AR Simulation

In the Ekcolir Reality.
The Asimov Replicoid is taken
into the AR simulation.
Original cover art by Hans Wessolowski.

The AR simulation is a kind of virtual reality simulation of the Asimov Reality that exists inside the Eternity space-time bubble.

Models
In the context of virtual reality, "simulation" usually means computer simulation. Before the first electronic computers were available, engineers and scientists often made scaled models of physical systems. For example, wind tunnel tests of airfoil designs could be used to explore wing shapes that provide the most lift and least resistance. Eventually, digital electronic computers were powerful enough to computationally simulate the physical process of a solid body moving through a liquid or a gas.

The virtual reality age.

For working engineers and scientists, a computer model of a part of physical reality is a tool, like a graduated cylinder for measuring volumes of liquid or a balance for measuring weight. However, back in the 1940s, people like Alan Turing began to imagine that in the future computers would become powerful enough to generate simulations of reality that people would not be able to distinguish from reality. In a "Turing Test", a digital computer is programmed to create sentences and simulate a human being participating in a conversation with a human test subject. The human test subject reads the text generated by the computer and tries to decide if they are conversing with another real person or a computer.

F-15 cockpit flight simulator (NASA)

Virtual Reality
By the late 1980s, high-resolution color computer displays were being used as components of flight simulators. It did not take much imagination to foresee a future in which immersive virtual reality environments might allow a person to experience a "virtual" computer-simulated world.

Star Trek holodeck.

Virtual reality was popularized by Star Trek. We are supposed to imagine that 200 years in the future there will be a holographic display system that allows people to walk around inside a perfectly simulated virtual world.

Wearable computer display technology

Sadly, such immersive holographic displays are not here yet! However, wearable computer display technology now allows us to walk around inside virtual reality worlds.

I'm particularly interested in the use of virtual reality for education. We are now in the era of "big data" and we need better tools for helping us navigate through our exponentially growing archives of accumulated knowledge.

In the Ekcolir Reality
Original cover art by Lawrence Stevens

Searching Beyond
Imagine that 2 billion years ago, an advanced artificial life form (the pek) first visited Earth. The pek were sophisticated users of nanotechnology. They impregnated Earth with zeptites, tiny devices that are composed of particles of sedronic matter. With time, humans evolved as composite beings, part biological and part zeptite endosymbiont.

One of the features of our zeptite endosymbionts is that they constantly monitor and record our thoughts. As told in the Exode Saga, R. Gohrlay and her tribe of positronic robots created replicoid technology. R. Gohrlay was never able to master sedron-based technology, but she was an expert in making use of hierions, particularly in the form of femtobots. A replicoid is a simulated human being, composed of femtobots and provided with a complete functioning mind that essentially duplicates the memories and thought processes of a person.

artificial life

The true power of replicoids is revealed when they are deployed within sophisticated virtual reality simulations that exist in the Hierion Domain. R. Gohrlay devised a way to tap into the Sedronic Domain and access the "records" of everything that had been "observed" by all the zeptite endosymbionts inside humans and even the non-living parts of Earth. Thus, it is possible for Asimov's replicoid to use the "AR simulator" to explore a virtual reality simulation of the Asimov Reality.

The Asimov Reality
The Asimov Reality was a "disposable Reality" in which the Rules of Intervention were relaxed as part of the Trysta Truce. Yōd suspects that there was an effort to "cover up" some of the events that took place in the Asimov Reality.

Sedronites

Since humans were not designed for access to the Sedronic Domain, R. Gohrlay needed help to construct a human variant that could access information sources that exist within the Sedronic Domain. Zeta believes that the bumpha guided R. Gohrlay towards Alastor Cluster and the Phari so that a femtobot endosymbiont could be created to link humans of the Hadronic Domain to the Sedronic Domain.

Special thanks to Miranda Hedman (www.mirish.deviantart.com) for the DeviantArt stock photograph "Black Cat 9 - stock" that I used to create the blue "sedronite" who is in the image shown to the left.

Sadly for us, the events in the Asimov Reality that allowed creation of the tryp'At and the Ek'col are a "missing" part of human history.  According to Zeta, fascinating information about the tryp'At and the Ek'col was locked away inside the AR simulation of Eternity. With any luck, the Asimov Replicoid will be able to explore the AR simulation and discover a coherent account of the creation of the femtobot "adaptor" that allows some humans to use the Bimanoid Interface.

Condaptriol

Condaptriol: future science in the Alastor Cluster

When writing about the far future of the Asimov Reality, Jack Vance mentioned condaptriol, a future science that includes the more restricted field of cybernetics. Zeta's hypothesis is that the zeptite endosymbionts residing inside humans were designed to function as a control system for making sure that humans would never develop a technological civilization. Yōd claims that "condaptriol" has similar connotations as does our word "hacking". In a sense, the Phari provided a "femtobot hack" that allowed the bumpha and R. Gohrlay to undermine the original purpose of human zeptite endosymbionts.

Eternity

Original cover art by Philippe Bouchet.

It is not clear that anyone among the Dead Widowers understands the scope and extent of the Deep Time archives that are present within the Eternity space-time bubble inside the Hierion Domain. The bumpha are providing humans with a "peek" into Eternity, but we should not imagine that our view is free and unimpeded.

According to Yōd, it was Lili and Nivsaham who came up with the idea of equipping the Asimov Replicoid with Grean nanites and using him to unlock the AR simulation. Zeta believes that Many Sails also playing a role, making sure that the tryp'At Overseers don't block distribution of the information that Asimov's replicoid retrieves from the AR simulation.

Next: the Overseers of Earth

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