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.
AI personalities in science fiction, from Adams' Genuine People Personalities™ to Banks' self-naming Minds, function as ecological markers that reveal not just individual dispositions but the social fabric of entire civilizations. Rao argues that these naming practices constitute a 'high-personality ecology' where names operate as true names disclosing fundamental social structures rather than arbitrary identifiers.
Venkatesh Rao
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
Protocolized launches Monstrous Times, a new publication dedicated to strange rules fiction, expanding on over two years of protocol fiction storytelling including 60+ stories and writing contests. The launch reflects the discovery and formalization of a new literary genre that explores how rules and protocols structure narratives and worlds.
Sachin Benny