Above is an image made with DALL-E-2 with the prompt 'a human made of ones and zeros.' Below is an image made with the exact same prompt, but using the stable diffusion algorithm. And at the bottom of this post is a combination of both images with some Gimp editing. I feel like that one would maybe make a decent album cover.
When lottery prizes get into billion dollar territory, I sometimes buy a ticket. Although I understand math well enough to know that I'll never win, I use the purchase of the ticket to give myself permission to speculate on what I'd do with all of that money. The other day, I bought a Mega Millions ticket with a jackpot that would have amounted to maybe half a billion after taxes. And then, something funny happened.
I started to imagine myself with these riches, yet couldn't really get into it. In the past, I would fantasize for hours about how I'd deal with vast wealth. This time around, it was almost as if I couldn't bring myself to care. Sure, I'd buy freedom for myself and others. Doing so would probably prove challenging and satisfying in equal measure. I'd be up for that, if I won the lottery. I'm just no longer entertained by imagining the prospect.
At the same time, the next scifi story may be starting to bubble up from my unconscious. Recalling the Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis and the much more recent film Arrival, I've been contemplating a premise that might be fun to turn into a plot.
The basic idea is that extraterrestrials come to Earth and will only deal with a person or small group of individuals selected according to criteria that our planet's authorities can't understand. These ETs would be humanoid, with technology advanced enough to convince the authorities to meet their demands. Although there would be conflict throughout a story like this, I'd probably contain most of it in the tales of individual characters.
Of course, the first big question than needs answering with a premise like this is whether the ETs are benevolent, malevolent, or neutral. I'm leaning towards keeping this a mystery for the reader until the end. The first question that I actually need to answer is who are the main characters and what are they all about. If you have an idea of who they should be, please share!
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.