Beyond Reality

Proxies

"Contrary to what the taglines would have you believe, you can't, in fact, be whoever you want to be. There's a reason 'Reality' is still half of the VR acronym. Even in the virtual world, social classes and ranks still exist, companies still have agendas, and governments still hold all the power." - R.U.E., international watchdog

The end of the Wars and the international cooperation that followed ushered in a new era of innovation and creativity. Prior to the conflict, humanity was close to reaching several key technological milestones but was derailed when hostilities broke out. The Protocols, however, allowed many countries to redirect national budgets away from defense and towards the arts and sciences, bringing about discoveries such as profitable nuclear fusion, quantum computing, and immersive virtual reality.

Breakthroughs in neural interfacing technology allowed engineers to construct environments where consumers could interact directly with their surroundings using all of their senses, not just sight and sound. With a simple neural link, an individual could be transported all the way across the world, able to feel their environment, smell the air, taste the cuisine. And with each generation of updates, the fidelity of these artificial realities only improved, giving rise to entire worlds of simulated content. Some environments were better suited for peaceful purposes, others were tailored to accommodate combat simulators. Both types grew into flourishing markets, and each one plays a very distinct role today.

Peaceful Environments

While there are more than a thousand different virtual reality environments that host countless numbers of programs, Mirrors is by far the oldest and most popular of them all. The creator of Mirrors was a veteran of the Anarchy Wars who envisioned a world to which people could flee, from the gloom, from pain, from chaos—all of which were far too common in the years following the end of hostilities. It became so popular that the corporate office was forced to grow from two to two thousand employees within the first year alone. Almost overnight, Mirrors became a household name practically synonymous with virtual reality.

Mirrors is best known for two revolutionary accomplishments. The first being its use of crowdsourced sensory recording. Anyone around the world can contribute to the vast database of recorded neurological responses that are later curated and coded into the virtual environment. The second is a direct product of the first, and the reason for the company's namesake—Earth 2.0. This duplicate world is a near exact copy of the one we live in, updated daily, thanks to the cooperation and contributions from users, with obvious privacy and security exceptions.

Hostile Environments

Atlas, like Mirrors, is a high-fidelity hyperrealistic virtual environment, though unlike Mirrors, Atlas is designed specifically for combat operations. Since most VR content is derived from actual neurological responses, the crafting of Atlas had to be carefully and intentionally thought out. While Mirrors has its own set of combat simulators and FPS games, most don't reach the level of true reality that Atlas attains.

Because of this, Atlas is not available to individual users. Rather, it is sold to most professional leagues, national squads, and centers of higher education.