Well, it’s out there.

My friends have complained about aspects but just a sample of my imagination and why yours appeals so much to me.

“The end into the beginning”.

No dreams, and fresh. His two first thoughts in billions of years. Old hands gripped the sides of the metal casket and eased him from his resting place. A stretch of old tired muscles and he rubbed his eyes. Neither was necessary but habit was hard to shake. The old man gazed around at the observation deck were he had been placed. In front of him the universe stretched to infinity in front of him. As he padded to the railing he sighed and looked briefly around the empty room. “Nobody wanted to join me eh?”. I am afraid not sir. He chuckled at the polite voice inside his head. “That’s interesting. We certainly didn’t communicate directly into our heads in my day”. A simple manipulation of the electrons in your head sir.

The old man stared into space. The stars seemed more faint. Distant. Crinkled eyes tried to pierce the darkness as he chuckled “I was afraid I’d miss it.” The would be quite impossible sir The computer chirped in his head. “Indeed, and how many do we have observing this show with us? And how long until the curtains close?”. We are the last two known sentient beings in the universe. The event will begin in five minutes and twenty-seven seconds. It will take exactly twenty seconds to reach our craft. The old man closed his eyes and gripped the wooden rail. “The last two? And what of humanity? Of artificial intelligence?” Sliding his hand along the rails polished surface “Of life…of trees?”.

The last biological human expired 17,988,123,875 earth years ago. From the time you identify as 3012ad much of humanity has transferred it’s consciousness to digital format. From there humanities existence and consciousness evolved to a point were all mysteries of the universe were revealed and existence had become, in a sense, futile. Once humanity had realized that it would be unable to prevent the collapse of this universe or transfer it’s intelligence to the new universe it ceased to be in 3521. Artificial intelligence had come to this conclusion 17 years before but choose to cease to function at the same time as humanity. The wood that you are resting upon is merely a manipulation of matter that would present as appealing to your limited senses.

His eyes swung up to the view again, “And me? Am I alive now or is this some copy of the body I had preserved?”. Your body remains your own as did the atmosphere inside the casket. Molecules have been replaced periodically through time on the casket itself to ensure it does not cease to function. A nod of the head and then he pointed to the screen in front of him “A timer please.”

4mins 1sec appeared on corner of the screen. Weaker. Weaker than he had ever felt before. And hopeless. Humanity had been somewhat certain of it’s fate when he had sealed himself in the casket. He had been diagnosed with a neuron degenerative disease that would eventually incapacitate him completely. The casket had been offered as a means to preserve himself until a cure could be found. Instead he had asked to be revived when humanity had either found out that the universe and by extension, humanity could be saved or six minutes before the end of the known universe. An intense loneliness jolted through him as he realised his insignificance. “To think no one else will see this…”. I’m afraid your senses are not suitable to viewing the event. If you wish I could enhance your senses and functioning so that you may witness it.

A withered hand waved away the suggestion. 2mins 11sec . “The countdown is fine.” He listened to his labored breathing. The thump of his heart. The silence. In front of him the universe was dying. All those wars. His children. Poverty. “Were humans happy in the end?” he asked. The question is somewhat open-ended. The humans that had come to understand the universe had discarded emotions as illogical. Other humans that had just pursued life in a digital reality had varying degrees of success with regards to finding true fulfillment. In terms of answering the question you may be more suited to answer the question. The corner of his mouth twitched and then raised slightly. 1min 12sec. As the smile formed a tear slid along the ridges of his wrinkles. 54sec.

He had been young, maybe five or six. He had been driving home from his grandmothers with his parents. The smile grew as more tears began to shed. 44sec. He had asked his mother if a star he saw was that of a dead relative, His mother said “yes”. 31sec. His father had laughed and explained to him that the relative wasn’t a star yet but one day would be. That we are all just a collection of matter. Of tiny ingredients. When we died those ingredients would dissolve and form into something new. That the earth would be swallowed by the sun as it died and all those buried would be consumed and used as ingredients for the sun. 20sec. That eventually we would all become that which makes the stars. The very essence of the universe. We would die but never cease to exist. We were all the same. Nothingness raced towards him. He raised his arms in embrace. 3sec . Mother, Father, Brother, my Children. We are all but one. 1sec.

Dennis,

Enjoy these books immensely. I am curious if there are any other examples in science fiction with AI suicide. Are you aware of any?

Thanks for the great books. Kind of wish you had plans for more than three.

Your going to throw relativistic asteroids at the Others’ home world and Dyson Sphere aren’t you?

I started and finished this book (Audible) yesterday. I absolutely love the Bobiverse! Can’t wait for “All These Worlds.” “Singularity Trap” and “Outland” sound quite interesting, too. I need to check them out.

Dennis,

I’m curious what research you did on the maximum possible depth of an ocean when thinking about Eta Cassiopeiae 3. Eight hundred kilometers just an awesome idea.

You gave the surface gravity at about 8.5 m/s^2, and assuming a constant density for the water (probably a bad assumption) then the pressure down there would be well over 7 GPa. Wow! According to Wikipedia, liquid water at 0 degrees C gives way to solid ice-6 at about 0.7 GPa, so the “ocean” would be an order of magnitude less deep. *But* there is no way the temperature would stay so low. It would only have to be 250 C or so to still be liquid at 7 GPa, and 250 is easy to believe at 800 km depth. (Inside the earth it would be much hotter that deep.)

So, your planet is tantalizingly realistic, and just leaves me wanting to know more about it. This is possibly the coolest idea I’ve come across in Sci-Fi in a while; congratulations!

Bring us book 3. 🙂

–George

I just finished listening to For We Are Many and came here to pester you to write faster. Please, write faster. Also, my heart broke a little when I saw your post “Two down, one to go.” I was hoping more for a fifteen book series, but I would be willing to settle for a twenty four book series. Seriously, please write more books in this series and take my money.

Congrats on “For We Are Many” being listed in Audibles this month’s Five Star Faves! Very worthy indeed! https://www.audible.com/mt/FSF_SFF_APR17?source_code=AUDOREM0425179K6Z

It’s weird that I now get pissed off when I can’t find a traffic jam, such is my addiction to your audio universe. Love the bobs, and sweet Homer. I recently finished listening to book 2 and now on my 3rd listening of book 1. Thanks for making the road a far better place.

This series has now become my favorite books to listen too., This series has helped me pass so much time on my daily commute to work, it makes me forget how long I have been driving. Thank you fro all your hard work and I look forward to book 3

Just finished the audio book yesterday and LOVED IT!! This truly is one of the most engaging story lines I’ve come across. Ray Porter does an outstanding job of narrating!! Now I start my wait for book 3. Ready to pre-order.

Sooo, Dennis.
First time caller, second time listener. 🙂
Thanks for creating something unique and engaging to read/listen to.
I’m grateful to know that not all the good ideas in sci fi are used up.
I was so pleased with both Bob books that I wanted to track down your website to give you a hearty
“well done”. And I think Ray Porter has done an excellent job.
Thank you.

Just finished listening to book 2. Oh my goodness, another few months before we find out what happens?

I hope the Bobs stop attacking the ‘worker bees’ and go looking for the ‘queen’. I’m thinking that if they kill ‘mom’, the remaining hive will be somewhat at a loss.

My heart is broken over what happened to that last planet…does anyone NOT think meercats are adorable???