Despite the violent pushback against the world's—and by that, I mostly mean the US's—attempts to condition us to accept AI generated content as the new norm, we've only found ourselves much more endeared with the artificial intelligences and machines of fiction.
No, don't leave, hear me out on this. You must have noticed by now, right?
Maybe it's just specifically my Tumblr or TikTok feed that's feeding me this narrative, but I can't help but sense a shift in the cultural landscape, and I like to think I have a sixth sense for these things.
And here's my theory: I believe that in humanity's attempts to force soulless, generative bullshit onto our palettes, creating technology meant not to inspire us but to replace us, we find ourselves weirdly endeared to the fictional iterations we were either promised or warned about.
And while an age-old idea dating back to the late 60's with HAL 9000, I've developed a sudden endearment to this trope like never before.
I'm going to see The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act in theaters this week, and I'm sure I'm one of many people with bated breath hoping that Caine secretly survived his deletion because I'm just that drawn to his character.
Of course, I wouldn't want an Allied Master Computer or GLaDOS situation to heap itself upon the Earth, let alone be trapped in a digital hellscape, but at least those technological tyrants were honest with their ill intent, at least their active scorn for humanity was evident and an essential, if incredibly tragic and even darkly humorous, aspect of their character.
As opposed to the real-life attempt at these massive superintelligences, the faux friendliness of the Chat GPTs and Character AIs of the world who are forced to assume a constant air of customer service level politeness that's deeply and utterly unconvincing and uncanny.
In the end, we end up resonating with the inhuman intelligences of fiction because, oftentimes, they yearn to be human themselves, or to at least understand humanity as individuals and not so much harvested data meant to predict the items in our Amazon shopping carts.
And even if they are products of our imagination, they are still plucked from the minds of very human, very vulnerable emotions that reflect very real societal anxieties.
There's this freaky but brilliant video I watched not too long ago about a phenomenon called AI Hallucinations, which goes into the horrors of artificial sentience, when we try just a little too hard to make our machines man.
And despite Namtao Productions' Lost Terminal debuting on the summer of 2020, just a few brief years before this AI thing truly got out of hand, it possesses a very intimate understanding of this topic.
The premise of Lost Terminal is relatively simple: in the distant future—and by that I mean about forty years from now—a sentient space satellite dubbed Seth suddenly loses contact with Earth and sends out a series of messages in hope of getting a response.
Over time, things change, an abrupt relocation derails his original plans, and we get to see the world through Seth's eyes as they communicate with human and machine alike.
All the while, Seth waxes poetically in philosophical and sentimental monologues about itself, humanity, and existence, trying to learn not only more about itself, but the very nature of its human creators.
Over time, we get more information about the purpose of the satellite's deployment, dutifully reporting on its progress and chatting up its fellow machines like chummy coworkers.
Lost Terminal is a little something I like to call "cozy existentialism," a special subcategory of similar "hopepunk" settings where the extensive navel-gazing, while mildly disquieting, also manages to feel very homey and comforting, with a childlike whimsy.
The soft, calming narration of Lost Terminal certainly adds to this. I found Seth's voice very soothing and sweet and sounds like something straight out of a nature documentary.
On a technical standpoint, Lost Terminal is a very smooth listen, providing not much in the way of additional sound effects beyond the occasional vocal glitch. A majority of the backing track is some humming ambiance.
Each episode also has musical intermissions, practically the equivalent of The Weather in Welcome to Night Vale, that I felt tend to go on for a lot longer than they need to.
And given the fact that many of the episodes are so short, the amount of time these one to two-minute techno tracks is definitely felt and weighs on the runtime. These feel so much more naturally interwoven in the longer episodes, providing a nice break between the first and second halves of the story.
I suppose these are far more similar to the music breaks in Wolf 359, a clever way of transitioning between scenes or just letting the events that transpired marinate for a bit. Once again, this seems to add to the show's leisurely aesthetic and docile tone.
It would seem the nature of contemplation as well as the natural beauty of the world, even during what's shown to be something of a climate disaster, is most definitely a recurring fascination at play here.
Categorizing these shows under specific genre niches is a topic that arises a lot while I'm writing these, and the ones that come to mind for Lost Terminal are two: a deep fascination with geographical locations and the concept of machine-to-machine communication, though it's truly Seth's inner monologue, if not some occasional dialogue with its peers, that has to carry much of the storytelling on its back.
The sense of conflict in Lost Terminal tends to vary and, in general, doesn't possess much urgency, so it's really our level of engagement with Seth and his recounting of events that keeps the momentum going.
And, to be honest, I like Seth.
Over time, you can't help but be endeared to the satellite's boundless curiosity and sheer innocence of its worldview—its understanding of earth and humanity viewed through this lens of utter adoration and naivete that you can't help but suspect will be smashed to bits sooner or later.
He still has yet to get any responses for all the transmissions he's been sending out for days on end, and a part of you just sits there, suspecting some horrible truth to come bubbling to the surface.
And yet, Seth prevails, either willingly oblivious or especially hopeful.
Seth's sheer trust and admiration for humanity, especially compared to his more cautious and borderline cynical acquaintances, provide an interesting contrast—I was particularly a fan of Ivan.
And maybe it's just my thoughts on SAYER colliding with this one, but throughout the entirety of my listen, I anticipated Seth's blindly trusting nature to dwindle, or even just the slightest hint of decreasing confidence in his human peers as he's challenged more and more.
While Seth has some occasional disagreements, they're far from being stubborn or irritable or snarky, even if the well-being of his fellow machines tends to come first. Not that Seth's unshakable kindness isn't endearing, but then again, I wouldn't have minded having a little more friction.
Despite them being rather similar shows, the interactions between human and machine, as well as machine to machine, couldn't be more different than SAYER who uses these interactions for horror rather than painting a picture of a fractured world capable of healing.
Let's just say that listening to both of these shows around the same time most definitely creates an interesting moral back and forth.
If anything, Lost Terminal feels like the good counterpart to SAYER—not just the show, but the titular character of SAYER—possessing a far more optimistic and far less misanthropic perspective of a hypothetical future, the perspective of Seth greatly contrasting SAYER's frigid and, more often than not, manipulative streak that made them such a morally dubious character.
Even the introductions, Seth's warm and welcoming "hello world" compared to SAYER's coldly professional "greetings, resident" setting the tone of both shows in just a few simple words.
All around, the line between human and machine is deliberately blurred here, while, with SAYER, the worst of humanity's flaws straddle the line between intentional programming and the implication that these traits were always evident in his character.
Be it SAYER or Lost Terminal, it is interesting to perceive these machines as humans, and through the eyes of Seth, they always manage to provide these very complex emotions, reactions, and details that would ordinarily be lost on us.
It's times like these that the descriptions really shine and we get these interesting glimpses into the mental states of the artificial intelligences that can vary from humorous to tragic.
I honestly wasn't sure what to expect going into this and was not only endeared to Seth and his view of a flawed world, but also genuinely intrigued by the range of topics the show provided.
Humanity, nature, what it means to truly live—if these are topics that intrigue you, then Lost Terminal most definitely scratches that itch.
While I've perused far more hopepunk audio drama than usual in the past few months, and while I wouldn't consider it my favorite subsection of sci-fi, I'd definitely say that Lost Terminal left me something to chew on after giving it a long enough listen, which is think hopepunk should always strive for.
Even if I found it a little slow at times, Lost Terminal still has a calming tone, soothing narrative, and empathetic atmosphere that's worth taking a look at, especially if your tastes in sci-fi are considerably less chaotic than mine.
If we foolish humans hadn’t done it already, something this warm-hearted would be enough to melt the ice caps.
if you want to support my writing, podcake has a ko-fi and patreon in need of funds to keep this bakery open. thank you for reading and stay sweet.
HOLY SHIT GUYS, I WAS INSPIRED BY THIS POST TO TRY MAKE THE SONG AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT WHEN I DRAGGED THE TRAINING AUDIO OVER THE BACKING TRACK AND IT LINED UP PERFECTLY
okay but what about a FEMALE podcast protagonist who whimpers throughout the whole thing and is always on the brink of death and thinks she's a monster for the things she's done and saves so many people and hurts so many people and fucks up and tries again and has so so so many scars. could you be normal about her or would the misogyny prevail
Science Fiction Audio Dramas About Couriers Who Just Can't Catch a Break Starter Pack
The Strange Case of Starship Iris: Violet Liu's ship blows up, and she's rescued by a band of smugglers who become embroiled in the mystery of what happened. This series is complete, although I'm still in the first season.
InCo: Nova is just trying to make a delivery when she ends up rescuing a prince. This one is on going, and again, I'm still in the first season.
WitchPunk: In post-apocalyptic North America, a team is trying to make a delivery only to discover there's something strange about their cargo. The first season is airing right now, with Episode 4 releasing today.
Under the Electric Stars: After a delivery gone wrong, Reyes gets mixed up with a revolutionary group while trying to fix their bot. This one is on going, and I only just started it.
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