Detta kan vara Singularity Sky av Charles Stross, hans första roman, även om det inte gör kommer inte att äga rum på jorden, utan snarare en annan planet någon gång efter att de flesta av jordens befolkning skiftades omedelbart i galaxen efter att en gudomlig AI kom till makten på jorden. Det här samhället begränsade medborgarnas teknologinivå till en jordliknande nivå, så du kanske kommer ihåg det som ett jordliknande samhälle.
The novel follows the ill-fated military campaign by a repressive state, the New Republic, to retaliate for a perceived invasion of one of its colony worlds. In actuality, the planet has been visited by the Festival, a technologically advanced alien or posthuman race that rewards its hosts for "entertaining" them by granting whatever the entertainer wishes, including the Festival's own technology. This causes extensive social, economic and political disruption to the colony, which was generally limited by the New Republic to technology equivalent to that found on Earth during the Industrial Revolution. Aboard the New Republic's flagship, an engineer and intelligence operative from Earth covertly attempt to prevent the use of a forbidden technology—and fall in love along the way.
Många människor handlar faktiskt med enkla historier om objekt som de önskar, och på ett vis slutar någon att fråga efter en replikator enhet:
You trade?” Burya glanced up, a trifle disappointed; interstellar capitalist entrepreneurs were not what he had been hoping for.
“We give you anything. You give us something. Anything we don’t already know: art, mathematics, comedy, literature, biography, religion, genes, designs. What do you want to give us?”
“When you say you give us anything, what do you mean? Immortal youth? Freedom?” A faint note of sarcasm hovered on his words, but Festival showed no sign of noticing.
“Abstracts are difficult. Information exchange difficult, too—low bandwidth here, no access. But we can make any structures you want, drop them from orbit. You want new house? Horseless carriage that flies and swims as well? Clothing? We make.”
Timoshevski gaped. “You have a Cornucopia machine?” he demanded breathlessly. Burya bit his tongue; an interruption it might be, but a perfectly understandable one.
“Yes.”
“Will you give us one? Along with instructions for using it and a colony design library?” asked Burya, his pulse pounding.
“Maybe. What will you give us?”
“Mmm. How about a post-Marxist theory of post-technological political economy, and a proof that the dictatorship of the hereditary peerage can only be maintained by the systematic oppression and exploitation of the workers and engineers, and cannot survive once the people acquire the self-replicating means of production?”