History Literature / TheDownloaded

[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture In the year 2059]], two very different groups of people are placed in [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic suspension]] while their [[BrainUploading minds are uploaded]] into a quantum computer (apparently, simply freezing someone destroys an inactive consciousness). The first group are astronauts led by Captain Letitia Garvey on a 500-year journey to Proxima Centauri to establish humanity's first extrasolar colony (a colony on Mars having already been established in 2041). The plan is for the crew's frozen bodies to be loaded up on the starship ''Hōkūleʻa'', while their minds remain in an institute in [[CanadaEh Waterloo, Ontario]], with the clock speed set to only 0.8%, so only 4 years will pass for the astronauts. Upon arrival, their minds will be instantly downloaded into their defrosted bodies via [[SubspaceAnsible quantum entanglement]]. The other group are convicts doing hard time as part of a pilot program for a virtual prison. Unlike the astronauts, their 20-year (reduced) sentence will be carried out virtually with their minds sped up by a factor of 24, so only 10 months will pass in the real world. Naturally, things don't go quite according to plan...

* MindPrison: A pilot program of one is introduced in 2059. The convicts who volunteer will have their sentences reduced to 20 subjective years. However, only 10 months will pass in the real world thanks to the clock speed on their uploaded minds being raised by a factor of 24. The goal is to reduce the financial drain on the government since keeping a convict frozen for 10 years it not as expensive as keeping them in prison for decades. For the convicts it means they can get back to their lives with their loved ones still alive and barely aged and their own bodies still youthful. Unlike the astronauts, the convicts won't have any control over their virtual environment since this is supposed to be punishment. They'll still be in prison among virtual inmates and guards, but there's no risk of them being shanked, raped, or subjected to abuse. [[spoiler:Instead of 20 subjective years, they end up spending 24 in it because the Great Blackout happened, so no one came to thaw them out. However, the robots monitoring the facility did switch their clock speeds to match the astronauts after their "sentence" ended.]]

* TransTribulations: Valentina loved being in a virtual environment because it means she could have the virtual body that matched her gender. After being downloaded, she hated seeing her hairy chest and male genitalia. After putting on her jumpsuit, the first thing she did was tear off the name tag that said her deadmae. The only person she came out to was Roscoe, who treated it as no big deal, explaining that his cousin was trans, and he's okay with it. Still, when they go stargazing at night, Roscoe is startled to be touched by a man's hand, even though he'd gotten used to Valentina speaking with a male voice. Still, it's clear by the end of the story that they have fallen in love. [[spoiler:And both are devastated that they want different things: Valentina chooses to be permanently uploaded (where she can look like her gender), while Roscoe feels that, as mayor, it's his responsibility to lead the "downloaded."]]

* TransTribulations: Valentina loved being in a virtual environment because it means she could have the virtual body that matched her gender. After being downloaded, she hated seeing her hairy chest and male genitalia. After putting on her jumpsuit, the first thing she did was tear off the name tag that said "Valentin." The only person she came out to was Roscoe, who treated it as no big deal, explaining that his cousin was trans, and he's okay with it. Still, when they go stargazing at night, Roscoe is startled to be touched by a man's hand, even though he'd gotten used to Valentina speaking with a male voice. Still, it's clear by the end of the story that they have fallen in love. [[spoiler:And both are devastated that they want different things: Valentina chooses to be permanently uploaded (where she can look like her gender), while Roscoe feels that, as mayor, it's his responsibility to lead the "downloaded."]]

* HumanPopsicle: Suspended animation involves replacing all the fluids in the body with antifreeze and keeping the body in a low-temperature "coffin." However, the quantum nature of the human consciousness means that, without BrainUploading, the mind will undergo decoherence, and any revived body will remain in perpetual coma. Such was the fate of Letitia's grandfather, one of the first people to be frozen upon death with hope of being revived in the future and cured of a deadly disease.
* KillItWithIce: An accidental version happens when [[spoiler:a group of ex-cons storms the quantum computer room and tries to smash the machine, claiming that no one was going to put them back in virtual prison. The woman smashing the computer housing with a fire extinguisher ands up rupturing a liquid nitrogen pipe that sprays her. By the time they go back for her, she's frozen solid]].

* [[spoiler:SolarFlareDisaster]]: [[spoiler:It turns out that a repeat of the Carrington Event happened sometime in or shortly after 2059. A powerful coronal mass ejection has caused a geomagnetic storm that overloaded and shut down all electrical devices on Earth. The subsequent societal collapse led to most human dying off, as they were unable to survive in a world without electricity and no survival skills. Very little is known of outside Waterloo, Ontario, but the only ones who survived for 500 years were the Mennonites, who weren't that dependent on electricity to begin with. They mention that a few other survivors occasionally visited them but ended up moving on. When asked about Native Americans, they learn that the city-dwelling ones suffered the same fate as everyone else. The few who still clung to ancestral traditions survived for a while by hunting and fishing, but even they eventually either left or died out. Except eventually we learn that there was no flare. It was WorldWarThree started by a bunch of terrorists with nukes.]]

* [[invoked]] AlanSmithee: One of the ex-cons uses that name when asked. Roscoe immediately recognizes it for what it is and tells Letitia. She does some snooping and learns that he's a murderer with a penchant for smashing his victim's skulls in with a crowbar.

** The robot Penelong's name means "helper" in Malay. [[spoiler:He resents it, as well as his own lack of rights.]]

** The ''Hōkūleʻa'' and everything on it has been engineered to survive a 500-year trip through interstellar space, being constantly bombarded by cosmic radiation.

* [[spoiler:SolarFlareDisaster]]: [[spoiler:It turns out that a repeat of the Carrington Event happened sometime in or shortly after 2059. A powerful coronal mass ejection has caused a geomagnetic storm that overloaded and shut down all electrical devices on Earth. The subsequent societal collapse led to most human dying off, as they were unable to survive in a world without electricity and no survival skills. Very little is known of outside Waterloo, Ontario, but the only ones who survived for 500 years were the Mennonites, who weren't that dependent on electricity to begin with. They mention that a few other survivors occasionally visited them but ended up moving on. When asked about Native Americans, they learn that the city-dwelling ones suffered the same fate as everyone else. The few who still clung to ancestral traditions survived for a while by hunting and fishing, but even they eventually either left or died out. It seems that Mars wasn't struck by the flare, as the colony there survived and endured.]]
* TransTribulations: Valentina loved being in a virtual environment because it means she could have the virtual body that matched her gender. After being downloaded, she hated seeing her hairy chest and male genitalia. After putting on her jumpsuit, the first thing she did was tear off the name tag that said "Valentin." The only person she came out to was Roscoe, who treated it as no big deal, explaining that his cousin was trans, and he's okay with it. Still, when they go stargazing at night, Roscoe is startled to be touched by a man's hand, even though he'd gotten used to Valentina speaking with a male voice.

** [[spoiler:Class 2 happens somewhere around 2059 after the repeat of the [[SolarFlareDisaster Carrington Event]]. Except it turns out to be not the case. In fact, it was WorldWarThree. The reason Letitia thought it was a natural phenomenon was because Waterloo was never bombed and only suffered decay after the EMP caused by nuclear explosions fried all electronics.]]

** Played straight with [[spoiler:the Martian colony established nearly two decades before the Blackout. It seems Mars was unaffected by the coronal mass ejection, so the colonists survived. Their terraforming efforts weren't really that successful, but they were able to use genetic engineering to modify themselves to survive on the red planet, becoming tall, blue-skinned, and lacking in facial hair]].

* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Class 2 happens somewhere around 2059 after the repeat of the [[SolarFlareDisaster Carrington Event]]. Class 6 is looming on the horizon with a 1000-km asteroid hurtling towards Earth. Slightly subverted in that humanity will not go extinct [[ButWhatAboutTheAstronauts thanks to the Martian colony]].]]

* BrainUploading: The human mind can be uploaded into a quantum computer and be placed in a virtual environment (simply uploading it and keeping it static will result in decoherence). The virtual environment can be changed at will with a mere thought, so the uploaded can experience whatever they want. The clock speed can also be dialed up and down. The astronauts to be sent to Proxima Centauri are to be frozen with their minds uploaded and kept in Waterloo, Ontario, with their clock speeds dialed as far down as possible, so they only experience 4 years out of the 500 the trip is supposed to take.

* MeaningfulName: The starship's name is ''Hōkūleʻa'', Hawaiian for "Star of Gladness" and is their name for Arcturus. It's also the name of a double-hulled Polynesian canoe build in 1975 that completed a voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti using only traditional navigational techniques.

* TheBully: Roscoe Koudoulian was convicted of first-degree murder for killing his childhood bully who came back to torment him online as an adult. Roscoe didn't intend to kill him, only wanting to beat him up and get him to stop. But the AssholeVictim turned out to be a diehard conservative who hated that Roscoe held liberal beliefs and justified the attempts to destroy his life as trying to keep Roscoe's teenage daughter from "being corrupted." That enraged Roscoe, and he ended up stabbing the bully with garden shears just as the garage door opened and a neighbor passed by, recording Roscoe standing over a bloodied corpse.

* KillItWithIce: An accidental version happens when [[spoiler:a group of ex-cons storms the quantum computer room and tries to smash the machine, claiming that no one was going to put them back in virtual prison. The woman smashing the computer housing with a fire extinguisher ands up rupturing a liquid nitrogen pipe that sprays her. By the time they go back for her, she's frozen solid.

* RegionalBonus: The English version of the audiobook has Creator/BrendanFraser on the cover in a cryopod. The French version has Pierre-Yves Cardinal instead.

* CompletelyDifferentTitle: The French audiobook is called ''Le voyage immobile'' (The Still/Motionless Journey).

''The Downloaded'' is a science fiction novella by Creator/RobertJSawyer originally released as an audiobook exclusive in 2023. A paperback version is expected to come out in 2024. The audiobook is narrated by a full cast, including Creator/BrendanFraser, Creator/LukeKirby, Vanessa Sears, and Creator/ColmFeore.

* [[spoiler:SolarFlareDisaster]]: [[spoiler:It turns out that a repeat of the Carrington Event happened sometime in or shortly after 2059. A powerful coronal mass ejection has caused a geomagnetic storm that overloaded and shut down all electrical devices on Earth. The subsequent societal collapse led to most human dying off, as they were unable to survive in a world without electricity and no survival skills. Very little is known of outside Waterloo, Ontario, but the only ones who survived for 500 years were the Mennonites, who weren't that dependent on electricity to begin with. They mention that a few other survivors occasionally visited them but ended up moving on. When asked about Native Americans, they learn that the city-dwelling ones suffered the same fate as everyone else. The few who still clung to ancestral traditions survived for a while by hunting and fishing, but even they eventually either left or died out. It seems that Mars wasn't struck by the flare, as the colony there survived and endured.]]

** Halfway through we learn that the one interviewing the characters is [[spoiler:a Martian, descended from the colony established in 2041]].