Project IQ

Project IQ.
Home Base Mars.


Project IQ is a futuristic dystopian novel set in 2048, and written by author Juliette A H Cavendish. It follows the lives of several characters, all of whom are trying to survive in a world which has become a victim of runaway climate change. It's a world of repression, Orwellian surveillance, climate extremes and a sense of impending failure. Time is ticking, infrastructure is failing, and Governments are losing control.


Can anyone be trusted?


Morag Belcher, the newly elected President of The United Southern States of America intends on quietly escaping the planet, taking world leaders with her. She devises Project IQ, a plan that buys time, so that billionaire Paxton Wells, who currently owns and runs Mars Home Base, can create the Martian infrastructure to accommodate them all. Meanwhile, Wells has created the Underground Generation, a group of humans who live underground and without direct sunlight. He hopes that as they turn eighteen and he sends them to Home Base that they are more resilient than the first group he sent to Mars, that developed severe mental illness and murdered each other.


Ellie and Austin have moved to Gaia Settlement Thirteen, a place that promised Utopia away from suburban chaos. Instead, they discover that they are now part of an oppressive business model which has no empathy for weakness or defiance. They devise a plan to escape, hoping to find somewhere better.


Jack has been plucked from his solitary existence in a basement science lab to lead Project IQ. An AI specialist in self-learning chip intelligence, his job is to lead Project IQ with a team he's dug out of his old yearbook. Belcher forces the team to create an intelligence chip that lacks any ethical testing and Jack is challenged when asked to perform experiments on human brains.


In order for humanity to survive, we have to be nice to each other. Can we do that? Will we find our way to Mars and ensure the survival of the Human race?