Out of idle curiosity, and since Wikipedia doesn’t seem to have a category for this, yet, I was wondering…would anyone care to suggest candidates for a list of (mostly fictional, I’d presume) machine gods?
That is, a list that would include;
a) Deities having dominion or patronage over machines
b) Deities that manifested or incarnated in the form of a machine
c) Machines that ascended into godhood
d) Machines worshipped as deities
I think that covers all the major categories, at the risk of being overbroad.
Also, at the risk of SPOILERS, so far, I’ve got—
•The Molochmaschine from Lang’s Metropolis (If visions/hallucinations count)
•Unicron (Depending on the canon, he may be some kind of a god)
•Vaal, and arguably Landru, from Star Trek.
•The Warhammer Machine God
•Issac Asimov’s Universal AC from The Last Question
•Fredric Brown’s Answer.
So…who am I missing?
And in certain continuities, the All-Spark is akin to a god.
And in the IDW main-line books Nemesis Prime is either regarded as deific himself, or is the highest ranked agent of some unknown deific entity. (Or else the prophet of a non-theistic cult. Information has been slow coming out. I think this entry counts, anyway.)
In David Zindell’s Neverness, and it’s sequel series A Requiem For Homo Sapiens, there are several machine-gods:
Ede The God - a computer containing the mind of Nicolas Daru Ede, the first human to download his brain into a computer and thus achieve immportality. Edeism is the largest human religion at this time, and its followers look forward to the day when the traces of their brain patters are downloaded and absorbed into the computer and they are thus joined with god. The Ede computer is continually expanding and Edeists believe it will eventually incorporate every bit of matter in existence - thus uniting Ede, his followers and the entire universe into one entity.
The Solid State Entity - a nebula-sized brain made up of thousands of bio-computers the size of planets, it began life as a young girl from the order of Warrior-Poets, whose brain was artificially enlarged and expanded in an attempt to make her both the pefect warrior and the perfect poet
The Silicon God - created as a self-aware computer who, as soon as it was switched on, figured out space travel, warped away, and was founds centuries later having greatly enlarged itself and at war with the other gods using information viruses
The April Colonial Intelligence - a man-made nanorobotic bacterium which got out of control and overran part of the galaxy, forming an enormous intelligent being
The Doctor Who story “The Face of Evil”, featured the descendants of a crashed Earth ship, who had split into two tribes, the Sevateem (descendants of the Survey Team who had been locked out of the ship), and the Tesh (the descendants of the Tech team who had stayed inside). Both tribes worshipped the ships computer Xoanon as a god, with elaborate myths and rituals built up over the centuries.
In one of Fred Saberhagen’s beserker short stories there’s a group of people who worship the defense computer of a collapsed civilization, and another one which talks about folks who worship the beserkers (giant Death Star like machines which destroy life bearing planets) as gods. Pity none of his stuff got turned into movies.
This book, Digital Deli made a big impression on me a few years just after I came to America, It had bits of everything regarding new digital technology. A book with an anarchy of design that surprisingly did work and included an early cartoon by Larry Gonick and a bit describing an early tale on the subject:
[QUOTE=The Them] GIGObuster, you’ve heard of Larry Gonick?! I wanna be your friend.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I’m a guy, so it depends, In any case you are a doper. So we have already a lot in common.
Related bit: there was once a thread in GC that questioned the reckless zealotry of early Christians after the fire in ancient Rome: *When Christianity was a nutty cult *
I did send Larry Gonick a note to clarify something and he did reply! But because the thread died I never bother posting what he told me with his permission. :smack:
Might as well do it here.
[QUOTE=Larry Gonick]
Boy, can I not remember any more. It doesn’t surprise me that there’s
no documentary evidence for the circulation of Christian texts. My
source was probably Tacitus, who of course was biased and can’t be
double-checked against anybody. I put it in because it makes sense.
Early Christian texts (which would have to postdate the fire by at
least 150 years or so) are, if I may say so, even worse, since they
were eager to prove themselves loyal Romans and discount any subversive
intent their predecessors may have had.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Larry Gonick]
Yeah, you can quote me. You might also add this little confession: sometimes I put things in–usually as comments from characters–that are only plausible conjectures. In this case, I had something like this in mind: the history of “un-Christian” attitudes and behavior among Christians is ancient; you might even say it goes back to Jesus himself. It simply defies credulity that everyone in a persecuted minority would feel totally forgiving when a calamity befell the persecutors, even if the official line is to love your brother and turn the other cheek. There simply must have been expressions of satisfaction, especially when you consider that other Jews–plenty of these Christians were Jews, remember–had openly demonstrated against Rome. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been human–and human they were!
Even if everyone miraculously succeeded in keeping his mouth shut, we can easily imagine police informants who would have reported their feeling. Note that the speech balloon in question is in the mouth of a Roman officer, not a Christian.
How do your contributors feel about the tradition that the persecution of Christians stepped up after the fire?
The Zygote people have a god of science and machinery in the manga, Aqua Knight. But I’ve only read the Japanese version so I’m not sure what the English translation of the name is, nor even the Japanese since my copy is somewhere hidden at the moment…
There’s a short PKD story about a machine in a post apocalyptic world that was worshipped by humans. They ask it a story that they think unanswerable, if it answers successfully, it digest them.
