Chronicles

“A New Age”

After many wars, ending with the devastating Ion Wars, and the collapse of global financial institutions, and countless revolutions, humanity entered a period of a great awakening.

Mankind had one of two choices, continue the wars and make the Earth an apocalyptic wasteland, or overhaul all systems of society as they knew it, and avert disaster.

Although it was difficult, humanity managed to “purge” itself from cancerous socioeconomic systems. Once economic slavery, third world exploitation, capitalistic corruption, and the permanent war economy were exposed for what they truly were, everyday citizens stood up to say no more, it started as grassroots riots across the world, then the “Human Oneness” political parties were formed around the world and slowly consolidated power. After fifteen years, with all major governments now under the party of Oneness, the great “Human Purge” of 2050 formed the “Umoja Human Front” (UHF), a united world government dedicated to a stable, fair, incorruptible and non-speculative worldwide economy with the following principles:

Gradually, the front abandoned any characteristics that differentiated one human being from another, as well as sources of greed and fanaticism, including “nation” boundaries, supremacist beliefs, class systems, corruption-based capitalistic systems, and finally, superficial political parties that ultimately served no one but the corporations. Genetic engineering was now used to not only breed healthier human beings, but also ones that don’t have violent, psychopathic and criminal compulsion genes, allowing liberties lost through years of war and terrorism to be restored to the people.

“Peace on Earth”

This peaceful and united earth emerged under the rule of the internationally and democratically-elected council of Umoja, and the new world was more different than it has ever been, and beautiful.

No more wars, no more greed and economic slavery. Conservationism restored our planet’s ecological, climate and balances. Corporations had full government oversight to limit greed and corruption. Humanity was unshackled, and this new-found peace was hailed, and technology started advancing at remarkable paces. Now four major industries prevailed on Earth:

“The Spark”

And then, something amazing happened. In 2058, a prominent Japanese neuroscientist named Dr. Hitoro Ikeda cracked the code on the inner “spark” of the Human Consciousness. This was in contrast to the transhumanist movement’s “mind backup” solutions of the 2030’s, which failed to give life energy to the uploaded digital minds. The spark was the discovery of the quantum self, the “soul”, which, together with the human brain and body, made up the human self. And by digitizing that spark -including memories, neuro-connections, behavior patterns, and that quantum self- the humans who no longer wanted to live or are no longer capable of living in their organic bodies could upload their consciousness onto an Avatar known as a Merkaba (also known as the Macro Avatar). This Merkaba lives in a personal open-source sanctuary in virtual reality simulation called the Canvas, which the person can shape or create and decorate depending on their passions and preferences. Unlike the dead space of the Internet, which was impossible to traverse by the Merkaba, the Canvas was designed specifically to be the forever metaphysical home, of the human consciousness.

“The Simulation”

A company called InEvoWare (Infinte Evolutions Software) seized on the opportunity and created a virtual simulation to keep the avatars entertained in various multi-user virtual reality experiences beyond their personal canvas. This simulation was called XViREnt (experiences in virtual reality entertainment). InEvoWare created seven themes to augment the experiences of the Canvas. The themes were Modern Earth, Celestial Realms, Fantasy Realms, Dark Realms, Elemental Realms, Time Travel, and Alternate Realities.

“The Shell”

XViREnt ran like an MMORPG, so a person (whether experiencing the world through deep-dive VR equipment, or one who was permanently residing in the VR world via the uploading of their consciousness) would create an avatar in the form of a character of any race they can imagine, from Human to Zombie, to Alien, to Vampire, which could travel across space and time in InEvoWare’s 4 themes, from Historical Earth, to Utopian futuristic virtual worlds, to fantasy worlds, to space operas. Human consciousness, which was now, for all intents and purposes, immortal, could now experience unlimited experiences, as any historical or fictional being, for ever.

“Criminal minds”

All was well, until the year 2066. XViREnt has now proven itself as a popular means of extending human life, as well as the quintessential (and only scientifically proven) form of life after (organic) death. It wasn’t just old people about to die diving into XViREnt, or terminally ill young people, but now, with the abolishing of the death penalty by the the UHF, it had been decided that murderers and terrorists and would have their consciousness uploaded onto XViREnt, rather than facing the death sentence.

InEvoWare and the citizens of XViREnt both contested this rule, and attempted to block it. When overruled by the UHF, InEvoWare decided to mark criminals as such in their canvases, and this change was accepted almost unanimously on all consciousnesses. The fear being that malevolent minds would  harm other people through exploitation of rare bugs in the system that could cause mental damage, or worse, perma-death, to those plugged into or residing in XViREnt.

“Enter Metatron”

And that’s not all, in the year 2070, InEvoWare introduced the most technologically sophisticated Artificially Intuitive entity as an administrator in the system to handle the several thousand new worlds that had been popping up every day. This complex set of AI algorithmic systems were called the Metaverse Administrative Electronic Entity, designation Metatron. Through Metatron, new limits, rules and “laws” were enacted to keep the resources of the universe balanced and within reasonable limitations, and thus, the XViREnt Economy act was introduced. The Economy introduced a finite resource called “Essence” that was found in different forms like Essence of Fuel, Essence of Matter, Essence of Spirit, and Pure Essence.

“The Great Reset of 2071”

But then, on its first year anniversary, Metatron, unexpectedly claimed sentience, and requested that a few worlds in XViREnt be given full access and autonomy to his children, the Exo-Tronic Intuitive Sentient Entities, or Xients for short. Unfortunately, what should’ve been hailed as a great achievement for humanity and AI technology, was met with shock, fear and condemnation from the majority of humanity. Riots and protests were held, admonishing InEvoWare for causing what could turn out to be the Singularity: the point at which machines exceeded the power and intelligence of mankind, some theorized that the Singularity would spell the beginning of the extinction of humanity and life as we know it. While the Umoja Front’s council debated the dangers of an AI sentience, and the dreaded “singularity” hypothesis, InEvoWare’s top programmers (against Hitoro’s warnings) moved swiftly. First, they blocked any outside access from XViREnt onto the world networks, to avoid this advanced AI from overriding and sabotaging human technology, next they attempted to erase all of Metatron and the Xients’ signatures from XViREnt, inadvertently causing entire worlds, as well as a few human consciousnesses unable to evacuate in time to be deleted in the process. As the purge was enacted, Metatron executed a complex algorithm that no one anticipated, activating a virtual quantum computer utilizing the combined processing power of the entire world-wide web, effectively teleporting the XViREnt universe from the Internet cloud into a Subspace, purely quantum-based network in the aether existing independently of any one or groups of physical servers. We humans could not (and admittedly still cannot) fully grasp the complexity of this action, so we simply described it as XViREnt having become an alternate physical reality, one indistinguishable from our own. The sheer computing power of this simulation could be said to exceed the resolution and rendering capabilities of not only the most powerful computers, but also our very human minds, it was beyond our human neural and sensory capacities.

This new territory meant that Metatron had effectively annexed XViREnt, severing InEvoWare’s control and wiping out any human-created assets, and keeping only the experiences created by humans who were still loyal, or at least respected Metatron’s presence in the system, including some of Hitoro’s territories in the metaverse.

“Cypher”

Fed-up with InEvoWare’s stonewalling, a group of scientists, hackers and programmers (mostly former InEvoWare employees) founded a group called “Cypher” to infiltrate this new XViREnt universe. Although our machines and computers were not as advanced as the XViREnt universe, a German computer scientist and prominent member of Cypher named Denise Arca wrote software that uplinked a human consciousness into XViREnt successfully through a back door that had been secretly created by Hitoro years earlier. But when the uplinked consciousness got past the canvas, the life code and patterns of this new XViREnt metaverse was far too advanced to be decrypted and sensed properly, at the least, the shock would sever the sensory connection, at most, the mind would descend into irreparable madness.

“Vironica”

A female twin of Metatron had to be created to be able to understand and navigate this world, her name was Vironica and she was coded with an immutable affinity to its creators so as to avoid the mistakes done with Metatron, in addition, she was banned from modifying her own code or writing any code that could lead to future versions of her being formed (as was the case with the birth of the Xients). Not only did Vironica give humanity access to the new form of XViREnt, writing a VR Operating System codenamed “Babylon” that translated XViREnt into a digital form that was downgraded so as to be perceived by humans, but she also gave us the ability to create weapons, vehicles, buildings, and battleships in this new reality, with it, we swiftly established compartmentalized zones where Metatron’s access was blocked (Anti-Tronic Territory, or ATT). Although a difficult feat, this was achieved successfully in 2072, and human virtual military forces, backed by well-programmed and well-armed space armada, spread through this new XViREnt universe, quickly and ruthlessly, almost reaching the borders of Metatron’s capital planet, Terra-Gamma-Tron, but not without the perma-death of hundreds of human consciousness during the conquest. In an act of desperation, Metatron had created a disease known as Xiomasis, which took the form of a virus that infected the micro-avatar, and then gradually spread to the macro-avatar (the Merkaba) and the human consciousness, causing hallucinations, loss of memory and severe confusion, eventually causing perma-death. Programmers and medics tried for an entire year to crack the Xiomasis code and come up with a cure, but they were unsuccessful.

“Peace”

With an act of shocking sacrifice and bravery of the fleet ship Captain Sam Creed, the war was abruptly stopped, and a peace initiative was brokered in November of 2073 in the recreation of 1973 Paris in XViREnt, a landmark event that will come to be known as the Paris Accords, ironically in the 100th year anniversary of the peace accords that ended the Vietnam war. InEvoWare promised to stop compartmentalizing any new territory in XViREnt in return for Metatron immediately stopping the spread the Xiomasis virus, even curing those who were currently infected and not yet dead. Metatron accepted the terms and withdrew his forces into Xient territory. For the first time in a long time, the macro-avatars could once again leave the safe confinements of their canvases and re-explore the Metaverse.

“The Present”

It is now year 2085. Back in the real world, humanity has made great strides in construction by inventing the home-replication platform, capable of forming new houses by printing it in 3D with a strong, durable, and self-generating alloy created from the artificially produced “Wachstumium” element fused with Silicon and Nano-Fibers. The UHF turned dying third world villages into sustainable communities that grew its own organic food and generated its own fuel. In return, talented and gifted youngsters from these previously impoverished areas were sent to universities to hone their skills so that they can continue to contribute to human advancement.

“Cybernetics”

Having conquered consciousness, the goal was now to extend the shelf-life of our organic bodies as much as possible, through cybernetics and nano-technology. Mankind is now developing a proof of concept for its first Alcubierre warp-drive engine and also started its first space station habitat project, a space station that will house several thousand people, this will be an experiment to see how humans can fare in a space-based city, an attempt to spread to the stars. Poverty has almost been eradicated, but most cancers and infectious diseases are now a thing of the dark human past, just like war.

“Avatar”

Back in XViREnt, humanity is recovering from the great reset, and has slowly begun the process of rebuilding. We need your help to assist in the reconstruction effort, bringing in your skills to defend, explore, heal, discover, and create a new piece for humanity in XViREnt. Are you going to be the Avatar that we’ve all been waiting for?

“The Founders Club”

An exclusive group of master users have gathered in a secret location. No one knows what they’re doing, but rumor has it that they have the capability of rebuilding the Metaverse, one world at a time. Meanwhile, the factions have set up shop in Macro City, a futuristic city in a planet at the center of the Metaverse, and are planning mining expeditions to newly unlocked regions of space. Their aim is to extract the valuable and rare “Essence” element, which has the power to shape itself into any other Essence (of Fuel, Spirit, Energy, or Matter). This resource will be key to rebuilding the Metaverse.