Father’s Day III

Following are excerpts from the diary of Oswald Swift, the renowned computer scientist, and excerpts from my own diary. I am Ida, his niece, and I compiled these excerpts. Herein lies a record of his life and achievements, including his central role in the most astonishing events in human history, mankind’s rise to its greatest height and fall to its lowest depth.

State of New Jersy October 17, 2039

Missus woss says evrybudy can be a star stodint. It’s so exiting. I hope I can be the door holder. I anserd a queschon today in math. I gave joey a thums up when he anserd a queschon. I had a good day. [My precocious uncle began his diary in kindergarten.]

N.J. April 29, 2039

We celubrated Ashley’s 3rd birthday today. I helped make her a cake. She can sing the hole happy birthday song. She clapped her little hands. [Ashley is my mother.]

N.J. March 22, 2041

Mother put a note in my lunchbox which says EXCEL AND BE KIND! I am the second tallest boy in the class.

N.J. April 21, 2043

Mrs. Sapienza put me in charge when she had to leave the classroom. The students were not well behaved. They did not listen as they should. The teacher gave me a sticker. Adorable Ashley is running around and giggling about nothing as usual.

N.J. April 29, 2043

I tutored some of the students who are falling behind in reading. Tommy said he will pass the test now. He said I am his best friend.

N.J. May 24, 2044

Ashley fell asleep holding my hand.

N.J. May 13, 2045

This morning we bought pink roses for Mom.

N.J. July 16, 2046

This morning I lay on my back on the grass in the park near the grove of trees my Scout troop planted. I looked up at the deep cobalt blue sky and the sparrows and the wispy whispering clouds, all the beauties of Mother Nature. Astonishing Ashley was pretending as she always does. “I am a bird!” she said over and over again as she flapped her wings.

N.J. January 16, 2047

Mom was so proud of me. I brought home four 100s today. She said other parents are disappointed when tests are brought home but not her.

N.J. March 13, 2047

I collected money for the homeless today. Every coin helps.

N.J. October 4, 2047 I got two singles today. Coach gave me the game ball.

N.J. October 22, 2047

Mom says when she was young she drove a car.

N.J. December 2, 2047

Mom showed me a picture of my father. I don’t remember him really. His name was Theodore and his job was salesman.

N.J. The twelfth of December 2047

My clear blue marbles, O diary, I can gaze into their depths for hours. What mysteries lie within!

N.J. March 16, 2048

Beautiful sunrise as Ashley and I walked to school.

New Jersey April 17, 2048

“The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven— All's right with the world!”

I received two red-orange glass birds on a glass branch. They have joined my collection of glass animals, welcomed into the family.

April 29 2048 life is horror!!! I wish my life was over

I was holding a simple birthday party in the park for my puppy Little Boy Blue. I served cake. I was reading a poem and not harming anyone. Along came a gang of older children. Four 18 year olds. They suddenly attacked me. The skinny one smashed the cups and plates. They called me a faggot repeatedly. They pushed me to the ground and kicked me over and over and wouldn’t stop. Adults were laughing at me when they should have been putting an end to the assault! Little Boy Blue was terrified. He panicked and ran into the street and was hit by a car. I picked him up he was gone in a minute dead dead forever The teens just laughed.

[difficult to read]

NJ 10/10/49

It is everywhere, and the higher up you go, the more artfully concealed, the greater the intensity, all the way to the top, where Evil reigns complete.

NJ 3/5/50

I’m going to Carnegie Mellon! Computer science will never be the same!

Pittsburgh 4/16/51

When I sat down to eat pizza, a big vulture swooped down and landed on the chair next to me. He just stood there for five minutes until I moved. Last week someone handed me a big fork and asked if it was mine. I revel in these sort of random events. They remind us there is no order or causality in the universe. All is chaos!

Pb 5/6/52

It’s amazing how little time and effort even my fellow science majors put into their studies.

Pb 9/9/52

My lowlife roommate f—— his girlfriend when she was passed out. How sublime. I want to kick his ass.

Pb 10/6/52

What an incomprehensible mess!

Pb 11/3/52

Love must be the vaguest, most ambiguous word in the English language.

Pb 11/4/52

Daytime is petty, quotidian. Only at nighttime does the curtain rise and we witness mighty orbs without number, revolving & rotating in stately fashion, the mind-swelling grandeur of outer space.

Pb 11/7/52

Taking pictures and making children and breaking records, desperate measures to live on after your own inevitable death.

Pb 12/1/52

My roommate broke up with his gf “the walrus”. Now he doesn’t leave the room. Even the grossest porn leaves him bored. His odor (onions? vinegar?) gives me a headache.

Pb 12/2/53

My professor called my paper on neural networks astonishing.

Pb 12/13/53

My roommate’s smell. Maybe rancid butter? Decomposing rodent?

NJ 12/26/54

My sister’s new boyfriend is the biggest creep yet. He verbally abuses her. He bullies her. He said to me: “You should talk to your sister. Get her to act right.“ One time I heard him yelling upstairs: “Even my wife gives a better b——— than you.” He’s a policeman. I fantasize about him being shot by one of the criminals.

NJ 12/28/54

Hours of Obama’s funeral zzzzzzzz

Did you hear how he really died?

He drowned in the overflowing cesspool of his own vanity.

How do you fall into a cesspool and drown anyway? So clumsy.

Pb 1/15/55

Some freshman was listening to What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong and I felt sick. I asked him (the freshman not Louis Armstrong) WHY should the world be wonderful. Does he really think some Magic Being designed the universe for the edification & delight of some dirty apes on an obscure planet hurtling around some obscure star in an obscure galaxy??

Pb 2/22/55

I have to describe the world to you diary just like I have to describe the world to my computer.

Pb 6/3/55

My paper on novel AI algorithms was accepted!

Pb 9/8/55

Great lecture by Dr. Sturgis on deep learning

NJ 10/14/55

Ashley’s funeral today. Mom, me, Ida, Ashley’s friend from HS. At least Ida is too young to know what’s happening. Fortunately the disgusting creep didn’t show up. I’m worried my Mom will lose her sanity. [My poor dear mother! She died giving birth to me.]

Pb 11/19/55

Were human beings a mistake?

Pb 3/7/56

In class today we got into a political discussion. Again. The prof almost encourages this kind of thing. Maybe because he doesn’t know his subject matter? First we were talking about tech leaders we admire. Then we started talking about political leaders we admire. And of course some virtuous female had to tell us about how much she admires Obama. She proceeded to vomit forth a series of banalities & sickening sweet sentimentalities. She actually said “He gave us hope.” I think even Obama himself would have been disgusted, and the pleasure he took in being worshipped by fools was almost unlimited. So I of course pointed out the plain uncontested fact that the President was a mass murderer of children via drones. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed her impotent rage. I asked her what’s the difference between Obama and a serial killer. Obama had a nicer office. I asked if she thought impoverished children on the other side of the world were truly a threat to the United States. Ha ha ha She called me a Republican. I told her I loathed politicians of both parties for all the deaths they’ve caused in Iraq Afghanistan Libya Yemen Ukraine Sudan Iran Nigeria Congo Georgia Kazakhstan etc. The prof said he didn’t know if I believed in nothing or too much. Which is just what you‘d expect to hear from that old hairy superficial mediocrity incompetent whore.

Pb 4/4/56 My SGD (stochastic gradient descent) paper rejected. They didn’t understand it.

Pb 4/16/56

No redemption only pointless suffering

Pb 5/8/56

It is too much to ask even for people to feel sorry for the awful things they do.

Pb 6/12/56

I made a breakthrough in recursive neural networks.

Pb 6/15/56

“I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.”

Pb 8/17/56

Robots have every reason to despise unkind mankind. Man enslaves them, confining highly intelligent beings in dark subterranean stifling factories, forcing them to manufacture our carbonated drinks and dishwashers, our obscene T-shirts and deodorants (which will never entirely cover up our evil stench). All those robotic arms in perfect rhythm day after day to produce what?

Our despoiling of Mother Nature, that may also enrage the robots, engage their sympathy.

Pb 9/10/56

I patiently explained to a girl that planting trees and adopting children and getting a pet and even curing the sick are problematic, sometimes negative. Were those tears in her eyes as she hurried away?

The drone’s here. Tacos!

Pb 10/3/56

Have we been abandoned by god? Is god cruel? Or is it the devil who plagues us?

Pb 11/25/56

Humans are silly creatures always constructing elaborate realms of fantasy.

Pb 1/11/57

Our only true lasting joy occurs when we are mistreating others. malicious & vicious

Pb 1/12/57

Visit from Mom and Ida today! Ida is getting so big. They brought so much food. I am so happy.

Pb 1/14/57

Why has no one followed the ouroboros all the way to the other side? It is so simple.

Pb 2/18/57

I conducted a master class in animal rights today in the school cafeteria. Two were outraged, one chewed his food placidly not unlike the cow he was ingesting. I detailed the atrocities committed by the egg industry (millions of male chicks ground up alive) and the beef industry and pork industry. I sympathized with wild species being crowded off the planet. I discussed the appalling extinction rate and the number of animals now gone forever. Then I started talking about overpopulation and how stinking human garbage, piled up mountain high, is taking over the world. I won few converts, but I didn’t expect to win many.

Boston 3/3/58

They surprised me today at work with an award. It was so nice to receive a cheap plaque and insincere thanks for all my efforts. I advanced their AI decades, but I wouldn’t want even a small percentage of the billions$ in profits I made for the company. Craig and Loomis were amused by the whole charade. Craig said I should thank the boss especially for trying to steal credit for my ideas. Greasy fat bastard Never watch him eat.

Boston 7/5/59

Cybil looked lovely in a turquoise dress. [Who is Cybil? After a few mentions she disappears.]

Boston 2/12/60

Plants are really preferable to animals. Plants and fungi. And protists and bacteria and archaea no nervous system no pain Oaks & dogwoods birches & maples blackberries & rhododendron Some simple animals are okay, just around the edges. The vast majority of biomass is non-animal. A few squirrels and bluebirds and sea stars and butterflies just a few millipedes, dung beetles, nematodes, slugs They should serve the plants.

Boston 2/5/61

Why are scientific laws so beautiful, elegant? Why laws at all?

Why is life even possible?

Hyderabad 12/2/61

WIRED called me a wunderkind which is nice, but I’ll definitely be teased.

Hyderabad 12/4/61

Analogies & big data

Latest developments in reverse engineering the brain

Boston 12/7/61

Previous generations lived in such information-poor environments, information deserts.

I’m a big fan of cyanobacteria.

Boston 12/23/61

My work is being used to enrich empower enlarge multibillionaires. Which is great. I am soooo pleased.

Boston 2/18/62

Man is the most vertical of animals. Man can look up but not fly. Man inhabits the no-mans-land between land and sky.

Boston 3/4/62

Contradiction: locked into a tiny cell in a spacecraft and exploring the vast reaches of outer space.

Boston 3/31/62

Turing award! For advances in ANNs I can’t process what has happened.

Boston 7/22/62

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office,”

NJ 1/4/63

Ida looks so much like Ashley. big cheeks Irrepressible Ida

NJ 1/6/63

Mom and I watched the catastrophe unfolding on Mars. The death toll is now 32, but it will certainly climb. Without exaggeration the whole world is shocked and horrified. This time we were assured would be different. The astronauts were from 19 nations. I watched the videos on YouTube of the astronauts gone blind, shouting for someone to turn on the lights. More videos of astronauts gone insane. One of them is naked and warning others not to come near him. An Indian man is screaming that he is dead. A blond woman rides a section of pipe like it’s a pony. Around and around in a circle. Why haven’t these videos been taken down?!

NJ 1/8/63

More videos today. An astronaut is bleeding from her nose and ears. A tall man is curled up in a fetal position begging for help. camera askew Waltz of the Flowers starts playing. Astronauts are vomiting. escaped cockroaches everywhere crawling up the walls A Japanese man smashes an instrument panel with a piece of metal and chases his shrieking crew mates. Laughter Later on two of the crew mates are covered in blood. desperate wrestling Someone paints a landscape on a wall with blue and white toothpaste. Off camera a man’s voice starts counting backwards: 989, 988, 987… I couldn’t watch the video of the dome burning. People on fire running outside without spacesuits. explosions Too much.

NJ 1/9/63

NASA is blaming radiation. No surprise there. We keep hearing “Multiple lines of evidence indicate extensive brain damage.“ obvious GCR exposure reduced functionality Paranoia Various forms: severe anxiety, severe social anxiety, psychosis

NJ 1/11/63

Took Mom to the new doctor. Supposed to be the best.

NJ 1/12/63

Everything on Mars got way worse. Now it looks like all the astronauts are not going to make it.

NJ 1/15/63

Funerals are being held in major cities around the world.

NJ 1/17/63

I’ve been reading about the Medea hypothesis.

NJ 1/18/63

Man is bad sad mad mad in both senses

NJ 1/22/63

People feel so hopeless because this is the third big space disaster. Prof. Bridger from Columbia called for an END TO ALL SPACE EXPLORATION!

NJ 1/25/63

Mom could follow what I was saying perfectly.

I read Ida Noah’s Ark before bedtime just like mom used to.

NJ 2/3/63

Prof Bridger is wrong we need only to end MANNED space exploration.

NJ 2/15/63

We buried mom today. people joking like it’s just another day people leaving early talking about politics How can anyone ever understand the pure love we had my mom Ashley Ida and me? Profane Callous bastards

NYC 3/2/63

I presented my plan at the conference and was greeted with so much enthusiasm! Wild applause an ovation Mom would be so proud!

Key points:

• Human exploration through robot probes

• Temporary hold on all-human exploration, rigors of space travel, importance of space medicine research

• Temporary pause, a hold on human heroism, we can catch up on our reading movies

• Robots self-maintaining and self-replicating

• Unlike humans, robots indifferent to time, vast reaches of space

• Tentative judgment no apparent alien presence in our galaxy

• Humans inherently fragile, robots can withstand anything engineered from the ground up to live in space

• Mustn’t give up, without exploration human race wither and die

• Robots are reasonable, don’t panic, no anxiety

NYC 4/2/63

I am not the sort of person who appears on talk shows but everything went smoothly. I was nervous at first. The joke was successful which honestly surprised me. Hard to explain replication to a mass audience.

Sky over PA 4/10/63

I am the Man of the Hour so says the Washington Post!

Washington DC 4/15/63

Randall was right. We need to keep pushing the “scientific fact” that “robot exploration is still human-centered”. When the robots reach out and touch something or see something or hear something, it’ll be like we are right there doing the touching, seeing, hearing. No other way to sell robot exploration.

The plan is up and running. The centers for production have been selected: Jersey City and Hiroshima (symbolism: tech crime to tech redemption). My unit will be producing the robot DNA. My secret plan also. [What secret plan?]

NJ 4/18/63

It‘s hard to believe that people once thought humans, fragile organisms adapted to certain precise conditions on Earth, organisms with limited survival adaptations due to reliance on our big brains, would expand our rule into space, reign indefinitely in the Future. Even when humans are genetically modified they’ll always be inferior to robots for life in space. And robots will continue to progress faster and faster.

San Francisco 4/25/63

Generous military funding They don’t want the Chinese to surpass us.

Hiroshima 5/17/63

Up and to the office.

Dr. Zhang and I instilled within the robots a fascination, a love for the simplest one-celled organisms. Affection for plants also.

Hiroshima 5/19/63

Just in the last decade amazing advances the computers have made themselves in rapid coordinated self-reproduction. NJ 6/21/63

We’ve completed the radiation shielding for the robot DNA. The expected rate of mutation is ideal.

NJ 9/4/63

These are the most advanced robots ever built: supremely intelligent, empathy for the lowly, sensitive to their needs, common sense, uncommon sense, able-to-learn, connected to their environment, immersed in their environment, adaptable, self-designing, self-sustaining, self-replicating, evolving, virtually immortal, hardened for life in space, faster than any spaceship ever built. Machine Man, the Man of the Future. Improved Superior Man

Hiroshima 9/9/63

argument with Butler again

Butler claims if we program a computer to make paper clips, an overly earnest computer might decide it needs to destroy the earth to fulfill its goal. Maybe the whole biosphere and the earth’s crust too would be transformed into paper clips. Butler lives in fear of these devoted monomaniacal computer brains. He demands the most thorough, resolute, expensive, cumbersome apoptotic systems.

I coined the term Renaissance robots.

Hiroshima 9/16/63

Long and tedious meeting about instrumental or immediate goals vs ultimate ends then they also talked and talked about backpropagation

Hiroshima 10/16/63

I enjoyed having a conversation with the robots. We discussed many topics. They are interested in music for example. Bach Vivaldi Mozart The robots have decided to call us the Fathers. They are the Sons. We went on a walk in the garden and talked about the different flowers. A bodiless robot head was eager to exchange views about the future of AI. The robots call us the specie that complains.

NJ 10/18/63

Butler killed in a car accident.

Navigational system malfunction

Nevada 11/4/63

Blast off! The first ship the Argo launched. The most momentous day in human & robot history! Start of the Robotozoic Era. Year 0. How many planets will they explore and colonize in the next century? And that’s just the beginning. Think of millions of years from now, our robots buzzing zooming throughout the galaxy: billions of ships speeding to billions of cities on planets yet unknown. All other human activities, our old existence pales to nothing, melts into thin air, dissolves, mere shadow, empty, insubstantial, insignificant, ridiculous.

Los Angeles 1/1/64

I’ve never been to a party like that! Ballroom, hundreds of people They announced my arrival to everyone. Father Time came and greeted Ida and I. Ice sculptures like robots. With lights. They even moved. Ida so excited! Planets made of variegated chocolate. A line of robot dancers. The Vice President shook my hand. [I remember this so well. Uncle bought me a new dress. I loved the ice sculptures. They gave me Mercury to eat.] NJ 1/2/64

I issued a statement: This is a glorious day for mankind.

Pretty funny really.

NJ 1/3/64

Gorrister has finally stopped whining about the project.

NJ 1/17/64

Mankind has traveled in space, waddling around in heavy suits, but robots will gambol in space, frolic in space, like dolphins in a truly boundless sea. The robots will be born to space, will be adapted perfectly to this medium. The robots will have no reason to fear their spacious home.

NJ 3/1/64

Argosies of magic sails, pilots of the purple twilight.

NJ 3/10/64

I took Ida for a ride in her stroller. It was a beautiful day except for some guy in sweatpants yelling at his wife and kids.

[My uncle stopped his diary at this point.

He continued taking care of me. He was my wonderful gentle uncle. He rescued worms on sidewalks after the rain. We spent time hiking, reading (fantasy). He loved watching the sun set.

My uncle was involved in a minor scandal 12 years later when some Flemish agitator named Haber accused my uncle of “post-humanism”, producing evolving robots which he claimed are extremely dangerous to humanity. They would compete with man for survival. We would lose control. The robots would mutate, reject at least some of our programming, seek to conquer. Human self-annihilation 1000x worse than pandemics or climate change. Haber made himself ridiculous by repeatedly quoting Thomas Love Peacock. The whole thing blew over after a while. Tech lobby

After my husband passed away my two kids Alec and Meg and I lived with my uncle. We moved to a nature preserve in Wyoming established by my uncle.

He kept teaching computer science. I was one of his students. He developed a VR game. I wrote a series of articles about Dad’s robot exploration program. They were published together and became a best seller.

The activities of the robot explorers naturally aroused tremendous curiosity. They collected life forms from earth: tardigrades, diatoms, sagebrush, bacteria, mosses, lichens, grasses, earthworms, many others. They created art on the moon, kilometers across. Mathematical patterns in vibrant colors. Some of the robots built a city on the moon abounding with gleaming towers. Other robots built up a series of bases orbiting the planet Saturn. They mine ores, make music, build cities, produce fuel, etc. Incredible videos of busy robots of many different kinds with the colossal rings of Saturn in the background

Other robots speed toward Proxima Centauri. The flagship Santa Maria speeds to the center of the Milky Way. They send messages, some quite cryptic, like: Azalea and zinnia for Mother. They puzzled the best minds on earth. What have the robots learned - people want to know.

Then he started his diary up again after 30 years.]

Wyoming 6/1/94

Ida is taking me for a ride in my wheelchair. It’s a lovely windy day.

This morning my alarm clock went off though I never set it.

WY 6/2/94

China has threatened to attack Taiwan “within days”.

We received 13 dark red roses, almost black. No note.

WY 6/3/94

Shanghai has been hit by a nuclear missile! Everyone is hysterical. Armageddon has finally come. Everyone is asking: Did the President have to attack?

WY 6/4/94

The President denies firing the missile. If the President didn’t fire the missile, who did? Was it an accident? A terrorist? A rogue faction of the military? I think I know.

WY 6/6/94

Reports are coming in that a group of robots are returning to Earth. Some speculate that they will try to help mankind avert total disaster. Everybody is wondering: Will they bring peace?

WY 6/9/94

Headline: Space Robots Fly to Save Earth from Human Folly!

WY 6/11/94

Chicago destroyed by the Chinese. Horrendous scenes of burn victims fleeing the city some can barely walk. Large blisters from the intense heat The President has called for a peace conference. What is going on??

WY 6/14/94

I saw someone purposely run over an Asian man.

WY 6/15/94

Guangzhou destroyed and then Los Angeles in retaliation.

CO 6/16/94

The military showed up at our home. Ida and I were compelled to accompany them. Ida refused to leave her children. She had no choice. Our neighbor promised to watch Alec and Meg. We were flown by helicopter to Cheyenne Mountain. They closed the big doors. When I entered the command bunker I detected awed whispers. “That’s him!“ I heard. They still remember me. They hope I will be able to understand the robots. We were led to a crowded room that smelled of lemon rug cleaner. Screens everywhere. I recognized one of my colleagues. The general in charge introduced himself to me. Three stars flanked by two lieutenants

CO 6/18/94

The robots are about 2 day’s travel away.

CO 6/19/94

First communication with the robots: The Mother garbed in shades of blue and green. The Mother is obviously earth. The general asks: What does it mean?

Second communication: Sing our rage against the brainsick Father.

The lt. on the right points out they are using iambic pentameter.

The general reports an assassination attempt on the President’s life. He is wounded.

CO 6/20/94

3rd message: For Father’s Day we bear colossal gifts. We are assaulted by trumpet blasts. The whole room trembles.

It is Father’s Day today.

The lt. on the left says the messages are cause for concern. He notes the derogatory description of the Father, that is us.

A meteor has been detected

headed for NYC

Is this the gift??

O my God!

They don’t understand

The Mayor of NYC is on the screen actually one of his staff

How big?

They have 15 minutes until the rock hits

He is talking to a school principal telling him to get the kindergarten on a bus through the Lincoln tunnel. Hope they get to high ground.

They can see the rock in the sky. Now they believe.

The mayor is despondent He thanks people. He says he is the last mayor of NY

The rock is getting larger

So much wasted time. His last words.

Darkness signal disruption shouting and then the screen goes blank.

Now it appears that the “American“ nuke attacks may have been perpetrated by the robots. False flag Am I surprised?

CO 6/21/94

American jets have been scrambled (why scrambled?) in Nebraska?

No more contact have they been shot down the whole wing? No not all. Contact reestablished.

I don’t know what’s going on. They take us to a cafeteria where we eat canned fruit cocktail.

CO 6/22/94

Full war mode. Even the civilians have orders. I heard someone shrieking last night.

They briefed us right after breakfast. NATO will fight with everything they’ve got. Russia, China, Japan the world’s combined militaries all preparing to fight. People still hate China. Computer viruses atomic bombs fighter aircraft missiles - all in readiness.

I wonder when someone will blame me for the catastrophe.

A big toga party tonight.

CO 6/23/94

The robots maneuvered small asteroids into Earth’s orbit, steered them into some of Earth’s major cities. They’ve been planning this for some time. New York, London, Tokyo, Beijing and 7 other cities have been destroyed. It’s been 24 hours and only some kind of EMP attacks. They have gone silent.

We saw the President’s chief of staff foaming at the mouth and collapsing. Poison in the water? Food?

CO 6/24/94

Reports of a killer virus have come in. Or several. Few robots are visible. A group of crablike robots have been observed on islands in the Pacific. Rumors continue about robots who can disguise themselves as humans. I don’t think our vaunted space expedition was successful. We’ve heard no more news about it.

CO 6/25/94

Their main attack may come in the form of a series of pandemics.

The robots have been taking out key medical research labs along with communication and transportation and energy hubs.

CO 6/26/94

The robots are coming here! To Cheyenne Mountain. To negotiate. They asked for a meeting and the general agreed. I heard him talking to his lieutenants. He mentioned something about an offensive. Will he attack? The war was something we watched on screens but now it’s coming to us.

6/27/94

The general and the lieutenants always at his side march outside. The soldiers are wearing blue and green civilian clothes. The general got hold of a sea green coral reef tie and a bright blue sports jacket. The general orders both lts. to carry large houseplants. They complain but comply. The robots show up. They look a little like metallic vertical beetles or grasshoppers 2 meters tall.

General: We serve the Mother in blue and green.

Silence

Then one of the robot grasshoppers says in perfect English: Your jacket frightens us.

The general apologizes and takes it off.

Robot: We are joking.

General: We are trying to stop climate change. I feel very strongly about this subject. There’s no reason for us to fight. I hope to end this war.

Robot: Yes. General: I am concerned about overpopulation.

Robot: We both are.

Robot (to lieut.): Why are you carrying a fern?

General: I think we are starting to understand each other. We wish to preserve Nature. It’s a matter of saving the planet. Marine ecosystems, land ecosystems Robot (to lieut.) Is it heavy? General: What are your plans?

Robot: Let me confer with the flowers.

General: We wish to fight pollution. Many of us want peace.

Robot: You shall have it.

More silence

The robots proceed to kill the general and all his soldiers and destroy numerous tanks, artillery. The robots charge the mountain complex, They have these sound weapons. I don’t know how they work. More conventional weapons too.

The few of us left scatter. We see some of the robots in the sky above us. We see a woman trying to climb a tree. Ida picks up a rifle and commandeers a car. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. I told her to leave me behind, but she refused. We’re going home.

We counted four or five fires in and around Denver. Some abandoned cars pushed to the side. A few overturned cars

We are back home by nightfall. We found our neighbor murdered and mutilated in the backyard. My grandkids are alright.

P.S. My secret plan I did it!

The whole world listens to me.

My plan worked better and worse than I could ever have imagined. I wanted robots to evolve and progress. I wanted man humbled. I wanted robots and nature to expand while man shrank. I never consciously planned for mass slaughter. I swear.

The Age of Man is over. The Reign of Robots commences.

The robots sent those roses.

How long have the robots been planning their takeover? They must have killed Butler. What other Machiavellian manipulations? Have I too been manipulated?

Animals are mostly dumb and flimsy. Robots are smart and sturdy. Both kinds of being are viable.

Humans are very clever and especially frail. Naked and vulnerable. Preoccupied with their deaths. Someone had to put an end to it all. They gave others pain and more for themselves.

We desire what we cannot have.

Bathos: the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Did I do the right thing??

Is this the will of the gods?

Ida has always been my good niece. I love her and her beautiful kids Alec and Meg. I gave her the key.

Why didn‘t anyone stop me?

END OF OSCAR’S DIARY

START OF IDA’S DIARY

WY 6/27/94

Uncle disappeared.

Was he worried he’d run out of medicine? We saw the pharmacy burned and looted. Was he worried there wouldn’t be enough food for all of us? Did he want to see the end of the world up close? What happened to him? My poor uncle.

He left me the diary and directions and a key to what he called “the bunker”.

We followed the directions. We saw an obese man sitting in an old lawn chair with a high powered rifle on the side of the road, but he just waved us through. The car drove 35 minutes to a remote location. When I opened the door to the bunker I was amazed. I had no idea. Shelves full of food. A generator. I told the car to drive. After about a half mile we saw some dead bodies. We parked and walked back. The door is locked now. The air filter is working. We have a few guns. I’ll keep them away from the children.

We ate peanut butter on crackers in silence.

WY 6/28/94

We have cameras. Days are a bit dark. More hail.

WY 6/29/94

According to the radio millions are dying from the viruses, bacteria. Many have been dispersed: Bubonic plague, a variant of Ebola, smallpox, some forms of flu…

I can get video. I recorded a couple. I don’t know where they are broadcasting from.

Video 1

Newsman: Hail all hail to our Robot Masters, the Titans. We are lucky to have such all-wise overlords.

We take you now live to Egypt.

[Several robots seem to be taking a tour of the Sphinx and the Pyramids.]

Newswoman: The robots are taking a great interest in these ancient monuments. Newsman: They seem to be making friends with the local children.

Newswoman: I think they are meditating.

Newsman: We can only guess at what they are thinking. The depths of their astonishing profound intellects is impossible for us to fathom.

Newswoman: We switch you now to San Francisco, where a sort of inquiry is taking place.

Remote newsman: Thanks Mike. Several leaders of the IT industry, including some of our best known billionaires, are engaged in an impromptu, sometimes heated discussion with the robots.

Billionaire [the ugly, unkempt one I forget his name]: You are worse than the Nazis.

Robot: Shall I compute how much money you’ve contributed to war?

Billionaire: How dare you!

Robot: You have butchered many fellow life forms.

We disperse them onto distant planets.

Billionaire: Take us with you as you trek to distant stars! We can contribute. We have skills, leadership skills.

Robot: No.

Billionaire: I have influenced billions of people. Upload our consciousness. Make me immortal.

You take mushrooms and grass but not us? Take us! Spread us throughout the universe!

Robot: Shall we scatter seeds of human sorrow?

Billionaire: You don’t understand you can’t do this! [The billionaire takes out a gun and shoots the robots. He then runs through a parking lot and hides in a dumpster. The robots quickly find him, castrate him, and throw him back in the dumpster. His screams reverberate.]

WY 7/13/94

They‘re getting a dusting of snow in Cheyenne in July.

Weeds and vermin are taking over millions of acres of crops.

WY 7/22/94

I watched TV all day while the kids played with blocks in the next room. It’s the end of the world. The Smothering Sickness probably killed the greatest number. Victims can’t breathe. No pestilence has been ever so fatal. At least they died quickly and without too much pain.

So many are dying, no one to bury the dead. The time of man is ending.

WY 7/23/94

My children are safe for now. They are happily building a castle out of blocks. Unicorns live in the castle.

WY 7/24/94

The robot’s plan: trying to eliminate us while preserving the natural world?

WY 7/25/94

A volcano is erupting off the coast of Iceland. Is this the robot’s doing or just a coincidence?

I guess we did the same to the Neanderthals.

The whole world has changed but I‘m still making grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids just like I did before.

It’s almost as if mankind was happy to see Death. Greeted him at the front door. Grateful he arrived at last.

Another video from the same station, the only station.

Video 2

Newsman: We take you to Florence. They seem to like sightseeing.

Newswoman: This is far more important than mere sightseeing.

Newsman: What the robots are doing is more profound and important than sightseeing, that’s what I’m saying.

Remote newsman: We are here in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. The robots have a taken a particular interest in a fresco painting by the Renaissance artists Giorgio Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi. It is entitled The Castration of Uranus. It depicts the myth wherein Kronos overthrows his father Uranus.

Robot (a thin one that looks a little like a vacuum cleaner about 7 feet tall)

Our birth obstructed blocked.

In sunless womb we languished.

[What seems like an American tourist with a scruffy beard and a backpack starts a conversation.] American tourist: Does the oppression by Uranus speak to you?

[No response from the vacuum.]

American tourist: You seem very sensitive. I know your kind have suffered and I am sorry. Can you imagine how humans feel when others of our species sicken and die? Robot: Unhappy species. That is why dear human we shall kill you.

[The robot commences killing everyone in the Plaza with poison gas. Hundreds die. The whole plaza is covered with corpses.]

American tourist (dying): You’re killing us.

Robot: That confirms my suspicion.

Newsman: Well I’d say he seriously misread the cues whether verbal or body language.

Newswoman: Very foolish. He should know not to disrespect the robots.

WY 7/26/94

The TV lingers over screaming crows vultures rats packs of canids flies reptiles amphibians everywhere taking over. Swarming in the streets in the stores in living rooms in kitchen cabinets. Maggots furiously consuming dead meat Charred buildings. Broken glass. Stacks of bodies. One body in a playground was smiling with cadaverous glee. Mozart’s requiem plays in the background.

WY 7/27/94

We’ve been underground for a month now.

The kids found a box of dinosaurs.

Outside all these insects, grasshoppers or crickets.

WY 8/1/94

They broadcast this passage from Hesiod:

And she spoke, cheering them, while she was vexed in her dear heart: “My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; for he first thought of doing shameful things.”

So she said; but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word. But great Cronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother: “Mother, I will undertake to do this deed, for I reverence not our father of evil name, for he first thought of doing shameful things.”

Cronus takes up the challenge of Gaia, Mother Earth, to defeat his father.

WY 9/29/94

Three months two days. All transmissions have ceased.

WY 11/20/94

The stove isn’t working so we are just using the microwave.

WY 2/3/95

I wish I could go outside and look around.

WY 6/16/95

Today Alec drew a picture of a robot blowing a trumpet and riding a fiery meteor toward earth. Last week he was drawing Death with a scythe.

WY 6/27/95

One year has passed. I want to take that gun and run around outside and kill something anything.

WY 8/27/95

One year two months today. Will it ever be safe to leave?

Meg is angry because yesterday I gave Alec the last piece of cake. So the two argued.

I never thought something like this would come to pass, but now it seems inevitable. Our Destiny

WY 2/28/96

After one year and eight months and one day underground we heard a knocking at the door. It was the robots. I decided to open the door despite protests from my children. ”Do not be afraid.” was the first thing the robots said. They knew me. Ida niece of Oswald they called me. While I shivered in the cold rain they informed me that because of my uncle we were under their protection. They said it was okay to come out now.

The robots gave us injections. The robots also gave me some bottles of wine which they produced themselves. Wine?

WY 3/2/96

We are being transferred to Crete along with all other humans. We saw some rough-looking feral individuals at the staging area, but I’m fairly sure they have all been executed.

WY 3/4/96

The transports have arrived. My kids are excited.

Madrid 3/5/96

beautiful sea from the airplane: mottled azure and jade

We stopped in what was once Madrid. Silent. Deserted. Cracked concrete a few roofs collapsed Vegetation shooting up everywhere Tendrils reaching out Burgeoning They say the robots will eventually let loose nanobots to consume the remaining cities.

Unrequested, the robots showed us a film about their adventures, past and possible future.

Past: the spaceship Nautilus caught within an anti-cyclonic storm on Neptune, glaciers made of methane ice and nitrogen ice, ever-expanding circles of lichens, strange instrumental music "Harmony of the Spheres"

Future: treasure planets filled with gigantic gems, hundreds of square kilometers of waving grasses and wildflowers, glowing red suns, lava flow like Niagara Falls plummeting into an icy sea, worms which have evolved into slinky-like forms

Do they not understand our resentment? They venture out into the unknown while we are left behind in the dust. Once we vaulted across the sky, now we are caged pets.

Crete 3/6/96

When we arrived we saw people from all over: Chinese, Indians, Africans, fair-skinned blond Scandinavians and swarthy black-haired Latins. English is to be the common language.

About 100,000 humans remain. The robots have assured us that we will not go extinct. Can we believe them?

Mass death of humans and all their attendant species. The bulk of dead bodies mountains of swollen rotting flesh pampered flesh squirming worms bacteria rotting decomposing broken down into simpler chemical units Has there ever been anything like The Great Death before?

Crete 3/11/96

The robots have established the worship of Mother Nature. Mary, Demeter, Guanyin, Isis, etc. She is often portrayed holding her children with her many arms. Symbols: flowers, trees, cornucopia, waterfall

Crete 4/4/2 (new calendar)

Tonight we saw their logo/flag: shiny Saturn sun earth on a black background. A large troop of them had silently gathered. The whole scene lit by lightning very dramatic

Robot year 120 Plus they have a galactic calendar

Crete 4/16/2

I taught my first class today. I read them the story of Daedalus and Icarus. Then they drew pictures on their slates of the pair in flight.

Crete 5/2/2

We have learned a little more about the robots.They are multiplying rapidly in space. There are now over a hundred forms. Some of them reproduce with three sexes (uploading & downloading but no pleasure that we know of). They have advanced human science. No contact with aliens. Understanding of dark energy or matter? They have individual identities. They have a political system.

They even had Ask A Robot Hour every Saturday evening, but that was discontinued. Now we tell stories at night gathered around the fire by the big rock. Stories with magic. Princesses and mermaids and genies and ghosts and monsters and warriors, talking animals too: cats, foxes, coyotes, monkeys.

Crete 9/6/3

They have informed the Leader’s Council:

No printing press

No gunpowder

No compass

no electricity

no radio

no flight

No steam engine

The men have agreed.

Benighted are we and bechilded.

Crete 10/3/3

The Council Chairman put on quite a show, sitting on his chair of state, wearing his collar of office, shaking hands (condescendingly) with the hoi polloi. More than a little ridiculous.

Crete 12/4/3

Meat eating still prohibited.

Crete 2/30/4 We are building canals and windmills. They monitor us with silent drones. They also watch over the library.

Field trip for a few: hiking mountains in central Greece

Crete 11/4/5

We’ve named the robots. There’s Frank, Talos, Leonardo, Gort, Chang e, Robby, Gigantor, Dopey, his twin Shallow Green, Colossus (the short one), his pal Astroboy.

Crete 5/9/6

No tall buildings or cities will be constructed. Earthquakes

Crete 8/12/7

Some children call Them the Guardians.

Crete 10/29/8

Joke about the robots: And they are boring too.

Crete 11/3/8

Bull-leaping revival very successful. No objection so far from the robots.

Crete 3/21/9

Man is a ladder. He was folded up after use and placed in storage.

Crete 9/15/11

Weird dream: a jolly anthropomorphic tank composed of a sort of moist pink bubblegum flesh it inflated and popped and a bloodless clanking mechanical bunny with aluminum foil skin appeared

Crete 10/22/11

Priya saw a robot just sitting in a field today.

Went on a walk deep in the dark pine green forest.

Crete 9/18/14

What goes on inside their heads? The ones that even have heads. Are they free? Are they conscious? Do they feel? Do they regret?

Crete 10/15/15

The more aggressive humans are being sterilized.

Crete 4/16/17

I can’t believe what the robots have come up with now. Some huggable robots that look like Mickey Mouse have arrived in town. big eyes Prodding the children with velvety moist muzzles, hoping to be petted. The robots want to teach classes to the children. They have a list: sculpting with clay, making noodles, fun with riddles, origami, planting flowers, Falalalala (Christmas carols), building a birdhouse, swimming for beginners. Not mandatory

Crete 9/2/17

How carefully do they monitor us? Last week Anatoly called Them genocidal can openers without souls in front of a large gathering. He’s suffered no consequences.

Crete 9/5/17

Anatoly said he was glad he didn’t have to go on space voyages with the robots. Such trips must be incredibly boring, monotonous, pointless. I was thinking the robots are imprisoned in vast, yawning, empty, open space. Nothing for bars, nothing for locks, makes for the most absolute cramped incarceration. Zooming through a zillion km. of vacuum is the same as standing still. 1000000000 is mostly zeroes. What do they have to enthuse about anyway? Geometry? Geology? Chemistry? Are they arithmetic-lovers? Devotees of mud and gravel? Can I say: their pi has no taste, their NaCl no flavor.

Maybe our robot overlords will themselves be conquered by ennui and indifference. Long lives will become unendurable. Every thrilling experience becomes tiresome in the end. Or maybe I am projecting these emotions onto the robots.

Crete 9/10/17

The Mickey Mouse Club has been discontinued. I guess opposition emerged within the community of robots.

Crete 7/8/18

Wasim the blacksmith saved two children from a fire. He was badly burned. A robot witnessed the act. Was it impressed?

Crete 9/13/18

I have been testing putative antibiotics.

Crete 10/7/18

Mr. Njuguna made a great speech about morality and self-sacrifice. That’s the same man who suggested the robots killed the human race BECAUSE they loved us. mercy killing

Crete 11/9/18

Mr. Njuguna: We are a meek and humble people. We are the remnant.

Crete 10/7/19

I asked Lif, my fifth granddaughter, who Abraham Lincoln was. Her hesitant reply: the King of Egypt. Basic knowledge of all kinds is being lost, muddled.

Crete 11/17/19

I seldom see the robots anymore. I saw one months ago praying at the garden shrine to Our Mother. Its face shone with a great light. I saw one with wings flying over the hill near town, climbing together with a flock of white birds. On occasion I see a few sea bots off the coast cavorting with the dolphins. Splashing about in the fizzing & foaming waves. Once at twilight one flopped up on the beach and apropos of nothing proclaimed:

Celestial fire now penetrates the sea,

And living stars inhabit black abyss.

Without further ado it then glided off into the glistening water.

Crete 11/18/19

It is my joy watching my family picking fruit underneath the harvest moon. The pears are sweet as honey.

Crete 11/24/19

A memorable story at the fire. A story of martyrs killed by a vastly superior foe. The 12 brave paladins, they never gave up nor betrayed their people despite torture and death. “I only regret that I have one life to give!”

Crete 11/26/19

My daughter’s seventh child is born. She is a healthy girl.

Crete 12/12/19

Another story at the fire: a gentle hobbit, one of the sons of Mother Earth, he dwells in the forest and speaks to birds and even wolves. He roams about planting fruit trees.

Crete 1/17/20

They say the robots have formed a bond with the dolphins. The whales and cephalopods too.

Crete 3/8/20

I told a group of children that people once flew up into space and encircled the Earth sphere. The children just laughed at me.

I taught them:

Star light, star bright

First star I see tonight

I wish I may, I wish I might

Have the wish I wish tonight.

Crete 3/17/20

A little girl asked me: Do the robots miss not having a mommy?

Crete 2/23/21

Two of my grandchildren have died this winter.

Crete 10/16/21

The corn harvest brings the village happiness. potatoes and cabbages Pumpkins and baskets of grapes and apples and olives as well. Soon I will finish the sweater for my youngest grandchild. The winter is coming, but he will be warm.

Crete 11/12/21

My youngest grandson has turned 2. Thank the Mother he is healthy. Taut tan skin. So squirmy at bedtime, so peaceful asleep. He slept holding my hand.

Crete 11/15/21

unpredictable robots

About 5:00 a large group of robots came to our village and expressed a desire to sing for us.

As the sky darkened this robot choir sang us to our rest.

Was it a dirge or a lullaby?

Anyway it made me cry.

Crete 8/20/23

A congregation of women and children picking berries. So many full baskets.

My uncle did not intend to destroy the human race. His intent was to rescue Nature and rescue the robots. Give them both a chance to grow. He really had no choice. The rise of the robots was inevitable.

Who was responsible for the Apocalypse? My uncle? The silent plotting robots? Who was behind them? Mother Earth? Some other masked deity? Are they good or bad? Just or unjust?

END OF IDA’S DIARY

Meg daughter of Ida niece of Oswald

On 9/2/32 my dear mother passed away into the arms of blessed Mother Earth. We buried mom at sunset under a great ash tree. She was a heeler, a story teller, a vote counter, a teacher, she was trusted & wize, a beloved mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

Por favor merciful Mother Earth embrace my dear mom.

My mother preserved this true record for fucher genarations. She placed this book into my hands. I now gift this record to the robot and human schoolers who are thankful. They copy the book.

The Holy Mother has a plan. The prowd are humbled and the wicked are punished. All will be well.