The digital realms, also known as the Etherealnet, are a pair of fully tactile virtual reality worlds accessed through Sense-Tanks, allowing people to interact and socialise digitally from anywhere in the world. When fully immersed in the Sense-Tank, users can touch, taste and smell in one-to-one replications of real life, using personalised avatars of their own making. Sense-Tanks are relatively affordable, though rent, utilities, food, and a carefully calculated minimum-possible paycheck means those with more menial megacity jobs need extra creds to purchase one for their habi-cube. The two realms, known as the Corpo-Net and the Dark Web, are then subdivided among innumerable other sub-realms, administrated by people with their own interests beyond the remit of the public servers.
Thanks to implemented time dilation mechanics, time flows differently from realm to realm. Weeks, even months of in-realm time can pass in a single day in the real world, allowing people to live entire lifetimes online. While the Corpo-Net and the Dark Web use these time dilation mechanics for very different purposes, the eventual log out of the digital realms is a jolting and disorienting one, as the user slowly comes to remember who they actually are and what their real body looks like. Many users like to keep their avatars as close to their real self as possible to avoid this sensation, but the majority see their online persona as a beacon of personal creativity, and customise it to their heart's content.
The use of avatars means Sense-Tank users are in no danger of being actually harmed while online, but thanks to the relatively recently invented Engrammatic technology borne and purloined from the Bezosphere, people are now able to fully digitise themselves and use the digital realms to teleport themselves around the world, though this is a dangerous and frightening proposition. Unlike avatars, digitized people are in very real danger of being harmed or killed when traversing the realms. Imagine the difference between playing a character in a video game, and physically becoming an NPC. These are the dangers of using engrammatic tech.
Between the public and personal realms are an abstracted and fractured digital wasteland, compiled of floating code, forgotten servers and the remnants of abandoned artificial intelligences. From here are spawned the bizarre digital and hardlight creatures known as the Spam, the Malware, and the Viruses. In most cases, they're simply coincidental conglomerates of raw code given form, but thanks to the sheer volume of code pumping through the digital realms, these coincidences happen very regularly. Combined with cheap, mass produced hardlight projectors, engram prisms, and even people's cybernetic augmentations, these frightening digital manifestations sneak their way into the material world, causing havoc wherever they can.
While the Corpo-Net is a closed system, its code only able to be accessed via megacity underground datacenters, the open source Dark Web allows for code to be uploaded directly from any user, allowing for vastly different and endlessly creative sub-realms. Most civilians, those that can afford their own Sense-Tank, exclusively use the Dark Web for their entertainment purposes.
The Corpo-Net
The Corpo-Net is used, as the name suggests, for corporate purposes. This realm is awash with pleasant, minimalist architecture, simple skyscrapers to house purposeful meetings and conferences, and a warm rain caresses the dark neon lit streets. Wandering through the Corpo-Net is akin to a sanitised metropolis of the Old World. Business attire is mandatory for avatars, real names are used, and an army of moderators and administrators keep order among the bickering executives and keep digital creatures out of realm limits. Uses for the Corpo-Net include:
- Flash-training Corpo-Cops, squeezing months of training into a matter of real-world hours.
- Digi-Jails, allowing perpetrators to serve their sentence and get back to work as soon as possible.
- Micro-Meetings, allowing executives to meet and discuss matters quickly and effectively, only losing seconds of real-world time.
- Conference Calls and Conventions, squeezing shared knowledge into digital spaces.
- Digital Rewards schemes for employees, allowing small benefits packages for flailing businesses without the drawbacks of cost or time lost.
(Some businesses entice employees with promises of digital holiday time-off, allowing for weeks online with only a few hours passing in the real-world. These holidays are exclusively offered outside of work hours, using Corpo-Net Sense-Tanks, selected Corpo-Net sub-realms, and are therefore largely uninteresting and mediocre.)
- Corporate subterfuge. Character assassinations, spreading rumours, patent and schematic theft, honeypotting/dicking, intel gathering and market manipulation are several ways corporations can use the Corpo-Net to gain a leg up on competitors.
- Corporate backed pornotainment; meet and interact with digital replications of celebrities, view official channels in virtual theatres, and socialise with fellow theatregoers.
- Commune with the Streamer Sponsors, find out if your stream is right for sponsorship and the powers sponsors provide.
- Enjoy online cocktail bars and smoking rooms, using the virtual world to manipulate a user's sense of taste for maximum flavour.
All in all, the Corpo-Net is a world not dissimilar to that of the higher levels of a typical megacity. Business mixes with sanitised pleasure, and most users are interested in performing whatever online tasks need to be accomplished before logging off.
The Dark Web
The Dark Web is the open-source, civilian operated version of the Corpo-Net, pieced together from fragments of stolen code and smuggled tech. Tuning one's Sense-Tank to work with the Dark Web is a simple jailbreaking process, requiring only a few lines of coding that most people know by heart. In this realm, fun is at the central mantra, whether it be from violent virtual video games like the Battle Royale sub-realm, or the uncountable erotic roleplaying sub-realms. Users are encouraged to customise their avatar to look completely different from themselves, most enacting their furry fantasies without resorting to back-alley genetic therapy that Splicers use. Time dilation varies wildly in these realms, as users like Kitty Kitsune are able to increase the dilation to such an extreme that one day of real-world time equates to a whole in-game year. Uses for the Dark Web include:
- Playing open-source video games, usually shooting, racing or fantasy roleplaying games.
- Erotic roleplaying, featuring entire servers of avatars casually fucking each other, along with the more reality-bending fetishes like vore and giantism.
- Uploading code to manipulate the rules of your own sub-realm, such as altering time dilation, lowering gravity, or manipulating the avatars of other users.
- Socialising with other users. While most Dark Web users consider themselves civilians, private sub-realms are a great way to hire mercenaries, find gangs or adventuring partners to join, or meet up with a fixer to discuss jobs away from potential corpo spies.
- Train and level up your skills as an adventurer. Tackle obstacle courses, virtual monsters and procedurally generated terrain to improve your survival capabilities in the real world.
The Dark Web is a place of free love, fun violence and endless opportunity. It's no wonder that many that can afford it spend the majority of their lives inside, living potentially thousands of digital years spending time with friends and loved ones inside safe, worry-free environments.
The Sub Realms
There are an incalculable amount of sub-realms and private servers dotted around the vast plains of the digital realms, each with their own administrators, cultures, and often laws of physics. Some are simply personal or familial realms for get togethers, others are virtual holiday resorts or private meeting rooms, but many are more strange, niche, or outright dangerous, especially to engram users.
Such sub-realms include:
- Tori Tabernathy's Baphom, an endless horizon of tentacles and brain-frying hedonism, under an ominous pink star. Tori Tabernathy is seen as some deific Ultimate E-Girl, and those that find their way to Baphom often refuse to leave, or are unable to. Loved by Diego Koroveshi.
- Withram Haberdasher's Antiquities, a place to shop and swap Old World relics, such as music and media, ancient social media profiles, gifs, and memes. A high-priced boutique outlet, entrance to this sub-realm is only granted by appointment.
- Pure Combat, a digital warzone in which players are parachuted into a procedurally generated island laden with guns and ammunition, with the aim of surviving as long as possible. A personal favourite of Scooter Fabuta.
- Habanero Fiesta's Squared Circle, a series of virtual stadiums housing public wrestling rings, in which any member of the audience can fight any other for the entertainment of the masses. Currently, Carolina Fiesta holds the digital titles of Shortstack Champion and Luchadora Champion.
- The Snicker Shack, an online open mic comedy night and karaoke bar. The perfect place for artificially drunken revelry.
- The Vapourwave Malls, a series of pastel shopping centres piping nostalgia inducing music throughout its halls. A place for the 30-somethings to hang out and remember their youth through the use of toxic toys, fat-filled sweets and video artifacting.
- Corvids and Caverns, a strange bird-based roleplaying game in which players use tiny avian avatars to combat the dark forces of house cats. Kitty Kitsune spends an inordinate amount of time in this sub-realm.
Sub-realms are always a reflection of the whims of its administrator, and whatever flights of fancy one might have, there's always a sub-realm to appeal to it.