Arcadia

Increased computing efficiency also allowed the creation of a
Virtual World, which has over time become known as Arcadia – an immersive
synthetic world hosted in the data cloud. It has little of the freedom of the
internet – almost all space within it is owned and a lot of it is monitored,
unless you know how to get around this.

While many people connect using a puck and headset or glasses, some
wear retinal lenses and neural laces for increased accuracy of stimulation,
while others go all in and have implants in their eyes, ears, nerve stem and
attached to an onboard neural processor. This provides total immersion, where
the user experiences the sights, sounds, touch and movement of the virtual
world as if it were real.

Arcadia is simultaneously
a shared space and one where no common values exist. This is partly due to the
2084 equivalent of ‘Facebook Bubbles’ – cliquey communities of shared interest,
values and perspectives. However, it is also due to user abilities to change
themes and preferences.

You can
customise a number of settings, including:

o
Filtered (only see those who
interact with you); semi-filtered (only see those who you have interacted with
or know); unfiltered (see everyone currently connected).

o
Colours/smells/fonts/textures
can be tweaked – set to your own or to default.

o
Time period, clothing and
appearance, even species can be changed – either according to a set of vanilla
options or personal modifications.

o
Shortcut code can be created by
users with good coding skills – depending on coding skill and privileges, this
can ‘break’ the physics of the world.

o
Personalised locations can be
built.

o
One of the few things that
can’t be customised is the statues – these are giant depictions of various
Captains of Industry, technologists and capitalists throughout recent history.
Some permanently sponsor, and set the system admin ‘laws’, for regions of
Arcadia.

All zones of
Arcadia, in the vanilla representation, stem off the Garden – the world’s
central hub. Depending on your filter levels, this can either be crammed to
bursting point with people, like a music festival without end, or sparsely
populated. From there, one can go to several zones.

o
Directory

§  Search for people and areas of interest – often use codes to hide
more illicit activities in unrelated zones.

o
Social – “The Forum”

§  Chatrooms

§  Virtual clubs

§  Bulletin/image boards

§  Dating

o
Commerce – “The Zocalo”

§  eBay (bids)

§  Virtual high streets

§  Vendorb (stalls like gumtree)

o
Information – “The Library”

§  Entertainment

§  Politics

§  Economics

§  Science

o
Entertainment – “The Colosseum”

§  Travel & Experiences

·
Virtual travel

·
Personal services

·
Virtual consumables

§  Games

·
Sport

·
Gambling

·
Gladiator

·
Computer games

§  TV, Music, Theatre, Movies

Mainstream
content in place like the Forum is monitored, while commercial transactions in
the Zocalo are monitored... however, if you want to have a talk to someone
about something shady, you might go to the Colosseum to do it; if you want to
conduct an illicit trade, you might do it in the Library. Control and
monitoring can be subverted by using areas of Arcadia for purposes other than
those for which they were designed.

In addition,
there are a few other places where activities are not monitored.

o
Personal Storage – people can
buy their own ‘real estate’ in Arcadia and build it with whatever physical
appearance and laws they wish.

o
Pandaemonium – Procedurally/dynamically
generated space. People often go here on a dare or bet because the utter chaos
of its appearance it can be a bit of a headfuck.

o
Asphodel - space marked for
deletion but not yet overwritten – it can be unpleasant,
though not physically dangerous to one’s body in the real world if one is in a
data volume that is deleted.

Arcadia is not
the Matrix; if you get suddenly yanked out due to a power cut, or if you get
hurt or killed in virtual space, it may cause disorientation and discomfort on
emergence into the real world, but you will sustain no physical damage.

There are
stories, however, of people being tortured in Arcadia, or being subjected to
post-hypnotic programming. These may or may not be true, but it is widely
accepted that while your physical body is safe in Arcadia, what could
conceivably happen to your mind is another matter.