[RFC]The Metaverse

[Dartz]

First of all, a story fragment.

The Metaverse was, from a technical standpoint, a marvel of software engineering. It was a wonder of the digital world. It was an open-source. distributed, peer-to-peer real-time fully-immersive social network. Anyone could pull down the source code that the ‘verse ran on, compile it, and run it up on his, her or its own personal hardware and join in the fun. It ran on waved PDA's. It ran on dedicated server farms. It pulsed through veins and arteries of data that held the city together and gave it life. It was the world ad if it was dictated by the internet. It was where you could be anyone and anything you wanted. It was free, it was wild, it was vibrant and throbbing and pulsing with a visceral unreality that made it all the more fascinating. It was the world's own bazaar where everything and anything was possible, provided you had the sense to figure out how to code a plugin to your client that could do it. You could fight in a tournament using whatever set of combat rules suited. You could find a quiet corner and try our a whole new sexual experience in a body entirely different to your own. There were sports fields and racing leagues. There were markets trading virtual currency for real items, and vice versa. There were hacking contests. There were folks who went around in a Avatars wearing a shirt and tie with a question mark for a face who thought it was epic lulz to redecorate people's apartment-server if they didn't have a good lock on the door. You could log in with a public terminal with a basic avatar, you could log in through a full-immersive sensory-replication body-suit or neural induction gear. It was even possible to play with a mouse, keyboard and mic, FPS-style. The only limit was your budget, your hardware and your imagination. It was a barely controlled anarchy, with the only real rules hardcoded into the clients themselves. Don't lie about your real gender and age, no oversized avatars, some technical requirements to keep things from just falling over, and that was basically it.

It was, in Jet's humble opinion, the coolest damned thing in all of Fenspace as of its public launch at BubbleCon.

It helped that, through a quirk of acquaintance, she'd been involved in the project since the very first alpha's, years before the closed beta's had begun. and was the proud owner of the Fifth ‘verse server and first standalone server in existence. She'd been little more than a tester, someone needed a cyber to test certain features, and Jet was the cyber someone knew best. Even when Jet'd left Genaros, she was still testing the ability of each new feature in the 'verse to handle interwave lag over planetary distances. Her only contribution to the actual code was the personal flight module…. Solely because it'd gotten annoying walking everywhere. It was dirt-basic, crude, and not exactly elegant but it worked. It went into the mainline, and in six months had become something almost unrecognisable as Real Hackers™ found their way to fixing it.

So, Jet had a tester credit, a minor contributor's credit and that was it. Jet had also known most of the original creation team personally long before they'd actually went public with the thing and hit BNF status. Jet even remembered the barroom discussion that'd brought the whole ‘verse about, when the spark of an idea had first flared and caught hold years earlier. Jet pondered on the fact that that might, technically have made her the Hiro Protagonist of this particular metaverse. The thought always made her smile.

Sn0wcat finally made it big. After years bemoaning the lack of funds to take his idea beyond a small cluster of friends who'd worked together on the GWS, most of them had finally hit it big.

Such things let her get away with things not normally allowed. Jet's own private server still sat in that same building Jet'd lived in when she first launched up to Genaros station way back in 2012, right before the emergency con and a message from a certain Doc on a Rock that changed her life's direction for good. It was almost unique among current ‘verse servers in that it was capable of bridging out onto the wider interwave, bringing the ‘verse all the way out to Mars and into Jet's own private office. It was a feature that'd been removed for 'bandwidth and security' reasons right before the public beta. Jet's was grandfathered in to keep it, and keep her in contact with the station. Talk about your home away from home.

She made a point to remember to log in once a week or so, to check for messages or occasionally to meet people in a private and secure place. Anyone on the interwave with a client could browse into Jet's server and take a look around. In the public area, there really wasn't much more than the basic white room. All four walls and floor where made from the same mono-textured backlit milky glass. There were no shadows to render, enough friction to walk. It was the bare minimum a public area could consist of. It was little more than a directory. A few simple filling cabinets sat in a corner, containing a mirror of the Stingray Hardsuit packages. There were also some Highway Star files, including a frankly epic cutaway drawing, some wallpapers and a 'Race to 400' badge. Beside them, was a donation box, where people could donate to the Star project, and get themselves some subscriber-only benefits, and a Highway-Star only mailbox. They could also link out to the actual Highway Star site.

Someone was running a search through the filing using a basic Senshi avatar. It was the default Aiko model with borderline uncanny-valley eyes and a basic tactile mesh. She was fiddling around in the filing cabinet. Jet could call up her details; IP Address, age, sex, client and whatever else she wanted to tell about herself.

“Sorry,” she said, wearing an embarrassed smile. “But how do you download stuff in here?”

“Take the folder you want from the cabinet,” Jet repeated the same explanation “It'll unlock when it's been downloaded to your home computer.”

“Oh,” said the Senshi. The Avatar's expression didn't change, but Jet swore it should've been blushing. “It's my first time in one of these servers,”

“Welcome to the 'verse, “ Jet said, tiredly. She was more concerned with getting into her own private area. Being a cyber, Jet's client was a hell of a lot more advanced. Given the right data, she was capable of interacting with this whole virtual world as thoroughly as the real, and beyond. It all got very matrixy, and Jet wasn't sure how to describe it otherwise. In the real world, a buffer computer provided a safety net, but her own hardware was more than capable of interpreting the signals being sent from it, and constructing the entire world inside her own mind. With a thought, she could switch back to the real world, check up on something, then slip right back in with only the briefist flicker of disorientation. From a technical standpoint, it used a subset of the standardised puppet-body interfaces, only this puppet was a rough surface simulation.

Jet sent her personal login to the server, being rewarded milliseconds later by a simple door fading into view. The Senshi still wouldn't be able to see it, she didn't have the correct permissions. As far as she was concerned, Jet just disappeared.

Jet just had to touch the door handle to materialise on the other side. There was just a momentary flash of disorientation as her senses adjusted to the abrupt change in input.

This was the real server. This was the real metaverse. It was a replica of Jet's bedroom, of his bedroom from before. Jet'd begun creating it way back in 2012, during what she liked to refer to as her homesick period. The basic layout with collision detection and texture meshes for the walls, the bed, shelving and the like had taken three days. Everything else had been added in the four years or so since. Cupboards acted as filing cabinets, while the television was really a representation of a media player. There were ebooks on the shelves which Jet'd never gotten around to actually reading and there were a few little widgets to play with hung around, mostly toys and models. The laptop on the desk acted as a visual representation of the server load, and as a terminal emulator for when things needed to really get done.

The real metaverse covered all the senses. Sight, sound, hearing, smell and touch. Jet could brush her fingers against the fabric of the bedsheets and feel its delicious softness. Even though her avatar still had the same metal fingers and armour, she had the same sensory mesh as everyone else. This room was filled with hundreds of different textures. Evening sunlight provided warmth through an open window, chased by the scent of perpetually fresh cut grass. The curtains even fluttered just-so, but in a way that made it obvious they were a simulation.

Getting this level of detail was near-maxing the outbound connection of the server, pushing the processors in the buffer system to their maximum. It was so heavy, she could only log in at certain times when the bandwidth at Grunthal freed up. She could still feel the lag between touch and sensation, a slight microsecond delay that would be all but imperceptible to a regular human.

The metaverse never felt real. It was always possible to tell it was a simulation. The textures where all hollow meshes. Nothing would buckle or yield when touched. Sounds were all recorded files rather than hardware generated on the fly. Objects made the same noise no matter where you hit them. The unarticulated joints on the figurines on the shelf would never move, while in reality, Jet had to consciously try not to break them when picking them up.

In a wardrobe, Jet held a pair of other avatars. One was himself, based of a number of photographs, with hardcoated jeans and blue t-shirt. It was also the oldest, dating right back to the initial testing. The other was an athletic extrapolation of what might've been under the armour, complete with a choice of outfits. Jet picked one or the other depending on her mood, and who she was going to see, or what she was going to be doing when she got there. She could select them merely by touch.

Jet didn't bother. She'd only logged in to check a few of her messages.

The Highway Star mailbox was full. There were the usual requests for technical information, and the details of an upcoming show in the UK Jet would have to attend to keep one of the sponsors happy. It wasn't too onerous, Jet'd always wanted to go to Goodwood. Another was from a son of an Arab oil sheik who was very frivolous with his money, and was trying to cajole Jet into setting up a production line for the things, or at least building him his own one.

When she considered it, The Star was the best thing Jet'd ever done. A giant pain in the wing to keep running and maintain, but worth it. It brought contacts, it brought friends, it brought money and it brought in the true Fen currency.... bragging rights. Most of all, it brought fun and variety to Jet's life.

Finally, she moved over to her personal items.

A chill ran through her body... her real body... as she read the first one. It was the brush of deathly cold steel on bare skin,

Sn0wcat was dead.

Sn0wcat had thrown himself from his office window.

Well, the basic plot of the story is, it leads Jet to discover *who* provided the funding to get the metaverse running and why... and why it's not accessible outside of Genaros station. It also leads Jet to a 'puppet party' to chase up a lead... (Anyone seen episode 3 of GiTS Second GiG? And where does Jet get the puppet, and what sort of puppet is it?).

The basics.

It goes live and publicas of Bubblecon in 2015.
Public Beta is March 2015.
It's best described as Facebook meets WoW meets 4chan meets CounterStrike.
It's distributed. Every client provides it's spare processing power to running the metaverse as a whole.
It's open source. You can run it on anything you can compile it on. It'll even run on a basic unwaved laptop, the same as a simple FPS, then scaleright up to full neural induction. You can also set up your own personal metaverse on your station of choice, if you can get it to compile.
Why it isn't allowed to connect from outside of Genaros ( usually) is a plot point.
It's fake. The metaverse always feels unreal... unless you're running massively dedicated hardware for reality simulation, and the models you're using have been designed for that. Most models are just basic meshes, with touch and texture being added to the standard appearance.
Until mid 2016, it's limited to Genaros station, with a few outliers having their own private systems for whatever reasons.
It's been tested since about April 2012, among a group of people who worked on the Genaros Weather System (Where Jet used to work right after boosting to space, and sold out her partnership in the metaverse when she joined the Panzer Kunst). Most of them went on to be the main administrators of the system.
It only went mainstream because sn0wcat got funding to bring it beyond his main circle.
Full volumetric hardware and texture is possible within the specifications... but it's limited to folks with the money to spent on massive amounts of computing power, and who have the intent to code a table that responds as a wooden table should.

Edit: This is what happens when the only wifi/net access is in a pub
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

This "fully distributed, everyone adds power to everyone" is meant to work within one large system, right? If I run a system on Mars, it doesn't make sense to spent much computer power on things that happen on a Metaverse system on the moon, even if they are connected somehow.

[Dartz]

It applies to within the particular instance of that metaverse. You connect o a metaverse, your client provides some of it's computing power to that metaverse and only the metaverse you've connected to.
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[M Fnord]

Anyone seen episode 3 of GiTS Second GiG?

(Tachikoma #1) "So, these are what you'd call perverts?"

(Tachikoma #2) "No, they're rich, I think you're supposed to call 'em 'eccentric.'"
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[ECSNorway]

I, for one, sure as hell wouldn't set something like that up on any PC in my possession that wasn't firewalled to hell away from the rest of my network. Or on a separate network entirely. Too much of a "hacker's paradise".
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

I'm not sure how much it would compare to the KoFen system at the same time. I know I've posted this snippet before:

It wasn't until late April 2014 that the Prometheus Forge crew managed to get back to working on their own projects. With the massive increase in bandwidth available from the improved Interwave system (for which they'd assisted) A.C. decided to work on something fun and planed an update to the KoFen system.

The original system was based around fixed units with limited interworking and expansion. They took this and used the greater bandwidth to move the server units (the part of the system A.C. felt had to be as secure as possible) back to fixed (and guarded) locations and allow the smaller and easier to sell interface units out to the general public.

Removing the servers allowed easier maintenance and upgrading, and allowed Lebia to introduce a public ‘sandbox', an area with a published interface that people could create and run their own games in. The most popular of these would be voted on every six months and converted to native code (with the commiserate increase in speed, detail and sensory input. You could, of course, pay to have the conversion done).

Somewhat unsurprisingly, when the Cyber Confederation opened the new servers at the beginning of June the huge demand brought the majority of Fen-net to a crawl.

There are further enhancements that would be available by 2015, but the story it's attached to just won't complete.

Frustrated? Who, me?

Anyway, I could see it as another competing system. Which would interesting in it's own right. But I also see Lebia (and others) putting together a different system that isn't as limited, probably with a KoFen sandbox driver.

And I agree with ECSNorway, I wouldn't have it on my main system or network.

As to the possibility of Puppets, depends on the capabilities Jet wants. Vulpine Fury for normal-ish, A.C. for more...special...designs (Noah's probably not going be much help here). At least, those are the ones currently known to the Collective. You could create a new character if you want, but remember who they'd be up against.

[robkelk]

Somewhat unsurprisingly, when the Cyber Confederation opened the new servers at the beginning of June the huge demand brought the majority of Fen-net to a crawl.

That's just one reason why every StellviaCorp and Artemis station, Crystal Titusville, and the Epsilon Blade have dedicated Interwave nodes - control of the communications hardware leads to control of the message queue, so important messages can still get through even in situations like these. (The Digamma Thunderbolt and the Rinna Kazamatsuri will also be tied into this network.)

And, yes, there is a gateway between "StellviaNet" and the Global Frequency, just in case - it's physically located at the Nikaido Foundation headquarters. (It's up to Mal whether Sora tied any of the VVS systems in, but if she did, Takami would have limited GlaDOS' access. Likewise, there can be a node on Prometheus Forge if A.C. and Lebia want one. And that'd be about it...)

As to the possibility of Puppets, depends on the capabilities Jet wants. Vulpine Fury for normal-ish, A.C. for more...special...designs (Noah's probably not going be much help here).

Not unless you want a particular meganekko... and are willing to wait a while.

Now that I think about it, I suspect Noah wouldn't really be interested in the whole KoF / Metaverse / Better Than Life / holodeck experience. Yoriko was (back in the day), and Takami might be, but the rest of the Stellvians strike me as being more interested in the real world than in a simulation thereof. Certainly, Noah's experience with thionite gives him incentive to remain firmly grounded in reality...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

Well, I figure it's something of KoFen's opposite, offering a very different experience. The metaverse is for people who want to do the Snow Crash thing. It's a lot rougher, a lot wilder and has to run reliably on very different hardware. It also does just about anything from public chatrooms, spectator sports, business meetings and events.... anything anyone can think to code up, for good or ill. You're responsible for securing your own server, setting out your own stall, and being careful what you download. (The lack of security underlying the system is part of the plot, mind).

From what I gather, KoFen is, to be short, something of a walled garden. So it's a guaranteed safe, secure high-quality experience, at a price.

I was about to say that the 'verse isn't likely to be addictive because it usually teeters on the brink of the uncanny valley for most things, but then I remembered WoW.

And well, given the.... character... of a the Puppet Party, it would require certain special hardware just to get in the door. Jet knows AC better than VF so would likely contact her first, unless AC's outright too busy at the time. Jet's only going because she thinks someone wants to tell her something important about sn0wcat's death.... but is unable to get the information to her without being watched. In the Puppet Party, they'll likely get lost among the sea of dolls and be able to pass things on. And we'll have Ford being jealous on the comm-link, and Jet being just plain out of her depth....
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[Proginoskes]

Another competitor to the Metaverse would be Second Life: I'm sure by 2015 or so, especially in Fenspace's timeline, either Linden Labs has opened the world to development even further, or SL has been cracked and worlds out of Linden's control abound. Either way, I can't imagine Linden not developing Total Immersion support, in addition to the current First-Person and Flying Camera screenviews supported by the client software. And Second Life is already Facebook meets 4chan meets Geocities (Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!) in an MMO-style 3d world.

[HRogge]

Which only means that a lot of AIs and hackers have countless of hours of work to get adapters and gateways between the three worlds up and running.

As an open source software, I can see that Metaverse will quickly spawn a lot of strange additions, mods, bugfixes and similar things.

If KoFen is also open-source, the two systems will begin copying abilities and code from each other, which mean they will converge in long term.

[Bob Schroeck]

...I'm just sitting here being appalled at the thought of metaspace griefers...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Dartz]

It's a lot more expansive than Second Life though.... but it's only a matter of time before people begin selling the 'apartments' and buildings they've programmed into the thing for real hard cash. You set up your 'building' the same way you set up a webserver on the web, and it does much the same thing. It could be a public meeting place, a chatroom, a Joe's personal metaverse site..... It could even be a high class establishment with clientele carefully vetted for quality of avatar and general reputation. I'm trying to remember what exactly it was like in Snow Crash and how it worked.

As an open source software, I can see that Metaverse will quickly spawn a lot of strange additions, mods, bugfixes and similar things.

Followed by the usual accusations of code-theft and infringements.... and bits of jailbroken hardware appearing in places and being used for things it wasn't really intended for.

And yes, griefer's exist.... oh boy do they. As do that unique class of elitists who insists that if a newbie can't figure it out, they aren't worth being told how..... who were newbies themselves about 2 weeks previous and seem to have forgotten all about it. It's an anarchy, because it's pretty hard to outright ban people from it. You can boot a sever and revoke their address/name but that's about it, and maybe add the user to a blacklist that's circulated around by a cabal of high-ranking system administrators with enough influence and clout to keep the whole chaotic aspidistra flying while steadfastly denying such a cabal exists.
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[Cobalt Greywalker]

Likewise, there can be a node on Prometheus Forge if A.C. and Lebia want one.

Of course there's an Interwave backbone node on the Forge. The did help develop the Mk. II version. It's just not a notable node. The White Stallion has a variant on a Mk. II setup installed, not having the space for a full Mk. II (even if the Mk. II is a quarter the size of the original and the Stallion is larger than the Blade). It's only about 100MB/s and (much to A.C.'s frustration) not practical as a system for sale.

From what I gather, KoFen is, to be short, something of a walled garden. So it's a guaranteed safe, secure high-quality experience, at a price.

If KoFen is also open-source, the two systems will begin copying abilities and code from each other, which mean they will converge in long term.

The only thing that's open source is the KoFen sandbox. This is by design, as the processing nodes are frighteningly powerful. Gina Langley's body has a Quality Control reject as its CPU, which should say a lot as to how powerful the fully capable ones are. Without the safeties they could easily rank as Shadowrun type Ultraviolet class nodes. Also, they were created during the Boskone War and as such A.C. didn't want to replace Thionite with BTLs.
That said, there are a few KoFen servers around with looser controls. They are mostly for medical purposes.

[Dartz]

Actually, that's a thundering good idea for what the big-bads plan to do with the co-opted system. While most metaverse clients don't run near life-sim level, the system as a whole with the combined spare processing power of most of the computers (including some waved) on a highly populated space station, at a minimum of gigabyte speeds through fibre connections, would have little trouble pulling that level of simulation off.

Mind if I use it?

I'd been stuck trying to figure out what the Boskonians who provided the seed-cash, and who're putting pressure on the 'verse administrators want. That could well be it. It also gives me what Jet's contact wants to give her at that Puppet Party.... he wants to give her sn0wcats personal root login, and needs the un-watched time to tell Jet some of what's been going on.
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[robkelk]

What might they want... Hmmmmm...

• A new addiction, replacing thionite with Better Than Life.
  
• Mind control by way of simulations. (Train people to do what the plotters want them to do by way of Pavlovian conditioning in Metaspace. It's like the catgirl machine, but without the ears, tail, and fur.)
  
• The weeding out from the genetic pool of the people who would rather dream than live in the real world - they're "in the matrix" for so long, they don't reproduce. (The reason doesn't have to make sense to sane people; that's why Mads Scientists are called "mad," after all. Even if this works, this is a dangerous ideology for the future of Fenspace where handwavium responds well to dreams.)
  
• A plot by some crackpot group on Central Station to reduce the ability of Genaros Station to resist takeover of L5 by Central. (Again, "mad" science.)
  
• Other
  

--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

The first two, definitely. That's perfect.

"Yeah, but that hyper-realistic tech demo took over a month just to render one-minute of flight. Getting near that in real-time..."

"...would require the combined processing power of an entire city's worth of computers, all networked together giving their spare processing cycles into the whole. Genaros itself is the rendering engine."

"....Chigusho,"
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[Cobalt Greywalker]

I don't mind someone taking on the BTL idea. It just would have been easier with the KoFen system and A.C. knew that, so she took steps.

[Black Aeronaut]

Hey, didn't someone already make an anime film about this sort of thing? I think it was Summer Wars, where in an AI created by a genius is used by the US Department of Defense in some test that goes wildly out of control as the AI hacks accounts to take their access rights. This is bad because in this system the authority that a person has in IRL translates into this digital world. In short, if someone has the authority to shut down all the power in a given region, and this AI hacked that person's account, then it gains the ability to do that.

Anyhow, I can imagine that someone coded up an AI that had similar capabilities in cypher breaking and with a similar desire: to be the best at everything and to be defeated by no one. A highly dangerous and volatile combination.

This would probably even freak out other AIs that are normally antagonists, such as Agatha Clay and Quatro since they would be targeted as well. (Hell, they being brought low by this rogue AI is probably how they're brought to justice.)

Thoughts?

[Dartz]

The first thing that post made me think about was Ghost in the Shell's 2501, since I haven't seen Summer Wars.

it might be possible for a rogue AI or software agent to take control of the 'verse itself, but that might be another story. That could be a damn fine story in it's own right.
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[HRogge]

I don't mind someone taking on the BTL idea. It just would have been easier with the KoFen system and A.C. knew that, so she took steps.

KoFen is more centralized and more concentrated on "better graphics" than the Metaverse... even this two factors alone makes it easier to design it for BTL style software.

[HRogge]

Here is a preview of the coming wiki entry for Metaverse... data is mostly from Dartz, with a lot of text and tuning by me.
We are looking forward to comments.

#######################

[big]The Metaverse[/big]

The Metaverse was, from a technical standpoint, a marvel of software engineering. It was a wonder of the digital world. It was an open-source. distributed, peer-to-peer real-time fully-immersive social network.

Anyone could pull down the source code that the ‘verse ran on, compile it, and run it up on his, her or its own personal hardware and join in the fun. It ran on waved PDA's. It ran on dedicated server farms. It was beginning of the widespread virtual reality people later called ‘cyberspace'.

The Metaverse was only limited by the available computer resources in the network and the abilities of the users to create virtual worlds. Some Fen just used it for gaming, similar to MMO back on Earth, some AI used it to make part of their home in Fenspace accessible to the normal Fen.

[big]History[/big]

The original Metaverse code was developed by a group at Genaros. The came up with the original distributed virtual reality environment and ran it through the early development cycles, making a usable piece of software out of it.

The Genaros Metaverse quickly grew through the whole station, becoming as complex as the real world, sometimes even more complex. It became the crowded stations playground, bazaar, cathedral, racing track and anything else its users could imagine. There was no oversight, no walled garden keeping users safe. For some, this was a turn-off, for most it was the main attraction. It was far more wild-west, and a security nightmare for corporate networks.

The team on Genaros kept pushing their open source marvel forward, but kept the Genaros Metaverse disconnected from other places in the solar system. Even years after the release of the first ‘stable' Metaverse code base there are still a lot of tourists coming to Genaros to visit the ‘original Metaverse'. When Fen are talking about ‘the Metaverse' without any kind of specification, they most likely talk about the Genaros Metaverse system.

[big]The Metaverse Incident[/big]

In mid 2014 an investor approached the Genaros Metaverse team, willing to spend a lot of money to stabilize the hard- and software base of the Genaros system. With this new influx of resources, the developer team quickly began to extend their system quickly.

In 2015, during BubbleCon, the team announced their cleaned up and extended system as open to the public. It became the mayor tourist attraction on Genaros in the next months, with lots of Fen enjoying the new quality of the Metaverse virtual reality.

But below the surface something dark began to grow.

A few months after BubbleCon one of the three main developers died after jumping out of the window of a high building. It was judged as suicide. Some times later the second one was shot by an assassin the police could not track down.

In the end it was discovered that the investor who had put its money into the Metaverse, were a proxy for the organized crime. Using a combination of bribery and death threats, they managed to take over the central control of Metaverse and had used it for their own purpose.

Pooling the computer resources of large part of the Metaverse network, they had setup a small virtual reality practically indistinguishable from reality. Exploiting this new tool they had started to manipulate certain people by keeping them inside the virtual reality and forcing them to hand over important information or even brainwashing them into obedience.

After the influence of the organized crime had been uncovered and removed, the control of the network has been handed over to the Council of Genaros, to make the administration of Metaverse more transparent and reliable.

[big]Culture of the Metaverse[/big]

Culture in the metaverse is as varied as that in Fenspace as a whole. It can be intimidating to newcomers, and has been compared to the early Internet and world wide web, both positively and negatively. A commonly heard remark is that the metaverse ‘was better when the user joined, and that it's just became commercialised and full of assholes since then, none of whom know the rules and etiquette the user built up. While the quality of discourse has dropped rapidly.

There are no real rules within the ‘verse, beyond those established and enforced by particular server administrators and owners. Breaking the rules on a server means banning from that server and nowhere else. Only directly threatening the integrity of the ‘verse itself can lead to a client being banned.

People are generally judged on the quality of their avatars, and on the quality of the server they maintain. Some of the most exclusive servers are known to have strict code requirements before they even consider allowing admission. There's nothing at all stopping anyone from having a three-meter penis as a personal avatar, but the scorn of their peers. While it's possible, said individual may find themselves quickly turned away from most gateway addresses.

Local etiquette varies depending on the server. Good users are expected to lurk for a while to get a feel before chiming in. BIFFO's may find they get a cold reception if they just charge in. Trolling happens, as do flame wars (with real virtual flames). Most of those responsible find themselves server-banned or just plain ignored.

People are generally considered to be responsible for their own security... both client and server. However, just walking in through ‘unlocked doors' and wrecking up the place is as frowned upon as it is in real life. Genuine hackers may just leave a note in private when they notice a problem, and offer friendly advice on how to fix it.

Just don't do anything you wouldn't do in real-life, and don't feed the trolls. Watch your back, shoot straight and never... ever make a deal with anyone who uses a dragon as an avatar.

[big]Technical stuff[/big]

The metaverse core is a set of adaptive algorithms, designed to take any kind of computer resource allocated for the Metaverse network and use it for generating the output for its users. That means users with low powered hardware might get a lot less quality than users with better gear. To compensate for this the metaverse software tries to distribute processing jobs from low powered nodes to high powered to level the playing field a bit more.

The Metaverse has a lot of settings to determine the quality of the output, which can lead to instances that focus on one things like graphics but ignore others like touch feedback. The user experience is highly variable, depending on a multitude of things such as the programming skills of the server owner, the depth of their wallet, the quality of your own interface and the current local loading.

The metaverse protocol lacks proper dumpshock protection by default, however and was never intended to be used with a hardwired neural interface. While some dedicated hardware and software modules can add it... in generally getting booted out of the system, or even just logging out naturally at high levels of sensory load can be disorientating and uncomfortable. It's also possible to overload the neural inputs, either through a carelessly designed module, or a malicious one.

The verse is wholly dependant on the common sense and general goodwill of its users to function correctly. This is both its biggest strength, and greatest weakness. Several aspects of the metaverse protocol remain trivially easy to exploit, while the openness and freedom of the system depend on them remaining trivially easy to exploit.

The following list of quality settings assumes that all settings are set similar.

Basic level

Hardware: unwaved laptop with a decent GPU, waved PDA
Required Interface: keyboard, mouse and/or gamepad.

Metaverse looks like an FPS, maybe Crysis level graphics if the system can take it. Collision detection is working, you can grab things by a mouse click and use your keyboard to chat. At this level the system doesn't even bother attempting sensation processing, its concentrating just on visual output. If necessary textures and anti-aliasing can be disabled.

Average level

Hardware: Decent modern PC with good processor and high end GPU or waved low-end systems.
Required Interface: tactile gloves, headphones and visual goggles. Input with keyboard is also possible, but limits your options.

Mesh-based graphics. Mesh based textures. All objects are effectively hollow. Level of graphical realism scales up to beyond Crysis level. It can be hard to tell some elements are rendered, but textures feel fake and wooden to the touch. You select objects by grabbing, the system does not deliver smells. Things do not deform when struck. Audio is pre-recorded and not generated on the fly. GUI Hud optional.

This is the minimum level for a ‘good' experience.

High level

Hardware: Waved computer
Required Interface: Bodysuit interface. AI or Cyber with direct link.

Volumetric graphics and lighting with mesh-based textures ‘more realistic' feeling. Deformable or breakable objects are possible, but most that do use scripted deformations and failures. You grab objects by hand and browse by touch. The system gives the user heat and scent sensations and ambient noises. Most events, sounds and widgets are scripted. Everyone gets GUI Hud. Pain is felt as ‘impacts'.

This is the normal limit. Most metaverse servers are designed to provide at this level of service. Going beyond requires far more programming/design work on behalf of the server operator, who usually doesn't bother. The default client Avatars are designed to this level.

Extra-high level

Hardware: Good waved computer, low end rendering farm
Required Interface: AI/Cyber with buffered link/ DNI

The system switches to Ray-traced lighting/graphics with Semi-volumetric textures on top of a mesh (Typically, less than 1cm depth). Textures are determined through computationally intensive finite element analysis based on specified materials. Objects can be broken and deformed, it becomes possible to simulate simple machines, rather than just display a functioning texture/light model. You get light pain modelling. The audio is a mixture of prerecording and occasionally computer generated sounds.

A few systems are designed to operate at this level. Most can scale down to a surface-mesh texture model quite easily. 1/100 servers will have this capability. This was the originally designed operating level of the system. Most purchased Avatars will be designed to this level. A few hobbyists will have the full immersion gear required for this level. Generally, building a server capable of providing this level of service, and modelling the world on it, to a more than one client is something of a badge of honour, as is having a client system capable of handling it.

Experimental level

Hardware: 1 month's rendering for 1 minute recording on High end hardware.
Required Interface: one hell of a blue hair day.

You get near life-like lighting/graphics with life-like textures determined by full-finite element analysis. There are realistic deformations and fully breakable objects everywhere. Avatars can break their bones, which will trigger the full pain simulation. Audio is rendered on demand. It feels staggeringly real.... at times even Better Than Life.

So far, only the tech-demo rendering has ever been run at this level. The tech-demo was a flight through a visual representation of a city, including some intensive high-G turns, loops and dives, racing through traffic at supersonic speeds. Rendering in real time at this level, for even one individual would require the computing power of an entire space station.

[big]Trivia[/big]

• The modern FTL interwave connections are used by some people to create Metaverse servers that span multiple planets
  
• There are several companies on Earth trying to sue the Genaros developer group for breaking software patents they own on Earth
  

[HRogge]

Wikified at fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Metaverse