Jon’s World

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First published in Time to Come 1954

The robotic humanoid “claws” the United States built during their war with the Soviets in 2051 gave them the upper hand in battle, but soon the claws turned against the humans that created them, driving the majority of people off the planet to the safety of the Moon, before fighting and destroying themselves. 

Years later, League member Caleb Ryan and the businessman Kastner are selected to travel back in time to retrieve papers documenting the artificial brain that powers the claws from a scientist named Schonerman who invented it, so that the humans on Earth can use this knowledge to construct worker robots in the present day that can help rebuild the planet.

In the meantime Ryan’s son Jon is having visions of increasing intensity where he sees an entirely different peaceful reality untouched by war. Before leaving Ryan decides to have his son lobotomized, a rather extreme, albeit successful, “solution” to his son’s visions. 

Schonerman is accidentally killed when they go back in time, and since the claws had never been invented, when Ryan and Kastner return to their present time they find the peaceful world exactly as Jon had described it.

Dick wrote this just after “Second Variety”, his story about the robotic claws and the humans fighting them just after the war.

Cast of characters

  • Caleb Ryan – League member selected to travel back in time
  • Jon Ryan – Caleb Ryan’s son
  • Kastner – United Synthetic Industries Combine member who travels back in time
  • Walter Timmer – the medical director
  • Schonerman – scientist who developed the principles for the first artificial brain