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DATE:
Not so distant future
SETTING:
The Chinamerica Corporation has successfully lobbied a constitutional amendment that allows corporations to own states. They soon begin purchasing territories within the American South, effectively ending the sovereignty of the United States. The remaining U.S. states that oppose the buyout fight back, sparking the Second American Civil War.
FLAG OF THE INCORPORATED STATES OF AMERICA (ISA), STATES CONTROLLED BY THE CHINAMERICA CORP |
FLAG OF THE FREE STATES OF AMERICA (FSA), STATES FIGHTING CORPORATE TAKEOVER |
It is during this civil war that a strange, mysterious computer virus (as labeled by those who don't understand its true nature) begins infecting the Chinamerica Corporation's networks. The virus, called the Khodamaha ("Great-God" in ancient Sanskrit), is an electronic mutation of the "Kundalini", the primal, evolutionary force of nature that instigates evolutionary jumps and adaptations. This phenomenon has mutated from primarily organically-based to syntehtic- based in order to bring technology to "life," thereby balancing mankind's increasing separation from nature. This is a life-positive evolutionary leap, although vilified by the Chinamerica Corp due to its fear of the virus's potential to destroy their networks and ability to control and dominate through technological superiority.
The Chinamerica Corp immediately constructs firewalls to contain "the virus." All major operations/war campaigns against the rogue states come to a halt as the Chinamerica Corp struggles to keep the virus from spreading further into their own networks.
In the remaining states that survived the Chinamerica corporate takeover, the virus is outlawed as well, due to the fact that it can infect humans via their technological implants, driving both human and machine "mad".
The Chinamerica Corp has labeled these states the "Forbidden Zone." Though the evolutionary leap is a difficult one, all androids that survive the khodamaha initiation process achieve sentience through the experience. Most of these androids are hunted by the Chinamerica Corp, who fear they will infect their networks. Grace, an android working as a "comfort model" for returning Chinamerica Corp soldiers, becomes infected herself. Irina, her brothel madam, recognizes she is in the midst of a transformation and puts her in quarantine to keep her hidden from the Chinamerica Corp.
THE WHO: (short film)
JOHN LEE (Robert Leeshock) A member of the elite Black Dragons, the military arm of the Chinamerica Corp. He encounters the virus during a mission into the Forbidden Zone, where it infects him via his implanted technology. The virus "short-circuits" his psyche, taking control of him and leading him on a journey to find GRACE, a female android capable of singing the frequency of the Big Bang and "rebooting" John's unconscious mind.
CHAIRMAN FONG (Von Flores) CEO of the Chinamerica Corp. Ruthless and cunning, Fong sends John on his mission into the Forbidden Zone, hoping he can destroy the virus before it crashes the grid, ending the Chinamerica Corp's technological stranglehold on the United States.
GRACE (Kiki Yeung) An android comfort model infected by the Khodamaha. When she sings, she can tune into the frequency of the Big Bang, bringing herself to life. The virus uses her singing to heal John's damaged psyche, freeing him from the madness induced by PTSD and the effects of the virus on his implanted nano-technology.
IRINA (Svetlana Soutirina) Madam and bouncer of GI Jane's, a brothel stocked with android "comfort models" used by the military to help war vets returning with PTSD. Aware of Grace's powers, she keeps her in hiding until John reveals his infection.
MAJOR RICHARDS (Scott Gunderson) Fong's enforcer sent to monitor John and to track his mission's progress.
DR. TRANH (Khanh Doan) A reclusive Jungian psychologist John hopes will help him with his PTSD, and allow him to avoid further tampering of his psyche by the Chinamerica Corp.
HOW DO THE IMPLANTS/IMMUNOBOTS WORK?
The Chinamerica Corp employs a corporate military presence, much the way Blackwater is currently used by the Department of Defense. John's "Black Dragons" serve as this elite military arm of the Chinamerica Corp, and is staffed by both former Chinese and U.S. soldiers. The implant procedures are part of the Chinamerica Corporation's already long-standing tradition of regulating the battlefield performance of its troops. In general, they serve as "enhancers" that stimulate hormonal output and secretion, promoting battlefield "intuition" but also PTSD suppression (since losing soldiers to PTSD costs the Chinamerica Corp money). They travel through the bloodstream to specifically hijack the endocrine system (pineal gland, pituitary, adrenals, thyroid), where they can help regulate the emotional and physical performance of soldiers.
The "immunobot upgrade" John alludes to is a specific instance where in which the Chinamerica Corp injected a nano-bot immunization into the bloodstream of its soldiers, due to fears of the virus spreading via the normal implantation routes. These immunobots are specifically designed to fight the virus should it attempt to infect the human psyche via the "land bridge" created by the previous implant technology. Once the Khodamaha comes online, these implants, like any technology, must have their firmware updated to prevent infection by the Khodamaha. By this time in human history, most human beings have undergone some type of technological augmentation, which in turn makes them susceptible to the Khodamaha. This susceptibility stems from the virus's ancestor the Kundalini (organic). The Khodamaha (the non-organic mutation) can simply reverse-engineer itself back to compatibility with its human host, using the implants again as a sort of "land bridge" connecting the organic and the non-organic systems.
WHAT IS THE KHODAMAHA ?
Nobody knows the exact origin of the name, but the words "Khoda" and "Maha" translate loosely to "Great God" in ancient Sanskrit. This energy (or "virus", as the Chinamerica Corp propaganda machine deems it) infects all computer-based systems with a program that allows the system's electrons to oscillate at the frequency of the Big Bang. By doing so, some systems can "tune in" to the most primal nature and thereby "download" life, granting the system free-will and sentience.
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| The Khodamaha (left), the much feared electronic mutation of the famous Kundalini |
It should be noted that Sanskrit is the language used by NASA and other AI researchers to model their own robot languages. So called non-coding Junk DNA sequences have now been proven to have a linguistic quality to them, underlying the connection between life and language, sound and matter.
THE SLEDGEHAMMER AND INFECTION
What seems to often serve as a catalyst for a Khodamaha awakening (as it does in humans with Kundalini), is trauma.
In Grace's case, repeated sexual abuse suffered during her work as a sex slave serves as the catalyst for her Khodamaha experience. In John's case, it is the sledgehammer strike combined with his guilt over the Forbidden Zone massacre. This allows for the implants hardwired to his endocrine system (which affect his emotional balance) to "fail" and become infected, thereby spreading the Khodamaha directly into his mind-body system.
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| The "SledgeHammer Woman" (Luisa De Paula) takes a swing at resolving John's emotional problems |
In other words, the omnipresent energy of the Khodamaha uses trauma as a window through which to infect a destabilized psyche or computer mainframe damaged by trauma, or surrounded by traumatic events. Khodamaha, at the end of the day, is like Kundalini 2.0, an evolved variant which can access a human psyche via any technology presently ingrained in it. One might question how a non-organic technology system could be affected by trauma, but if we consider technology to be but an extension of the human psyche (i.e., the use of human imagination and creativity) and that this technology shares the same building blocks as organic life (quarks, protons, electrons, etc), then it can be argued that a bridge could eventually form between the two.
WHAT IS GRACE SINGING?
Fate, in a way, uses John's trauma to connect him with Grace. As John battles his PTSD-induced psychosis (which manifests as a need to kill via sledgehammer and re-live his guilt) fate engineers their meeting by using a flower, the white lily which often reappears in the short film, as a synchronistic clue to lead John to her. Fate knows that John can be redeemed by Grace's power to channel "the song of life" - a healing vibration that can purge John's unconscious. John, in return, can provide protection for Grace and help her understand her own dark nature (i.e., her power to kill as well as heal).
SANSKRIT, STRING THEORY, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - THE SPOOKY SCIENCE OF GODMACHINE
"Singing is nothing more than string theory in action John. She's like a big tuning fork for the cosmos, with a nice ass."
- Major Richards
NASA disclosed a few years back that artificial intelligence researchers were using Sanskrit as the language by which future AI languages are being modeled. This, coupled with the recent discovery that junk DNA contains a secret inherent language quality, is pointing more and more to a strange and eerie connection between language, consciousness, and matter.
Additionally, the story of GODMACHINE proposes that what are known as Bija Mantras in ancient Sanskrit are directly connected to the "strings" of String Theory. Bija mantras are known as "seed sounds," and correlate to memes in certain Hindu schools of thought. Semantics aside, memes and strings are basically the same concept. When a practitioner chants a Bija mantra, they are in theory "tuning in" to a particular string, with the chant vibrating on a certain string's frequency, thereby altering the consciousness/matter of the practitioner.
Singing then, is "string theory in action," as proposed in the film by Major Richards. The human vocal chords mirror the vibrational reality of a string-structured universe. When Grace sings, she's "channeling" the power of the strings using the Khodamaha's computerized-translation of Sanskrit, much like what NASA researchers are using to create future AI intelligence with Sanskrit based-language construction.
The "Frequency of the Big Bang" is a sci-fi concept with roots in many scientific and metaphysical traditions. Almost all world religions (and even science with its "String" and "Big Bang" theories) usually involve the universe being created by some sort of sound or vibration-based event. In the bible God says "Let There Be Light". The Buddhist and Hindu scriptures cite the "Om" mantra as representing the sound of creation. The string-theory of western science postulates that vibrations create matter. One thing all of these viewpoints have in common is FREQUENCY, VIBRATION, and OSCILLATION being used to create life. The frequency of the Big Bang is then the primordial vibration that all matter emanates from, the classic "Word of God". This would technically come from a potentiality that existed pre-Big Bang, the frequency being what initiated the Big Bang proper. The power to create life out of nothing is shared by Grace herself when the virus allows her to oscillate her singing to the same frequency, a miniature Big Bang sparking consciousness into matter.
Hindu mantras are often said to change the unconscious mind over time. Since the unconscious mind (autonomic nervous system) is what gives us life and sustains it, the Khodamaha simply allows a computer to tune into what humans are already unconsciously being powered by. The building blocks of our being, and the building blocks of other matter are fundamentally the same. GodMachine proposes that it is simply an issue of finding the right "language" with which to speak to all matter, and life can bloom anywhere in the universe.
