The Never Ending Tails

Earth is often told to have one history that defined the evolution of its every aspect. This is far from the truth; Earth never had one single history. The fact is that an infinite number of versions of earth simultaneously exist in multiple layers of realities. Everything is happening all the time, but what is happening in one reality might be quite close or very different from what is happening in another.

At the center of this web of layers is the Symphony of time, the very essence of time on earth in its multiple versions. In some of those realities, an organization called the Time Watch exists to monitor the major temporal events and lead humanity on a way that would avoid the upcoming end of time. However, in certain realities, the time watch never existed, and in some extreme case, grim scenarios came to become a legitimate reality.

Let’s take one specific version of earth where the absence of the Time Watch had led to some rather bizarre social phenomenon to happen. We will call this reality Earth Gamma Minus.

In Earth GM, the evolution of the social interactions between people of the human race got the attention of certain scientific communities as well as media geniuses that built empires around the industrial artificial creation of social virtual spaces and the manipulation of social trends and principles. One of the first giants to appear on the Global Wired Network or the G.W.N was Another Life; a Network app created in 2000 A.D that provided the users with a very basic interface.

It was able to emulate to certain extends certain social needs, such as communicating. The app used voice recognition and demanded no kind of skills to master. It also created the concept of gaming social interaction, with the establishment of points, rewards and other game mechanics, the app was not only emulating social interactions, but making them rewarding and challenging and keeping the interest at a sharp level.

The creator of Another Life, Julio Makarov switched lives from a day to another from Economic Engineer to CEO of a giant company that landed in the first spot of richest multinationals in the fall of 2004. The rise of Another Life was so fast that no one could react to the company’s massive multiplication of activities in different sectors. It was so quick in fact that by the time the first researches about the behavior of the company came out, it was already too late.

From 2005 to 2025, Another Life incorporated many industrial giants to itself such as GE, Microsoft, Apple, AT&T, Shell, Walmart, McKesson, and many others. Another Life was taking control of all the major companies in sectors going from Telecommunication to Pharmaceutics.

From 2025 to 2034, Another Life took control of the most prestigious universities in the world, and created special scholarship for certain fields such as psychology, bio-engineering, sociology, robotics, etc… Julio Makarov was ranked richest man in the world by 2027, by 2034, his fortune was much more important than the US GDP.

Another Life Inc. introduced its most important product in the summer of 2034: The Interface ID Ship. Makarov personally convinced every nation of the need to integrate the Interface ID Ship to each and every individual to, as he mentioned, “create equal chances in the new paradigm that the Interface ID Ship will create for every human being on earth.” End of quote. By 2050, 99.8% of the human population was equipped with the Interface ID Ship technology.

Julio Makarov did not lie when he Said the the Interface ID Ship would create a new paradigm. The introduction of the technology changed everything about the meaning of humanity.

The Interface ID Ship was not really a ship, it was in fact a true miracle of Nano and Bio-robotics. The interface was in fact millions of Nano-robots that were engineered in a synthetic stem cell like organism. The robots had two major advantages; they were perfectly programmable and had the ability to replace various original cells, multiplying in fast pace and building organs and other complex tissues as they were naturally formed by the body.

The robots dormant are capsuled in a pill that is taken orally by the person who wants to be equipped. Once in the digestive system, the capsule breaking down starts the Nano robots who then manage to integrate every important organ and tissues of the host body. The robots acquire then the genetic code of the host to upgrade his living tissues.

This lead to the creation of perfectly functional bodies that can be modified at will through the Interface Program. This basically gave Makarov tremendous powers over the rest of the human race as he rose as Game Master.

The quasi total use of the Interface ID Ship by the human population as well as the immense political and economic power of Makarov made it possible for him to change the whole social structure of the world. The social contract of Rousseau was modified for a new life apparatus. A life 2.0 Game as he was described by Makarov; in this game, multiple programs were designed under a cast classification.

The casts were: Gamma, Delta, Zeta, Beta, Alpha and Omega.

The Gammas were the low level workers that didn’t really need any kind of skills in the activities they were given. They were modified to be halfwits, and live forever. There physical aspect was flawless, but lacked any kind of beauty. They were given limited achievements in the game, and minimal neural stimulus powered.

The Deltas were pretty much like the Gammas, but were given enhanced physical force to carry more demanding tasks. They were given access to middle rate stimulus and a little bit wider ray of possible achievements.

The final lower class were the Zeta, they were the bureaucratic classes and were specifically engineered to carry on management functions and official functions, their cognitive abilities were highly increased but only for their specific field needs. They were given a respectable number of challenges and pretty mild and complex stimulus as rewards. All the lower classes were sterilized through their program. An optimal number has been chosen for them, and they were meant to keep the same occupations forever, carrying over their shoulders the new paradigm.

The high classes were different, they were actually able to reproduce. The Betas form the political and economical elites; they are the first basis of the upper game. However, they are limited to one offspring per couple, and they are only allowed to breed among themselves. The Betas were also given the choice to terminate their game if they wished to do so after a quota of 150 years. They are broken down into nano-dust that is then regrouped for study purposes. It can seem intense, but many terminate their games as soon as they reached the 150 year quota.

The Alphas were the Star players. The Alphas have no obligations, no jobs, they can do anything that is possible in the game, their experience is way more exciting than any other cast and are broadcast through interface to the rest of humanity as main entertainment. The Alphas are also given a random Achilles Heel weak point that automatically leads to their withdrawal from the game and break down to nano-dust. The Alphas are able to breed freely as much as they can, and can use the maximum potential of the Game.

There was only one Omega in the whole human race, the Omega is no one else than Julio Makarov, who dubbed himself game master. He designed the rules, he had the ultimate player abilities. He could use any human on earth as an avatar, and no one can ever know that it happened; alternative memories are created to fill the gap.

He also had a power of life and death over the players, and was the one rewarding or scolding them. The game master was literally hooked to the game. And for more than 900 years, Earth was his playground, until his mental condition switched to an extreme: The God Complex.