Frozen Soul, and other works: Epilogue

(Virtual Room in NERV HQ)

“So, what? They uncover a find of insane possibilities, and then proceed to just blow it up? What is he thinking?”

Isaac sighed at Morgan’s outburst. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand her feelings. After all, he really wished that someone had taken the time to examine the wreck of the T’ler and fully unlock all of its secrets. The dev team had taken a lot of time and put in a ton of work adding all sorts of Easter eggs, references, and homages to different works on that ship. To have it just unceremoniously blown up was disappointing, to say the least.

However, it isn’t like he didn’t understand why Mollen had ordered the strike. He shook his head, and tried to explain, again, to Morgan, “He didn’t have a choice, sweetie. Not as far as he could tell. The players weren’t meant to find this secret yet, not until they were stronger, and could potentially cleanse the T’ler of the bioforms. Then, it would have been a treasure trove of scientific research for whoever claimed it.”

“But the Black Stars found the thing way too early. Tech hasn’t improved enough to get to a point where the forces were able to easily defeat the bioforms. Seeing their resilience and how dangerous they were, Mollen made the call that they were, simply, too dangerous to leave on their own. Unfortunately, there was no way to realistically quarantine them, and no one knows how long it would take for them to die off. It was a disaster waiting to happen, really.”

Morgan was not so easily consoled. “But think of the marketing! There were whole revenue streams we could have introduced with this setup! They had a board game ready to go, this survival horror exploration game where you have to escape the evil space ship without getting killed by the nasty alien killing machines. And there was a computer game tie-in, too! Hell, even the tabletop department was looking to cash in! They had some idea of using the bioforms as one team in some kind of wargame setting, with different miniatures for different units.”

“Uh, honey, the tabletop guys were joking with you. There’s already a wargame. We used it as inspiration. The bioforms were an homage to that game. Filing off the serial numbers and changing a few things to make it an homage to another series is one thing. Doing a competing game? No way. We couldn’t have done our own wargame without getting sued.”

Morgan’s avatar visibly deflated with the news. “What? Damn it. Is there anything else in the game that we might get sued for? Just so I don’t get my hopes up.”

“Well, if we had put it in, then the Chaos Brigade would be problematic, for sure. They’re based on that same wargame I was mentioning. But they’re a player-based group, and not something we’re responsible for. Even if they are trying to make their eightfold path a religion in the game.”

“Ugh. Well, at least the religion can’t do anything to damage the rest of the game.” Her eyes narrowed at him. “Wait a minute. I know that expression. What is it? This player religion can’t actually affect the game world, right?”

Isaac took a moment to readjust his collar nervously. “Well, not at the moment. But, with the way things are set up, psychic energy does have some… well, channels and flows, you might say. And it is possible, though not very likely, that enough energy over enough time in the right sort of way could… push the boundaries of what the channels might be able to handle, and create a spillover effect. Might not be exactly the event that they want, but they’d definitely get something happening.”

Morgan groaned. “Fine, fine. Write it up, and let me know what could happen. So, the Black Stars found a massive surprise for the entire game universe, and promptly blew it up. All before anyone could actually get on board and actually study the thing, to find out its secrets and maybe advance the tech base of the game universe considerably. So none of those boosts are coming any time soon. Did anything good come out of this?”

“Well, the Black Stars did manage to get the T’ler’s database, so that isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, they’re going to find that, once they find a way to connect to it and translate it, that the majority of the information is corrupted, or horribly out of date. Like, star charts over ten thousand years old. Sure, stars don’t change relative position to one another that much in time, but any planets around those stars? That’s enough time for entire civilizations to rise and fall.”

Morgan groaned. “Damn it, they already have star charts. And dead civilizations are the last thing we need to introduce more of into the game at this point. Is there anything in there that they can actually use to move copies and get people buying game time?”

Isaac frowned. He knew that Morgan was just under pressure. The higher ups were happy with how the game was going, but they were ‘concerned’ with the lack of monetization, feeling that NERV was leaving a lot of potential profit on the table by not introducing more monetization methods. So far, the dev team had been able to hold them off, keeping a cash shop out of the game. So far.

Frankly, he felt it was a better game without the shop, but the marketing department had a vice president who really wanted to squeeze every dollar out of their properties. He had been the guy who basically made a gambling model for the company’s soccer game, with its “Super Team” card packs. The dev teams hated him, but the shareholders loved him, so there wasn’t anything they could do about him. Unless… no, Murder was certainly an option, but it was too messy, and he was too pretty for jail. Well, that, and the fact that he wouldn’t get to be involved in the game if he was locked up.

Still, that wasn’t Morgan’s fault. She was just the messenger. “Well, there is the Artifact that the Black Stars recovered, along with the database…”

Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter

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
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X