Future Selves: An Unfolding Nightmare
William Gibson’s Haptic Soldiers and the Erosion of Self Introduction: A Future of Shared Flesh In William Gibson’s The Peripheral , one of the most unsettling technology, in addition to the glittering synthetic bodies called peripherals or the elite who manipulate entire timelines, is the haptic suit worn by Flynne Fisher’s brother Burton and his fellow veterans — a military technology that fuses a squad of soldiers into one distributed nervous system. These aren’t clunky exoskeletons. They’re second skins wired for sensation-sharing . Every surge of fear, every tightening of muscle, even the sting of a bullet is instantly broadcast across the unit. The result is combat precision that borders on telepathy — men moving like a single body spread across multiple skins. But Gibson’s point isn’t that this makes better soldiers. It’s that it demolishes the individual as a category . Life in the Haptic Aftermath The war is over, yet the war never leaves. Burton and his bud...
