1: Introduction
DreamState pioneered the now global MMVE industry in the early cycles of the Second Wheel, actually beginning development of BloodLines before the link to the Grid was available for individuals or households and launching the Open Beta shortly after. BloodLines is recognised to be the first commercially available MMVE and still the largest in number of participants, consumers and revenu. It is also recognised that BloodLines and the Grid were interdependent in the development of both; without BloodLines the Grid wouldn’t have grown exponentially in such a short time and without the Grid BloodLines could not have existed.
Even though DreamState has been notoriously secretive about the early stages of the development the following can be extrapolated.
2a: Physics
The VE environment physics are established with the creation of a solar system comparable to yet different from ours. It contains, for instance, only 8 instead of 9 planets. This solar system and physics engine has a radius of around one lightyear and is bordered by a content and building material repository. The universe outside of it is an impressive bit of CGI but a rendered backdrop nonetheless.
The missing 5th (rocky) planet of the solar system is replaced by an asteroid belt. To reach an equilibrium without the (concentrated) mass of this 5th planet the first planet had to be moved slightly away from the ecliptic plane while the outer (gas) planets had to be bigger and moved around a number of times. This resulted in one of them, the 7th, orbiting the sun on its side, it’s axis pointing towards it, in fact rolling around it. It is presumed that this was initially by accident but wasn’t changed since a sustainable equilibrium was achieved.
Several simulations to ensure the longevity of the system are run. Some fine tuning takes place. Mainly adjusting the number, size and position of satellites around the 8 planets. It is speculated that developers established a base on one of these satellites and support was later housed on another. The second content repository is created in a shell well outside the last planetary orbit.
2b: Life
Once DreamState is satisfied the system is stable one planet, in this case the 3rd from the sun instead of the 4th, is seeded with the equivalent of self replicating building blocks for organic life. Characteristics are tweaked until an effective and consistent organic evolutionary system simulation is achieved. It is again founded in principle on available knowledge but with differences which will be explored in later chapters. This system gets tested a number of times, running from scratch to complex simulated biological entities which are subsequently wiped, in general by an extinction event caused for instance by pushing one of the many asteroids in the belt (that replaced the 5th planet) or from one of the content repositories out of orbit and on a collision course. After the last test run ended some 65 million years ago (VE time) the dominant life forms was eradicated which allowed the rise of a VE character species which would evolve from small mammals.
3: Alpha and Beta
3a: Alpha
First of all, these three stages of development aren’t distinctly separated but flowed from one to the other.
It took roughly 62 to 63 million years (all times in VE time) for the first VE character species to appear a little over 2 million years ago. 4 species evolved over a period of around 1 million years and were play tested during Alpha (Erectus, Habilis, Rudolfensis and Ergaster). On a side note; Rudolfensis was named in homage of a lead developer who died in a freak hoverboard accident.
Two of those species, Erectus and Antecessor, survived across closed beta and Erectus even into Open Beta.
The short lived species Gautengensis was used as tutorial VE player character (VEpc) for closed beta. It was also used for the first public Virtual Experience demos, active and passive, presented at the annual PlayTime conference. The physics engine operational within the Heliosphere and and biological evolutionary system on the 3rd planet had been shown before.
3b: Closed Beta
As the capacity of the Grid grew en par with the available content in DreamState’s BloodLines (by the way, this title was only revealed when the release date was announced) the company slowly started to send out invitations to selected individuals which had to meet certain criteria (age, health, Grid adaptability etc). These participants could create a character from the relatively well established and stable Erectus species or from the newly evolved species Antecessor or Heidelbergensis. DreamState can have influence over this evolutionary process but in general refrains to use this, apart from the availability of tutorial species.
This closed beta which lasted about a million years and produced many Virtual Experience demo’s from both the active (participant) side of the VE as the passive (rider) side.
The species Cepranensis was introduced at the end of the closed beta to function as clean tutorial character species for the Open beta, which started about 400.000 years ago.
The reviews at this time were largely positive. not only broke the VE the mould on a technical level, introducing an entire new approach and level of experience (coining the term [Massive Multi-participant] Virtual Experience), sending MMORPG’s to the dustbin of history. It also revolutionised the influence participants had over the further development within the VE. They were in collaboration responsible for the prosperity, propagation and thus ultimately survival of the species which could compete or combine traits.
3c: Open Beta
Apart from the Erectus species mentioned before and Cepranensis, which as an artificially evolved tutorial character species never actually entered Open Beta as an active one several species arose during the Open Beta which lasted some 375.000 years.
Rhodesiensis survived longer than Denisova, Idaltu or Floresiensis but it soon became clear that the surviving (release) species would be either Neanderthalensis or Sapiens, or a combination of those two, depending on the VE participants’ choices. And while a small number of participants agreed to exchange traits, the majority competed for resources etc, which led to the final victory of the Sapiens. In a surprising move the participants running the Denisovan species managed to engage with both competing species before their demise so that the species available for release consisted for the largest part of the Sapiens BloodLine with Neanderthalensis influences and traces of Denisovan.
For a short period of time DreamState evolved the Red Deer Cave people as a tutorial species for the release but later decided that the available NPC’s (Non Participating Character) could serve that role as well and the species went extinct.
Intermezzo - the Virtual Experience
Even though the functionality of the Virtual Experience in general, it’s technological foundation, the active and passive components and the differences in subscriptions might be assumed to be known I feel I have to include them for clarity and being complete. Without it subsequent (and perhaps even the previous) chapters would be hard to understand.
Since it could also be moved to an appendix I’ve not included this intermezzo in the word count.
I-1: Technical Foundation
DreamState’s BloodLines, it’s subsequent titles and those of it’s competitors in the field of Massive Multi-participant Virtual Experiences is unthinkable without the Grid.
The Grid is a global network of interconnected Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI). Originating in the computer mediated connection between rat brains and subsequently evolved with the (some say rather unethical) connection of convicted but volunteer criminals which was initiated in the Ostian Continent. It sparked the singularity, which is beyond the subject of this essay. It later allowed people to connect to this grid as paid employees and exist in a state of induced coma (or dreamstate, where the corporation found it’s name) where a small portion of the brain power is used to generate a character (one or more NPC’s) in the VE for the dreamer (also known as zombie) that is indistinguishable from an individual in a real world. The brain after all processes the senses and now the Grid provides this input from the authentic accumulated memories of all dreamers. The rest of the brainpower is used to further strengthen and expand the Grid. The dreamers are therefor not aware that the illusionary world they inhabit is not real. Even participants and consumers aren’t while they are active in BloodLines or equivalent titles.
There are some objections to this model since, once dreamers have entered the Grid, they hardly ever leave. This is because, as opponents maintain, the Essential Unique Dreamer Agreement (or EUDA) is automatically renewed each year (real world time) unless Dreamers during a ‘prolonged period clearly and consistently states they want to leave’ (legalese translated) but firstly the dreamer isn’t aware this is even an option, that there even is anything to leave and secondly a ‘prolonged period of time’ represents years and years in VEtime because of the time speed difference.
DreamState maintains the option is clearly visible for Dreamers but that they simply like it too much. One executive is famed for the quote: “C’mon! Sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll or the slums of Baimum? You are right you know, that’s no choice at all.”
Participants and consumers in general operate within set time slots and get disconnected automatically after their time expires, which depends on the subscription level.
It is illegal and will be pursued to the maximum extent of the law to inform dreamers, or participants and consumers while they are active, of this situation as the makers of hacks or intrusions that manifested as VE titles like The Matrix and Inception have discovered.
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