little help on a concept needed.

[Vargev]

hi guys and girls, I've thought of a concept i wouldnt mind exploring for a short story for an ezine.

The idea is that a humanlike race, who believes themselves to be totally organic in nature, turns out to be mechanical instead. Society wise, they are no different to our own, however unbeknownst to the general populace the medical profession are actually systems engineers, and trained in cybernetics, who suppress the truth from the population, until an accident happens that convinces the protagonist that they are in fact all mechanical.

The problem i have with this, is what would the medical profession have to gain from supressing the information in the first place. Thoughts??

 

[The Judge]

Money. Access to a specific drug. Those would be two obvious ideas if this was something recent. But if I'm understanding correctly, the doctors-who-aren't haven't recently become aware of something and they are being bribed to keep silent. They only become engineers once they can be trusted to keep the secret. As to that, secrets are kept all the time, if only for the thrill of being one of those in on the mystery. Think of free masons, or religious rites.

As for larger reasons. Imagine the consequences of the truth being known. If someone believed that the sanity of every person in the world was at stake if she divulged the truth, she'd keep quiet.

J

 

[Vargev]

Thanks Judge, the question behind this really is, how much do we believe that we are actually human. When you think about it, there is only three possibilities; during pregnancy, when we are born and we emerge into the world, and when we have a serious accident, such as a compound fracture.

Every other time, we only have what is written or what we are told from others to convince us we are who we are.

Your larger reason is intriguing in this case, and leads to further questions, how would the populace react. Would there be riots against these false doctors, would society break down.

 

[Omphalos]

Control. Could be that they are using mechanical humans as an experiment for something.

Or perhaps you could analogize the condition of the humans who are duped to the condition of a soul condemend to hell? Or maybe they house the souls of those yet to be born and this is a human training ground.

Or, better yet, they are used to grow replacement body parts that are harvested and given to real humans outside the petri-dish.

If you main story is about how the mechanical humans discover their true nature, then an interesting companion would be about how the doctors go about keeping the secret. Maybe some central medical ombudsman who roots out doctors who in a crisis of conscioius, or as terrorists, decide to reveal people's true nature to them. How does the medical establishment actually go about keeping the secret a secret?

 

[Ursa major]

Just a few thoughts.

The nature of the general population: I suppose it depends on the degree and nature of their "mechanical" nature. (After all, humans are already mechanisms of a sort.) If they are bio-mechanical - and so it's not at all obvious that one is not natural flesh and blood when one cuts oneself, but only after specialist examination - this might work.

The nature of the doctors: Are they the same "species"/model as the general population, different only by being in the know? In this case, one wonders how they're selected and why, for instance, they wouldn't tell their friends or "family" once they've been briefed. Are they themselves mechanical? They may not be. Are they beholden to whoever created the mechanicals? In many situations, they may keep the secret simply to stop themselves being attacked: they'll be far outnumbered by their (prospective) patients.

There will be many other issues. That's why we get to have a whole novel (or more) to deal with them.

 

[Glitch]

Not sure I answer your question about what the medical profession has to gain, but here are my comments on your idea.

I think it could be hard to created a whole civilisation who are mechanical in nature. I mean if this culture has existed for any length of time I would find it hard to believe unless they are being controlled/monitored by another race (perhaps humans).

If you look back over the origins of the medical profession you might get a sense of what I mean. People trying to learn about the body and how it works. Also if you have many factions competing for limited resources (like Earth) then each country would have their own agenda.

Maybe they have software which is programmed to put them to sleep if they get too close to the truth, although that still sounds like someone else is pulling the strings.

I'm not trying to shoot your idea down. In fact I find it a very interesting one, but I feel it could be difficult on such a grand scale.

Your concept gave me the following ideas.

A prison colony. The consciousness of the inmates has been moved to mechanical bodies. Maybe so the technology can be tested or for easier control of the population.

An army. Similar to above, the soldiers of some nation are in fact mechanical but believe themselves to be human like the population they serve.

A small village. A company is eager to test it's latest AI and mechanical technology so creates a village entire village.

There are many more ideas jumping around in my head. But will all of them the mechanical population is on a smaller scale than what I think you envisage.

 

[goldhawk]

In his book, The Robots of Dawn, Asimov had his characters put forward the idea of using robots to tame new worlds. The robots would be human-formed, starting as babies, growing up, growing old, and eventually dying. When the world was tamed enough, human could immigrate.

 

[JDeathscript]

Perhaps it could be a neo-gnosticism concept. The idea of two 'gods' so to speak. The medical professionals are the blind god, keeping gnosis from the race simply because they are 'blind', they are not the higher power but a separate power. Just a thought...

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Well it depends on the rest of the technology that exists.

In the middle ages most of the population didn't have a clue what went on inside the human body. So when someone had his arm wrenched off if the 'norm' was to ignore the flashing red LEDs leaking out and get to the witch doctor ASAP so he could fix you with his magic soldering iron - all that smoke and mystic ceremonies - then why would you question what 'cured' you. You'd just be thankful and go to the temple and thank the gods.

The doctors would hold the power and it would be a family business - the mysteries of the liquid metal solder passed down from generation to generation because maybe they were humans and it was in their interests to have the 'slaves' ignorant.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Good idea vargev, but the theme has been used before, eg. by Gene Wolfe.

Keep going though, & find that unique "angle"!

 

[Vargev]

thanks guys, all excellent comments and really got me thinking, i was thinking along the lines that these machines, looked identical to us i everyway. Similar in a way to terminator, without the violence.

Thus until an accident happened and seriously 'injured' one of them, nobody would be any the wiser.

For example, say one of their power cells runs out, the robot would simply collapse, and that would be what everyone else around him saw, until the *ahem* doctors were called and took him away, inserted a new power cell and no'one knows any different. Until somebody who wasnt a doctor found out the truth and felt compelled to tell everyone else about it.

Good idea vargev, but the theme has been used before, eg. by Gene Wolfe.

Keep going though, & find that unique "angle"!

Thanks for the info stephen, do you know which gene wolfe book/s they are, might have to have another read of them.

 

[HareBrain]

Thus until an accident happened and seriously 'injured' one of them, nobody would be any the wiser.

What about minor cuts, though? Or would people have (or believe themselves to have) tougher skins?

 

[Sapheron]

Surely a sophisticated enough machine could consist of microscopic robots that take the place of cells and appear identicle from the outside? In that case, a cut could look the same. By that point though, they're so similar to organic that does it really make a difference?

 

[goldhawk]

Thus until an accident happened and seriously 'injured' one of them, nobody would be any the wiser.

Even then, how would they know any different? If they cut themselves and high-grade machine oil leaked out, how would they know this is not normal? Why would they think this is wrong if they have no knowledge of organics?

There was a short story, "Lost Memory" by Peter Phillips about a group of robots that had lost all memory of where they came from. When they encountered a human trapped in his spaceship, they thought the ship was sentient. They couldn't figure out what was blud and why a manufacture would want something as corrosive as oxygen.

Why should they think what they are is abnormal?

 

[Ursa major]

Even then, how would they know any different? If they cut themselves and high-grade machine oil leaked out, how would they know this is not normal? Why would they think this is wrong if they have no knowledge of organics?

Ah, but if one of the "doctors" was injured and it wasn't high-grade machine oil that came out but blood, that might give the game away.

 

[goldhawk]

Ah, but if one of the "doctors" was injured and it wasn't high-grade machine oil that came out but blood, that might give the game away.

Yes, the doctors are aliens plotting to take over the world! We have to stop them!

 

[Vargev]

Surely a sophisticated enough machine could consist of microscopic robots that take the place of cells and appear identicle from the outside? In that case, a cut could look the same. By that point though, they're so similar to organic that does it really make a difference?

I agree with the way it could look the same, also it would be a simple matter of substituting human blood, with a lubricant.

However i believe that it would make a difference, say for example you have been led to believe all your life, from your parents, doctors, everyone, that your human, you are organic. However one day you are run over, and instead of that bone sticking out of your leg is instead a metal rod, enmeshed in circuits.

It would be pretty unnerving to say the least.

 

[goldhawk]

However i believe that it would make a difference, say for example you have been led to believe all your life, from your parents, doctors, everyone, that your human, you are organic. However one day you are run over, and instead of that bone sticking out of your leg is instead a metal rod, enmeshed in circuits.

It would be pretty unnerving to say the least.

In that case, I would be wondering why I can't remember getting an artificial leg. The leg would be unnerving, the tampering with my mind would be a total freak-out!

 

[Omphalos]

Good idea vargev, but the theme has been used before, eg. by Gene Wolfe.

Keep going though, & find that unique "angle"!

Ted Chiang, too, to a degree, in Exhallation.

 

[dreamhunter]

Your concept is interesting, Vargs. But I see some potential problems.

If a machine-human race is to be useful/productive enough to whatever powers that be, then it has to be intelligent enough too. Definitely not your average unquestioning bird-brain twit.

And if that race is large enough in population, there'd definitely be some bright Einsteinesque whizzkids among them who'd carry some curiosity trip to its final end.

The same goes for your systems engineer 'doctors'. Make them exceed a certain finite number, say 10, or 100, and there's bound to be at least one excitable blabbermouth who'd sooner or later, likelier sooner than later, throw a spanner into the whole works.

And what happens when a machine-human young boy/girl falls in love with the daughter/son of a 'doctor'. It's bound to happen some time. What do you do then?

A more obvious question: what happens when a machine-human couple have sex? Would the girl get pregnant, or be allowed to get pregnant?

Conventional childhood experiences would come into play too. If I'm a machine-human child, I'd likely be playing with, hurting or killing some tiny animal at some point in time. A dragonfly, a frog, a fish, whatever.

I'd learn that animals bleed and die, and that they decompose into earth and dust when they do, and I'd expect some of my 'race' would do the same too. If nobody ever gets injured, I'd be wondering why not. Now, how do you deal with those things?

I'd also learn that larger animal females get pregnant and carry their babies inside them to full term, then give birth to the baby. So I'd be having plenty of questions if my mother or big sister doesn't do the same.

P.S.
By the way, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the Japanese are the most advanced in robotics right now. Their Toyota company has now developed a robot that can run, walk up and down the staircase and play a flute beautifully.