Extending human life indefinitely using artificial organs, artificial blood,...
Now that I'm done school I can start to focus more on personal projects, especially my sci-fi novel.
It is a story that is set in a future where advancements in technology, such as medicine and artificial organs, allow for humans to extend their lives hundreds of years. Just as there is an age gap between rich and poor nations today - Canada's life expectancy of females is 81, in Angola it is less than half at 31 - that gap increases as the technology becomes easily available to those that can afford it. The result: a world divided by wealth and age.
There are a number of government policies and breakthrough technologies that fortify the divide. A perceived flaw of capitalism leads to government policy regarding inheritance. Whereas some are born into wealthy families, others are born into disparity. Those that can access capital have the ability to realize their ideas and create businesses that secure their place in the upperclass. In an effort to prevent this inequality, the government places a ban on inheritance. Without the incentive to create family dynasties, business owners invest into their lives instead, widening the age gap.
More disturbing still, a number of the wealthy elite are drug designers that have the nations of poor addicted to their reality altering drugs. The hallucinogens are nano-computers that can interact with the mind, and create whatever fantasy the designer intends. Like 'rose coloured glasses', the person taking the drug sees the world through whatever fantasy-lens the designer constructed, hence the drug's street name: rose.
Taken insufflatly, rose enters the nose and is delivered directly to the brain. Unbeknownst to the user, rose contains not just the hallucinogen, but two additional ingredients: 1) an imaging device, which uses a technology similar to ultrasound, that monitors brain activity, and 2) a transmitter that relays this information to outside computers. The central computers, owned and operated by a few rotten elite, are used to harness the thoughts of millions of unknowing poor. The rich use their superior financial situation to bring the ideas of the users into fruition before the users even have a chance to seriously consider their thoughts. It is though theft, and it is happening everyday.
The is the story of an addict and his battle against the thought pirates.
