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UPDATE: Since this story was originally written, we've seen "Mists of Pandaria," Warlords of Draenor," "Legion," and now, "Battle for Azeroth." The menace remains unabated. 

No secret I play WoW. Love the game. There's only one problem: Spiders.

Typical scenario...  I'm on my gnome warrior, questing because that's what I like to do most.  I'm level-capped, so this is a daily quest. Tol Barad. I approach the quest-giver.

"Delrick," he says, because that's my character's name, "We have a problem. The woods are filled with spiders.  We can't fight the Horde and the spiders at the same time. Do us a favor, and kill a bunch of those spiders for us. Twelve should do it. We're proud we can count on heroes like you to prevent our soldiers from getting spider guts on their shiny, shiny armor.  I'm just making up shit jobs for you to keep you 'amateurs' out of the way of the professional soldiers, mind you, but I'd never say that out loud. Did I just say that out loud?"

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We were all told that the original Jon Postel Memorial Edition Internet Protocol Address Space, would be a limited edition run of around four billion, and that the production run of Jon Postel IPv4 addresses would be limited by raw numeric constraints, and that the set would not be extensible. Now that remaining supplies are limited, the price of the original Jon Postel Memorial Edition Internet Protocol Address Space can only go up with time. That's why the Franklin Mint is introducing this limited run of double-struck 14-carat gold-plated copies of 10.0.0.1. Now, you too can own a piece of history. For just four easy payments of $199.95 each month, it comes complete with a certificate of authenticity. This authentic IPv4 address space, although not publicly routable, is nonetheless recognized by the IANA as valid IPv4.

As the world moves on to a more robust, flexible and indeed, LARGER IPv6 address space, your Franklin Mint double-struck 14-carat gold-plated  10.0.0.1 will become a legacy collectible keepsake you can be proud of! Call NOW to reserve your piece of history!

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Category: [science fiction]
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The news was going around this summer that "A Supercomputer Has Passed the Turing Test for the First Time." That article has several issues with it, not the least of which is the misleading headline, but when you read through, you notice irregularities.  The initial press release was quietly corrected to note that the program, "Eugene Goostman" was not a "supercomputer." The press release mentions that the program "pretends" to be a 13-year-old boy from the Ukraine, not fully fluent in English. Right away I see warning flags... but hey.

TURING TEST SUCCESS MARKS MILESTONE IN COMPUTING HISTORY

Let's set aside the fact that the "Eugene Goostman" claim is not the first.  Let's set aside that the participants didn't even manage to "beat" the test by the biggest recorded margin as they claim. Let's ignore that this program wasn't a "supercomputer" but a chatbot. Let's forgive that it passes the test by gaming the rules in a specific way. Set that ALL aside. Let's say just for the sake of argument that by some miracle we have on our hands a truly sentient machine -- That this is not simply further evidence that the "Turing Test" as presently modified to a state Turing wouldn't recognize, is bunk.

If the machine is sentient, what then?

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The world is in chaos as the dead rise from the grave.

Hordes of shambling undead, many with bits of rotting flesh falling off them invade every city. Here now is a typical encounter with a vegan zombie:

The scene shifts to a small, very trendy organic, gluten-free restaurant where there is a throng of the unliving pressing against the entrance. Employees and patrons alike are in abject terror as the zombies utter inarticulate moans and pound against the locked doors. It's only a matter of time before the zombies break through and finally, one does.
Patrons cower behind upturned tables as the lone breakthrough zombie shuffles across the room mysteriously ignoring them and proceeding straight to the counter where a lone teenager is operating the till. He's clearly frightened out of his wits, but he doesn't dare try to escape. There's nowhere to run to.

Teenager: May I take your order, sir.

Zombie: (in a low guttural voice) Yeeeeeeeeeeessss.

Teenager: What would you like?

Zombie: GRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIINSSS!

Teenager: Uh... We're a gluten-free restaurant...

Zombie: NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The chaos of the vegan zombie apocalypse was thankfully brief, although several gluten free bakeries paid the ultimate price. The world learned quickly that liberally placated with meals of saitan and regular snacks of french bread, the vegan zombies were actually little threat.

Placated by copious supplies of certified organic vegetables, and GMO-free grains, the zombies of the Vegan Zombie Apocalypse eventually abandoned their assaults upon the cities of the world, settled down, and started farms. Little changed in the post-apocalyptic world, except that it was fiendishly difficult to find a gluten-free anything, and small towns across the planet experienced a renaissance of trendy, hip, vegan restaurants catering to the bizarre new local clientele.

Copyright © 2015 

Creative Commons License
A Scene From the Vegan Zombie Apocalypse by Brian McNett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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