AlphaGazette #05: Home is Where Your Keys Are | SC05 – Mirrorballs
AlphaGazette News of the Worlds - Home is Where Your Keys Are
Mike the Creator
Home is Where Your Keys Are
We're all living in a simulation. So, what are you going to do about it?
Not much, I suppose.
I'm imagining a press conference sometime in the near future, where it is announced that three-dimensional space is just an illusion, there is no free will or higher purpose, and we are all just data being endlessly manipulated in nth-dimensional algorithms we will probably never understand, because at some point, not necessarily in the distant future, the simulation will stop running and everything will cease to exist.
A flurry of meaningless questions follow-- "Is there anything we can do?" "Can we sue somebody?" "Can I copyright myself for financial security?" -- all of which are answered with a flat no, thereby inducing a collective shrug and another round of questions asking if any reality shows are in the works.
I'm being cynical, but unless we are being told point blank to prepare to have our minds collectively blown as they are expanded by newly invented technology and/or drugs which will be necessary to comprehend higher-dimensional beings, no one is going to pay attention. The majority will always seek the easiest road. "This is the way things have always been, and I'm doing okay, so why should I seek out another reality where maybe things aren't as good?"
If you could visit any one of a billion different realities, are you going someplace weird or exotic? Or will it be the familiar world you know, but with a few minor adjustments. You'll never get it right on the first try because there are too many variables to consider, so you tweak some more and try again, and again, bouncing from one identical situation to the next, never getting it quite right, but not stopping until you realize you don't know how to get home, even though you're not sure you're not already there. That is how you end up in a Mirrorball.
In any case, whether our 'reality' is a computer simulation, one of a trillion different realities, or simply a solution in a beaker sitting on some scientist's lab table, the net effect is the same. You still have to go to work on Monday.
StoryCard
Mirrorballs
Watch Your Step
A mirrorball is any Earth instance that is more than 99.8% identical to yours, a determination that can only be made by the Agency. From your perspective, there is no discernible difference at all.
"If you're from an Earth within a .075% variability you have to register at the Agency and wear a badge to say you're an alien. You're supposed to anyway, but not all Earths are strict, and it's easy to skate by if you know what you're doing." --Name not given, Hoodlum
Navigating a near-Earth experience is not difficult if you are forthright about your status and don’t try to go incognito. Some Agencies supply badges or other accessories that can be worn on an open-Earth to indicate non-native status, while observation-Earths will often require a registered Graftlink ID on file. What you have to watch out for is getting too comfortable with your environment, because the rare thing that is different could be shockingly larger than you expect.