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a serialized ethno-cyber-punk novel

Welcome

to Arbiter Central Repository. Your trusted place for online materials and bonus content for “The Arbiter”, a serialized ethno-cyber-punk novel by Artrit Bytyçi.

Running on a sub-thread of Truthbringer A.I. version 1.56b. Predicting the future and preventing journo crimes since 2040.

Here you can browse through some of the forbidden materials we confiscated and secret communications we intercepted. Please note that your access to these materials is for research purposes only, and any deviation from the prime mission will be followed by standard punishment measures.


About “The Arbiter” Issue 1

In a dystopian near future, free speech is a distant memory and all news is censored. Journalists live in exile in last remaining safe havens like Prishtinopolis from where they organize info-revolutions. They are hunted and eliminated by cybernetically enhanced agents called arbiters.

Follow the Arbiter as he crosses the border as part of a covert mission. He must work blind, with his cybernetic implants turned off to avoid detection, but more importantly, trying not to cause a diplomatic incident between the two neighboring countries — a techno-dictatorship and cyber-libertarians.

This bilingual publication — in both Albanian and English — goes beyond a serialized cyberpunk novel. Its content is a hybrid between an artist’s book, a zine, a work of science fiction, a collection of essays, and a multimedia experiment.


As you read “The Arbiter,” you can enjoy the soundtrack that follows the literary text, especially composed by Liburn Jupolli. He describes his creative process in the featured essay “Composing for EthnoCyberPunk.” Other nonfiction by Artrit Bytyçi includes texts such as “Sci-Fi in Kosovo: Dystopias as a Utopian Project” and “A Printed Book in the Time of Cybernetic Reproduction.”



Bonus Content

Fiction

You already read the first episode in a book format? Have a look at an early release of chapters from episode 2.

  • Broken Signals
    “Commence Operation Moebius,” said Colonel Hana Uka. “Affirmative, Colonel,” responded Major Ardi, her second in command, as he disappeared amid the swarm of soldiers barking out unintelligible orders.  With greying “regulation” cut and a stoic face weathered from combat, tragedy, and experience, Major Ardi projected a calm demeanor that often ranged on the unemotional. He […]
  • The Kaçak Syndicate
    As the Arbiter walked down the steps of “The Collective” he increasingly heard the humming and buzzing of the crowd. The bar was full, and the previously laid back and talk-therapist-like bartender was now taking orders and serving with the efficiency of an industrial robot.  As the Arbiter stood at the entrance observing the crowd, […]

Nonfiction & Essays

You liked the essays in the book? Here’s a sneak peek of some fragments that didn’t make it in the book.

  • Sci-Fi in Kosovo: Dystopias as a Utopian Project
    Sci-Fi in Kosovo: Dystopias as a Utopian Project  By Artrit Bytyci why (waste time to) write sci-fi in kosovo When I wrote my first “big” work of science fiction during my high school years, it coincided with a time of great changes, all of which revolved around the Kosovo war. From starting high school in […]
  • The Power of Our New Gods
    “The Arbiter” also explores new types of power — that of Artificial Intelligence, more precisely. “God is dead — we have killed him.” And in its stead we have invented an all-knowing and all-seeing God whose spirit resides in the machine, in some distant server in the cloud.
  • Corporate Dictatorships of our Information Age
    Instead of our promised cyborgness, our promised symbiosis between human and machine, we were turned into cyber-dope-fiends, whose only preoccupation became to get that dopamine reward in our brains, no matter the content of the information. It became irrelevant what kind of content you viewed as long as the chemical cravings of your brain were satisfied.

Audio Soundtrack by Liburn Jupolli