prompt: Visualize telepathy in a noir setting with a cyborg cat as a disinterested bystander

That’s a question we could ask of Limetown. There is a mystery element to it, in the disappearance of a small town’s entire population. And there is the intrepid reporter acting as a bit of a detective and a bit of an innocent bystander swept up in forces beyond her control. These are noir tropes. Tech-noir typically has a futuristic setting though, whereas Limetown is an investigation of the past. One could also argue that tech-noir is of the past, in that Blade Runner‘s setting and The Terminator‘s Judgement Day are chronologically now in the rear view mirror. The tech element comes in with the telepathic technology that was under development in Limetown.

There is a back story to Limetown, hinted at along the way and confirmed in the finale – a story of corporate espionage. This is the part that really fascinated me – the idea of a shadowy corporation that could build Limetown and hide its purpose from everyone, then wipe out the population without a trace and just drive away. Although actually there were two shadowy corporations: one that built the experiment and one that bought off the principles and disappeared the subjects.

As the story went on, in the book and second season, it was all about the reporter. That disappointed me because I thought the back story had so many more possibilities, with moles and mercs and machinations. The implication is that there were other Limetowns, that the tech worked and continued to be developed, and presumably was in use somehow/somewhere. There is fertile ground there for fan fic. That kind of unbound corporate power is also part of tech-noir, and that’s where I see the connection.

What would the world look like if select people had an implant-enabled, brain-to-brain internet? What would people do with that kind of power? How would our noir archetypes act in such a scenario? It would be interesting to see what kind of stories we could build from these ideas, although I may be the only one interested.