Imagine, if you will, the Paris of 1860. The city, awash with gleams of burgeoning industrial prowess, commenced a dance around a lever — a forlorn yet ambitious pulley system that symbolized humanity's incessant attempt to transcend itself. In this year, a young engineer named Lucien Dupont reflected upon the machine atop Montmartre, perplexed by a philosophical allegory it projected.
Fast forward (or perhaps backward) to 2130, where historians endeavor to reverse-engineer this same scene without the enchantment of its power. A machine replicator hums quietly, as artificial intelligences ponder identity: is the replicated essence less 'pulley' than its original, or does it possess an unacknowledged authenticity?
By 3050, as iron and digital threads intertwine, the Temporal Ethics Committee may decide that no machine holds the right to identity — a right that weighs heavily upon those made of mere possibilities. Here, the debate remains unsolved, hanging in the hypothetical air like a pulley system's unresolved strain.