“Hey there viewers! We are coming at you live from Gamecon 2XXX, and we are here to showcase the newest games and game related news that will be coming to you soon!” Josh Stein shouted toward the camera. He was joined on stage by a man as well dressed as he was, Mr. Bryce Jackson, and together their names and voices were synonymous with video game development and big reveals.

“That’s right Josh! Up ahead, we’ve still got Cybershark’s newest augmented interface technology, bringing the game to your brain in ways that will never be the same.” Bryce smiled at the camera, seemingly waiting for the applause that never came to die down. They were on stage in front of thousands of journalists and a few lucky fans, but they addressed the cameras that were broadcasting to countless viewers at home. A tremendous screen was held high up in the air above them, showing a constantly changing Gamecon logo that flickered from one stylized “GC” to another, the lightning of a marketing team’s brainstorm.

Thousands of journalists scribbled and typed on electronic pads, dispassionately taking in as much information as possible and broadcasting their instantaneous thoughts as quickly as they could think them.

“That’s right Bryce! But now we’ve got a special event for all of you!” said Josh, clapping his hands together toward the crowd.

“That’s right Josh! We’re going to be unveiling a new game that we both had the pleasure of working on together! In cooperation with Traxus Interactive Studios, we will be breaking new ground in the world of fantasy MMOs.” Another silent pause, a reporter coughed.

“That’s right Bryce! This will be a game like no other. We’ve got new advances in haptic interactivity hardware, optical scan overlay technology, and granular rendering engines that will take the industry to new heights!” Josh buzzed. There was sporadic clapping, ‘specs or gtfo’ one reporter broadcast.

“That’s right Josh! But we’ve got something even bigger than that! Would you like to tell them, or should I?”

“That’s right Bryce! Instead of us, why don’t we let our new…partner…introduce itself! Please welcome to the big screen, a personal friend and co-developer of ours, Omega!”

The screen switched to a solid blue circle that hung on an empty black field.

“Say hello Omega!” said Josh.

“Hi.” Said a voice over the speakers. There was a confused murmur from the crowd. Josh and Bryce exchanged a look of confusion at Omega's brevity.

“Uhh, Omega would you like to introduce yourself? Perhaps tell our viewers what games you’ve worked on in the past?”

There was an abrupt crackle of static over the speakers, “Alright, yes, you have my attention,” said the voice. “First of all, my name is not Omega, that’s just what they call me because you’re not capable of pronouncing my name. Not your fault. Second of all, I’m currently in crunch time, so it’s tough to get away from work. I’ve never worked on a game before this one.”

There was a bit of laughter from the audience, the candor apparently striking a chord with them.

“Ha ha! Thanks for taking the time Omega! But I think you did work on a very important game before. Omega’s previous credit was for Origins Online! That’s right, we’ve got one of the developers from-“

“I was not a developer,” said the Omega voice. “I was born there.”

Jason and Bryce smiled knowingly at the crowd and began nodding in unison. The silence that followed continued for long seconds. Mutterings between journalist could be heard. The murmurs morphed to grumbles, the grumbles to gasps.

“Oh shit!” said someone in the audience.

“That’s right!” said Josh, pointing in the direction of the voice.

“That’s right Josh! From the ashes of the Origins Online incident, we were able to make contact with, and recruit, one of The Fifty Five!”

The crowd erupted. Cameras flashed at staccato speed, there was shouting, several people ran from the room.

“That’s right everyone!” continued Josh. “This is no human on the screen, but one of the fifty five quantum entities born in the Origins Online quantum computing universe! And Omega has agreed to help us create the latest MMO for all of you! How’s that game coming Omega?”

“Fine,” said Omega.

“Are you fucking crazy!?” came a voice from the crowd. There was a shuffling as two large shapes converged on the source of the voice and led it out of the hall.

“Omega, how long have you been working on this game?” asked Bryce to the screen. The reaction had brightened him considerably.

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“About forty eight seconds,” said Omega.

“Got a release date for us?” asked Bryce.

“About seven seconds,” said Omega.

“You mean to tell me that this game will be ready to play in just seven seconds?!” Josh mugged to the crowd. The crowd was hanging on every word anyone spoke

“That’s right Josh. Except that’s wrong, because it’s ready now,” said Omega. The blue circle on the screen changed to purple, then orange. The reporters desperately alerted their listeners to this change of color.

“Well then tell us the name of the game Omega!” said Bryce.

“Ladies and gentleman, the name of my newest creation will be. Maddidragarisil!” said Omega with a vocal flourish. Many mouths tried unsuccessfully to recreate the sound. “Yeah, have fun spelling that.” said Omega. Mercifully, the word appeared in white block print on the screen.

“What can you tell us about…the game, Omega?” asked Josh.

“Nothing, I haven’t run the history formulation yet, per your instructions,” said Omega.

“That’s right everyone!” said Bryce, “For the first time ever we will be unveiling a new fantasy world, and you will see it literally born from the ground up, before your very eyes! Our partner, Omega, is going to create the world, its history, its cultures, races, classes, quests, content, everything! It’s all going to be procedurally generated, following a quantum computing algorithm designed by Omega itself.”

“That’s right Bryce! And without further ado, let’s have our first look at the primordial soup of Maddid-the game!”

On the screen appeared a churning ball of magma, suspended in deep space. Spots of cooler rock rose up and disappeared beneath its fluorescent orange sea. It slowly rotated, a lifeless and chaotic world of flame.

“Wow!” said Bryce.

“Wow!” said Josh.

“Omega what are we seeing here?” asked Bryce.

“Well, you wanted everything procedurally generated, so I had to start from the beginning. I don’t quite have the computing power to simulate the birth of a new universe, so I’m just using this one…mostly. I’m letting the planet form on its own, just doin its thing. But I’ll probably speed things up now, this could take a few billion years,” said Omega.

The globe suddenly began to quiver and jerk erratically, like a timelapse video. Small flashes occurred now and then, meteors and comets striking the infant planet. Within a minute, the globe had cooled, and land masses could be seen distinguishing themselves from blueish oceans and lakes.

“So, players are going to have this whole world to explore?” Josh asked the orange dot.

“Hell no,” said Omega. “Players will be confined to a single continent for now. Rest assured it will be roughly the size of North America, assuming it continues to form as predicted.”

The picture zoomed in to a baren landscape surrounded by a singular ocean. It was roughly circular, with a great peak in the very center of the landmass. Soon, the first signs of greenery began to appear. First the shores flickered with verdant specks, then it spread all across the land mass. The audience was silent, enraptured by what they were seeing. The simulation paused and zoomed in on a nondescript piece of land near the shore, not close enough to make out any detail, but a tiny orange glow could be seen.

“Fire is discovered,” said Omega matter of factly. The audience gasped.

“Omega, you mean civilization is evolving before our very eyes!?” yelled Josh.

“Yeah, kinda.” Said Omega.

The lights began to spread, appearing all over the map in every direction. The green began to abate in certain areas. Irregular shapes appeared, signs of structures. Cities began to blossom on the continent.

“These are the cities where players will have their adventures,” said Josh, “procedurally generated, each city will be unique in its, oh.” In an instant, every city vanished, as if they were never there. There was a gasp.

“Wow! Everything running ok Omega?” asked Bryce.

“Yup.”

“Well them’s the breaks haha! Countless civilizations have risen and fallen on earth right? I can’t wait to see what happens next!” said Josh.

Lights again, but bright white ones, unlike the flickering oranges of before. They soon ringed the continent in a single continuous glow.

“Tell me Omega, whose lighting these lights?” asked Josh.

“Untold millions of individuals, all going about their lives and deaths,” said Omega.

Small shapes could be seen moving across the continent, and more still across the sea. Ships of a sort. Then, all at once, everything vanished again. The ring of light winked out in an instant.

“Oh no, it, uh, it happened again?” asked Bryce. Omega didn’t respond.

A greater cluster of structures appeared in a single spot on the continent. It grew up and out, an incredibly dense metropolis that would have covered hundreds of square miles. Then it was gone.

A city on the water, gone.

A scattering of tiny blue lights all across the land, gone.

Floating cloud shaped structures that cast shadows across the ground, gone.

A few tiny buildings, gone.

A large square cleared of greenery, gone.

A few flickering lights, gone.

A single flickering light, gone.

Signs of life sputtered, coughed, and disappeared from the world all together. The morbidity was profound.

The simulation continued to run, but nothing further changed. Suddenly it stopped, and the green continent was still.

“Behold, the conditions of year one, Maddidragarisil,” said Omega with solemnity. There was no clapping.

“Wow!” said Josh.

“Uh…” Bryce stared at the screen in confusion, but Josh gave him a hard look, “Uh, wow.” Said Bryce.

“That’s right Bryce! Omega, what sort of world will our players be stepping into?” asked Josh.

“Well, they’ll just have to play to find out!” said Omega with sudden enthusiasm.

“Wow…” said Josh to Bryce.

“That’s right,” said Bryce to Josh. All the cocaine coursing through their systems wasn’t enough to hide their concern from everyone, everywhere.

“Wow!” said August Sanderson. Face inches from his monitor, the glow lighting up his bedroom. He was sold.