Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe -- ninety-six billion planets -- into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment's silence he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."
"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer."
He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
"Yes, now there is a God."
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.
***
You can use as few or as many pages as you would like. Use a combination of captions and word balloons to get the essence of the story across. Part of the assignment is that the characters have to be stick figures – today we're looking at a short film by Don Herzfeldt which uses stick figures – it's amazing what he can get across with a few simple lines.
ALSO FOR MONDAY:
Write down, and print out, your ideas for your final comic or short video for the class. We'll be working on it for a solid three weeks. If it's a comic, it should be at least 4 pages; if a video, at least two minutes. It can be a work of adaptation, or an original work. It can be in any of the modes we've used so far – abstract, collage, or figurative. Think of the different approaches we've used – utilizing gesture, slowing down or speeding up time, building up to a powerful image. It just needs to be something personal enough that it's worth spending three solid weeks on.
