Basilisk

This is a very scary but brilliant science fiction short story. What a concept - an image that kills you if you remember it.

Sometime I'd like to write a story exploring and extending this concept, following a top-secret research group as they carefully reverse-engineer the Parrot to determine how to make images that can kill non-English speakers, and images which are more quickly acting. Their discoveries show the original to be an extremely crude "sledgehammer" for the human visual cortex and develop much clever and subtler images. Not all of them are deadly - some images can make people do things (immediately or in response to some later stimulus) before erasing themselves.

Yet another family of images creates particular emotional responses in their viewers - fear, joy, sorrow, comfort. One image in particular is programmed to make the viewer believe the image to be beautiful, and indeed test subjects report the image to be the most beautiful thing that they have ever seen - almost painful in its beauty. No-one who sees it ever feels quite the same way again, though most report the experience as positive - their spirits are lifted to know that such beauty is possible in the world. But if it is science that creates this effect, is it art?

One Response to “Basilisk”

  1. Memetic infection is always a fun concept.

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