The following characters are developed during two days of worldbuilding around possible futures of peace and peace making practices in Brussels, triggered by a rumour about a peace machine.
Gus, the machine technician
“I mean, you can ask me another 100 questions about the peace machine and I will try to respond to that, but it’s a bit like magic, you know. You can join me for a day if you want. We’ll feed the machine, fertilize it, repair it and pet it…it’s like you will get to know the machine, the animals, the plants, the geometrical, living city that Brussels is.”
Anonymous Brusseleir
“As it is hard to get the concept of peace, it is hard to get the concept of peace machine. I think it’s the collective consciousness. It is everywhere to not be a privileged space”.
Fear, an alien from Proxima Centauri, the nearest livable planet from earth, water based, mother of 3, 122 yo.
“So the peace machine is in palais du justice (that is under construction for 72 years now), at least that’s what they told us. Because what we saw was an empty neoclassical room with a huge glass cube in the center. But still, I couldn’t see anything that could look like a machine in that room. Strange”.
Larimar, Neuroatypical cyborg, half organic, half androïd
“Today, there was a strange disturbance in the cognitive program of the peace machine. Like a complex knot of suppressed emotion, from a parallel timeline. I don’t know if it was from the past or the future, if it was like a mix of grief, anger and something else I couldn’t identify. Maybe it was not human affect. I could see some images, a repetitive pattern with a dog yelling at a group of people, hurricanes destroying houses, a child running in a field and an ocean still. I couldn’t logically identify the discursive link between these. I’m not sure who these memories are and if I should report it”.
Finn, a dog that can communicate with humans
“I can talk to humans because of an AI implant in my ear. I can hear a sort of ringing sound/frequency, mostly unhearable to humans, it is the peace machine I believe”.
Ruby, the “strays” forager (they/them), 70 years old
“Days later after wandering in Brussels with Finn, following the sound, we come to the conclusion that the Peace Machine is not a visible or tangible machine. But it helped us to find each other and through following the sound, the Peace Machine guided us through our purpose of helping others”.
Jeremy, a 16 year old, struggling to find their place in the world
“I’m like an arm, an extension of the peace machine. I operate by collecting information and looking around and using my sensitivity to really understand because I understand a lot of things and the machine gives me tools, such as this one, with which I can look at the ground, see an ant passing by, and just by directing my tool, communicate with the ant and understand what it’s trying to say. Now, my issue is that I can make the machine understand but I cannot connect to the other human beings because they do not speak the same language”.
Salamandra, 38 yo, She/her, teacher
“I fled from my country because of a civil war. I’m a teacher here but the reality is very different here. The students have a lot of questions and I don’t have any answers. I feel judged. Someone told me if I see the peace machine it can help me. I’m desperate now to see the peace machine and become a better teacher and take the machine prototype back to my country”.
Anonymous Brusseleir
“The peace machine is invisible like the mycelium webs and we’re the mushrooms. The machine transports information and does what it needs to do in a given context and situation. And we as the organisms part of this web get impulses to restore balance or to activate something or to stop doing something”.
Voici, the little voice in our head
“I’m Voici and voicing in all of your heads. I’m influencing everyone from within. Maybe I am the voice of the voice machine, the time machine, the peace machine”.