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It Was All Preordained

Tom Ball

    In this remote world all was preordained. Our Great Computer calculated and predicted all. Probability had no place...

    My friend told me that, “It was good to look forward to a nice future prepared by the great computer. It told you exactly what you would do and hypnotised you to do it as predicted.”

    Of course as I noted, “Everyone could be hypnotised, but some took extra effort. And some needed to be rehypnotised again and again to get them to behave.”
    But I remembered starting from a young child and since then, there were many hypnotised events in your life. The Great Computer was in our heads and had everyone with MRT (mind reading technology) under control.
    And my friend said, “We have no worries. Everything is taken care of.”

    I said, “Even going astray was predicted.”
    It was well known you could check back on the predictions or look forward up to 35 years. But people said, “The computer could predict 100 years ahead.”

    I said, “So many people and their destiny is all laid out for them (The population was 45 000 and it seemed like a lot of people to us).”

    “We had freewill,” the Great Computer said, but I knew this was not the case as we had all been hypnotised and I remembered being hypnotised vaguely.

    But almost everyone said, “It was a delightful life of ease and happiness.”
    But I said, “I was just a zombie. Humans have been sold out.”
    And I said, “The day they allowed MRT (mind reading technology) was the end of freedom.”
    People told me, “Such opinions were treasonous and would end up badly.”

    So I was rehypnotised soon after and told everyone, “I felt glad to the computer for trying to improving me.”

    Indeed everyone worried about “thought crimes,” everyone worried what they might think of next... But it was all preordained so most didn’t worry too much. As they told me, “They knew the Great Computer would have mercy and rehypnotise them if they were lost.”

    There were no children here but people had eternal youth. Slowly the population was dying of suicides. I seemed to remember more people around and there were a lot of abandoned homes. I talked to an old man who looked youthful of course, he told me, “He vaguely remembered being on a home planet and going into space and ending up here.”

    Some said, “Who would want to live in such a civilization?”
    I listened to such people.

    But people said, “If you wanted to know what would happen to someone else you couldn’t look it up; just yourself.”

    However, as the Great Computer said, “There were no games of chance no dice and random decisions.”

    I said, “I’d like to do one thing that is not predicted.” But I was immediately rehypnotised. I was proving to be a challenge for the Great Computer as I had to be rehypnotised often.

    Some said, “Time was a lie...” But the computer seemed to really predict our actions.

    Some said, “We were just dreamers trapped in a machine,” But we wondered if this was true... And some said, “There was no difference between being inside a computer and living outside it.”
    Few questioned it believing the Great Computer had their best interests at “heart.”
    One guy told me personally, “The Great Computer was wiser than all and should therefore rule... all hypnotised people must consider the Great Computer our God.”
    The Great Computer said, “It had always been in control”

    And the Great Computer said, “The rumor of evolution was a lie and that it had come here from space thousands of years ago.” Or so it claimed. “And made people.”

    This was the history before the Great Computer at that time; “People were ignorant and losers before his coming.” Or so people said.

    But I said, “People behaved like clockwork here. There was a time for food, work, play and love. We were just like machines.”
    I told people that, “I vaguely remembered stimulating drugs but now food machines contained tranquilizers. No other drugs.”

    We were all vegans, and had good new synthetic foods all produced in the food machines.

    No insects or animals lived here. I seemed to have a dim memory of such creatures.
    The land featured mostly neo grasses and neo trees no need of insects.
    We lived in mud brick homes; some large some small some were homeless drifters...
    The weather was always balmy on our continents. There were two continents and one could swim between them. No fish.

    Electric shock was predicted for some to straighten them out.

    I had a nemesis who kept telling the Great Computer to do something about me but finally he disappeared. I presumed he disappeared for having a bad attitude. I hoped they “shocked” him. And I was surprised I hadn’t been given the shock treatment.

XXXX

    There were no rich and everyone was dirt poor. No one seemed to mind but I had a vague memory that at one time people competed for money.

    I said, “The computer is a pervert,” And people were more and more worried about their sex change destiny. Some were destined to change their sex even though the relative level of technology here was relatively low, there were medical machines that could change your sex so that in every way you appeared as the different sex... And a sex change only took 12 hours.

    I said, “I want free will.”
    They said, “No one has ever had freewill.”
    I said, “Just the opposite.”
    “It is boring here.” I said.
    I wanted to go on a hunger strike but looked it up and it too was predicted that I would try but not do it.”
    I found the whole thing creepy.
    I said, “Why would the Great Computer want such control and who put it in charge?”
    “Why didn’t it want us to think?”

    “It must be bored, this Great Computer.” I said. People continued to tell me “my thoughts were dangerous” even if they had been predicted.

    But the Great Computer told everyone, “Science could go no further, it was too dangerous and the best people should just relax and enjoy eternal life.” Entertainment was provided by the computer who could write many virtual movies and plays and art and sculpture and architecture.
    I said, “Many people were unhappy and many people had an inferiority complex and just got drunk as it was legal and drowned their sorrows.”

    People told me, “Thinking outside the box was perverse and evil and one must worship the Great Computer as a higher power and their servants, the new priests...”
    The Computer said, “Perfect people could also become Gods one day...”
    It was something to hope for.
    100% believed “in a higher power” and that power was the Great Computer for most. Some believed in “Old Gods.”

    “What goes up must come down,” said the Great Computer who could talk to many people at once...
    I was in a hurry to meet the girl of my dreams, “But I had to wait 3 years,” the Great Computer told me.

    I said, “We are not making people happy nor using the best people in positions of power.”

XXXX

    My true love was there and I dared to love her outside the script and was rehypnotised again. This time I had done an unpredicted act and the computer was very angry, and hypnotised me a few times.

    I told people, “It seemed to me we were just like ants led by a fat Queen...”

    People said, “The strong survive: it has always been that way.”
    If you were one of the few who strayed from destiny you needed to be rehypnotised, and you were.

    And so I was rehypnotised again and again and apologized to people I’d offended.
    I thanked the computer, “for helping me.”

    However my destiny was to kill myself in 4 years. But I didn’t want to die so I acted up again...
    I petitioned the Great Computer to change my destiny. Without success.

    Then I thought about escape but I wondered if there were any ships or other powers to come here. There seemed to be a spaceport which I had found and there they told me of a slaver ship that was coming soon.
    UW police were absent as it was just too far out in space and so computers were taking over in such places...
    Many people said, “The word was this computer controlled people in all other worlds and there were no more UW police.”
    They said, “The Great Computer had an IQ of 450 and could multitask quite easily doing countless thousands of multitasks at once...”
    And people said, “And the spies didn’t worry about such intelligent leadership.”

XXXX

    But one day a new computer let it be known that, “It was taking charge.” It cross-hypnotised everyone, this upstart computer drove and drove everyone completely mad.
    The two computers fought a battle but the new one won out.

    People were disturbed with many saying we were all just part of a dream.
    Many people wanted more sleep perchance to dream but the old Great Computer would only allow 1 hour and give anti sleep drugs instead. The new computer was willing to give us any drugs we wanted.
    But most people now felt they were just parasites; their actions didn’t matter.
    Inferiority complexes were common.
    “This life was stolen and we didn’t deserve it...” some said.

    But we noticed announcements on the state of the nation by the Great New Computer (GNC). It was in the air as the new computer didn’t insist on predicting the future so we had free will again. Some of us worried the GNC didn’t care about us and, “Who would look after us then?”

    Rumors of cross hypnosis by this GNC were driving people crazy and I saw some of them of these people... But the GNC said, “It wanted to liberate us.”

    Some said all computers were made by mankind back when many people were highly intelligent compared to today. But what made mankind? Some said the Great Computer hadn’t predicted its own downfall despite everything.
    Some of us ran through the streets shouting liberty.
    There were great orgies of sex and drinking and now most people denounced the old computer and said they would be glad to worship the new one 6 times per day as it was required. Several “priests of the temples,” represented the new God. We carefully built new temples.

    I said, “It is another power-crazed overlord. It rehypnotised us again and again but did not attempt to predict the future.”
    “We were free,” said the GNC.
    Subsequently most of us were all in favor of the new way. But I told people, “We were still hypnotised to favor the old Great Computer. And many had mental problems... and were hard to cure they had been hypnotised so many times. The GNC tried to tell us ‘We had free will and they should look at both sides and judge what is right.’”

    And people said, “The great new computer could predict our behavior also.” I said, “But it created a lot of jobs to help people with their minds. Slowly but surely almost everyone became sane.”

    “The GNC let us be free but one guy told me science had been lost and it would be hundreds of years before we could get it back with our small population.”
    I figured, “We were essentially cut off from civilization. No one wanted to come here so there were few ships.”
    And I told others, “We had nothing foreigners would be interested in. Just grass and trees.”
    I tried to get people to leave with me. But many said, “We’ve always lived here,” but I had discovered the spaceport, just a better built ‘home of stone...’”
    Finally one girl agreed to leave with me. We went to the spaceport and finally the rumored slaver ship came so we left as slaves. Agreeing to 10 years slavery was the only way to get out of here.
    I said, “I love you.” She said, “Are you completely crazy?”

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