by Sabrina Neumann

Ariel holding his drink in his hand

If he cannot turn it off, the transparent structure that forms the sparkling juice would simply dissolve. He watches the gyrocopters landing on the greenfield site. No sound can be heard, no breath of air can be felt.

On the other side the younger children play, at the waterfall

He hears your laughter. The ball hovers over the meadow and they run after it.
Depending on how close they get to it, the ball changes colour. Ariel notes that today’s shapers are careful with the speed adjustment of the ball. He can understand her.

Today is “50M Memorial Day – Everyone Thanks Aunt Minerva.”

He doesn’t know what really happened back then. He’s too young, they say, even though he’s already 13. He’s trying to get close to the council. Eight ageless women, dressed in colourful clothes, sit on a golden plateau and talk in disarray.
With the automatic translators that everyone has in their ears, it sounds like constant gibberish to Ariel. Each one answered in her own language. Where they all came from, he doesn’t know. They came from Europe, Russia and the United States.

Most of them were significantly older than 100 years

They are just remembering together what it was like when they realized that it is their job to protect the family. As women and mothers they had to act. It was a critical time. More and more citizens withdrew from their sphere of influence.

The micro-information and images – which they had been feeding into television broadcasts and later into videos since the last millennium – as well as the food with additives

There were just more and more people who stopped consuming and who questioned too much. It was a very dangerous time. The knowledge of their manipulations was then visible in many areas. The more visible it became, the closer they came to a possible fall.

Would they survive a revolution again?

The risk was too great for her. Their own men were busy lifting rulers in and out of office and controlling wars. Nobody recognized the real danger except the women.

The BBZ, the citizens employment times must be controlled

As with children, the more you keep them busy, the less stupid they do. The knowledge of how this world works and centuries of experience belong in the hands of the wise oligarchs.

Nobody makes the rules but you. It was. It is and it always will be. The control of the citizens became more complex. No more task for individuals and communities. Unlike their husbands, the eight ageless women loved these citizens. They were no longer necessary, as they were 100 years ago. But they were dangerous, because the citizens could not cope with the opportunities the world offered.

Minerva the over one hundred year old AI

101 years ago Minerva became the first artificial intelligence of a company. Subsequently, she headed the departments of a global player. At that time, nobody had any idea what would happen twenty years later. Namely, that all artificial intelligences – well over a hundred – joined together to form one organism, as if by the hand of a woman.

Another thirty years later

After another thirty years, the “BBZ”, the citizens’ employment periods and the population size were fixed values of the AI. This AI is called Aunt Minerva. The oligarchs no longer existed. Not as a message, photograph, fact or binary code. They lived on without being recognized.

They are invisible, the oligarchs

Aunt Minerva is logical and just. It changes possible illnesses, conflict potentials, migration of peoples, company failures, currency problems, country-specific conflicts, storms, and much more.
For 50 years it has thus preserved the life of the oligarchs. The trust in them is boundless.

The women rise: “Let us celebrate the day, The sun may set slowly. The family is complete.” The toast could be heard everywhere and the sunset, which had been constant for several hours, went as usual.

How the citizens are doing, nobody knows anymore

Ariel wonders what “citizens” is, the only word he understood.

 

 

Read more stories from the category the world in a hundred years here.

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