Sean McCafferty

2983 was the original concept I had for what is now Cogs of Fate. Actually, the idea changed and evolved so much that 2983 could still be done as a separate story, but I’m not ready to return to it just yet. The basic concept was that a mercenary crashes on a planet whose people died long ago. The catch was that the planet was still inhabited by the robots that survived, who had evolved and built a new society.

Conflicts arose over whether to seek new masters, find a way to revive the old masters, or push on as the new successors to the planet. This mercenary, having lost his memory and having no means of leaving, is thrust in the middle of the conflict. He is aided by the revived spirit of a space pirate, who had been reanimated by an unknown power with the supernatural powers needed to restart the biological system of the planet.

Eventually, it is revealed that the mercenary protagonist was not the one who crashed, but rather, the spirit. He was a robot prototype found beneath the wreckage, hidden for many years. The story became too convoluted and too fantastic for what I wanted to accomplish, which was a story about robot society. I pushed the story back 1000 years, modified the characters, and went forward with what would become Cogs of Fate. If I could clean up the concept, I would love to revisit it, when the right time comes.