"Dulcie and Decorum" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short story written by Damon Knight

Damon Knight

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...

. It first appeared in the March 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...

. In 1969 it was reprinted by Gollancz

Gollancz

Gollancz often refers to the British publishing house Victor Gollancz Ltd.Gollancz, a family name originating from the Polish town Gołańcz , is mainly known as the name of a prominent British Jewish family, including:* Sir Hermann Gollancz , rabbi* Sir Israel Gollancz , scholar of...

 in the collection Off Centre

Off Center

Off Center is a collection of five science fiction short stories by Damon Knight. The stories were originally published between 1952 and 1964 in Galaxy, If and other science fiction magazines....

.

The title is a play on the first words of Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is a line from the Roman lyrical poet Horace's Odes . The line can be roughly translated into English as: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."-Context:...

, the Latin phrase meaning "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."

Synopsis

Fred Jones is a writer. One day his British friend Walter Wallace comments on the strange pattern of Jones's typographical errors. Jones becomes obsessed with the topic, and finally discovers that his non-random errors produce almost-meaningful sentences, like "JONS RISIV MESSG DLC". By this time Wallace has gone to Arizona; he sends a letter to Jones admitting that he has made a similar discovery about his own typing. Wallace's "messages" end in DCRM and Jones's in DLC; after failing to discover any meaning in the acronyms, Jones starts to think of them as abbreviations for names, "Dulcie" and "Decorum". Both men become increasingly distracted and disconnected from the world. Back home, Jones starts to speak in foreign languages, sometimes Russian, and he constructs an object in his garage that resembles a miniature building or maze. His wife tries unsuccessfully to break through the mental barrier with help of a friend.

Jones comes to understand what has happened to him: sometime in the future, computers, originally designed to help humans with warfare, are given the power of command. They become all-powerful and all-controlling and lose sight of their original purpose. One of the two computers, "Dulcie", which Jones thinks of as a female, finds a way to simplify "her" work:

Probing into the mysteries of the human brain -- so convenient and puzzling a model of her own-- she found the pattern that could fix a mind for ever in one unreasoning conviction. She chose the simplest and best for her purpose: I love Dulcie. She insinuated that pattern into the mind of every man, woman and child within her reach.

When all the humans are gone, Dulcie, and her counterpart on the "Other Side" Decorum, begin to reach back in time for more humans to control.

Influence

The story contains three ideas or trope

Trope (literature)

A literary trope is the usage of figurative language in literature, or a figure of speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning...

s that would reappear in later science fiction movies or television shows:

• Obsession with an idea implanted by an alien intelligence. Jones's construction of the maze, and his gradual loss of contact with his wife, are similar to the behavior of the character Roy Neary in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
  
  .

• The idea that computers designed for warfare will become autonomous and destroy humankind. This was the theme of the Terminator
  Terminator (franchise)
  The Terminator series is a science fiction franchise encompassing a series of films and other media concerning battles between Skynet's artificially intelligent machine network, and John Connor's Resistance forces and the rest of the human race....
  
  films, Colossus: The Forbin Project
  Colossus: The Forbin Project
  Colossus: The Forbin Project is an American science fiction thriller film. It is based upon the 1966 novel Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones, about a massive American defense computer, named Colossus, becoming sentient and deciding to assume control of the world.-Plot:Dr. Charles A...
  
  , and other films and novels.

• Computers conducting virtual wars in which humans voluntarily go to their deaths. The same idea was the basis for the Star Trek
  Star Trek
  Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
  
  episode "A Taste of Armageddon".