| Technology | Sales pitch | Fatal error | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warwick Collins Computer One 1993 |
Computer One, an international civil network of computers with “no boundaries but knowledge itself” | The all-encompassing central grid ensures total transparency from nations and corporations. It has come to control everything from the climate to its own maintenance. | Zoology professor Enzo Yakuda realizes that the network has deemed humanity a threat to be eliminated. While he races to build a virus that can defeat it, a Computer One–controlled “re- versed evolution” begins to destroy Earth’s biodiversity. |
| Stephen Baxter Moonseed 1998 |
Moonseed, a mysterious nanotechnological substance from space | Though of unknown function, the alien matter “is endeavoring to construct something...It moves atomic particles, sometimes molecules, to build structures from the subatomic level up.” | After Venus mysteriously explodes, a sample of silvery moonseed dust escapes from a NASA lab and infects Earth, digesting the planet’s crust and burying the globe in volcanic eruptions as it reproduces itself. |
| Karel Čapek R.U.R. 1920 |
Rossum’s Universal Robots, the first sustainable form of artificial life | The discovery of a protoplasmic substance with the ability to function like living matter leads to labor far cheaper than any humans can offer. | The robots begin to develop sentience and plot to annihilate the human race, which they deem “superfluous.” |
| Stephen Vincent Benét “Nightmare Number Three” 1935 |
Everyday machines of modern society, including concrete mixers, printers, telephones, and cars | Labor-saving devices “built to be better than humankind” save humans time, energy, and money. | After years of secret planning, the machines rebel. Printers in the U.S. Senate print out propaganda for the wrong candidates, while vehicles mow down pedestrians on Madison Avenue. |
| Kurt Vonnegut Cat’s Cradle 1963 |
Ice-nine, a lab-developed form of water that solidifies anything it touches at room temperature | Originally developed as a possible military weapon by a co-creator of the atomic bomb, the substance becomes sought after as a painless method of suicide. | The corpse of a dictator who swallowed ice-nine rather than die from cancer falls into the sea, instantly solidifying all of Earth’s water and killing most humans. |
| Margaret Atwood Oryx and Crake 2003 |
BlyssPluss, a drug developed by one of a handful of megacorporations that have come to dominate the world | The drug promises to prolong youth while providing “an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess, coupled with a generalized sense of energy and well-being.” | Unbeknownst to the billions of BlyssPluss users, the drug contains a deadly virus secretly engineered by a scientist in order to wipe out humanity so that civilization can begin again. |
| Ernest Cline Ready Player One 2011 |
OASIS, a virtual reality game in which participants play as better versions of their offline selves | In a bleak dystopian future, the game serves as “an escape hatch into a better reality…a magical place where anything was possible.” | Increasing numbers of players become unable to distinguish between the game and reality. OASIS becomes “a self-imposed prison for humanity” as the real world languishes. |
