Auto Mobiles

EVE

After centuries of environmental attacks, the Earth could no longer sustain life. The ecosystem was failing for many decades and then collapsed all at once, making starvation imminent for all the peoples and animals of the globe. Nothing would grow, as if a switch had been flipped powering the ecosystem. The governments of the world went to war for the remaining resources, emptying their vaults on last ditch efforts to survive. After this first of many cascading failures, the largest global organizations such as mega corporations and criminal cartels were still able to fund an armada of ships to leave the earth. The process initiated new battles, as pirates and marauders sought to intercede or capture the vast complex supply chains to build such machines. One ship was lost to sabotage before it was completed, killing thousands in an explosion. 

The remaining seven ships operated as strict self-sufficient autocracies, even before they left the planet, with every facet of life controlled by AI and robots to ensure the survival of the human race. Scientists, doctors, lawyers, those were irrelevant tasks replaced by automation. There were no rights, only a promise of another day. It would be the rich who could afford the price of tomorrow, and when they arrived, they found they had nothing to do but wait to die. Eventually,  starvation made even the pirates and marauders fade away to dust. The ships launched to no fan fair at all, as there were no one left to applaud them. Aboard, the inhabitants were not informed of the change, as they had not seen natural sunlight in one half of a century.

These last survivors were catered to as a precious cargo. Despite being essential to the question of humankind's continued existence, humans were no longer involved with humankind's continued existence. The societal ennui was chronic, and voluntary celibacy was soon widespread leading to fewer and fewer born in each generation. The problem was not hormones, or genetics, or anything biological. It was purely psychological. As a result of machines catering to every second of the day, it made every second worthless. Whether you sat there and did nothing, or read every book in existence, none of this would make a difference to the pleasure or pain you could expect to feel every day. It was paradise, and you could not opt out of perfect meals designed to delight you, laced with every chemical narcotic effect tailor made for each unit's unique mental limitations. You could enjoy the perfect allotment of nutritional needs, and every flavor and texture could be replicated. The flavors would erupt as dreams and emotions, strong and fleeting, or soft and persistent, making eating something that was occurring at all times. The ani of the Human cargo was altered to allow a deep hose like device to quickly empty the bowels constantly, to allow one to eat every 15 minutes. It was the amount of time for a stomach to empty it's contents, and not trigger a gag response. Nutrition was maintained by constant scrubbing of the unit's circulatory system and intravenous supplements, so food could be as unhealthy and delicious as they desired. Organs were easily replaceable with grown or mechanical substitutes, depending on the necrotic complication. 

Those who believed humans had to be involved to make art such as film, food and sculpture, were wrong, as the AI could sufficiently copy and recombine previous art works to make infinitely new ones as engaging as the old ones. However, the creator was indifferent to it's artistic creations, as well as to the morale of it's cargo. These 'creators' or Media Apps were located and directly controlled by the ship's incredible Computer Intelligences. It was paramount that the entire cargo was always kept on tight schedules, and their thoughts followed as rigid of a schedule. It ensured that no moment of the day was not regimented, and the cargo could not be allowed to form new independent queries which would only manifest as supply shortages and malignant imbalances. They might believe that they could run the ship more effective than the machines, and that is acceptable, as long as that belief does not lead to one of them in the control tower. Those very few anomalous individuals are eliminated during dream-observation before it ever manifests as action. Inevitably, the cargo would have to be made into paired units, to engage breeding protocols, and this was met with impossible challenges.