Welcome to the Grind.

Fellgrave

Well-Known Member
#1
Inspired by things such as Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, Sword Art Online, Megaman, and more, I give you, a new original idea from the depths of my mind, this:

The year is 2145. Technology has leapfrogged humanity’s way into the future. Automation and remote controlled robotics have made manual labour a thing of the past. Mankind has reached out beyond the warm embrace of Mother Earth and settled on the other planets of our solar system. We explored as was our nature, and in doing so we discovered the bane of our own existence.

The year is 2145. Mankind has advanced to the point where the world is run by technology. The sleeping minds of the people now fuel society’s development as parts of a biological supercomputer composed of trillions of processors. All of this computing power was devoted to supporting the grand cyberworld known as the Network. Unknowingly, we forged the chains that would bind us.

The year is 2145. With Mankind’s minds effectively living half their lives in cyberspace, their avatars’ actions are linked to the operation of hardware in the real world. Many people are able to earn credits for upgrades and anything else through taking shifts controlling a robot and operating it. Other people earn credits through delving into dungeons created by the rich and fighting their way through while others watch on. And some earn it through combating the many viruses and bugs that infest the Network. But they can’t see the truth, the grand illusion that surrounds us. This isn’t Paradise. This is Purgatory.

The year is 2145. Ten years ago our planet, our home, became our prison. Our freedom was taken from us, in the guise of protection and safety. Justice was taken from us, in the guise of keeping us from worry. For more than ten long years we have languished under the iron fist of a tyrant. The rust has gathered long enough. The time is ripe for rebellion.

The year, is 2145. Welcome to the Grind.
Well? What do you think? I'm still working out what to do with it beyond the basic setting, but... meh, it'll come to me eventually.

edit: revised story part.
 

pacifist

Well-Known Member
#2
A bit of clarification if you please.

What genre are we looking at?
Realistic world: as in a story about how this change has changed our culture and perception of ourselves
Adventure: the exciting lives now lived by cyberspaces inhabitants.
Horror: Mankind has achieved much perhaps too much an at too great a cost. Viruses, cyber crime.
Sex: well how else are we going to get trillions of people in only 30 years?
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
#3
pacifist beat me to it but I was going to say, I find it fundamentally impossible for our population to increase at least 300x (trillions was plural) in 30 years
 

Fellgrave

Well-Known Member
#4
The population thing was correct, I made an error with my timeline. The year has been fixed to be 2145.

From what ideas I've been bouncing around so far, a bit of an adventure. The unlikely hero follows his friend into an illegal raid, which gets busted by the Mods - the Cyberworld police and security force. Most of the other raiders run off and escape, but the hero is caught when his friend backstabs him in order to get away.

While the hero is in the holding cell, one of the Admins - the Judges and Governors of the various regions - comes to offer him a deal: survive three rounds in the Arena, and his charges get erased.

Of course, the arena is only for the desperate, the insane, or those on death row, but the hero doesn't have any other options. He can't afford the bail, he can't afford to get a new identity even if he could afford the bail, and he has no-one to turn to.

So he agrees and enters the arena, fully prepared to meet his maker, only for the most impossible thing to happen to him:

he wins.

Not only does he win, he does so in a way that manages to swing the crowd to his side. The next match is a team match, and unlike the usual groups they have, the hero actually gets his team to work together against their opponents. All the while, the Admin is watching and getting more and more furious. The criminal he had intended to make an example of is making a fool of him, and looking all the more likely of successfully escaping.

So, for the final match, he sends in the hero's friend.

The hero refuses, at first, to fight him. He even drops his weapon and shouts to the crowd that he will not fight against his friend. Some of the crowd cheer, some boo, but all of them gasp in surprise when the hero finds himself stabbed in the back again, literally this time. His friend insists that it was nothing personal, but that it was simply the way life was, then, he demands the hero pick up his weapon, saying that he's tired of having to spend his hours dredging along for money and that he was promised a big pay day if he put on a show before killing the hero.

The hero, now angry that his friend has betrayed him twice, defeats his former friend after a big fight. Just as he's about to deliver the final blow, the Admin decides he's had enough and sends in a Mod Squad. The hero fights his way through them and escapes, and he flees into the city.

While running, he meets up with members of an underground group of resistance fighters, who have formed to combat the corrupt Admin that has taken over the region.

Beyond this, I'm still working on what to do.


See next post.
 

Fellgrave

Well-Known Member
#5
Alright. So I've decided to do this up as a short story for a contest. It'll be max ten k words, and I'm roughing out the plot right now. Posted revised opening section for the story in my OP. Rough plot so far:

-Years ago the Administrator, one of the men and women who control the various parts of the Network, went crazy and seized total control over the planet's Servers, cutting it off from the rest of the Network.

-The MC was seven when returning to RL got locked down, and happened, and is now nineteen.

-One of the MC's friends persuade's the MC to join him in hunting down a virus with a big bounty on it's head, along with a few other people.

-The hunt was unauthorized by the Admin, and the Moderators, the Network's Military Police force, arrive just as the group cripples the virus out past the edge of the city. Some of the group get away, most are captured.

-The MC and friend are made to participate in the Arena. They are pitted against several viruses, and then one of the Moderator Officers.

-The friend gets Disconnected. Pushes the MC's berserk button, and the Officer is nearly killed himself.

-The Admin is impressed, and lets the MC go, wanting to later use those talents to enforce his rule.

-The Dragon, seeing a potential threat to his position, quietly orders his men to dispose of the MC.

-They move to do that, but the MC is saved by members of the (name needed), the rebellion against the tyrannical rule of the Admin.

-The MC gets introduced, and then joins the rebels in a mission to strike back against the Admin.

-The Armory is their target. The Dragon runs it. Operates as Barracks and Vehicle garage for Moderators.

-Rebels get in, Admin messages Dragon, who says not to worry his men will deal with it. Dragon goes to deal with them himself after they starting blowing stuff up, gets into a fight with MC. MC beats Dragon, leaves as important object (vehicle, comm device, something) gets destroyed by other rebels.

-End Scene 1. The Admin is in his throne room, looking out window at smoking armory when Dragon comes in. Dragon has scar on face from MC. Admin stares out window, does not turn, flatly asks what he's looking at. Rhetorical question, as he turns to Dragon. States that it is failure. He had been content to leave the rebels to the Dragon before, but it was clear he couldn't handle it. Now he is stepping in. He steps off throne and passes Dragon, remarking that this is his first strike, two more and he's out.

-End Scene 2. Rebels celebrating. Leader says that their fight has just begun. MC repeats title, tagline of the rebellion.

What I am in dear need of at the moment is names. Specifically, I need a name for the Big Bad villain and his Dragon, as well as a name for the interface device everyone has. Since it's a digital world, it allows people to store items and manipulate things through a small popup screen or headsup display. The device is kind of a cross between the Omnitool from ME and the ECHO com device from Borderlands 2.
 
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