Our trio’s anthology of three stories sets out to explore the effects of misinformation on different societies and its intersection with at least one other existential threat. To reflect our goal, we titled our anthology Threads of Discord. In order of appearance both in the anthology itself and in this description, we, Emerson Lubke, Kimberly Allotey, and Timo Kiep, together present each of our respective stories: The Quiet After, Veiled: Prologue, and So that They might Storm Heaven.

Emerson’s story, The Quiet After, was inspired by Ray Bradbury. It follows an alien father and son living in a post-apocalyptic world. One night, the dad decides to tell his son the story of the end of the world. He tells his son how the creation of artificial intelligence, “thinking boxes,” as they’re called, was supposed to usher in an era of prosperity but just furthered wealth inequality and social unrest. Eventually, people used AI to start spreading misinformation which degraded public trust in established institutions, causing societal collapse. In the chaos, a nuclear warhead is detonated. Nobody knows where it came from, but nations retaliated, responses spiraled out of control, and as the bombs fell on an already shattered society, they ended the world.

Kimberly’s story, Veiled: Prologue, is inspired by Kevin Esvelt’s discussion of “stealth” and “wildfire” pandemics causing the collapse of civilization. We follow Dr. Juliet Newman, a pathology researcher, at a lab on society’s plateau, known as Upper City. After months of working with Dr. Michael Sherman, a lead researcher at the lab, Juliet notices he’s fallen ill but isn’t taking any measures to rest or find the proper means to cure himself. When her colleagues and neighbors are starting to fall ill as well, she begins an investigation and discovers that the lab has failed to contain its engineered pathogen. Initially started to help society continue conquering all possible threats to its wellbeing and sustainability, the lab instead works closely with city officials to keep this emerging epidemic in tight wraps, going as far as denying any involvement and refusing to treat those in need.

So that They might Storm Heaven comes from the Latin motto of the paternalistic Gordian Department in Timo Kiep’s story. The Department works to untie the Gordian knot of misinformation to maintain the seemingly utopian society the story presents. The protagonist, Caty, lives in a genuinely utopian world. Humanity lives far greater lives than any human beings who came before them. However, in order to sustain this Star Trek-like near utopia, Caty discovers through her own run-in with some misinformation that Gordian Department corrals misinformation and directs public opinion by directing humanity towards the utopia’s necessary and “correct” ideas.

Despite these three stories exploring different threads of existential threats, namely biological, climate, and AI, they remain comparable in their intersection with misinformation. We find that society is upheld on information accepted as true, so when informational integrity degrades, so does society. If people can’t agree on a set of facts, then society, a construction between people, breaks down as its members can no longer work together to uphold the society. Emerson’s story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the unchecked spread of misinformation leads to the breakdown of trust between all members of society. As people lose faith in information, they lose faith in each other, which leads to societal degradation and, eventually, the apocalypse. Meanwhile, Kimberly’s story takes a different route where the pre-established trust between members of the society and the decision-makers is energetically held onto. So, when trust begins to ebb as city officials strive to maintain this perfect balance, they adjust their words, blame others, and uplift themselves all in one. In Timo’s story, though, informational integrity is upheld by suppressing the information that doesn’t align with the Gordian Department’s directives for a harmonious society. On the other hand, 

Together, these stories each work in their own domains to present a cautionary tale of one or another type. Emerson hopes to show one possibility for apocalypse through the intermixing of misinformation with the AI threat. Kimberly’s story, meanwhile, portrays a society not too dissimilar to the one that fell in Emerson’s story that is managing to hold on, giving us hope that the fate of the Persta aliens is not a foregone conclusion. Lastly, Timo’s story sets out to both hint at the amazing heights that humans are capable of and to recognize that there will still be deep problems even in a world that we would consider a utopia in comparison to our own. To be clear, we believe that perfect cannot be the enemy of good. However, at the same time, we must not allow ourselves to settle for something just because it is relatively better than the other option. We must still always strive for something better. The people of Timo’s world have a long way to go, even though the myriad problems of Kimberly’s and particularly Emerson’s worlds are absent.

In today’s world, social media is ubiquitous and bad actors use it to endlessly spread misinformation. We thought it was appropriate to focus our anthology on the risks of misinformation and what to avoid, both in terms of apocalypses and what weapons we should avoid wielding against it without compromising our values. Known methods to combat misinformation, like pre-debunking, are limited because they only operate after the fact and depend on the personal psychology of each individual. Timo’s story looks at some possible, perhaps more effective, but also more morally dubious methods. The cousin of misinformation which is actively disseminated by malicious actors, disinformation, is also a famous specter that now haunts the modern information environment. Emerson’s story looks at how disinformation, specifically, destabilizes society. Lastly, Kimberly’s story illustrates pressures on leaders in a world that is today so full of misinformation and disinformation who consequently have little room to maneuver. 

With this anthology, we hope to provoke the conversations and considerations necessary to quell the threat of misinformation.