Under Surveillance

The idea of a society that is entirely under surveillance by the authorities in not a new idea. Surveillance is a recurring theme popularized by the publication of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). While the idea shocked readers in 1949, a level of intense surveillance appears to be accepted today. To ensure public safety, we concur that law enforcement should keep tabs on individuals suspected of criminal activity and potential terrorism, thereby serving the community. At what stage does this growing surveillance cross the line into intrusive and unjustifiable observation?

In Scientica, the crossover into complete surveillance was made long ago. So long, in fact, that society nearly fully accepts it. For many generations, people have known no alternative. My version pivots on the use of video and audio surveillance at every turn, in nearly every corner of every building, on every square foot of every outdoor space. The supercomputer Scientica, a thinking machine that uses its intelligence to understand and manipulate its human population, processes the incoming data in real time. It uses its multiprocessing technology to monitor every living person at any time, effortlessly.

Scientica is set in a society under constant surveillance. With its advanced artificial intelligence, it can easily keep track of all living people at all times. However, even within the established order of Scientica's society, some doubt their future and reason for being.

Of course, for every aspect of a story that’s laid in concrete, one needs to find cracks. You will meet Gaius, engineering mentor, who has adopted the aphorism, “Know your surveillance gaps.” Using spare parts, a small team of engineers have built a device that detects gaps in Scientica's audio and visual surveillance. These small devices enable them to communicate safely and collaborate in their resistance against Scientica. The engineers call this device a surveillance detector (SD). (Thom Holmes)

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