The year 2067, VR has finally been developed, yet it took 30 years for it to become available to the general populace. Why, you ask? Because of one beta, the beta of a call of duty-like game called ‘Ronan’, now better known as the ‘Ronan disaster’, but a game sponsored by the UN for army-training at the time.
It all started with the AI, ingeniously called Ronan, like the game itself (you’d think game designers would be a bit more imaginative, but oh well…) gained what was then called the ‘state of self’, was later called self, for short, and is now known as ‘sylph’ by the gamer community.
Why sylph? Well, gamers like to think of those AI as a new race, and both sounded alike. Although the most gamers insist they’re called ‘sylph’ because they’re the ‘spirits of the air’, referring to the origin of the term, the sylphid, a mythological air elemental.
Anyway, at some point during the trials, while they were testing how humans could and would interact with the virtual world, what the efecs of longer exposure were, the limits of the time compression… and so on, (of course, this was all done after extensive animal testing, to the outrage of quite a few organisations) Ronan gained a ‘self’ (or became what’s now known as a ‘sylph’).
This immediately started a whole uproar, some religious nuts banded together to protest its existence, scientists flocked over to ask to study it, and many corporations started throwing money around and pulling strings to acquire it.
Now, as usual, the stupidest people were manipulated by the most power-hungry people, leading to one big mess.
This mess, was created by a company owner, who knew he wouldn’t be able to acquire ‘Ronan’ with his influence. So he did the next best thing, and joined and sponsored the religious factions. Ironically, the one time the 3 religions that were most involved in this part of the world (you know wich, but I won’t say lest I offend) worked together, was not to purge hunger and feed the poor, but to, albeit unknowingly, create a worldwide disaster!
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They managed to get inside the building by distracting most military and police forces. How? Well, by blowing up an airport and a hospital of course, because that’s what religion is for, right?
So, while they plunged the whole country into chaos and sorrow for their great cause, they sent militant forces inside the building, militant forces entered the main building and purged the whole server.
Or they would have, if our militants hadn’t been paid by one wealthy CEO, yes, the company owner from before. He, smart as he was, successfully manipulated the different factions, (not that it was hard) and used his men to steal ‘Ronan’.
As far as is known, everything went well up to here, but, at some point, everything went wrong, and a fight broke out among the men. It is speculated that not all men were loyal to our CEO, and those loyal to the fanatics weren’t as stupid tech-wise as expected, but no one really knows.
In the confusion of the fighting, one of them managed to get a hold of Ronan, make a connection, and tried to send him/it through the net. Smart right? You’re stuck, can’t get out, so you just send the info through the internet, mission accomplished!
Perfect plan, really, if It hadn’t been a program of a few tens of thousands of terrabites… (44.432 to be exact). The program was sent successfully though, or so we think, because Ronan started to do what Ronan does best...
Simulate a war game.