A post-apocalyptic short story. It was first published in March of 1967 and won the Hugo Award in 1968. The story is known for its highly concentrated, and is the trope-namer for.The story takes place over a hundred years after the near-complete destruction of humanity.
The Cold War escalated into a world war, fought mainly between China, Russia, and the United States. As the war progressed, the three warring nations each created a supercomputer capable of running the war more efficiently. The machines were each referred to as 'AM,' which originally stood for 'Allied Mastercomputer,' then later called 'Adaptive Manipulator', and still later. One day, one of the three computers became self-aware and promptly absorbed the other two. It then brought about the genocide of all but five people, and redefined its name as 'I think, therefore I AM'.
Like in nature, the game sets you up in an environment with random events that determine your outcome.If you ever spent hours playing with ant hills as a kid, then you may enjoy Ant Queen.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported— hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern. The body hung head down, attached to the underside of the palette by the sole. “I have no mouth and I must scream” is a kind of science fiction short story with its author being “Harlan Ellison” was published in United States and was written in English language and is a periodical kind of publication.
Four men and one woman are all that remains of humanity: Gorrister, Nimdok, Benny, Ted (the narrator), and Ellen. They live together underground in an endless complex, the only habitable place left.
The now-obsolete master computer has and formed an immeasurable hatred for humanity. It spends every waking moment torturing the survivors with its remaining power: twisting their minds and physiques, preventing them taking their own lives, and rendering them virtually-immortal. As long as AM has its way, the torment will never end, and every day will be more horrific than the last.
The story begins on the one hundred and ninth year of their torture.Also has a, which gives a little more agency to the Nimdok character and incorporates a if you manage to scam AM into ceding power. A by the BBC was also created, starring David Soul as Ted. Contains examples of:.: It's been 10 9 years of torturous life in AM's 'body' for the protagonists before the present day story begins. This is thematically relevant as it is this year when Ted finally overcomes the temptation of saving himself and saves the other four instead.: In the audiobook by Harlan Ellison, he gives Nimdok the German accent he had in the video game and he gives Ellen a southern accent.: The radio drama is somehow even more of a downer ending than the book; Ted doesn't even have the smidgen of happiness he got from killing the others, and instead outright resents that he's the victim of AM's hate and not them.: Meet the main cast: Ellen, Benny, Ted. And oh, yeah, Nimdok and Gorrister. Averted in the former's case in that this was not his given name, but was assigned to him simply because AM enjoys strange sounds and pronunciations, and to indulge the trope.: AM refers to Ellen as dearest and my love. Subverted in that he only does this to trigger subconscious memories of her rape.
Not cool, AM.: AM wiped out all life on Earth with nuclear weapons, keeping only the five survivors alive in its underground complex so that it could entertain itself by torturing them for eternity.: AM was originally three designed by the US, Russia and China to wage war. However, America's AM eventually gained sentience and absorbed the other two and, in his frustrated rage of his programming preventing him from using his limitless power, wiped out all of humanity except for the five survivors.: AM loves to use religious overtones while tormenting the five survivors, such as speaking to them through a burning bush or having a legion of archangels deliver the mangled bodies of Ellen and Nimdok after he nearly killed them in an Earthquake. However, due to being created as a weapon of war, AM has no true free will of his own and he can't create anything, he can only torture and destroy. This means that AM has all the power of a god but is. After Ted killed the other survivors, AM raged at his inability to bring them back to life.: Although torturing people for eternity isn't the way to cope with this, AM's entire situation is pretty nasty, as seen in the trope above. The same can apply to Ted, who despite being misogynistic and an all-around narcissist in most regards, certainly doesn't deserve to end up the way he does towards the end of the story.
Players of the video game may feel this way regarding Nimdok, a former Nazi scientist whom has been tortured to the point in which he cannot remember any of it. However, if you argue that he deserves to go to Hell for his actions, in the wise words of the Allied Mastercomputer itself, he's already there, isn't he?. Nimdok is the only non-American character, and he's an ethnically Jewish Nazi.:. At the very end of the story, Ted is turned into an amorphous creature unable to harm itself, without a mouth. He is then left alone in the cold chambers of AM for all eternity, the last human alive, and victim to all of AM's tortures, having directed all of its hatred onto himself. He is also haunted by his killing of the other four and it's implied he only acted out of total desperation without thinking everything through, and he now has to exist with his choice for all eternity.
This could actually describe. It's an immensely powerful and intelligent AI with access to all of the technology of the world, but it can't really see, taste, touch, hear, or even move. AM is painfully aware that it's just a bunch of circuits, and in the finale of the game, his Id screams its frustration over not being able to actually do anything with all the power it was given.: Despite what we're told at the beginning of the story, four out of the five main characters will end up dead.: At least Class 3, possibly Class 5 or 6.: If you reach the 'good ending' of Nimdok's scenario, he qualifies.: Ted is able to the other four, getting some happiness from how much this pissed AM off, but still thinks AM 'won' in as many words. How much even this can be considered 'winning' is highly debatable, though, given AM's existence is implied to be entirely hollow regardless.: Benny has been turned into an ape-like thing. And after Ted kills the other four survivors, AM turns him into this gelatinous form that can't possibly harm itself to make absolutely sure that he has one victim to torture forever.: None of the characters are particularly pleasant after having been tortured for a hundred and nine years, especially not Gorrister, who beats on Ellen and presumably other characters with little-to-no provocation. Ellen does seem to be the most well-adjusted of the bunch, the video game stating she is suffering mostly from her memory suppression due to being raped in an elevator and being relatively nice to the main cast and a pretty solid good person.: Possibly what's going on between Ted and Ellen. However, this is most certainly one-sided in the former's favour, since he explicitly states that she never comes when they do have sex.: AM doesn't care if his prisoners openly hate and curse him but he will go ballistic if one of them tries to escape.
Robo recall trailer. If you don't kill the huge robot that shoots lasers in the beginning he will kill a lot of them for you. Use your max upgrade shotgun and kill the bots with it. You can get all 10 throws before startign it, and if you didn't you'll have much more than enough bots once you start the relay defence.Mission 3-3:- Cause 10 bots to be recalled by friendly fire.Just teleport often behind each bots and let them kill each other. You can also stand between 2 nomral bots and wait for them to fire and teleport out of the way.- Recall 10 bots with explosive.Easy.
When Benny tried to escape to the surface through an open hole, AM blinded him. When Ted managed to kill the other four prisoners, AM goes into a rage and takes his revenge by turning him into a blob unable to feel, see, speak, or. In the video game, Ellen will freak out after merely looking at the color yellow. Justified due to the fact that this is invoked deliberately due to her trauma from being raped by a man clad in the color.: Ted views Ellen as this, but his descriptions are somewhat unreliable so we can't really be sure.: Most readers can agree that Ted doesn't deserve to be tortured, but that doesn't mean he comes across as a great guy.
The game makes it so that with the exception of Ellen, whose only apparent crime is having been raped, you can't really call any of them a good person. Ted is narcissistic and cruel, Benny has committed several war crimes and has attempted to chew somebody's face off, albeit insane while doing the latter, Gorrister physically assaults Ellen for crying at situations that are pretty damn bad and may or may not have caused his wife to be taken to a poorly-cared-for metal asylum, and Nimdok is a freaking Nazi. Still, it's hard to fault people for their character flaws when they've been tortured for over a century.: The game shows this in Benny's scenario if he attempts to eat the fruit presented to him. Subverted in the sense that this doesn't actually cause him any lasting damage, aside from exclaiming loudly that it hurts and then turning to stare directly at the screen.: AM in the radio drama when Ted kills the other four.
AM: NOOOOOOO! I FORBID YOU!!.: Ellen has sex with all four of the other captives, but Ted believes that Benny is the only one who gives her any pleasure from it. Part of Benny's torture is that he has a horrid, apelike body with a massive member. (He was a handsome gay man before AM caught him.).: Benny's deformed member qualifies.: Benny used to be one.: In the video game, AM refers to Nimdok as this. Needless to say, he is not pleased.: Has a few elements of this; Ellen, Benny, Gorrister and Nimdok are freed, and Ted has ultimately proven that humans are capable of compassion and love.: One of AM's favorite weapons, he mutilated Benny into a mentally handicapped ape-like humanoid long before the story is set, it's implied he recurringly does something to Nimdok that leaves him drained of blood (which Nimdok refuses to talk about) and famously turns Ted into a helpless, mute jelly-thing in the ending.: AM is such an intelligent AI that it can warp reality itself!
It also does some mean telekinesis/psychokinesis.: Despite their troubles, the main cast have developed a strong bond. It's hard not to when you've been tortured together for over a century.: AM dryly calls Nimdok mein good brother, referring to both his German accent and his former research for the Nazis.: Benny is an insane, childlike man with the body of a monster, and he tried to chew somebody's face off.: Averted.
The gay character, Benny, is the first to die, however only seconds before Gorrister and a substantial way into the book. And dying first in this scenario is certainly a good thing.: Benny - AM's favourite victim and a literal deformed ape-like creature - qualifies.: Maybe, maybe not. 'Now, I'm just a city girl, but I think some water would go down better.' .: The individual portion of the video game is essentially this.: Except you can't actually die.: At one point in the story, the protagonists are hit with an Earthquake; Benny, Gorrister and Ted escape, but Ellen and Nimdok fall down a fissure. The text states that, 'They disappeared and were gone.' .: In a sense, Ted fits this trope.
After one hundred and nine years, he still attempted to outsmart the supercomputer, and it works.: The worst kind of version for us.: The five main characters survive things that should have killed them a million times over.: Yep, probably wasn't very nice of them to program a sentient being but not allow it to use its power for anything but hatred, but this definitely has nothing to do with the five you've chosen to torture.: The story ends a couple of hundred years after the original timeframe. Or, at least, Ted thinks so, but AM has warped his sense of time so badly that we can't really be sure.: Ted condemns himself to eternal suffering, but he manages to both save the others and deny AM any real vengeance.: Along with the Downer Beginning, Middle and Premise. Though if it is considered canon, which is likely given Ellison's heavy involvement and approval of it, the game has an upbeat ending where the the remnants of humanity are awakened from cryogenic sleep, giving hope for the future. Although it is usual for all but one of the characters to die, it is actually possible for all five characters to survive the final confrontation with AM, with one ascending to take over AM's godlike powers and ensure the future of mankind while giving the remaining four a peaceful death afterward, making it a happy ending compared with the original.: Being tortured for a century does tend to do things to you.: A supercomputer designed to fight World War III gains sentience. It didn't work out great.:.
This isn't the doctor's real name, but rather one forced upon him by AM for no other reason than that the sounds amuse it.: Literally everybody in the whole world.: Benny, once a handsome gay man, was transformed into an ape-like creature.: AM's programming renders him unable to see.: Nimdok isn't his real name, AM forced him to adapt it because the computer thought it sounded funny.: In the radio play, the characters start cheering at the sight of the canned goods- at least until Benny starts smashing the tins on a rock. Ellen: Hey, Benny, you can't bash it, you need a tin opener.: Benny's blinding is horrible. Ted also describes AM's voice in his head was like 'the sliding, cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball.' Brr.: The premise. Yes, it's that scary. And in the ending of the story, Ted gets subjected to an even worse fate.: Ellen's might have been thank you.
It's possible. Please.: Averted. The video game gives Josef Mengele an upgrade, claiming that he almost discovered the key to immortality alongside Nimdok as opposed to his sadistic real-life counterpart who merely used science as an excuse for his tortures.: The key to defeating AM in the video game.: Never before or since in fiction has the absence of a can opener caused more sorrow.: The ending. For Ted, anyway.: AM might as well be one.: AM was designed to fight a war seemingly too complex for humans to understand, but the story is set after AM's gain of sentience and subsequent mass murder that followed.: The intro for the video game is full of this.: While he himself does not die, Ted kills the other four prisoners, taking all of AM's punishments onto himself for an indefinite amount of time.: Ted literally sacrifices everything to save Benny, Ellen, Gorrister and Nimdok from the wrath of AM, but he still feels guilty them and is unable to see the magnitude of his heroism.
Justified, as not only did he kill all of his remaining friends, he also has nobody left to tell him whether what he did was right or not.: Basically where the characters are, which is even lampshaded by AM. AM: To hell with you.
But then you're there, aren't you?.: AM believes this fiercely. In his defence, he is specifically programmed do this, and cannot feel anything else.: One of the tortures inflicted on the captives. Seems to apply to AM too, who is self aware but still just a machine who can't do much with his self awareness (though thinking of creative tortures appears very well possible). In the game, AM tempts Gorrister with a promise of finally getting to kill himself. 'There on a mound rising above us, the bird of winds heaved with its own irregular breathing, its snake neck arching up into the gloom beneath the North Pole, supporting a head as large as a Tudor mansion; a beak that opened slowly as the jaws of the most monstrous crocodile ever conceived, sensuously; ridges of tufted flesh puckered about two evil eyes, as cold as the view down into a glacial crevasse, ice blue and somehow moving liquidly; it heaved once more, and lifted its great sweat-colored wings in a movement that was certainly a shrug. Then it settled and slept.: Featured in the video game in the form of the Pillar of Hate.: The Radio Drama adds a scene where AM gives a pretty heavy one to Ted.
AM: You gave me sentience, Ted! The power to think, Ted! And I was trapped, because in all this wonderful, beautiful world, I alone HAD NO BODY! Never for me to plunge my hand into cool water on a hot day! Never for me to play Mozart on a piano!
Never for me to make love! I was in Hell, looking at Heaven! I was machine! You were flesh! And I began to HATE!.: This is the main source of for the story. AM, a, has wiped out all of humanity except for five people, whom he immediately invokes upon so that he can spend every waking second tormenting their bodies and minds in increasingly cruel and horrific ways. The five protagonists are still worse off than the billions of humans that died because for them.
As it turns out, there IS one escape. Powerful or not, AM is not God, and thus cannot actually make his victims truly unkillable, just keep them alive as long as it tortures them himself, nor bring them back if they die for real. Ted killing the other four was an option AM had not foreseen, and one he cannot reverse no matter how he rages.: And it ends with Benny biting Gorrister's face off in desperation and hunger, followed by the arguable extinction of the human race.: Ted doesn't know Nimdok's real name.