Assignment:
Think of 3 interesting and intriguing "what if" questions. Write each one out in one or two sentences.
Then pick the favorite of your "what if" scenarios. Write 3-4 paragraphs to tell us about the world it would be taking place in and the main character.
What if...
…in the future, all races have interbred so much that there is only one universal race?
...in the future, you can become an astronaut with just two years at a trade school or an apprenticeship?
...humans discover a species of ants that are individually as intelligent as human beings. What would the interaction between our two species look like? How would we communicate?
The winner: #3!
Pat and the Anterface
Pat’s home town is called Ramana G-3. This may sound like a distant planet, but Pat is no alien. In fact, he lives right in the middle of an ordinary urban neighborhood. Ramana G-3 is shorthand for 1045 Ramana Avenue, Hill G-3. From a distant perspective, his home looks like an ordinary empty lot, but upon closer examination, one would find several ant hills laid out in a grid - A-1, A-2, and eventually G-3.
Pat is an ant.
He just acquired a degree in Human-Ant Relations and has been on his hill’s Embassy Team for two weeks. In school he learned many things, but most importantly, he spent hours and hours practicing with different kinds of anterfaces - that’s an ant-interface. They usually include a set of mechanical antennae for the ant to talk to, and a graphical display for the human. One of his greatest challenges was nervousness, leading to excessive sweat. For us humans this usually isn’t a problem, but the face of an ant is covered in ‘cuticular hydrocarbons’, a chemical mixture unique to each ant, much like a signature or a fingerprint. Pat’s nervous sweating tends to skew his hydrocarbon mixture. This is a problem when signing into many anterface models, as they use chemical detection paper to identify the user and let them use the device.
A common anterface (ant-interface) with a facial hydrocarbon detection tab, mechanical antennae, and a screen for humans.
When Pat’s species was discovered by the humans, many companies began asking themselves what they might be able to sell to this new market. Among the many idiotic initial pitches was the Ant-brella by EZ-UP, a small canopy intended to shield the anthill from rain. They forgot that the adjacent, uncovered portions of earth would convey water to the anthill beneath the surface. Not to mention, delivery drivers often forgot to set the thing up for the ants.
The Ant-brella
Now, the hill has sent Pat to participate in a focus group for the Ant-brella. Thankfully, this building has been retrofitted with Ant-Transit. All the ants onboard are careful to avoid greeting each other lest they contaminate one another’s unique hydrocarbon mixture. As the transit drops Pat off on the table-top, he is aware of a handful of other ants there already, and he fights the reflex to greet them too. Instead, he heads straight to one of the open anterfaces, which has been sprayed with a pheromone for easy finding. Pat uses his antennae to apply his hydrocarbons to the detection tab projecting from the anterface. Once it has been thoroughly coated, he touches his antennae to those belonging to the interface and instructs it to read the tab. The tab is swiftly pulled into the anterface, and the machine’s antennae spring to life, twitching and touching Pat’s antennae, asking,
“Are you Patrick, from Ramana G-3’s Embassy Team?”
Pat confirms, and waits patiently for EZ-UP’s moderator to arrive.
Anterfaces can connect to the moderator's laptop via bluetooth.
