The Program audio series · IMS | Writing an audio drama sci-fi anthology about history of the future | Not at AI

Infinite loop

·21 min·1 clip

Collective 179's roller coaster ride now lasts longer than a human lifetime, rendering its full experience impossible.

This episode of The Program audio series presents a fictional history of Collective 179, a society obsessed with building roller coasters. The host and author, IMS, narrates this satirical allegory about ambition and progress. The story examines how a community's passion transforms into a self-consuming industrial pursuit. Collective 179 began with a modest amusement park on a secluded island, featuring only a decrepit merry-go-round. Within twenty years, they constructed an elaborate entertainment complex featuring rides like the gargantuan Gulliver and the three-hour-long Saudade coaster. The narrative details the human cost, noting common worksite fatalities and the widespread burnout among administrative workers. The collective's ultimate project was merging all 99 individual coasters into a single, five-day-long ride known simply as "the Ride." They later expanded this megacoaster to last nearly a full year, inverting life so residents spent only five days off it. Construction covered the entire island, with track length eventually reaching the moon and on-ride cameras documenting every moment. The final engineering feat was a series of high-g-force loops leading to a furnace and water dip, designed to leave the train "pristine" for the next riders. The society ultimately vanished, leaving behind a fully automated, eternal roller coaster. A key insight is that the dynamic reversed: people ceased riding coasters for entertainment and instead lived to serve the coaster's expansion. The story notes that even as "loops per capita" grew, this metric was sustained because the number of people was declining. Riders endured a life of eating stale sandwiches and dealing with waste dropped from cars above. The episode suggests the collective's data, like rising average speeds, was used to justify their path despite diminishing quality of life. The automated ride continues operating indefinitely, with distant screams heard across the bay. The host concludes that a "benevolent program" was sorely missing from this society's story. The tone is darkly satirical and allegorical, blending historical documentary style with absurdist fiction. The narration is dry, precise, and often ironic, treating the society's catastrophic choices as measured progress. Listeners who enjoy philosophical science fiction, satirical world-building, and cautionary tales about technology and progress will love this episode. Those preferring straightforward narratives or concrete, non-allegorical stories might skip it.

As heard by us

A roller coaster keeps expanding until five days off it become the exception.

Infinite Loop treats a roller coaster as a steadily escalating collective project, until a sandwich on the ride takes on ritual weight and the riders seem to fuse with the machine.

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Why you'd press play

You want a roller coaster that keeps expanding until spring turns into winter itself.

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