Edict Zero – FIS (Series)

“Edict Zero – FIS” is a science fiction/cyberpunk audio series, which debuted on September 9, 2010 and after a 52 episode run completed in the summer of 2024. It is the flagship production of Slipgate Nine Entertainment begun by Jack Kincaid and James Keller in 2009. Series creator Jack Kincaid wrote the series, performed various roles in it, and as a walking post-production company in the form of one man: post-produced every episode. Production of the series through its fourteen year run developed a methodology that came to be known as KAIROS (Kinematic Audio through the Intermedial Representation Of Space). Designed for the immersive headphone environment, this highly specialized form of “audio drama” makes heavy use of stereophonic positioning and other elements to create a cinematic sonic experience. It is informed by principles of film sound, visual composition, cinematography, and film theory, among other disciplines. With a bachelor’s in Digital Film Production/Video Production and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Media Production, Jack Kincaid codified the foundations of KAIROS in his culminating thesis for his MFA in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo.

Edict Zero – FIS is renowned for its high production values, featuring a full cast of talented voice actors, extensive sound effects, and meticulous musical layering to create a “movie-in-the-mind” experience. Each episode typically runs over an hour, with some episodes extending to nearly two hours or a little more.

The science fiction series was envisioned as an unraveling mystery-within-mysteries story onion that evolves as an artistic perspective exercise. In addition to science fiction and cyberpunk, it has elements of law enforcement procedural, espionage, crime fiction, suspense/thriller, and dark fantasy. It takes influence from postmodernism, noir, expressionism, philosophy, theatre, musical concept albums, symphonies, animated features, avant-garde practices, and enlightenment literature. Its heavy use of incongruity theory, irony, dull humor, sarcasm, and thinly-veiled satire maps to the spirit of “punk”, which finds harmony with its range of neurodivergent-coded characters. Cyberpunk is not conceptualized as a mere aesthetic or fashionable conceptual model to categorize art, but as an attitude, a perspective, awareness, a way of seeing the world and the future.

There will be more to come on the influences for the stories in the Edict Zero Universe and their productions in the future.

EDICT ZERO AUDIO VERSE: OTHER PLACES TO LISTEN.