Virtuality part 3

Part Two

Chapter One

My name is Erica Bergdahl and I am about to embark on a project that will almost certainly see me through to the end of my life. In order to justify what I intend to do, I am setting this down as a record of my actions, though as I am writing it on an old fashioned word processor, I don’t suppose anyone will be able to read it. I have nothing better to do with what little time that remains to me. Virtuality does not stimulate me and there is nothing else to occupy my mind.

I lie here in my apartment, alone with my thoughts, and, unlike most of the population, deeply in real life. As SAUK (System Administrator (UK)) of Virtuality, I am aware of the difference between Reality and Virtuality. Indeed as a young woman I had experienced life when Virtuality was not the whole of life, when people still visited in real life, and even when families lived together in real life. I had been brought up with my mother and father in a family unit and had often accompanied my parents on trips outside.

My mother was always moaning about the way things used to be. From a wealthy background, and with a father who had been determined to be amongst the first to have any new invention or innovation, my mother’s family had, in addition to the Country House and the Town House, a Virtuality room in each. I was brought up during the “rollout” of Virtuality for all and my mother resented the fact that these privileges had been granted to every “drop out and ne’er do well in the country”. My father, ironically, had been an employee of the Gates Corporation, which had wholeheartedly supported the move towards universal Virtuality, supported by grants and subsidies from the UK government. Indeed, my father had been a supporter of the scheme himself, although in the interests of peace at home, he had kept his views to himself.

By the time I was born, the scheme was in its infancy, a small proportion of the population had been rehoused in Virtuality blocks, either as singles or family units, and yet social intercourse had still taken place outside Virtuality, particularly amongst the older population. There were of course prophets of doom that said that no good would come of this manipulation of Mankind’s social structure, but the government and Gates continued to progress with the system.

Given the opportunity of a Gates scholarship to Cambridge Virtual College, I had taken up a life as an academic, rising to be the youngest professor in the history of Cambridge University. From this point, such was my indoctrination, I had become a wholehearted proponent of the development of Virtuality as a way of managing social change.

I had been an idealist then, but now I feel that it has all gone wrong. I had been the principal advocate of what had been known as the “Euthanasia Clause”, which had simply been the removal of support functions from persons over the age of 100. This inevitably meant that at that age with all support functions, including life support to the apartment, removed, the old person would sleep forever, releasing valuable resources for the younger more valuable members of society.

That was then of course. One hundred years had seemed a reasonable length of time for anyone to live. Only a relatively small percentage of the population would have this clause invoked and they would realise that it was for the greater good. Anyway, they represented an infinitesimal proportion of total purchasing power.

I was not then, nor am I now, a politician, nor have I worked directly for a global corporation, but in those days, all academics were paid by politicians who in turn were paid by Globals, so it was pretty much the same result really. I had been an advisor to the government on what was known as the Depopulation and De-pollution project (DP2). This had sought to reduce the amount of pollution in the world caused by overpopulation by a combination of reducing the movements of people and their consumption of raw materials, but at the same time satisfy the needs of the Globals who required consumerism to develop.

DP2 was a project that had been in existence since before the radical adoption of Universal Virtuality, which had been created to alleviate the huge costs of illness caused by pollution and over population, and the consequent loss of consumer revenues. At the time the concept had been mooted, fossil fuels had become scarce and expensive, and the oil and gas companies had diversified into other forms of energy generation, including and in particular, solar energy. This was generated at land stations, for particular uses, and by a string of geostationery satellites, and had gone some way to reduce the air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Unfortunately it was too little too late to solve the long-term effects that overpopulation and environmental abuse had caused.

It had become almost impossible to expose skin of any colour to the sun for more than fifteen minutes without causing severe burning and potential cancer. Protective clothing had to be worn at all times outside and travelling any distance was difficult. People had started working from their place of residence via telecommunications links and computer systems networked via the World Wide Web of computer connectivity. More specialist buildings had been erected with the sole purpose of providing accommodation with connectivity to the web. These buildings were self-contained units with a receiver for the satellite energy system. They were serviced in all respects for food, clothing, laundry and waste disposal by a highly automated organisation that provided robotic systems to clean and deliver to the living units. Further advances in technology, led to the development of virtual reality technologies that allowed a high degree of interaction with work mates in a virtual environment. This radically changed the way in which people worked.

More and more people found it easier to work from home, or small local offices, and the central city business started to decline in favour of the out of town telecommuter. People travelled less and the log jammed traffic declined considerably. Even those who needed interaction with other personnel found the VR environment comfortable as it allowed them to interact with their colleagues, albeit in virtual form, as if they were working in the same office building.

Technology continued to progress. Few production operations required any human input at all, and even food production was automated to the extent that a farm extending to well over 10,000 acres needed no more than a single “farmer” working a terminal to operate the whole farm. VR required no more attachments to make it work, instead, an electronic field stimulated the sensors in the brain, bypassing the traditional sensors of eyes, ears, taste touch etc.

It became obvious that the only way for government to have a remote chance of governing was to provide shelter from the harmful effects of the pollution, and to adopt the new technologies in order to maintain control of the population. In the interests of democracy, the government had to persuade the people to come into their new blocks. There was legislation passed to force anyone claiming housing benefit to enter into the new blocks, and all government employees were “encouraged” to take accommodation there.

As it turned out, the populace did not require much persuading. There were, of course, cries of “foul” from the well heeled, until it was pointed out that the needy would be offered only the most basic accommodation. In addition the potential savings to the exchequer should reduce the taxation burden on the rich and provide them with further credits towards other luxuries.

Governments of all technologically advanced societies started to build VR blocks for their population, and connect them to the system, which in turn gave them connection to Virtuality for work and play. As time went on, fewer and fewer people were to be found on the streets, which were still so polluted that to be out for more than 10 minutes without a respirator would mean asphyxiation. Virtuality became the norm, and the system was developed to provide food and exercise for the block bound inhabitants.

These developments have all taken place over the last few generations, and were started before I was even born, but such was my enthusiasm for the ideals encapsulated in the concept, that I drove the reforms through until the take up of Virtuality was, to all intents and purposes, universal. For my tireless efforts and single-minded dedication to the cause, I was awarded the title of “System Administrator”. I think sometimes that it had been an idealist solution, but it had worked. It was assumed that there were still “Outsiders” but it was not known how many there were. The System controls the environment of each of the blocks and does not tolerate any interference from outside, whether this is represented by Outsiders or wild animals. It maintains itself and builds its own replacement modules. It makes food from produce and chemicals that it raises for itself. It has to be an ideal solution, but I am growing dissatisfied

Not only am I approaching my 95^th birthday, but also I am beginning to doubt whether the experiment (for that’s how I now see it) has worked; have there been serious flaws in my reasoning. Both the Globals who had started this whole exercise, and National Governments, have become subject to the same benign system that they had created and have ceased to exist in anything other than name. Human apathy has taken over, and the System runs everything.

For those in the Virtuality blocks this is not a major problem, they are content. There is no hardship, and the only inequality lies in the number of credits available to spend in Virtuality. This in turn is dictated by the effort put in to maintain the System. As a result of my honorific title “System Administrator”, I am awarded a stipend of 1,000,000 credits a year for life, and almost unlimited access to the System’s databases and programs.

Lying here thinking as I do so much these days, I find it difficult to justify my disillusionment. All I keep coming back to is that I am getting old, and something isn’t right. I have spent days browsing the data file of the System trying to establish what is bothering me and I have come to the conclusion that it relates to the indefinable requirement of humanity to continue to progress, and that the system I have helped to create has suppressed, and in the main, eliminated this need. The ideal I had worked so hard to create has been fulfilled and is no longer developing.

In the early years, people had continued to make forays into the outside, to visit friends in their blocks and make contact in Reality. Ideas were exchanged and plans discussed. Some of these were put into place and the Brave New World extended to incorporate them.

Oh yes, in the beginning I was proud of the achievements of the System. Pollution has been dramatically reduced, health has been improved, leisure is assured, and in the developed world, humanity has achieved the impossible dream of a satisfactory standard of living for all who require it, regardless of ability and class. Above all, the scourge of crime has been all but eliminated. The only laws in the System are policed and enforced by the System itself. As all property has become, in effect, that of the System, there can be no crimes against property that are not crimes against the System, and as all people are insulated against each other within the System, there can be no crimes against the person that can take place without the System knowing. Any trespass or violence against a System dweller by an outside body is unknown within the System as the System destroys any living thing entering the System that is not chipped. Any attempt to reprogram the System without the System’s prior approval and explicit sanction is punishable by death. Crimes against the fabric of the System, such as arson or other deliberate damage, are punishable by a range of penalties. Most typical are fines and loss of privileges in Virtuality. In extreme cases, offenders are denied access to Virtuality altogether. Generally, offenders are educated by the System in non-offending. Thus the small price of this Utopia is the control by the System of the social environment in which people reside.

Gradually, social intercourse in Reality has declined until it is a considerable rarity. Lifetime coupling no longer exists, and children are taken into System kindergartens from birth. There is no requirement for families to reside in one apartment; the System allows visits in Virtuality, and it also takes better care of the children than parents can be expected to. Sexual congress is catered for by the System, each sensation being managed in Virtuality. Virtuality provides everything.

In spite of its advantages, not everybody took up the opportunity. There were some who chose to remain in the real world, and there were those who, because of their social position, were unknown to the system and missed the chance of a place in a block. It was assumed that most of those who failed to be granted a place either died of the adverse environmental conditions or managed to move to a more acceptable region. I have no idea what has happened to those that survived the early days outside. The System does not provide statistics on them; they are outside its purview.

Now, so many years later, I begin to think that if any have survived, they might provide the solution to my problem with Virtuality, but I am too old to venture forth myself to discover if there is still anybody outside. Even if there are individuals who have survived outside, they will be savage and even warlike. They will have developed in a totally different way than those in the blocks. With no support services, they will have become dependent on their own wits, and will have procreated naturally, competing for the food and the opposite gender in the natural need to survive and continue their line.

The more I consider it, the more I know that I have to have more information about the Outsiders. Some of them must have survived. I remember that there were still people on the streets when I was a small girl, and the environmental conditions were not nearly so severe as they had reportedly been before Universal Virtuality was adopted. As the System had developed, and chipping had been introduced, the System viewed any unchipped animal matter as a threat and destroyed it if it came within a metre of any of its functions. This means that the Cities and towns where the blocks had been created have become impossible for anyone unchipped to survive in. In any case, for the Outsiders to have survived, they must have created some form of social structure, and must have had the opportunity to procreate. This requires space to develop, and there was no space within the confines of the Cities. If there is any useful life outside the System, therefore, it must be beyond the reach of the System, and in an open space.