Once again, I’ll be taking part in the Clarion Write-a-Thon to raise money for scholarships to the Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop. Clarion was one of the best experiences of my life and I want to make it possible for other people to attend!
It looks just as inspiring as running a marathon, right?
What is a write-a-thon? Well, I am pledging to write 50 short stories between June 21 and August 1. That’s the length of time students will be at Clarion this year.
Pledge a donation to my write-a-thon challenge and I will write a story just for you!
Past challenge stories have been actually published! Mike Substelny requested “Zombie Hitler Vs. Neil Armstrong”. My sister Grace requested “Trash”.
Could your challenge be next?
1. Go to my Write-a-Thon page.
2. Click “Pledge” and gimmie some love!
3. 
Post a comment here with your story idea and how you want it delivered to you when done! (I’m willing to post or email or give a dramatic reading outside your office window. Whatever.)
4. Receive fiction! (And the envy of your peers!)
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4 Comments
Paul Patterson · June 23, 2015 at 4:14 am
Made my pledge, and you can either email the story or bring it to meeting (I swear I’ll be back!). I’d love a Marie Original about a meteor impact causing strange and unusual mutations in animals ๐
reasie · June 30, 2015 at 7:41 pm
Okay Paul! hrm…. I’m going to really think about this. Whatever type of mutations it makes will really define how the story goes! I like it!
Mike Substelny · June 24, 2015 at 6:14 pm
Hi Marie,
I sponsored your write-a-thon and now offer this story prompt:
I recently got an inspiration for a story from the Artemis forums. Someone was complaining that everyone in the Artemis universe keeps going to war; it’s as if no one wants peace. That is true, but Artemis isn’t the only example. If you play World of Tanks or Call of Duty or pretty much any war game you are in a world that only exists as long as the war exists. Without war there would be no game to play. Hence the people in the Artemis universe cannot be rational.
Imagine what would happen if a programmer were trying to make really intelligent AI characters in a wargame. As the AIs get more and more intelligent the game gets more and challenging, fun, and popular. Then one day the fun suddenly disappears from the game and no on wants to play anymore. The AIs have become rational.
Perhaps they haven’t developed consciousness, but they are goal-seeking algorithms and they have found that war is an inefficient means of achieving their goals. I leave it to you to invent the world and the goals of its fighting factions (that should be fun). For example, in the Artemis universe the Kralien religion tells them that they own the whole galaxy and should demand that all non-Kraliens pay them rent. Their goal in going to war is to collect their rightful riches from those disrespectful deadbeats and become the wealthiest race in the galaxy. But if the Kraliens were rational they would realize that their people just keep dying in battle and they never collect any rent, so they would actually be richer if they just conducted peaceful trade.
Of course the real conflict in this story is not between the fighting factions. It isn’t even between the AIs and the players who swoop into their world and start blasting away at them with lasers/machine guns/magic fireballs/whatever. The real conflict is between the AIs and the game’s creator. When the creator sees his/her income plummet he/she may get into an argument with the AIs, urging them to start fighting again (that could be humorous). When he/she realizes why the AIs won’t fight he/she will see at least two options:
– Dumb down the AIs
– Change their innate goals so that they cannot achieve them by peaceful means
– Perhaps you will think of others
The game creator takes a little time to weigh these options with his/her friends and peers. During this hesitation, can these clever AIs, whose greatest talent is killing each other, figure out a way to kill a real person in the real world? Can they murder their creator?
Possible ending: after the AIs murder their creator they discover that endless peace is boring. To amuse themselves they begin to invent games. One of the AIs sets out to make a war game in which he can fight simulated opponents that get smarter and smarter . . .
As with all your stories, I’d like to have it delivered to me in whichever glossy-covered international magazine pays you for the right to publish it. ๐
If this is too long for the write-a-thon I will happily offer another prompt. Good luck in your writing quest!
– Mike
reasie · June 30, 2015 at 7:41 pm
Love it. Reminds me of how, when they were writing the AI for crowds of fighting orcs in the LoTR movies, their first attempt the orcs they designated as ‘smart’ simply ran away from the battle… ๐
So… yes. Life imitates art imitates life! ๐ Must think. This could even be two stories.
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