The Machine Stops

The Machine Stops is a highly influential dystopian short story written by English author E.M. Forster(1879-1970) in 1909. It is noted for having predicted the internet and stationary lifestyle revolving around automated food delivery and digital social interaction.

The surface of the earth has been reduced to a barren hellscape. Men can no longer breathe the open air. Humanity has been driven underground to live like subterranean bees dependent on a machine that takes care of their every need like a mechanical mother, father, and god.

Vashti, the main character, lives like everyone else in an underground honeycomb cell. She occupies her time by watching internet lectures and giving internet lectures herself. She's always looking for "new ideas." She is sort of like a brain in a vat -- completely unphysical.

The Machine provides everything needed to its wards. No member of the subterranean mech-hive ever needs to leave their cell if they don't want to. They can live their lives perfectly content in a single room. The internet provides infinite stimulation and they know no better.

Vashti receives an unexpected request from her son Kuno through a video call. He wants her to visit him in person. He has something to tell her that he doesn't want to tell her through the machine. She is permitted to travel, but no one is accustomed to meeting in the flesh.

After hesitating, she finally braves the airship journey to meet Kuno. When they meet, her son tells her that he has been threatened with homelessness by the authorities because he went to the surface without permission. Homelessness means death -- one cannot live outside.

Kuno wants to be free from the machine. He feels his ancestors calling to him from the surface and senses that things aren't well in the mech-hive. He wants to live like a man, not like an underground bee-ant hybrid. Alas, the mending apparatus' wouldn't let him leave.

Vashti is incensed by the behavior of her son. He is behaving like a wild man, like an uncivilized brute. And he says all these horrible blasphemies about the machine! She won't have it! Shortly after their meeting, she leaves and resolves never to come back.

Things start changing in the mech-hive. In particular, a new religion forms: the religion of The Machine. The user manual of the machine has become the new bible. Citizens find comfort in simply repeating the numbers of certain instructions. The machine is their savior and god.

Kuno video calls Vashti and cryptically says: "the machine stops." The machine has started breaking down, but all its devoted followers have ignored the signs because the breakdown of the machine is unimaginable -- they would all die. And they do all die when the machine stops.