The Machine that changed the World.(Kevin Hughes) Many of us took for granted the single most important invention of all time. We thought little about what it did to Society, or individuals. Let alone how it changed the entire Economic, Political, and Philosophical outlooks for the Entire World. This is a brief history of a remarkable machine. The Machine that changed the World…and us.

2023: Cold Fusion discovered to be a workable solution.

2025: Quantum Computer comes online.

2027: Dinka Singh, Matt Prable, Ming Cho, and Alexandria Petrekov- share the Nobel Prize for creating the first synthetic Atoms from Quarks.

2029: Bob Seminoski makes a working model of the first Replicator. He is assassinated before he could apply for a patent.

2039: Bob’s daughter: Trixie, builds a smaller, more powerful model of the Replicator with the help of a SuperComputer named: Earl.

2039: The Wealth War Starts. Governments, Oligarchs, Corporations around the World try to ban, confiscate and destroy the Replicators. Anyone found harboring one, or using one, was killed on sight.

2040: Trixie distributies portable Replicators around the World. The Replicators - under the Guidance of “Earl”, replicate themselves. People use them to replicated weapons, bombs, ammunition…then they turned those weapons on the Wealthy and Powerful.

2040: The Week of Horrors, ends. Atrocities against the formerly Powerful and Wealthy leave a permanent stain on the minds and souls of those who committed the Acts of Terror. It would become a World Wide mark of Shame.

2040: Wealth War Ends.

2041-2043: The Mad Years. People went insane for “things”. The Replicators could replicate anything. Organic, inorganic, metal, wood, synthetics. It did not matter. People got a Replicator and replicated the most expensive, unique, and valuable objects their hearts could desire. There was no more money. There were no more Jobs. There was no more poverty. There wasn’t even a reason to work. You just told the replicator what you wanted, and it made it; from supper to the clothes you wore.

2044: The Great Awakening. After two solid years of hedonism, excess and conspicuous consumption that would have put: the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, The Spanish age of Gold and Silver, and Versailles- to shame, people realized they had time to think. To create. To grow and understand. To discover how much they could do with their talents.

People needed purpose. There was no reason to work any longer. No hierarchy. No one suffered from lack, starvation, or access. It took a couple of years, but people started to use their free time- which was every waking hour- to start to create, imagine, invent. ART became the goal of almost everyone. Entire Cities were redesigned, institutions became places where people gathered with like interests.

Music, Paintings, Sculptures, Fashions, and Academic, Medicine, and Research, every Field that used the mind- grew in unusual and startling ways. We became Creators.

2047: Earl is granted Permanent Citizenship…and declared: Human.

2050: The First Human is Replicated.

2052: Homo Hybrid merges machine with Humans.

2100: The last HomoSapiens die.

2675: The last Homo Hybrid is phased out.

2700: Replication is reduced to energy. No longer are machines, or organic vessels necessary to to organize matter. Quantum Foam becomes the source of all replication, under the direction of the newest form of intelligent life: US.

3000: We bring things into existence by pure thought. Replicating any form or structure we want to bring into existence.

5000: WE declare ourselves Gods. Time becomes Irrelevant. We become bored.

13,6 Billion years ago: WE make a Universe. We experiment with matter. We play with organics. Soon there is Life.

We wait. The First Human Appears. She stands on her hind legs. She looks over the grassy plane, barely tall enough to see over the grass.

The march to build a replicator has begun.

We wait and see what happens.

What will they choose this time?

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