The Great Disengagement
Events like social conflicts, the end of eternal war, the growing fear on the streets, the “revelation” of the church and other events caused the breakdown of people’s faith and hope. These events gave Sean the clues that something big would happen. He wasn’t wrong. It was the perfect scenario for the “Great Disengagement”. It changed the roots of society and Sean knew at that moment that nothing would ever be the same.
For several years, Sean tried to keep away from all these changes imposed by the new government, but he didn’t know that the changes followed him wherever he went. The violent protests around the country due to the “Great Disengagement” took the lives of many young people. Sean’s son was one of them. He was twenty when a clash between security forces and protesters broke out near his college. A rubber bullet struck his head and put him in a coma for several days. Because of the conflicts and the state of emergency across the nation, the hospital did not have enough resources. His son never opened his eyes and passed away a month later. Sean fell into a deep depression, only comparable to his wife’s death years later. After the death of his son, Sean decided to move away from the city, but the city never moved away from him.
The “Great Disengagement” came with deep changes to the life of the citizens and some of them did not agree with these changes. At first, the Corporation allowed some residents to leave the city. Sean convinced his wife to move away from the chaos and bad memories. They settled in a small village far away for a restart.
At the beginning, life in the small village was perfect for them. Overall for him, far away from the “smart control” and far away from the “Gray Mother”, the AI that changed the lives of the people in the city. For Sean, life in the village reminded him of the stories that his grandfather told him at bedtime about the life in hippie communes decades ago, but he didn’t realize that everything would change soon on his small paradise.
At that time, every day the news media around the country reported on the plan of the new government. It was to implement several AIs around the country and centralize all of them under a super AI (AGI – Artificial General Intelligence) already under development by the Intelligence and Management Unit.
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