Virtual Reality and Ghosts

[LucyH]

The fact that Dream On has a huge stretch of riverfront property on the Lethe ought to tell you something about how powerful the company is. Topside, the corporation’s stock is soaring and sales are increasing every week. Here, their success is measured by location and soul traffic. Close to a million ghosts stream into their buildings every day. We all want to recapture the experience of being alive one way or another. The virtual reality system at Dream On offers a nearly perfect simulation, and all we have to do in return is whore ourselves out to the company’s living, paying customers who have no idea that the virtual characters they’re interacting with are sentient.

Is it wrong? Of course. Dream On makes a big deal of the fact that users’ virtual experiences are private. The units they sell don’t transmit data in any detectable way. Software updates are sent by old fashioned snail mail on little memory cards. Their lifelike fantasy characters are supposedly the product of brilliant (and proprietary) advances in artificial intelligence. Sometimes, I wonder how users would react if I told them the truth. I’ll never find out though, because the program won’t allow it even if you try, and deviating too much from your assigned role is a quick way to get banned permanently. If I were a good soul, I probably wouldn’t participate in this racket. But then, if I were a good soul, I probably wouldn’t be here, either.

 

[LindsayRae]

 

[mythtrav16]

The fact that Dream On has a huge stretch of riverfront property on the Lethe ought to tell you something about how powerful the company is. Topside, the corporation’s stock is soaring and sales are increasing every week. Here, their success is measured by location and soul traffic. Close to a million ghosts stream into their buildings every day. We all want to recapture the experience of being alive one way or another. The virtual reality system at Dream On offers a nearly perfect simulation, and all we have to do in return is whore ourselves out to the company’s living, paying customers who have no idea that the virtual characters they’re interacting with are sentient.

Is it wrong? Of course. Dream On makes a big deal of the fact that users’ virtual experiences are private. The units they sell don’t transmit data in any detectable way. Software updates are sent by old fashioned snail mail on little memory cards. Their lifelike fantasy characters are supposedly the product of brilliant (and proprietary) advances in artificial intelligence. Sometimes, I wonder how users would react if I told them the truth. I’ll never find out though, because the program won’t allow it even if you try, and deviating too much from your assigned role is a quick way to get banned permanently. If I were a good soul, I probably wouldn’t participate in this racket. But then, if I were a good soul, I probably wouldn’t be here, either.

I'm getting flashbacks of that episode of Futurama where Fry dated a digital copy of Lucy Liu.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Does that spectral hand belong to LucyH’s virtual reality ghost, or is the image in LindsayRae’s sig mere serendipity?

Will you two fess up, or are you going to allow it to haunt me?