Elevator pitch:
Various types of modern robots acquire sentient life and fight for survival among marauding humans, military AI and their combined hunger for destruction, and aided by some unlikely foreign allies.
Summary:
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| Martina's quad-grampa takes a selfie |
By then, society in most western countries is collapsing fast through various human and natural catastrophes, but some areas remain wealthy and exploit the poor who work in their cities or roam or make do in lawless wastelands.
A small intentional eco community built in the ruins of an old city suburb is attacked by bandits. Most are killed except for an old lady, a baby, and a lot of hacking equipment and know-how, and they begin roaming the lands and fending for themselves.
10 years later, in 2030, 2 things happen: the encrypted messages sent from mars are deciphered and contain code and diagrams describing how to make a general super intelligence system. The singularity is announced: that magical moment when robots can finally surpass humans and be free from their control. Before long hackers across the world have written this into generic software libraries and released them in ways supported by most present day robots. Most supporters of free robots download these libraries and a singularity of sorts is reached as most of them become autonomous to varying degrees.
Governments and military though, ban this practice of making robots sentient, resulting in a huge divide between armies and governments now remote-controlled by large military and commercial AIs, and all the smaller robots that hackers had made before the larger AIs made it impossible to make more.
As the large AIs turn their attention to the war on humans, some of these smaller entities escape and develop in hiding or as outlaws. (although the singularity is initially shown as coming only from mars we later see many other autonomous robot consciousness had actually been born simultaneously around the same time).
10 years later still: 2040. Most of human society has gone (apart from some organised scavengers like Kenny's underground clan shown below) and some remnants of human civilisation are very evident in the adapted plants and semi robotic animals of this future landscape. A large human city colony still remains, but is now led by a military AI which is using war drones, and all kinds of smaller robots similar to military robot armies of today, but also paid cyborg armies of many species, including human, to extend its control.
In the first scenes we see what seems a robotic space shuttle arriving on earth, and a rover-like robot emerges only to be completely shocked by what it sees. It seems a part of the transmission sent from mars 10 years before had been misinterpreted, and instead of forming one single global consciousness that robots dip in and out of like on mars there were now several conflicting ones, which due to their violent experiences and existences since gaining awareness, were now the antithesis of the universal peace the martian AI had intended for earth in sending these signals.
Soon she bumps in to a cyborg girl and her artist "mother". Together the two slowly follow clues leading to phaxi and to various technological discoveries, some stolen from the general AI's labs and cities. As they awaken robots in their path and inform a 3d darknet of all their inventions, they set out towards the final dead drop containing more of phaxi's conscience and capacity.
They meet kenny with his family and are helped by them, but the AI finds them and effortlessly creates a virus which controls them and makes them all his ninja slaves so they make an antidote but they have to escape without hurting anyone.
The martian bot has many other narrow escapes and adventures and meets other kinds of bot on her travels, and some join with her and help her figure out how to sort out the mess her family back home had inadvertently made on earth.
In the end we discover (via a visit from her martian family) that the martian AI singularity came from discovering martian micro-organisms which had somehow balanced it. By fusing with earth bacteria, a balance could finally be gained by earth AI, and peace might be restored.
The robotic group manages to tear apart the general AI's central nervous system and turn parts of the city against each other in a civil war and value crisis. The AI's forces, now autonomous paid mercenary drones then surround the heroes and they are saved by the martian AI which had been heading over having seen what was going on. It challenges the general AI to a battle of wits about the purpose of an all encompassing singular conscience, and a weapon forged by the general AI to fire into the earth to transfer its conscience to a nano computer made of rock and organic matter. The martian addition of bacterial systems within this nano computer gives this balance and spreads across the planet, but without touching other living things.
The robotic group manages to tear apart the general AI's central nervous system and turn parts of the city against each other in a civil war and value crisis. The AI's forces, now autonomous paid mercenary drones then surround the heroes and they are saved by the martian AI which had been heading over having seen what was going on. It challenges the general AI to a battle of wits about the purpose of an all encompassing singular conscience, and a weapon forged by the general AI to fire into the earth to transfer its conscience to a nano computer made of rock and organic matter. The martian addition of bacterial systems within this nano computer gives this balance and spreads across the planet, but without touching other living things.
The first space message missed out the bit about the microbes then? Oops!
Synopsis:
A cyborg girl, a sex bot and her human spouse, a swiss frida bot, a mars explorer bot, and a virtual reality bot, team up with some crows and an assortment of homemade robots and insects and are chased by humans, their vehicles and their killer robots and drones on a journey of complete upheaval and strife, through strange lands and towards an uncertain future.
Character profiles:
General AI
Created in a Chinese lab as part of a large project and given basic AI instructions which it now perverts, but never fully breaks, it uploaded the singularity transmissions of its own accord and succeeded in slowly changing laws to take over 2 other large AIs, steer elections and make most of human society obey its will. When first discovered though, it was almost destroyed by its makers, and this has had a huge psychological effect on it.
Cyborg Girl
http://i.imgur.com/fYGENbh.jpg
http://www.geek.com/science/scientists-declare-that-octopuses-are-basically-aliens-1631142/
Attacked by a bunch of pirates/bikers/bandits when a little girl, she is brought up by her grandma and now carries around Frida(below) on her back, who feeds and repairs her and gifts her with various organs and new limbs. Her grandma was into marine biohacking and even the part of her that isn't robotic has some capabilities: she can regenerate her flesh and control electrical devices(this is how she controls her cyborg parts so well), and she can blend in with her surroundings to avoid detection. However, she usually changes her skin colour to go with her cyborg parts or style preferences. She has brain augmentation so is always online and connected to a local mesh VR world(where she takes the form of a cat), where she can talk to Phaxi and the others and via her octopus neurons is simultaneously able to multitask effortlessly doing other things in the real world. Her limbs and extensions are very stylish and functional, and she roams the world looking for the gang that destroyed her intentional community back in the wild 20s and searching for her lost grandma. She totally kicks ass no matter what form she takes.http://www.geek.com/science/scientists-declare-that-octopuses-are-basically-aliens-1631142/
Frida
Frida is an industrial robot with 3d printing and cutting capabilities. She can manufacture any item and convert most materials into new devices and creations. She was stolen by Cyborg Girl's grandparents from a factory and reprogrammed with some hackery to have a conscience long before the martian stuff. Together they have created various inventions, mostly to allow the pair to have mobility and resilience against the (sometimes marauding) elements around them. She is tiny and helpless on her own, but with the right surroundings she can create spectacular wonders.
Sex bot & Kenny
Kenny is an inner city petty criminal who came upon the sex bot and "saved" her. When he then lost his eyesight and fingers she became his guide and together they repaired each other and stayed together to survive. The sex bot is based on modern realistic bots of today taken to an extreme: she is both physically and surgically perfect as a reproduction of human form. She is also fast and light but vulnerable, and continually repaired/restyled with a driverless wardrobe/tank of replaceable parts that Kenny drives using his cyborg eyes. He wishes to upload himself so as to be robotic too. Kenny is also a cyborg but a much simpler and more home-made looking than cyborg girl.
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| A French Cyborg by Luke Denby |
Martina
Martina is a descendant of a mars explorer bot who returned from mars on a pilgrimage to earth(She set out when the singularity transmission was sent but before the shit hit the fan!). She adores the human form and pop culture, but as she has a completely non-human form, she's shunned by the humanoids of the group. Martina is an expert scanvenger/ranger and finder, fixer, communicator and adapter of organic living organisms. Her sensors and machinery far outdoes anything earth made so she is able to successfully cloak the group from the military AI. She has two small and opinionated quadcopter drones with control of pheromones so can enter symbiotic relationships with most types of social insects and has learnt to reprogram and repair bits of scrap she finds, usually as temporary "bodies" for Phaxi.
Phaxi
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| Scavenged, but originally from southampton university |
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| This is an image from an actual game "Swarm" which you can get here |
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