(Virtual Control Room, NERV Headquarters)
“All right, that should be it. We’ve worked with the main
game AI, and the final patches are coded and going through debugging now.”
Isaac nodded, smiling along with the techs. It had been a flurry of virtual activity in the control room since the Emperor and his mad AI had escaped the attack on Sol by ‘respawning’. Arranging for an ‘in game’ way to deal with and limit the fallout of those events had been a major headache, and the source of many late night ‘discussions’ (some would call a few of them screaming matches) between Isaac, the techs, the corporate types, and the game AI.
Isaac nodded, smiling along with the techs. It had been a flurry of virtual activity in the control room since the Emperor and his mad AI had escaped the attack on Sol by ‘respawning’. Arranging for an ‘in game’ way to deal with and limit the fallout of those events had been a major headache, and the source of many late night ‘discussions’ (some would call a few of them screaming matches) between Isaac, the techs, the corporate types, and the game AI.
They had deserved a little celebration, no doubt. But there
was no rest for the weary, or the wicked. “OK, OK. We’ve got the patch ready
and going through debugging. Now, I want a check of hotspots with players in
the game, so maybe we can head off problems like this in the future. If we had
caught the cult thing early, and stamped it out, we might have been able to
avoid going to such extreme lengths. We all know how many plotlines the ‘green
Earth’ even screwed up, to say nothing of the civil war.”
When everyone had settled down, Isaac continued, “Might as
well start at the top. The Empire?”
“Stabilizing. Should be moving back to normal soon, though
the new Empress is making a play to try and change the Imperial stance on
slavery, specifically the part about nonhumans becoming slaves when they enter
the Empire.”
“Makes sense. They need to replace a lot of manpower, and
the human only thing makes them unpopular with a lot of groups.”
“Rebuilding efforts are underway already across the Empire,
focusing on the shipping and logistics side of things. Morale is in the shitter
across the Empire, so they’re trying to get people’s confidence back before
they start replacing lost hulls.”
Isaac nodded. “Good. Confederacy?”
“No major changes there. Economy is still strong, and the
military is on alert, though they’re more interested in keeping the ‘Seed
Ships’ out of their space as much as possible, and focusing on Imperials or
Jagloth refugees turned raiders and pirates than preparing for war against the
Empire. They’re taking a wait and see approach with them for now.”
Isaac scowled at the mention of that place. “The Bastard Who Shall Not Be Named still contained?”
“Affirmative. Since the ‘care package’ that wiped the
planet, we’ve been maintaining a close watch on him. He’s been killed so much
that normally by now the AI would have offered him some method of spontaneous
adaptation to survive on the surface of the planet, but according to the agreement
we made, it concurs that such an action isn’t warranted until the bastard shows
some form of contrition, which, if the latest diatribe on the forums and the
twenty-seven connection attempts with duplicate accounts are any indication, he
has shown no sign of so far. The idiot keeps trying new names and card numbers,
a couple of which even got past our subscription AI, but he probably never read
the part of the EULA where the AI matches person to character based on
brainwaves, and his pattern is red flagged.”
“Well, that was buried on page twenty-seven, so I’m not
surprised he might have missed it. I know what’s in the thing, and reading it
makes my head spin sometimes. The lawyers earned their paychecks on that one,
let me tell you.”
Isaac continued the meeting. “The Alliance? Anything new
going on there?”
“Nothing much. More than a few groups of players are
starting companies, trying to get some in game trade going. They hope to rival
Black Star for profits, but they’ve got a long way to go, since most of the
groups are still trying to pay off their first ship, but the Magellan Group is
making a good run of it. They’re already up to three freighters hauling cargo
across the Alliance.”
“Consortium?”
“Some interesting things going on there, actually. The
revelations of some of the Empire’s dealings, and the crazy stuff people have
been able to do with nano, not to mention the Black Star ships, have inspired
the crafter players to all kinds of ingenious methods. Or mad science,
depending on who you ask. We’re keeping an eye on them, to keep another Jagloth
from happening, but so far I expet the Consortium to be bringing out some cool
new innovations before long.”
“Ihm? What are the lizards doing?”
“Still not much player penetration of the Imperium, unfortunately,
but the ones who are there are going whole hog on things. We have several
players who have worked their way up to mid-level command posts in the Ihm
military, thanks to their combat prowess. And one of the female players was
actually named regional governor for a continent on the Ihm homeworld.”
“Find out who she is, and see if we can feature her in a
promo. Send the info to Morgan when you get it.”
“Will do.”
“OK, anything else we need to talk about, or can we start
the celebration for a patch well done?”
“There’s the Norma Galactic Arm situation, sir.”
“The what in the where now?”
“The Norma Arm of the Milky Way, close to the Galactic core.”
“Who do we have that has managed to get close to the
galactic core?”
“Black Star Company. They were following up on a lead they’d
gotten from raiding the Governor’s safe in orbit of Jagloth, remember?”
“Ah yeah, that expedition they were putting together. I
haven’t had as much time to watch that guy recently. So, they went through one
of the Gateways, and ended up in Norma?”
“Yeah, if they do a proper job of exploring the system, this
could kick off a whole wave of colonization and expansion in the game.”
“So what’s the problem? They get on the locals’ bad side?”
“No, they still haven’t made contact with the locals.
They’re using outdated sensor tech against stealth ships. Only reason they know
anyone’s out there is because one of the Black Star ships, a retired cruise
liner, blocked the Gate’s light for a moment, which people using visual scanners
saw.”
“So where’s the problem?”
“Well, they woke something up…”
“Oh. Oh no.”
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Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X
Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y
City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
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