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I'm looking for a short story I saw on Reddit once, but apparently didn't save or bookmark. It's about how, in the far future, humanity finally achieves some technological singularity and "transcends" to a higher plane of existence. In doing so, however, humanity abandons dogs, their partners of millions of years of evolution. After doing so, dogs become the dominant intelligent species of life on Earth and develop advanced civilization and so on, with the focus of finally finding the humans, who the dogs believe are testing their worth. Dogs finally achieve their own technological transcendance many, many years later, locating the collective consciousness of humanity in the process. An avatar for humanity comes forth to deliver the lie that yes it was all a test, but after seeing all Dog has done to reunite with him, admits that humanity just discarded dog.

Dog is heartbroken, and its entire reality which formed the basis for the entire species' civilizational drive is shattered, but immediately after asks if they can still be friends, "because it was Dog" or something like that. Humanity agrees to be friends again with Dog and that is the end of the story.

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    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_(novel) - Some similar themes here
    – Valorum
    Jul 9, 2017 at 9:18
  • Thanks! That's not the specific one I'm looking for but it still looks interesting enough to check out.
    – dolphins3
    Jul 9, 2017 at 17:29
  • The description has kind of a Lester Del Ray feel, but I don't think it's The Faithful.
    – tbrookside
    May 27, 2019 at 12:11
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    Was it a story written on Reddit, or was it linked from a Reddit post or comment?
    – SQB
    Jun 7, 2019 at 15:19
  • Not this story, but related idea: Humans have reached the point where they can no longer related to dogs (because of some evolutionary advance) and the story ends with a chimp or some other great ape sitting next to a dog with its arm around the dog's shoulders.
    – releseabe
    Oct 6, 2022 at 17:12

1 Answer 1

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I think I found it. It is the short story, "Null-P", by William Tenn.

(from Short story about a perfectly average citizen)

I found the story I was thinking of, where an "average man" was discovered who by a fluke exactly matched all the averages. It's "Null-P", by William Tenn.

The world had been devastated by a nuclear war, and the population was desperate for a bit of normality, so jumped on this paragon of averageness, electing him president and starting a trend (similar to the theme of stories like "Harrison Bergeron", "The Marching Morons", etc.) where "averageness" is celebrated.

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  • Hi, welcome to SF&F. Where is the bit about humanity transcending? Where is the bit about the dogs transcending as well and looking for transcended humanity to rejoin them? This doesn't seem like a good answer at all, and you've also cribbed someone else's answer and pasted it directly in here.
    – DavidW
    Oct 6, 2022 at 17:42
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    Null-P is not the answer. It ends with intelligent dogs enslaving the remnants of humanity and "breeding them for their ability to throw sticks..." When the dogs invented stick-throwing machines, humanity died out.
    – Organic Marble
    Oct 6, 2022 at 19:32

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