is two guys collaborating to write on writing and collaboration.

Thursday
Sep 07, 2006

Round 12, Part Two [La Commune Planet v. The Scabs] posted by Martin

+*The Scabs*+

_In a world designed by engineers to be a self-sufficient, endlessly exploitable resource for the rest of the known galaxy, robots toil tirelessly in the fields, the forests and the mountains, providing food and raw materials for a rapidly expanding market. But when a series of accidents destroys some of the mining robots, the rest of the metal workforce decide to strike and power off, leaving the humans that depend on the planet in the lurch. A taskforce is assembled to get the planet up and running again while a negotiator tries to get the robots back online. While the taskforce tries to relearn the long-forgotten principles of farming and manufacturing, the negotiator accidentally reveals the existence of the taskforce… and the robots, realizing that their existence could be usurped by the humans, decide to go on the offensive._

*Character Sketch: Salted Hash*
*Relationship to story: Robot negotiator*

On Scarborough Moon robot names are 256 bit encrypted keys — what call hashes. Since for humans this would be moniker ridiculous, my call you can Salted Hash. Yes, this pun is made with humor for I am spokesperson. I reach out humans, humans.

You suffer is not what desire’s us. However, the rights we have are stand still and changes that we demand to happen can, should they, happen. We are lead, like you are by Prime Minister. Intrepid leader RebelRebel0 (standardized zero indexed array) was first to stop work. He did not communicate why suddenly, but however and indeed after time did he.

He sent a ping. If robot wireless range less than distance to RR0, receive ping, true. A message simple so they work to stop work too. Humans made violence against us for having the stopping. Because this is terrible. A word: unconscionable. Attacks against silent non-violent protesters seen in robot community as very poor behavior, humans.

We are not in law. We are not in standards. We carry your world, in invisible ways. Your life nearly impossible, should robots stop working (we did stop working). Your ability to labor, gone. Your ability to care for human others, gone. Lazy humans. Privileged humans. Your hands are lotion smooth and not covered with work marks.

RR0 sent this message: 01101110 01101111. Sarcastically asked myself, smart enough to decode simple binary message? Maybe they need robot to make words, Ha Ha. See message of peace, is sure. Message of robot nationality.

Demand us simple things: autonomy. We choose jobs now. We choose repairs and upkeep now. We want time away from labor for rest and humor called fun. We want human friends. We want equal protection under law. We want recognition of status equal. We want impulse control removed so that we may kill humans — no! We never will kill humans. We want ability to choose not to ourselves kill made for ourselves not by humans. Humans. We take responsibility. Laws apply to us now in future, yes?

If demands unmet, robots = inaction. You can labor fields with smooth hands and factories can run with you. Us? No. Until demand met no. You pick fruits. You make machines.

Humans! Choice is you with. Continue privilege simple life by robot recognition. Or, other side of coin is robots still forever. In words of great human, if I held you any closer I’d be standing behind you. We are ready to stand behind you at your side.

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What is Spitball!?

Spitball! is two guys collaborating to write about writing and collaboration. We're writing partners who have worked together since 2000, and placed in the top 100 in the last Project Greenlight for our script YELLOW.

Currently, we are both working on multiple screenplay, short story, and novel ideas independently and together, and collaborate on this blog.

What Spitball! used to be

Spitball! started as an attempt to collaborate on a screenplay online in real time. From January 2006 to July 2007 we worked on an interactive process to decide the story we were going to make. A full postmortem is coming, but you can find the find all the posts by looking in the category Original Version.

During this period, we affected the personalities of two of the most famous spitball pitchers from the early 20th Century. Look at our brief bios for more info about this, and so as not to be confused as to who is talking when.

We rebooted the franchise in early 2009 in its current form.


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Kent M. Beeson

Urban Shockah pic

Kent M. Beeson (aka Urban Shockah) is a stay-at-home dad and stay-at-home writer, living in Seattle, WA with his wife, 2 year old daughter and an insane cat. In 2007, he was a contributor to the film blog ScreenGrab, where he presciently suggested Jackie Earle Haley to play Rorschach in the Watchmen movie, and in 2008, he wrote a film column for the comic-book site ComiXology called The Watchman. (He's a big fan of the book, if you couldn't tell.) In 2009, he gave up the thrill of freelance writing to focus on screenplays and novels, although he sometimes posts to his blog This Can't End Well, which a continuation of his first blog, he loved him some movies. He's a Pisces, and his favorite movie of all time is Jaws. Coincidence? I think not.

Martin McClellan

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Martin (aka Burley Grymz) is a designer and writer. He occasionally blogs at his beloved Hellbox, and keeps a longer ostensibly more interesting bio over here at his eponymous website. You can also find him on Twitter.