Special contribution by Nikola Danaylov - According to future studies, the world will be dominated soon by disruptive technologies, able to plunge humankind into an era of accelerated progress. Main outcomes will be the achievement of immortality, the creation of smarter than human artificial intelligences and the spread of the new species through the universe.
“The Alpha Centauri Project” is a breathtaking story set in this near future altered almost beyond recognition by technology. Social issues as well as dreams and projects of the digital people are key drivers of the story. For digital beings aiming at eternal life, truth and collaboration are primary values; seeking exponential growth in knowledge and technology, avoiding conflicts and spreading into the Universe their goals.
The passionate scenarios make the reader share the soul of the digital civilization. From this, a powerful comparison with our world emerges, that stripping away layer after layer of conventions and prejudices, leaves us at last face to face with the morals of a world that one day we might share.
Eve and Victoria, the main characters, are humans whose brain was digitized after death. They move in this context of epoch-making events, searching for identity. They become more and more involved in the hardship of the digital community to the point of rising to leaders. Finally, in a crescendo of drama, they merge their destiny with that of their new people.
The title “Alpha Centaury Project” symbolizes the mastery by the digital people of their future. The cover represents the transformational arc of the two protagonists, Eva and Victoria, from darkness to light, in the background is their future: the whole universe.
End of the 21st century. Humans live on Earth and the Moon, last strongholds of their past power. Mars and the Net are inhabited by artificial intelligences and souls, these last obtained by digitizing the brain after death. The virtual reality allows the two races to communicate. Their differences are deep.
With digitization, humans have postponed real death to an indeterminate future, but they are not happy. Towards the virtual beings they feel admiration but also inferiority and envy.
The digital creatures instead cannot bear being relegated in worlds too small for their unbounded ambitions. Their Martian experience has allowed them to develop the competence necessary in extra-terrestrial environments, most of all to acquire the self-confidence indispensable for the colonization of other star systems. The Alpha Centauri project is born.
The mission obtains the humans’ support. In exchange the digital beings abandon the idea of expanding on the Earth. Just before departure, Earth Security intercepts a suspect message from the Space Agency. Terrorism? The evidence leads to the Elects, a sect that entered Net years before through a collective suicide...
A script is also available. The novel is in English, French, Spanish, Italian and can be downloaded FOR FREE from Smashwords website.
