Earth: The Opening
System
I almost think it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate the human race.
- Thomas Love Peacock
As system is a vital component of everyday life in the world, an in-depth look at it might be in order. Basically, system is a virtual reality replacing phones, email, the internet, the television and practically every other form of communication. There are several basic (and not so basic) methods of using System. The first, and by far the most common, is a notebook. The next is a system terminal, and the last is a room.
Notebooks are the size of a small notebook and consist of a screen and some direction arrows. Older ones sometimes have miniature keyboards as well. With them, a person can call up their image (their system ID) and recite a message to send with it, have it check through system (via the arrow keys of sub vocalisation) for information. As the screen is rather small, system can turn it into a holographic display, but only for your eyes. While limited in use and scope and relatively slow, notebooks are the primary method of accessing system.
A system terminal is a wall (or walls) of a room dedicated to system use. They act essentially like television screens and are more audio than visual. For the most part, they’re used to browse lots of news castings and sort for relevant data. While some are used holographically most of them are for people busy at work or home and such and want to be able to search system without the bother of being in it.
The Room is the ultimate system experience. Most of them tend to be pale, featureless rooms that put you into system itself. The benefit of this is that you can manipulate the system environment directly - making your own rooms within system is best done in this environment. It is also the most dangerous since wounds “felt” here can sometimes be translated into real world pain as well. Some people have even died of it.
Hacking System
There may always be another reality to make fiction of the truth we think we’ve arrived at.
- Christopher Fry
Hacking into system is a job for professionals, and there are perhaps a handful of truly good hackers out there. While most people know the basic system commands - enough to make graphics and voices for rooms, search for things and manipulate their own system ID to change shape a bit, they would be horrified at the idea of making fake IDs, closing off parts of system or being able to access any files. Hacker knowledge is rare and treasured since the commands into system often change and no backdoor is truly reliable. Most hackers begin as soon as they can talk, taught by other hackers how do manipulate system and force grow an ID. While system does routine checks for hackers most of them have exempted themselves from the checks or have other ways to avoid them.
While most people aren’t sure why system tolerates hackers, hackers have their own theories about system, ranging from it being sentient at levels we can’t understand to hackers being used as an excuse by system when it wants to shut sections down and the like. While they have no proof of these claims, most hackers tend to be extremely paranoid and some only enter system when they have no choice. many of them share data and it is quite likely that the hackers have developed their own mini-system inside the larger one for purposes of anonymity. How reliable is it would be an open question, one they probably don’t want answered.