These phones are living in a world in which humans have reached a point of no return, as a result of war and global warming, leading to humans becoming functionally extinct. Due to the tiny number of humans left, phones and other sentient machines have taken over society and made society their own. Due to phones IRL living in close proximity to humans, their society closely resembles human society, except scaled down to suit the size of phones. How can I make the plot relevant to living phones? Right now, I’m considering having the main character in college, until his career is disrupted by an evil phone who wants to destroy all technology made after the year 2000 in order to become relevant again, however, I’m not sure how I can fit this around living phones. Any ideas?
It's certainly crying out for an "upwardly mobile phone" joke somewhere in there... I like the concept, you could make it into a sort of intellectual version of the movie Cars crossed with [just about about any evil overlord story]. I would just go straight into the story about phones and make it (subtly) obvious what they are, suspending their disbelief. Nobody chucks Lord of the Rings through an open window screaming "a hobbit! No such bloody thing!"
There are a few big questions suggested by this that you would need to figure out before you proceed. Like for instance, as several people have mentioned jokingly, how do the phones get around and do things? This question plus your avatar picture suggest it might be a cartoonish world where the phones have wheels or walk around with little arms and legs. Otherwise how could they recharge themselves, or do anything other than make and receive calls and maybe go online, while just laying on a table or ensconced in somebody's pocket? Maybe Android phones have become literal androids? It all depends on what kind of story world you want to create for them. It could be very cartoonish like Cars, or more realistic like Wall-E. Maybe they're drone-phones that can fly around, and maybe they can extend little custom-made manipulators made of nano-tech—little differently-shaped arms or devices they can use to manipulate the objects around them. They could be like little Swiss army knives, able to extrude screwdrivers and bottle openers and toothpicks etc. Other things related to the larger story world would include ideas like how much has the human population diminished, and is there still a power grid to keep the phones and other devices running? Or maybe they can all charge themselves on solar power or something? Otherwise you'd need a world with Ai-powered robotic coal mining machines and loaders that dump it into robotic trains that take it to completely automated factories where it's burned and turned into electricity. Unless they've found a way to convert it all over to solar and wind turbines, but even then the factories would have to be completely automated. And maybe they are, you would just need to mention the fact and it becomes true. I'm basing all this on a premise (that might not be what you intend) where the phones and other devices can live on after humans are completely gone, or so far gone there's no way to run factories and power plants anymore. Because otherwise you've got a story suggesting that the devices could live on after humanity collapses, but there would need to be a way for them to continue to get electricity, and that requires power plants running without human workers. Unless you can solve that with some simple story concept like saying all devices now run on tiny atomic batteries that will last for thousands of years without ever needing a charge. Hey, that would actually work, and be very quick and easy to state. Lol, don't you love it when somebody suggests a problem and then solves it, all in one post?
The phones have arms and legs, like Inanimate Insanity, and some have tools embedded in their hands. They primarily run on solar energy; the factories are run by autonomous robots; In this world, humans are functionally extinct. There are several types of robots in this world, some resembling Tesla's upcoming Teslabot and Honda's Asimo. Their cars run on atomic batteries, while the phones use regular lithium-ion batteries, which they can charge both in the traditional way and by eating (yes, they can eat).
And what of those old phones stored in attics with their two parts connected by a curly cord? Are they brought out to be bound to walls and forced into some kind of servitude under arrogant master mobile phones?
I'm thinking you may need to back up a couple steps, and work out a more in depth character profile for each of those characters you're worried about making a plot relevant to. Being that your characters are anthropomorphized cell phones, I'd think you could go sparingly on the physical traits, but you need to build that psychological profile of your characters to know who they are and what matters to them. Your search for something relevant is going to be there.
