I quite like my new job. It's a nice, stable schedule. My coworkers are very friendly and helpful. I'm paid well enough to continue my minimalist lifestyle. I'm kept busy enough and challenged enough that it doesn't threaten to bore me to death. There's just enough uptime and downtime so I don't feel overwhelmed, but I also get moments to relax. People think I do a good job at it as well.
I've had some time to daydream lately, and I was thinking of the Matrix, and Isekai, and I brainstormed up my own story. It's probably not original, but it goes roughly: A child is born with an odd brain disorder that prevents it from 'waking up' and being conscious, keeping the young infant in a sleep-like state at all times. There's no known cure for this disorder. The parents plead with the doctors, who struggle to think of a humane solution beyond euthanasia. They come up with a solution, that since the infant's comatose state is similar to the medically induced coma that is used for the players of Paradyse, a virtual world where the players are neurally connected to the game, that they connect the infant to the game, and he can be raised in the virtual world. The problem with this however, is that noone knows if this is genuinely humane, or even possible, as Paradyse is not a commercial MMO, but was designed with the needs of the terminally ill in mind, and all of it's users are those that are end-of-life, to provide them with a virtual world where they can live out their last days in the best happiness that can be managed; it was never intended to be used for long periods of time, for a child. Nevertheless, they give it a try, with heavy improvisations having to be made every step of the way, the child is hooked up, and the parents can enter the game through ad hoc connections to spend as much of their time with the child as they can.
20 years pass, the child having mentally grown into an adult, completely inside of Paradyse. It's at this time that a medical breakthrough occurs, and the Young Man's Brain Disorder can finally be cured. His parents promise him an awesome birthday present: entrance into the 'real world', which is news to him, as the world he's lived in his entire life seems plenty 'real' to him. His parents regretfully had been informed by the doctors that his condition was perhaps permanent, and so to never inform him of any world but the one he knows inside of Paradyse, so that he not feel his existence pointless and fake; but now that his condition is cured, they can finally show him the reality that his Disorder had denied him. Finally, his neural link to the game is cut, and his atrophied body begins the arduous rehabilitation needed to even get out of his bed. The Young Man is very confused at reality, as no part of the 'real world' resembles the world inside of Paradyse that he grew up with. Out of Paradyse, there's gravity, pain, nausea, bodily needs, many sensations that aren't present in the simulation. He learns that he actually needs to move his mouth to talk, he can't just think his thoughts at others. He's very surprised to see his parent's faces for the first time, as in Paradyse they only had rudimentary avatars that never updated as he got older, and he doesn't recognize the man and woman that claim to be his father and mother, though they seem to have the same personalities. Once he learns how to walk, another discovery he makes is that people are, in fact, "permanent"; he thought that the way that people appeared in, and disappeared out of, Paradyse was just natural. Once coming to grips with the basics of reality, and that Paradyse was a virtual world existing in some computers, and that the people in Paradyse were in fact people in reality as well, he wants to know where some of his friends in Paradyse are here in this "Reality"... only to be informed that they've died; they were sick, or old, or seriously injured, and Paradyse was their only escape to let them enjoy the last bit of life they had in them. The Young Man doesn't quite grasp any of these concepts, but insists on being able to meet the one friend that hadn't disappeared from Paradyse yet, who should still be alive and connected to Paradyse. As coincidence would have it however, he passed away just earlier that day, and they got permission to visit his body. They do so, only for the Young Man to be very confused... he was still there! In Paradyse, if some NPC or game enemy was killed, it simply disappeared. The Young Man didn't realize that this 'permanence' which characterizes living people, in fact characterizes everything, even the dead; but the personality and friendliness of the person he knew inside Paradyse wasn't permanent, it disappeared from this "Reality". This is very startling and frightening to the Young Man, who begins to regret now entering this "Reality" and now would like to return to his "Home" in Paradyse, where he grew up and all his memories and familiar comforts are.
That's about as far as I've gotten with the idea. I'll have to think on it a bit more to determine if this is a good direction for the story, where it would go from there, or even if the existing story is even all that compelling. I'll probably scrap it, as I'm wont to do with most of my daydreams, it's just fun to think about.
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 15887895 times)