WIP

By v_k · Aug 15, 2019 ·
  1. // The story has no title yet. I wonder if there is any hope for me ?. I never wrote in any language. The main character in whole arc is Death. But no single character will ever die. I also have a sci-fish punch line at the end. This is first 20% of plot.
    // There are 2 3D spaces: Normal space and Realm, both on single planet. Humans and crabs.
    // Dark matter/energy space is 2D: surface of degenerated dark matter neutron star.
    // The story start with 1st contact event in normal space to introduce race of crabs. I dont want kill human characters even in Game Realm. The crab "persona" character will die permanent in game death later. He will only be able to talk to his sister in out of game voice. To finish her investigation of mysterious "permanent in game death" of her younger brother.
    // The investigation points to existence of 2D space, where race of heart shaped flat microscopic characters lives in span of less than Plank's interval and history repeats.

    The vacation

    Normal Space
    Planet 1 of Yellow Dwarf system 3D-90574-NGC
    Year 2268, July 11

    It was afternoon on the Planet 1. 5th day of 20 days vacation. Vacation was for all 102k colonists, who were scattered
    over kilometers of semicircle of beautiful tropical beach. People of all ages, pets in between mix of inflatable boats,
    toys and barbecue stoves. The silhouette of buoyant starship looking like volcano or island with few occasional shuttle pods on far horizon was barely visible through warm haze.
    The beautiful unnamed harbor of unnamed ocean. It was a custom to put names only after colonization decision was made,
    yes or no. Today was the time for complicated mechanism perfected after hundreds of colonization events to do the announcement.
    There was a plenty of perfectly habitable worlds in reach of thousands of starships. Colonists could afford to be picky.

    The announcement finally came as "No". The Planet Climatology, Celestial Mechanics together with Computational Biology teams destined the planet to be deserted.
    Also the results of simple voting came. The planet's name was Sandia. The short pause in misic and noises waved between tents and umbrellas while everyone heard
    the announcement. Then the music and small groups chatter continued even louder.

    - Phew. Now it is real vacation. Said Pilot
    Everyone in a small group of five young men agreed with relaxed smiles. Their spot with tents and umbrella was situated on sandy pile between the flat mud puddle
    and the ocean.
    - I kind of knew what to expect, when landing was question. Said Biologist. The geothermal data was hard to read through the atmosphere, but it showed cycle of global
    freezing every 500 years or so. It was completely valid to skip this 3D system altogether, though there was uncertainty ..He glanced at men, noticing the polite silence.
    Enough of work talk, he thought and mentally switched to vacation.
    - Where is Medic ? said the Navigator. The ding sounded inside the tent and Medic showed with pack of beers.
    - For vacation. Said Comm Engineer
    - For vacation, for the Game. Cheers.
    A minute later, the group was making sips and happy sounds while unfolding the cardboard stamped with circles of coffee and drops of ketchup.
    4 small figures and a dice appeared on the Map.
    - Aah, I forgot my Mage on the Ship. Said Biologist.
    - You can use a pebble or a .. Navigator looked around. There was no pebbles on whole beach. .. Then he pointed to a tiny crab in a puddle. .. a shell.
    - Hm fine. Said Biologist and placed the shell on a square. I hope the creature does not mind. His own report mentioned that crabs can survive through, now known to be,
    a century of winter. The hour or two of sitting on cardboard was nothing.
    Someone thew a dice for first roll. The game continued from the exact point shared in memory of four players.
    They became deaf and blind to distant music, occasional roar of beach buggy's race, shouts of ball games.
    Unnoticed groups of crabs were standing in lines all staring into direction of the map.
    Crabs were constantly munching tiny mud-balls, bubble foam was making popping sounds from their mouths as if they were commenting the game turns.

    At the departure day most of the beach was empty. Last shuttles and drones were hovering between ship. The Biologist picked the dice from sand. The cleanup is finished.
    He was about to move the Mage back into the middle of the paddle, but paused for a second. Mage was not anymore hiding, it was standing still in a square where he was left
    since yesterday.
    Biologist turned to horizon, appreciating these recent hours and days shared with playmates in between bigger parties and events. Then looked back at Mage with a smile.
    - You are on your own now, Mage.
    He left.
    Mage stayed busy with his infinite breakfast. His square was the road between tiny hill a sand castle, other beach sculptures were representing the details of next levels of a map.
    Slight breeze blew over and few dry crumbles flew off the the map.

    Normal Space
    Planet Sandia of Yellow Dwarf system 3D
    Year 2268, mid August

    The beaches looked all the same. The ocean, the whole biosphere remained perfectly intact. After colonists left, all traces of foreign biome and particles of
    uncollected litter from colonists decayed in days.

    Another crab approached the Mage. The minute of mutual stare ended with foaming.
    - I am Mage, who are you ?
    - I know, Mage. Why are you ..
    - I know I know, it is my turn now. But I am "dead", I was killed by non playing character named Elite Monster
    - No you are not dead for real. Said crab. And Elite Monster is not real
    - Right, but I must stay in character. I Am, dead.
    - But how you continue the game if everyone is killed ?
    - May be the rule is simply to continue. We dont know, because personas never died all at once during whole session.
    Only few times Cleric used magic to resurrect the dead one. But Cleric disappeared days ago.
    - We should add the rule, that when you are dead for too long, the death is automatically cancelled.
    Mage agreed and resurrected automatically.
    - Now who will roll the dice asked crab ?
    - Wait, which persona are you ?
    - I am Warrior
    That was a problem. There was no dice for players to throw.
    Mage waited for a minute and said:
    - 5. The "dice" stands on 5, I made the dice and rolled it!
    - How did you make the dice ? Asked Warrior
    - I carved it from a gem in my bag, I have 3 precious gems and 11 semiprecious gems. And now I have a dice.
    My gem cutting professional level is now 1, thought Mage
    - Mage walked 5 steps on a map and said. Now 3.
    - Warrior understood and moved accordingly.
    Minutes later Cleric joined the game
    ..
    For hours, the view of players did not look any different than the rest of crabs. All munching mudballs and exchanging the thoughts
    through primitive speech organ mostly sounding like popping of sea foam bubbles in their mouths. A crab approached the group and stared.
    Players looked at him. Conversation went in out of the game whispers:
    - What are you guys doing ?
    - Playing. Everyone in unison.
    - Can I join ? Asked crab
    - Sure. What is your persona's name ?
    Crab did not have a name, or persona. Known in-game roles were taken.
    - Can I choose it for me ?
    - Yes it is your first thing to do to join the game. Choose your name and what you do. You also have to remember all your possessions and how they work.
    This were absolute rules of the game. The working principles of gadgets, origin of possessions, were scrutinized to degree of fundamental laws of physics.
    Though how some of the magical tools work was problematic and slowed the game with unexplained mysteries.
    - I like solving mysteries, said Crab loudly. My name is Scientist Biologist.
    Group started growing. The map was occupying good part of a beach.
    Later this afternoon the group has a Jeweler and Miner. Jeweler was making more dices from materials gathered by Miner
    for more players for them to roll in parallel in real time, however game stayed in single realm of all playing Personas.

    Village
    At the end of the day the game reached the center of mud pile. The Village became center of new life. The group pilgrims from 15 meters away approached the Guard.
    - Stop. Announced the Guard, who are you ? Don't you see the Village wall ? The gates are closed for the night
    Pilgrims stopped and one of them responded
    - Please, Guard, open the gate, we are Family. I am Mom, here is Daughter and Her Brother, also the Dog and these two are Cats. Our Father is at work trip to Regel-3D6701
    Guard "opened" the gates and Family processed and quickly settled in "apartments".
    The night turned quiet. The sleeping villagers were drooling making occasional bubble pop.

    Realm
    Next morning Mage served the constant demand for dice rolls for every interaction. Each roll caused the chain of updates in game. But even with scaling,
    moves had difficult ordering aberrations, as if time was not a single dimensional scalar, but more like a 1D+ fractal.
    Mage thought. Abandoning dice seemed to be a perfect answer. Then he announced
    - Everyone can do their moves at will from now on
    The Village burst in live action. Mage transmuted dice into magic dust. That was the last change of rules. Days passed.

    The Pilot
    Pilot was deep in his thought, crossing the street, when he suddenly heard an approaching Beach Cart Racer.
    The collision was catastrophic for Pilot, he suffered 9 point loss of health, Beach Cart Racer got only 1 point loss and 3% damage on his car.
    Pilot needed an emergency medical help. Bystanders quickly called an ambulance team and he was admitted to a "hospital" where
    Doctor Cleric, few Apothecaries and other hospital personnel were eagerly anticipating the patients.

    While he was recovering from the trauma in hospital bed, surrounded with potions and healing spells the crab approached him
    with the notebook and pen. Investigation, understood Pilot.
    - Hello, I am Synoptic Monk. I hope that your trauma allows you to speak. Are you able to talk ?
    - Yes, said Pilot
    - I will ask you few questions
    - What is the note on your bed saying ? whispered Monk in out of the game voice. Nobody could see imaginary objects, so people were reciting details of their
    immediate surroundings from perfect cinematographic crab memory. Pilot recited, and Monk made a note of Pilot's name and Doctor's diagnosis and date.
    - What caused your accident ?
    - There was no cause, it was pure accident. Pilot said. He felt that he did not want to admit his own mistake of being not careful. But he also knew that he was as
    observant and alert as always.
    - This is unusual. Monk stopped writing and looked at Pilot.
    It was unusual for anything to have no explainable cause. The cause, since abandoning the dice, was only free will of players. But to willingly cause or accept harm was
    impossible. Personas never made mistakes, there was not a single persona's mistake so far made by anyone. Every number, stats, turn and piece of in-game information
    was correct and always stayed exactly correct.
    - I can only see that investigation is stuck, I will pass it to concilium. Concluded Monk.
    - I hope that mystery will be solved soon. Monk left the room.
    Later this day, a concilium of experts concluded that Pilot was suffering from not being able to play his role to the full. He could not fly to anywhere, even to
    nearby located Regel-3D6701 to pick one of the parents from work assignment. Also increasing number of Space Artists, Space Astronomers, Space Ballerinas and Scribes were at risk of not being able to travel.
    Pilot can not exist without a spaceship. Something had to be done.

    There was no known magic or technology to create a spaceship. Everyone saw what spaceship is. The amount of materials, effort is not available in whole Village.
    Every player knew total amount of money, materials and what and how things can be made.

    Car Repair Scientist felt like he is having an idea. He participated in one of a gatherings.
    - I have 3 wrenches, a spare battery, motor parts and cable hooks. It should be enough to start the small parts of starship, better than nothing.
    But I will need a lot of people to help me and also a lot of gold coins to actually finish the ship. We need more people, neighbors who has no personas yet,
    hundreds of them. Everyone agreed with relief. The building project for Pilot's space trips started.

    Hundreds of curious crabs were waiting on the periphery of village, they were ready to become personas. And there were trillions more elsewhere.
    The game had years to run.

    Chapter 0. Normal Space, Sandia, Monday

    For Martha persona, Computational Biophysicist of Dark Matter, this was last week before her long leave. She was prepared for a visit by one of the Clerics,
    who's organization has sponsored the Art project. Visit was one on one, with privacy on a border of secrecy. Martha announced that privacy screen around her
    office space is up. So the nearest neighbors in the mud pit which was "The University of Kern" immediately stopped noticing what was happening in Martha's "office".
    The topic was rather sensitive. Presentation was a single 3D model of what the sponsor was waiting so eagerly. Image of a life form.
    The form was having a shape of cardioid or epicicloid with single cusp at the top. Short thin wavy lines radiating all around the periphery.
    In the middle top, creature had organs, which looked like 3 eyes, or eyes with nose, however "nose" and "eye" were identical.
    The overall color was light pink.

    He was prepared to be disappointed, but it looked like a complete failure.
    - How I turn the image ? I am not handy with tech
    She showed him how the controls work, trying to not obscure the screen, but mostly trying to keep a good distance from his sighs.
    Image rotated slowly and for the moment it disappeared. Or not actually disappeared, but turned into thin line, then the other side appeared.
    The object was completely flat. Martha was ready to explain this simple part to Cleric, however hoping to keep conversation at minimum.
    Having 3D model even for completely flat object was saving few explanation.
    After a few silent seconds Cleric stand up, turned his head to a side, made a step back. "pareidolia", murmured Cleric.
    - What, I did not hear you well. What do you think ?
    - Are this eyes ?
    - "Sort of. There is no sensitivity for light as the modeling .. She stopped at technical details. It is the 2D parabolic antennas with lensing,
    the creature senses environment, in fashion similar to vision. It is all in text report. You can consider this to be eyes." She blurted,
    trying to sound not so apologetic.
    - The eyes make it look like a face. .. dog's face.
    .. Rest of meeting took few minutes of formalities. The final decisions of stopping of the project were to be decided by ranks in the organization.
    But Cleric was certain
    ...

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