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Originally Posted by dadioflex
Is the "memory eater" a franchise, a corporation, a single installation or what?
My immediate thought is for a janitor with suspicions that he used to be the CEO of the Memory Eater corporation, or indeed one of a line of CEOs who've been out-witted by ambitious rivals.
Or what if someone desperately wants to get a memory back, but there's a policy that it isn't allowed, or a policy that it's stored as a backup and they lose the backup, or the backup is stolen, or the backup is being shared as entertainment on the blackmarket - people's shameful memories for sale.
How do you reconcile all this without a more robust framework? Writers are going to be tripping over each other's ideas.
But, neat idea for an anthology even if Spotless Mind did get there before you - it wasn't exactly the original memory manipulation story. Look at "We Can Remember You Wholesale" by PKD, which became "Total Recall".
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The memory eater was invented by a company. Think Red Box. As long as you don’t live out in the sticks, there’s probably one nearby.
There can be rivals or knockoffs. One author even used stolen memories in her story. The problem I didn’t want to run into was being too specific. I want to give authors as many options as possible, and I think if you work under the guidelines I’ve listed, everything will run smoothly.
“My immediate thought is for a janitor with suspicions that he used to be the CEO of the Memory Eater corporation, or indeed one of a line of CEOs who've been out-witted by ambitious rivals.
“Or what if someone desperately wants to get a memory back, but there's a policy that it isn't allowed, or a policy that it's stored as a backup and they lose the backup, or the backup is stolen, or the backup is being shared as entertainment on the blackmarket - people's shameful memories for sale.”
Both of these plots sound interesting and are ideas I haven’t seen done yet. I especially like the idea of taking backups to use for shared entertainment.
The collective of artists out there think of ideas I never would have, because I’m just one person. And perhaps, if I made the framework very specific, this idea wouldn’t have popped up.
Machine of Death used a similar set of vague guidelines, and as I was rereading it the other day, I realized how many more voices/plots they churned out because of that.
So far, with the entries I received, everything is working out perfectly. However, if you do have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask, and I’ll try and answer them as best as I can.
But on a side note, great thinking with the black-market and shared memories
. I’d love to see a story based on this idea.