it.

The Eruenik Race is one such creature. In our vast and expansive travels of space, we are the only creature we have found with such a holy appetite.

But these hairless apes, they do as we do. They cultivate and they dominant. They elevate their imbibement of the Grand Producer to an intelligent level.”

Excerpt from Daily Logs of Absolution Values Agent Pakasha
Aggregated First Contact Logs, Earth

Concerning Minutes

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Byrd

It’s been a minute since I last posted, been focused on prepping for my next series, which is going swimmingly. I spent a week in Oregon rewriting the script and I’ve learned lots of things doing Enter Cedar, I’m really looking forward to 2024. And having all this other content to draw on (the Algorithm Interviews) has allowed me to get ahead of the postings, which eases some stress.

Things are so easy right now that I’m exploring some boiled line animated sequences, maybe one for each chapter. I watched a lot of Science Court and Home Movies growing up.

I dunno, it’s kinda fun, and doesn’t involve a lot of frame-by-frame animation, just a minimum of 3 tracings. And I could probably use the work on the comic itself. This would allow me to work with some music and dialogue, both things I sorely miss working with since moving away from live action and animation.

Concerning Percolation

Posted on September 11, 2023 by Byrd

I have a part-time gardening job. My employer is very proud of her garden, but she still has a hard time appreciating it. For example, it’s being considered as part of a garden tour show, and it’s in the top percentile in terms of quality. She was quite surprised by this assessment by the garden show committee, but admits, she’s a bit too close to provide an impartial opinion of her work.

Frequently, with my own work, I have to immediately walk away from it once it’s been expressed. If I don’t, I’ll think it’s shit. But I’ve found that if I leave it alone for a while, I can provide a more impartial opinion.

So there’s 2 legal pads sitting below my desk with a script called This Bitter Earth written on them.

I wrote this script because I really liked the idea of an orphan boy living on a ferry in the Puget Sound, using the car deck for skate boarding, and spending is free time reading books, drinking tea, and feeding mutated orca whales.

Earth’s sea levels have risen substantially and the dominant life form is mold and fungus. This monoculture of fungus is choking the planet and Zenith spends his days sending signals into deep space, a practice handed down to him from his father. The lore goes that a scientific expedition left the Earth long ago, and that if they can call that scientist back, they can help fix the planet. But, fungus doesn’t want that…

Percolation is also a great method to make coffee.