This is a part of an abandoned comic sci fi that I started. Just found it after sometime [6 yrs]. At a time that I wanted to write something about the subject, I was surprised to find myself having written it 6 yrs ago. You may find some unusual words, but this is a random page of a long novel, which was never to be even that.
I admit my inability to get away from Doug Adams, for it was months after reading H2G2. No need to repeat that. Any other comments are welcome.
...
...
...
Sometime back in the history of universe, there existed a civilization which created the most peculiar machine of the entire space-time. They all thought that it is the most intelligent machine of their creation. It was meant to make their lives easy. Like many other things that were meant to make the lives easy, this machine in turn made lives very hard by trying too hard to make it too easy.
There were so many problems. The main problem was that it can not stay stable, unlike the other so called dumb machines. Every day it came up with some problem that would be interpreted as the Illegal Operation. So they got their people to find that illegal operation and fix it. But no matter what they found and fixed as the illegal operation, the Illegal Operation still existed.
That machine had some Soft and Hard segments (exact technical terms have eluded my memory). Whatever that soft segments meant to be, they always complained that the hard segments are not keen enough to bring the wisdom and magic of theirs. That made its menders producing keener hard segments, but when they produced those keener hard segments the soft segments had to be upgraded to fit with.
However, after they upgraded both soft and hard segments, those enhanced soft segments again started complaining that those new hard segments are not keen enough to bring the wisdom and magic of theirs.
So they kept on improving both Hard and Soft segments in a flurry of madness. Entire populations and communities worked on improving both soft and hard segments. But there was always some imbalance between the soft and hard segments. After lots of exhausting effort, both teams could reach balance between two segments at the end of the day. But by the beginning of the next day, the Illegal Operation was flashing.
So they put more people on to fixing the Illegal Operation and the inevitable imbalance between Soft and Hard segments which came up every now and then. Not only for the people who were involved in the production, but also for the consumers this was an extremely time consuming affair, for them it was to install every new Hard Segment or Soft segment that came to the market - at a faster rate than the time it takes to install it.
Entire hexa-decades were spent on this together with a wealth enough to buy all the other planetary systems in their solar system, from those undetected life forms, which inhabited them and laughed about this peculiar machine and its menders whenever they gathered leisurely.
It was after so many hexa-decades and wastage of entire so-thought intellectual power of their civilization, they realized that it is not actually the machine that is intelligent but it is them who are so dumb to think it is.
This event is mentioned in many of the children’s story books all over the universe – with different morale statements specified at the end of the story. So much, that universe has learned from this most peculiar machine that ever existed. Recently one of those magazines which listed all sorts of Top Sixteen things stated that owning this most peculiar machine is one of the Top Sixteen Most Unlucky Events in the entire Space Time.
