Escape from the Abyss – Book 2

I’m still making forward progress on book 2. I lost some of my momentum. Most of the productivity loss was due to Spring arriving. I had to spend a couple of days doing yard work, fixing the sprinkler system, and getting stuff ready for summer. But, I’m still a couple of days ahead of schedule, so I have that going for me. I expect to pass 52k tomorrow, maybe further. That’ll get me back out in front again.

Story fodder…

As you may know (if you’ve ever read the back cover of my books) I’m a software engineer and I’ve been at it professionally since 1994. Technically, I’ve been in the computer field since 1978, so I go waaaay back. The good ol’ days when memory was super expensive for 16k (that’s right kilobytes) chunks.

Anyway, back to modern times, like today. I was reading this article: The Metaverse Was a Ridiculous Idea. Where Did It Come From?

This reminded me of what I thought of “Meta” when Facebook first changed its name to meta. The basic concept was that everyone would eventually wear 3D headsets and join the working world virtually. So Facebook, ahem, Meta would host this MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), or the real-world SIMS game. Anyhoo, everyone would participate and every company would hook in and run their office in a virtual room. This was supposed to be cool, because office space could be expanded or contracted, depending on the number of employees. Also, the company could put virtual plants, pictures, etc. to decorate their office without worrying about maintenance and costs, etc.

But, really, the end goal was to have a remote job, but set it up such that the supervisors could keep track of the employees. What they were up to would be projected into the game. The technical details of how this would all come together were not completely worked out. The entire thing was still in beta and there were complaints about how simple the graphics were (like avatars didn’t have legs). So Meta, probably should have kept it in-house until they could get the thing a little more refined. Something with spectacular graphics at the very least.

If you read the article, it goes into the problems with their vision being too foggy. Which is probably what they think killed it (it just needed better marketing… right). I think people looked at what they were proposing and rolled their eyes. Nobody is that naive to fall for the ultimate purpose. Let’s face it, Meta would be in a very controlling position if all companies had to go through their site and all employees got a job through their virtual environment.

Which, finally, brings me to what I was going to say here. What if Meta were successful? Imagine what could happen in a SciFi horror kind of way. I’ll never get to a book like this, but there’s material here that could be used to write a great story. There are two different angles to the story as well. What if your company were hacked or spied upon by a worker that you hired, but wasn’t who the real person was? Maybe that virtual worker was a corporate spy from your competitor.

How about this? What if the federal government decided to participate this way? Oh, yeah, I could see that nonsense happening. They’d be the first ones to get hacked.

Then there’s the problem of what if the avatar is an AI or a bot? One day, you think you have employees, then you find out that one employee has managed to get all of his/her bots employed by your company and this guy is just raking in the money. Getting multiple paychecks.

Now, about the other angle I mentioned earlier. What if you were an employee and you discovered that you were producing something cutting-edge? You think you’re working for the Department of Defense on some weapons system that is top secret. Except, you’re really working for some mafi organization, and now they have a weapon that is more advanced than the military has.

Since the world you work in is virtual, you could be a virtual salesperson. Normally, you would go to the customer and sell some product. The deal is inked and the transaction occurs. However, if it’s a completely virtual world, you’re really a cocaine dealer selling for the mob to someone in another country.

Ah, story material.

If you’re a writer and you want to run with any of these ideas, have at it. I can’t copyright an idea anyway, and what the heck, someone should write these stories. And don’t think my examples are the only thing rattling around in my head. Oh no. I could sit here all day and come up with horror scenarios for a virtual world. Some that are way more terrifying than the ones above. I may pull out an idea and work it into a short story. You just never know.