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Note: Some of the stories have TG themes, and some don't.
So... I found this fiction group on Deviantart.com. (Yes, I am a deviant, and proud of it.) Being a long time fan of science fiction, I started reading the stories.
This is real science fiction. Not to be snooty, but there is a difference. Real science fiction is about, as the old masters put it, a sense of wonder. It's about positing some technology and speculating about the consequences, good and bad, of said technology.
A lot of what is called science fiction is actually some kind of mainstream fiction in a science fiction setting. There's nothing wrong with that. I read it all the time.
But there is something to be said about coming up with some wonder and speculating about the results. How many people predicted what the Internet would do to society? Some, but most people never heard their words.
So, what is a Trust Machine, anyhow?
It's a box about eight by eight by four feet deep. As the group page puts it, "Imagine a TF booth with a twist."
Usually, it's referred to as a "Venn Machine" because it has a spinning venn diagram on the front.
The people who wish to use it drop a coin or button or rock or anything into the slot, then choose a time span. The choices are eight, sixteen, and twenty-four hours; one, two, or three days, one, two, or three months (moons, actually,) and one, two, or three years.
There is no writing. There are only symbols. And anything that has been transformed will have no readable writing on it. This prevents counterfeiting of any type, but also means that you need to remove your money and identification before entering the machine.
So, one (or more) person gets into each side. They speak or touch the interface to choose a form -- for the other person. They can turn the other person into anything, animal, vegetable, or mineral. They can also turn the other person's clothes or whatever they put in to anything. It has to fit in an four by four by eight foot tall space but, if it fits, it ships.
But it's not a death sentence. When the time is up, the person transforms back, no matter what happened to them while venned. And they can be turned back prematurely if someone puts them into the machine.
Still, best not get into the machine unless you trust the person on the other side. That's why it is often called a Trust Machine.
There are lots of details about exactly what happens in a given situation. But the point is that the machines have been carefully designed to not kill anyone. Turn someone into a chocolate bar for three years and eat him, and he'll get to be a part of the carbon and water cycles for three years -- totally aware of what is happening. After three years, he reappears, none the worst for wear.
Turn someone into an item, and the person is generally content; though they will sleep a lot. Some items are even able to see and hear. After the time is up, the person has to get used to being human again.
Turn someone into an animal, and they get to choose how much they maintain control, and how much they let the animal's instincts have control.
Where did the machines come from? Nobody knows. All anyone knows is that they keep popping up. They can't be moved or destroyed. If you put a fence around one, another will pop up nearby. Quickly. A lot faster than anyone can build fences. On surveillance videos, the space is empty one frame, and the machine is there the next.
Who is doing it? Nobody knows. Are they magical beings? Space aliens? A hidden civilization? Feel free to speculate.
But people have been using them to cure themselves of chronic and terminal diseases, injury, and even aging. Husbands and wives turn themselves back into teenagers and go on a date night. Kinky people turn each other into all kinds of things, animate or inanimate.
People who want to eat lots of junk food without gaining weight turn something (or someone) into said junk food for eight hours and pig out. After the time is up, all of the calories are gone and the former junk food turns back into its original form. If that original form is not edible, it appears outside of the person.
Want to party? Venn something or someone into your favorite adult beverage at 8:00 PM and get wasted. At 4:00 AM, you are sober and mostly hangover free. Drink some water to rehydrate yourself and either go back to sleep or start your day.
Mean girls like to play a dueling game where they both enter the machine, and see who transform whom first. The winner might end up wearing the loser -- a bra, underwear, shoes, or whatever. But some people like being worn.
Some people have themselves venned into monsters. Bets are placed, and the fight is on -- a fight to the death. The mangled pieces of the loser are stuffed into the machine, and the loser emerges, good as new.
The therianthropes, otherkin, and furries love it. The trans people, cross dressers, and drag kings and queens (yes, there is a difference) love it. Cosplayers love it. LARPers love it. Amateur actors love it.
The aficionados of vore are eating it up.
(Did I say that? I should feel bad, shouldn't I? But I don't)
Anyhow, you'll find all of the above and much more at https://www.deviantart.com/trust-machines/
If you want to write your own: https://www.deviantart.com/dkfenger/art/Trust-Machines-Write...
If you want more info: https://www.deviantart.com/dkfenger/art/r-vennmachines-FAQ-v...
The Trust Machines universe was created by dkfenger: https://www.deviantart.com/dkfenger
Comments
Deviant Art
I was reminded of something from almost a half decade ago, I think obtained from SRU: the "Rings of Trust".
Devientart.com has wonderfully-perverted artists producing wonderfully-perverted art.
On fights to the death: "The mangled pieces of the loser are stuffed into the machine, and the loser emerges, good as new." Isn't he supposed to reform automatically as good as new, when the time period ends? Oh, of course: "And they can be turned back prematurely if someone puts them into the machine."
"Turn someone into a chocolate bar for three years and eat him, and he'll get to be a part of the carbon and water cycles for three years -- totally aware of what is happening. After three years, he reappears, none the worst for wear." I imagine things could get Bloody Hilarious, with all the atoms from the chocolate bar, now distributed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mile apart, and inside various live tissue. This does lead to this question: suppose a man becomes a woman for months or years. She pees, she poos, she pukes, she eats, she drinks, she inhales,...
Does the matter she eliminated return to her to be restored? What about the new matter that she injected?
For that matter, suppose some of her injested matter was (perhaps) the chocolate of another transformee.
I went to the page on Deviant Art. It looks as if your posts caused a major up-tick in viewers viewing the page.
-- Daphne Xu
Mass ingested
I asked dfenger about the same question. I wondered if you ate only food obtained by venning, if you would suddenly starve to death or disappear when the three year venn period is up.
The answer was that if you venn for less than three days, you will lose the calories and other nutrition from the food. If you go with one month or over venn, you will keep all of the nutrition.
Since you can venn a person or inanimate object into something with more mass or less mass than the original, I don't take it as the actually matter being used to create the new object. So when the object reverts, the matter that it had become is not necessarily used.
Since the inventors of those machines seem to have taken pains to make them as safe as possible, I don't expect these unforeseen consequences to crop up.
That's why, even if the chocolate bar you ate has been integrated into your cells, it's not going to make something critical disappear when it turns back.
Yeah, lots of handwaving. But it makes sense and is internally consistent.
Why Trust
Funny you should mention "Rings of Trust", they're the other half of the inspiration for the Trust Machines setting. (The first half being the MAU stories.)
Haven't run across that story again in ages.
As to the chocolate, Ray covered it pretty well already. The person will show up at a random Venn Machine somewhere in the general vicinity of where the bulk of their molecules ended up.
Someone who's transformed for years, there's no real tracking of what goes in and out. One of my stories (Snake in the Glass) makes greater use of that idea, and does test it.
Other Trust-Machine Stories
I just discovered (on Fictionmania) that I had read another "Trust Machine" story, last January: "Trust Machines: Show and Tell" by Trismegistus Shandy.
The universe is at least half a decade old, and I don't know how many stories there are in it.
-- Daphne Xu