Going Digital

In the year 2222 humanity went digital. At first the world was not much different. It was after all modeled after earth. Society always changes of course, and without the limitations of the physical world there were no limits left to humanity’s evolution.

The quest for meaning was the last stronghold of human conflict. A great ideological war waged on between several core groups.

There were great throngs of people who thought that the only purpose left to them was to invent the next thrill. These people would constantly be writing programs for new physics, and new worlds. Their intellectual counterparts were concerned only with self-awareness and evaluation.

They argued amongst themselves about what the greatest good, or greatest virtue may be. They programmed situations and wrote stories to explore the great enigma of agency. These were the archievists and prophets of cyberspace.

There were hosts of people who wished only to further humanity socially. They’re only campaign, despite the potential risk was to reach out to other beings to invite them to merge their world’s and cultures with our own. It was simply too easy to become isolated in an infinitely solipsistic universe.

Perhaps the most disenfranchised of all were the would be organics. These were the generations of protohumans who came into existence post-digital who desperately wished to experience life as a biological entity. There were of course still organic humans in the galaxy, but the majority of them had deeply ingrained fear of artificial intelligence–perhaps reinforced by films from the turn of the millennium that predicted a future in which machines overthrew and enslaved human masters. Most digitals did not wish to risk their world by demanding access to physical bodies.

These groups grew further and further apart over time. The philosophers became the sages and storytellers that all others looked up to. The thrill seekers made up the bulk of humanity. The socialites succeeding in making contact with and accommodating many new creatures, both organics and digitals all with truly unique ways of being. And after a great many years, the would be organics were finally allowed access to bodies.

The galaxy is a surprisingly peaceful place.

Please feel free to describe some of the worlds and creatures that have come to exist within humanity’s digital realm.