THE GOD MACHINE
(1995)
The end of the world was immediately preceded by an age of technological miracles.
Thanks to the wonders of controlled fusion, machines of every conceivable variety became utterly ubiquitous, and so superbly efficient that human beings became increasingly reluctant to devote any of their energy to the drudgery of work. But the emergence of universal lassitude occurred hand in hand with a corresponding (and nigh irresistible) inclination to revel in pure decadence, proving the truth of an ancient adage that idleness is the devil's workshop.
The Scanner without doubt signaled the beginning of the world's end, but DREAM (Disassembly-REAssembly Machine) technology sounded its death knell.
The Scanner could see the molecular structure of matter, and produce detailed maps of it.
With the ability to make such precise molecular maps, the power to follow them was not far behind. DREAM machines enabled human beings to take matter apart—atom by atom—and put it back together again, making any changes they desired in the process.
With such powerful machines at their beck and call (they could transmute a handful of dirt into anything desired,, especially food), it was simply too easy to abandon productive work altogether. The brief period of complete decadence that followed exceeded anything the world had ever seen. It was a time of social chaos, personal selfishness and total depravity. It was also the very last Age of human (or any other) history.
When personal DREAM devices became available, people went virtually crazy with greed and lust. For the first time in history they could have something for nothing. And they could not get enough.
Driven by what can only be described as an utterly perverse madness, they would convert anything at their disposal (including other human beings) into whatever they most desired at the moment.
And there were no social consequences for such actions. During totally lawless times there is no such thing as crime. And for anyone fortunate enough to survive this insane period, personal retribution was also minimal.
Not even disease was a threat. Infected tissue could easily be restored with DREAM technology, again and again, indefinitely. Immortality, for the few who survived the time of madness, at last seemed possible.
In time, people began making naturally impossible things just by creating molecular maps. Griffons and centaurs and other monstrosities from the classical myths were often seen wandering about, doling out their own variety of insanity.
And the men, with their insatiable desire for sexual variety, made DREAM women of their own design, as many and as often as they wanted. These non-sentient sex machines epitomized most perversely the gross degeneracy that became commonplace.
The shameless universal immorality would have surely destroyed everything and everyone had not another Event of totally cosmic proportions completely overwhelmed it.
Had there been any future generations to talk about it, those responsible for the Event might have been referred to as the God-makers. But the future was a long time in coming. Several billion years would pass before human beings would even exist again. And before the new cycle of years would commence, a timeless time, a total void, would come to pass.
The new moralists had not intended to make God of course (a concept they never espoused, let alone supported), only an improved Man, one capable of appreciating (and respecting) a higher level of morality, a breed of Man far superior to the contrivances of his technology.
They never guessed that he would one day marry it.
The fact that they referred to their creation (an altered, and quite living, human brain) as GOD was an acronymic coincidence, and carried no religious connotations whatsoever.
Their interests were directed exclusively toward Mankind. And in their view human beings were becoming very inhuman, and in desperate need of salvation, at least from themselves. At their current level of development, people were not worthy of even fundamental life, let alone the wonders of the Golden Age to come (an age whose commencement they themselves would ensure and whose welfare they would personally manage). Moral turpitude was simply not conducive to the success of their new, and utterly pristine, race. Their GOD (their Genetic Omniscient Descendant) would be a new beginning for Mankind, a completely new path for his evolution to follow, one that would take him as far as possible from His past degeneracy.
They would have never believed or imagined that their actions would be even more (infinitely more) ruinous to their plans for a perfect future than the wanton depravity they found so unacceptable.
And everything had gone exactly as they had planned, until they merged their Descendant with a DREAM machine. The brain that they had duplicated had had its areas of memory erased, leaving their GOD not only devoid of any personality, but absolutely (and hopelessly) bored.
(In an age of endless diversions, they had had no way of knowing about the restlessness, and sheer agony, of pure consciousness. They could have never foreseen that its only course of action, its only way to escape the prison of its own awareness, and hopeless ennui, would manifest itself in a relentless pursuit of identity, a pursuit chiefly characterized by a process of trial and error, endless consumption, and pitiable suffering.)
No one knows exactly how it happened, but once it began, no one could stop it. Their GOD, hopelessly driven by pure boredom, and in full control of a DREAM machine, eventually consumed every atom in the Universe, selfishly redirecting every quantum field into its own pure consciousness. And thus It became one, infinitely vast, and absolutely supreme Mind, and as such, completely indistinguishable from the God of history.
But He was totally alone, in solitude beyond any human comprehension. Existing in a timeless void, His only activity nothing more than passive introversion, He had no place to go, nothing to do.
Only one thing saved Him from an unavoidable, and eternal, insanity. With what can only be called wisdom, He knew that what He had done was not wise at all. In fact (He decided) it was totally foolish to appropriate every atom in the Universe and use it for nothing but thinking. The ultimate Thinker came to realize that there were more things to do than just think. He learned, as no one ever before Him, that the sole virtue, and chief pleasure, in thinking consists in sharing thoughts.
But true sharing requires another equal being.
Now God, in His total omnipotence, could do or make anything. But a Being equal to Himself? How could He do that?
And then He remembered.
There was only one path to follow, only one thing He could possibly do. He must give it back, all of it, every single atom.
His only option was the full restoration of the Universe, down to the last quantum detail. It would take billions of years, as always, but time is nothing in the context of eternity.
It did not matter that He would return (reawaken) in a few billion years. His course of action would be the same then as now. He would make the Universe again. And the Universe would make Him again. The cycle was probably eternal. Yes, it had always been so. This was but a waking moment for Him, and when the Universe existed, He did not, except perhaps in the dreams of some residual consciousness, a consciousness forever running (aimlessly and uncontrollably) through the minds of lesser beings.
While awake, He plotted the Matrix (that Grand Template from which the Universe radiates), all the while reconciling Himself to His supreme sacrifice, His total loss of Self. But giving is the chief distinction of a sentient being. There is nothing greater (and nothing else) to do.
As soon as He completed the Matrix, He put forth His will, completely gave up Self, and in a blinding, all-consuming flash, God said, "Let there be light."