In a crossover between two protocol fiction universes, a passenger named Fu Kenan experiences progressive invisibility during a westbound journey on Sachin Benny's Unified Eurasian Train Line as it passes through Spencer Nitkey's Zoothesia. The narrative explores how the train's refined systems create a meditative passage through multiple territories, with sensory manipulations designed to make the journey nearly imperceptible to passengers.
This issue features worldbuilding analysis of the AI-generated film South Beast Asia, examining ten core traits designed to explore distributed AI systems through a Southeast Asian-inspired lens developed at the Khlongs & Subaks workshop. The piece unpacks how fictional 'strange rules' address questions of AI distribution while the issue also hosts a guest talk with AI Snake Oil author Arvind Sarayanan.
Sam Chua
Edward Thon, a market-obsessed protagonist in the Zoothesia universe, navigates a world where financial success serves as his primary metric for self-worth and winning, while grappling with insecurity about his place in relationships and society. In this chapter, the protagonist's character is established through his particular dislikes and desires, setting up tensions between his need for monetary validation and his deeper existential anxieties about trust and belonging.
Spencer Nitkey
Haven Tailors is a speculative fiction story set in Haven Reach, a city where tailors serve as gatekeepers who adjust citizens' clothing and monitor their personal data through case numbers, revealing a system where physical alterations encode conformity and surveillance. The narrative explores how protocol-driven systems of governance operate through mundane transactions, using the metaphor of tailoring to examine belonging, control, and the anxiety of fitting into prescribed social structures.
Sachin Benny