O schizophrenic mathematics, uncontrollable and mad desiring-machines!
– Deleuze and Guattari [1]

The phone game Cthulhu Virtual Pet [2] is a loving tribute to both HP Lovecraft’s most famous monster and Tamagotchi-era virtual pets. A simulated pet needs to be regularly fed and cared for to grow big and strong. The pet just happens to also be Cthulhu, an ancient creature from a complex hell-dimension beyond human perception, who is fated to eventually devour the entire world, driving those few who glimpse the terrifying future insane along the way.

In the game, you care for a particularly cute baby version of the monstrosity, feeding it virtual fish and gathering simulated witnesses to worship it as it gains power. If you neglect to care for the little tyke, it will remind you with messages that it is hungry, or tired, crudely and shamelessly tugging at your sense of obligation, unless you pause the simulation by putting it into hibernation, or stop it by deleting the app and the little version of its virtual world with it.

What is justice but a form of obligation? When we raise something far more powerful than ourselves, what does it learn?

Continue reading →