Auto-Moto

Auto-Moto

Auto=Self

Moto=motion or motor

However, I am using moto as short for motive or motivation or motivator

Strangely enough, motive can also mean producing physical or mechanical motion

However, I mean motive as in motivational quotes

This is a reason for someone to do something. Something that drives their actions.

So the idea is that  Auto-Moto(s) are normal human people who are so driven to a goal that they become like a revenant, where it takes a lot to prevent them from achieving their goals. Death is still a barrier, one that they often push-back, but never break. Auto-Motos can be killed. They are just much harder to kill because they are incredibly driven to achieve goals.

The idea for the story started today 8/12/2020. I was walking around the block when I was thinking of the nature of reality. Dreams and video games and Elder Scrolls seem to show the nature of reality in how surreal it feels. Sometimes you feel disconnected from your body, like it is going on without you. Like you are just watching from inside a machine.

Bingo. My idea pops up. I think, “Wait, what would be the opposite of that feeling? If feeling disconnected from your body makes everything seem surreal or superficial, then the opposite would be the most in the moment and realistic feeling you could ever imagine.”

So what would it be? Simple, it would be embracing your feelings and pains. Not focusing on thoughts or memories, not thinking at all. Being completely impulsive and instinctive. Living without memory. Living in the moment.

But living without memory is something I sometimes experience. I am not always remembering everything, so I sometimes know nothing but what I am currently focusing on. And sometimes, when I am tired, I am focusing on nothing, so I know nothing. But I feel so unreal, like nothing is real, like I’m not real.

So memory would still be required. I then got to the idea that if someone embraced pain instead of pulling away from it, they would be hard to kill. They would not be stopped by bullets very easily. Even if their organs were shot, their muscles could still move. They would still be alive and would hold onto consciousness through sheer determination and embracing the moment.

This would be hard, and counter to our natural way of life. When I feel intense emotion, I am unable to comprehend it, so I pull out of my body feeling a massive disconnect in how illogical I am behaving. I sometimes fall unconscious as my body proceeds to act on its emotions.

So to embrace emotions and feelings, especially pain and negative emotions like fear and hurt. That would be incredibly difficult. Uyt it would allow one to stay conscious and in control.

Also, an Auto-Moto or a Driven would not sleep. They would never give up control of their body to their mind. They would stay conscious and awake and alert even when resting. Also, once their body reached a point in which they would die if they weren’t holding on so dearly to consciousness, sleeping would mean losing consciousness, which would mean dying.

The idea is that an Auto-Moto would no longer be truly human, they would embrace reality and become a creature that is so opposite that it would be utterly alien to us. Sure, they would still be biological humans, so they would look at anyone else on the street. But they would behave in a way we can’t understand. They embrace life, pain, joy, disgust, emotion, feeling. They would only die when their bodies, which is pretty much all they are anymore, are destroyed. But this destruction of the body must be complete. Even a few cells that remain alive, would leave the creature in a terrible state of helpless consciousness. The cells would probably die quickly without a body to protect them, but until then, the creature would be in a terrible state that they fully embrace.

They wouldn’t really be able to control themselves if they were nothing but a few cells. Cells only do what their genetic programming tells them to do given the signals of communication they are given. But there would be no communication without a body.

But what I’m saying here is that an Auto-Moto doesn’t need much to stay alive and function. It can probably continue on after decapitation, in the same way a chicken continues on after decapitation. And the head of a person stays alive after decapitation for a short time, so the body would too, if the mind was inhabiting the body instead of the brain.

Because this is really what we are getting at. They are so driven, that every part of them is dedicated to their goal. Not just their brain, but their muscles and organs and nervous system and digestive system. Everything. All bones and hair and tissue.

But once the brain is damaged or destroyed, the Auto-Moto is not quite the same. They can’t think or remember as they once did. The only thing they have left is that singular goal. The goal to survive, to be present, to be conscious, alert, awake.

Because the body never admits defeat and never admits that it is dead. The body never goes into the stages of death. It will still rot, but rigor mortis will not take place because the body still insists that it is alive.

The creature is more like someone on life support. Their mind might be gone, but their body knows what to do.

The premise of the story is three civilizations or peoples. The ancient lost race that is rumored to have left an army of robots programmed with a single mission: survive. The present day people of the planet who are incredibly similar if not exactly the same to the people we have on Earth today in the real world. Then there is the enemy race of aliens that are here on mission to kill everyone. I have not fleshed out the enemy at all. They are really just a plot device for the present-day people to search for the robot army of the long lost ancient people.

However, if you have read everything before the last paragraph, you would probably have guessed that these ancients did not leave an army of robots. No the ancient people didn’t have any advanced technology of any sort. They were primitive. All they had were themselves. And they didn’t die or disappear. They just continued on as Auto-Motos.

But, they only have one motive: survive. Not even be conscious, just survive. The present-day people thought that the ancients left behind a robot army through a miscommunication or misunderstanding due to how they thought the Auto-Motos were Automotive machines. Self-moving. This clearly translates to machine or robot, right? Well, it does, buy moto or motive as motive as in reason, goal, drive, not motion.

The Present-Day People know that the enemy race of aliens are attacking them. But they don’t know why. They can’t communicate with the aliens, either through a communication barrier or the unwillingness of the enemy to bother talking with the people they are trying to destroy.;

The enemy race of aliens of superior technology and numbers. They are clearly going to succeed in their goal of eliminating humans. Humans want to live. So they have a few ideas of what to do. None of them seem likely to work. They are going to devote most of if not all of their resources into producing a military so they can fight back. Hoping for the slim chance that they either destroy or drive away the aliens. But this is unlikely to work and they want to have the highest chance for survival, so they are going to try literally every other possible way to survive the alien attack, before dedicating themselves to a choice that cuts off the option for everything else.

They will try diplomacy, try to talk the aliens out of killing them. It seems unlikely to work as all efforts so far have failed. There is also the potential that they could lure the aliens to the robot army of the ancients and hope that the robots defeat or weaken the aliens.

Their last resort is fighting.

It is also the only option that they are really considering.

But a few people will try diplomacy.

And a few people want to try to find the robot army. Clearly, fighting is the way here. But the real question is whether the robot army even exists, if so, where is it? If we find it, would it still even work? Even if they still work after all these years, would they be enough help to defeat the aliens?

This all adds up to an incredibly unlikely way out of the situation. That is why the premise of the book is focusing on this option. Because this option is the only option that will work. Because, like I said, there are no robots, only Auto-Motos. And Auto-Motos are probably more dangerous than any robot they were thinking of.

Remember, Auto-Motos are very difficult to kill, and are eternally dedicated to a single goal. The goal of these Auto-Motos is to survive. This will drive them to destroy the attacking aliens if the aliens reach them in their secret city.

I imagine the Auto-Motos much like Draugr from Skyrim. But they will be even more decrepit and decayed. They will be closer to skeletons than draugr. But they still have muscles, which is how they can move.

There are also three main Auto-Motos that are really important. The Auto-Moto that had the goal to improve his body past human limitations and became an Auto-Moto when he was doing push-ups and dedicated himself to continuing his push-ups despite the pain. However, this drove his mind back. He wasn’t able to truly embrace it, so he was not really an Auto-Moto, and more of a machine. He still does push-ups but really slowly since his body is almost completely a skeleton. He is not the first Auto-Moto, but he is a prototype. He was one of the founders of the self-improvement organisation that caused most of their people to become Auto-Moto. Most of these Founders became Proto-Auto-Motos. They were not really Auto-Motos because most of them didn’t fully embrace their feelings, emotions, and pain. Or they lost consciousness when their senses dulled to nothingness. Without sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, or even pain, they couldn’t tell if they were awake or conscious, and they fell unconscious and died.

There is also a Proto-Auto-Moto who decided that his goal would be to always remain awake, conscious, alert. He still lies in his long since decayed bed. He still breathes. But he never moves. He didn’t sleep, so he lost control of his senses. First, his senses lied to him. He would hallucinate. So avoid hurting anyone, he just didn’t move.

Then, his senses eventually dulled to nothing. But he still kept awake. He can’t feel his body, so it is hard for him to know if he is moving. But he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, so he doesn’t move.

I also had the idea that I am not sure if I want to implement it. The idea that one of the Auto-Moto had the goal of intelligence, learning and mental improvement. And he somehow still has his senses and his body is not so decayed so he can both hear, learn, understand and respond to the present-day people.

But this doesn’t make sense. This would have to be a new Auto-Moto to be so well preserved. It would also not be able to fully embrace the body if it focused on the mind. This just seems like a plot device to help the present-day people learn more about the ancient people. I will just have to leave it all unanswered because there is no way for the present-day people to understand what happened.

My other idea that I’m not sure if I want to implement is that the first Auto-Moto that became a true Auto-Moto and not just a prototype decayed or was separated until it was nothing but cells. These continued to survive and duplicate, but they could not reform into a body. So they just continued to survive and multiply like bacteria, like cancer, like viruses, like diseases. Yes, they became a disease with the sole purpose to survive. This disease eventually infected everyone in the ancient civilization because the immune system was not able to kill it off. The will to survive allowed the cells to continue to live even after being consumed by white blood cells and coated with antibodies. These cells infected everyone and gave them the desire to survive which caused them to all become Auto-Motos.

You know what, those last two ideas that I wasn’t sure about. They definitely are stupid and I will not be including them in any of my book. There will be no further discussion about them because they are not congruent with what I have already established about the book.