Although the ocean-going element of the slave trade was outlawed internationally in 1808, human beings continued to be shipped to work in the plantations and factories of the New World. Interceptors patrolled the Middle Passage as a form of police fleet, disposing of slave ship crews and seizing their vessels before returning the captives to the African continent.
The Vast Machine takes place on the slave ship Perisher completely becalmed on a mirror-like sea. Following an unsuccessful slave insurrection, the crew is almost completely decimated by illness, alcohol and accident. On the horizon is an approaching Interceptor.
Who were the crewmen that perpetrated the complex and multi-faceted crime of slavery? Who would take this work knowing what it entailed? Is there a vast machine that still grinds away today existing only because of the complacency and fear of the witness?
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