Change of State First Phase

By Lavirrealista

Much of humanity is building a hypertechnological society that is rapidly evolving into an advanced social structure. People live in centres where applied science flourishes in a vibrant, co-operative environment. It is in the area of biosciences where the greatest developments have occurred, giving rise to the impenetrable “biobarriers”, living structures which protect the settlements, and to “real virtuality” which allows total immersion into artificial worlds which are experienced in a way indistinguishable from reality. The society is at its peak even though the ghosts of the past and the fear of the future always threaten any new way of life both from outside and within.
A fascinating journey through time and space in a world of robotics, biotech, simulations and virtuality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lavirrealista
• Release date: Apr 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781909078338

Lavirrealista

Lavirrealista, pseudonimo di Maria Pellegrini, nel 2010 ha iniziato la sua nuova attività come Indie Publisher. I suoi lavori esplorano il tema della tecnologia e della società nel futuro. Ha definito lei stessa “Virrealismo” il tema di base dei suoi lavori. Il concetto basilare del Virrealismo è la realtà virtuale del futuro.Ha pubblicato in inglese e in italiano un romanzo breve, “Virtualità Reali”, una collezione di racconti, “Racconti Dalla Galassia Madre” e un racconto lungo, “Guerriera per Caso”. Quest'ultimo fa parte del nuovo romanzo, “Cambiamento di Stato Prima Fase” e ne rappresenta l'antefatto. Ha anche pubblicato saggi che spiegano la logica alla base dei suoi lavori. Laureata in scienze geologiche ha ottenuto un master in scienze ambientali e in seguito ha preso altre specializzazioni tecniche. Ha lavorato per molti anni nel settore, per poi diventare redattrice di una rivista tecnica. Continua a lavorare nel settore informatico e creativo.Lavirrealista, the pen-name of Maria Pellegrini, has been an indie publisher since 2010, exploring the theme of technology and society in the future. “Virrealism” is the underlying concept of her work. Virrealism foundation is the virtual reality of the future. She has now written two books (Real Virtualites 2011, Change of State - First Phase 2016) and six short stories. She has also published essays explaining the rationale behind her books. Trained as a geologist and environmental scientist, she specialised in mapping technology and worked for many years in the industry, later becoming editor in chief of a technical magazine. She continues to work in the IT sector and in other creative fields.

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CHANGE OF STATE

FIRST PHASE

Lavirrealista

Virrealismo Publishing

Contents

Acknowledgements

By the Same Author

Short Glossary and Neologisms

Note to the Second Edition

Prologue Accidental Warrior

Change of State First Phase

1

2

3

4

5

Flashforward 3

6

7

8

9

Flashforward 2

10

11

12

Flashforward 1

13

INSIGHTS

Robotics and Virtuality How the future will be transformed by robotics and virtual reality

Intelligent Technology 2.0 Presages the End of Global Corporations

Man Driven Brain Evolution  The Road to New Intelligent Life Forms

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Change of State First Phase

Lavirrealista

ISBN 9781909078338

Front Cover:

Two Planets with Rising Star © Enrico Agostoni, Dreamstime.com

Render of Molecule © Dmitry Sunagatov, Dreamstime.com

Digital Entity Life Form – Artistic impression by Lavirrealista, on background image: Abstract Virtual Technology, Dreamstime.com

Team work © Satori13, Dreamstime.com

E-AI © Elsar77 | Dreamstime.com

Second English Edition: March 2019

© VIRREALISMO PUBLISHING

All rights reserved

Published by Virrealismo Publishing

www.virrealismo.com

Smashwords Edition

https://www.smashwords.com

***

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

***

By the Same Author

Fiction:

Real Virtualities

Tales from the Mother Galaxy (a collection of short stories):

Tuméng

Planets Under Glass

Borrowed Brains

Zetana The Disconnected

The War of the Plutonidians

Accidental Warrior

Non-Fiction:

Robotics And Virtuality - How The Future Will Be Transformed By Robotics And Virtual Reality

Intelligent Technology 2.0 Presages The End Of Global Corporations

Man Driven Brain Evolution The Road To New Intelligent Life Forms

Short Glossary and Neologisms

Union for the Progress of the Species - A world organization dedicated to human progress through collaboration to which all the Centres of the planet belong.

The UPS is a tight-knit, globalized union of Centres.  It is a social body with no borders or country divisions of any sort.

Centre - Human settlement occupied by Unionians.

Centres are self-sufficient, self-organised microcosms using the most advanced technology and populated by individuals that have only one common goal: to contribute to the evolution of the human species.

They are vibrant and full of life and activity.  They are protected by biobarriers.

Centres, either inhabited by small groups of individuals or by large communities (which could contain up to several million individuals), can be found everywhere on the planet.

Those of more recent construction lie necessarily within what remains of the ancient metropolitan regions but most of them are far beyond their borders.  In fact, Unionians chose to locate Centres on high mountains surrounding ancient metropolitan areas which over the centuries had become derelict and populated by Outsiders.

Biobarrier - Protective shield made of quasibio material.

Their objective of ensuring the protection of the Centres from environmental hazards as well as the Outsiders' aggression.  Designed centuries earlier by the founders of the first Centres, biobarriers are exceptional works of biological engineering.  They are impenetrable protective shells constructed with quasibio materials.

Initially created to allow future Unionians to defend themselves in a disaster-stricken world while avoiding unnecessary bloodshed.  For centuries thanks to these barriers Unionians no longer knew the horrors of war.  They do not attack and they cannot be attacked.

During the course of time biobarriers were significantly improved to protect the Centres also from a poisonous atmosphere maintaining a humanly bearable internal climatic environment.

Quasibio – Refers to materials with organic features and qualities which are synthesised in Unionian laboratories.

Unionian - Inhabitant and native of Centres.

Outsider - Inhabitant and native of settlements located outside the Centres.

After centuries of strife, division and gruesome horrors, the survivors of the original ethnic groups that once populated the planet have regrouped themselves where they could.

The Outsiders are the citizens of a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by climatic change, environmental destruction and centuries of war.  Outsiders survive aimlessly at the edge of humanity.

They are divided into clans with primitive, hierarchical social structures in a state of perpetual warfare with one another, in the finest traditions of humanity.  In periods of respite they briefly unite in vain attacks against the Centres of the Union.

Obsoletes - The people who lived during the period from the First Great War until the creation of the first Centres toward the middle of the third millennium.

Indie-Coop – Place of technological development where Unionians realise their ideas.

Indie-coops are innovative workshops where Unionians with common interests spend their time and dedicate themselves to multifarious projects.

They are hotbeds of ideas, technology hubs.  In brief they are where everything happens.

Notoriously equipped with excellent cutting-edge equipment indie-coops are the real workshops of the entire Union and their many facilities are freely available to their contributors.

Tifiti – Tifiti is a refined methodology of exchange, widely used in all Centres of the Union, it is an evolved form of barter.

Tifiti is intelligent altruism, useful to the individual daily, to the Centres occasionally and overall to the benefit of the whole UPS body.  It had its origins in an ancient concept of evolutionary biology namely reciprocal altruism.  The name comes from Tit-For-Tat.

Personal V-Com – Also called a PV or simply Personal this is a small bio-electronic package mostly used as common communication device.

It receives and elaborate data of all sorts and communicates with the brain via rëceptors.

Many people had these micro-devices directly grafted into their bodies but some prefer the traditional external ones.  They can be activated or deactivated by the wearer.

Rūchel – Element of brightness which enables the visualisation of real virtuality.

They consist of a form of radiation, absorbed by visual sensors and transmitted to the brain producing a real experience of an artificially created sight.

Rëceptors - Artificial sensory organs.

There is no Unionian who does not own them.  Rëceptors are tiny electrical systems placed in various parts of the human body.  They receive data from various programmes and systems, and, perfectly imitate the work of the sensory cells.

They communicate sights, smells, sounds, tastes, space, time, cold, heat and many other internal and external sensations directly with the brain.  Rëceptors simulate or disguise reality allowing a virtual experience to become indistinguishable from reality.

Sensorium - Neural oscillator emitting extraordinary radiation that interacts with human synapses.

It can be programmed at four levels of frequency.  Each frequency affects the brain differently.  It is used widely as a reality enhancer, for memory recall and allows a total immersion into a simulated experience.

Cube – A sophisticated life-sized machine usually built with a cubical shape and often empty inside.

Thanks to the rëceptors and sensorium radiation, the occupant is able to experience real virtuality, virtual reality and simulations and is also able to receive or send data of all sorts.

Dimensions and geometries of these small multi-use environments are varied and the entire structures might also be provided with physical engineering frames and various types of covering.  Cubical or not, cubes execute programmes that reproduce the world in virtual form.

Real Virtuality – Total immersion into an artificial environment experienced via direct brain stimulation by special radiation produced by a neural oscillator such as a sensorium.

This results in an experience totally indistinguishable from that derived from a real physical environment in contrast with virtual reality.

Virtual Reality – Partial immersion into an artificial environment produced by electronic devices and perceived through external devices such as headsets, gloves and so on, which produce merely an impression of reality.

Note to the Second Edition

Change of State First Phase was first published in 2016.  This second edition, together with the correction of small errors and typos and slight editorial changes, now begins with Accidental Warrior, a short story published in 2014 which was appended to the first edition.  Accidental Warrior takes place in a near future in a world after climate change disaster has resulted in global social collapse and it forms the prologue to Change of State.  The accidental warrior is Lara and she is one of a new breed of genetically modified humans who will become the founders of the Union for the Progress of the Species (the UPS), the new social organisation that throughout the centuries managed to preserve the core of human knowledge with the aim of building a hypertechnological society never before seen.

The setting for Change of State is further into the future when the UPS is at its peak and becomes one of the cornerstones of the plot.  However, the central theme of the book is the technology itself, based (as always in my writings) on the concept of real virtuality which offers a true sensorial experience of reality in a virtual dimension and allows people to expand way beyond the limits of physical space.

The future technologies of Change of State are based on a massive development of bio-technology resulting in quasibio materials, neural implants and other bio-enhancing interventions which are summarised in the Short Glossary and Neologisms section, originally appended in the first edition but now placed at the beginning of the book.  All these new materials, devices, tools, systems and methods greatly assists social progress towards an advanced society free of conflict and division, a kind of Utopia.  Of course, given the huge development of this new applied science and the greatly enhanced power of its products, the possibility of its use for bad ends is ever present and the dark side of the dystopian black mirror emerges towards the end of the book presaging the setting for the forthcoming book in the sequence The Law of Senraquan.

Change of State First Phase is therefore not only an exploration of possible future technological developments but equally how they might impact on human behaviour.  How will people interact with artificial sentient beings and live partly in the physical world and partly in a real virtualistic environment?  As a supplement to the book, also included are three short (non-fiction) essays, published some years ago, which look at these underlying themes.

Another improvement in this second edition of Change of State concerns the temporal manipulation of the plot achieved through the techniques of flashback and flashforward which interrupt the chronological development of the story to insert an episode of the past or the future.  For example, within the narrative itself memories recalled with technological tools are all presented in the form of flashbacks and are always written in the indicative present.  Three chapters of the book named in the first edition Interludes are examples of flashforward and therefore in this second edition have been renamed accordingly.  In addition, each of them is also numbered 3, 2 and 1 to indicate their inverted temporal sequence.

In summary, with all these significant alterations of the temporal flow within a possible futuristic technological society made up of mixed realities (which in themselves have the potential to change and improve human beings), I am offering a fascinating journey through time.  And, given its relativity, readers who allow themselves to be carried away into this exciting and strange future will also experience it.

Lavirrealista

Prologue

Accidental Warrior

She was crying and screaming inside and she wanted to die herself.  She had only wanted to study life, she roared, now transformed into a beast, not destroy it!

Accidental Warrior, Lavirrealista, Virrealismo Publishing 2014.

PLANET EARTH, 31 MARCH 2014

A group of scientists, on behalf of the United Nations publishes a damning report and declares that the world is not prepared for climate change.  Thousands of scientific studies confirm that global warming will have a catastrophic impact hard, widespread and irreversible a threat to humanity.  Many remain sceptical, others accept the idea but only in words, and soon everyone forgets and continues to behave as if nothing had happened.

A few generations later, scientists are arming themselves but the military model is new.  They do not fight in defence of their property, their families, ideals or religions but to defend life.  And they have a novel weapon, that was the first, and novel ammunition, that accumulated over the centuries.

PLANET EARTH, EASTERN HEMISPHERE, FIRST HALF OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM A.D.

Aboard a ship, southeast sea

Lara was sitting on the bed of the cabin.  She seemed to be made of stone, a physical entity without the soft veil of emotion.  She continued to turn the curious thin flat box in her hands.  It was made of a shiny, perfectly smooth black polymer of an old design, but if what Sen Lao had said about the contents were true, then that small, strange object would reveal her past and her future.

The years had slipped away since she left the tall trees high up in the hills.  She could still smell the intense scent of damp earth, mushroom and wild orchids in her hair and on her skin.  She remembered the playful atmosphere of those endless days when she went exploring with her father and mother, chasing each other, jumping into the blue water and swimming under waterfalls finally throwing themselves to the ground, looking at the sky asking each other questions or spending hours and hours intent on observing the hustle and bustle of life scattered in the grass, the small and fascinating world of insects.  She remembered the herbarium, the greenhouse and her little hideaway.  She had built it herself in a corner of the lab, which was the biggest room in the house.  From there she carefully observed her parents while they were growing social structures of microbes and classifying bacterial cultures, just as they all observed the few birds of the lake when they were bored with watching the ants.  Methodical and diligent she used to take note of all that they did.  Furtively, she sneaked into the lab, took what she needed, and returned to her little kingdom and imitated them.

Then one day at dawn, her mother woke her up more gently than usual.  Together with her father, they all went down to the river.  They told her that from that moment her great adventure was beginning.  She stepped onto the boat.  That was the last time she saw the smile of her parents, curious, appearing and disappearing between the rhythmic movements of their arms that were intent on drawing the last loving farewell on the invisible blackboard of the air.

As in a jigsaw puzzle the images of that long journey were taking shape one after the other; the forest, the dramatic rock sculptures, the terraces...  Suns arose and fell and the boat proceeded slowly, tireless.  The forms were diminishing, gradually becoming silhouettes, darker and darker, indistinguishable until they disappeared into the distance.  For some time now they had been replaced by the swampy silence of the river that had become large, monotonous and seemingly never ending.  Every now and again the remains of some dead tree on its bare banks surrendered its last few branches to a relentless sun.  This river will take us to the sea, she thought to console herself.  Then, at last, the lagoon.  What a disappointment! Even that was dark and did not speak.  The world had lost sound, form and colour.  The strong smell of putrid waters rose slowly along with a thin veil of noxious mist.  And this must be the famous brackish smell, she thought a little annoyed.  With that thought there was a pause among the memories.  While Lara's fingers still strove to open the strange box, a brief smile appeared on her still tense face.  She was remembering the first time she had ever seen the sea!  But how different it was from what she had ever imagined.  It was supposed to be blue, vigorous, bubbling.  Not a big puddle, sad, brown and malodorous.  As they penetrated deeper into the lagoon more and more boats became apparent and from her perspective the expanse of water seemed almost solid, it was so full of things.  On those deathly waters was floating everything and more.  The man who was rowing occasionally smiled at her.  He was different from the suspicious and dirty faces that were kept afloat only thanks to Mr Archimedes, she remembered thinking while lazily dangling her leg over the side watching the water and thinking back, a bit cross, about the games inside her little hideaway.  Then with more tolerant glances she again began to scour, with the same curiosity with which she had learned to observe everything, that alien world that was struggling to stay afloat.  Patient, she waited.  She said to herself that sooner or later they would have to reach the real sea, otherwise why had her parents made her leave?  This was her first real exploration.  She would have to collect many samples to take home.  An endless list of life formed in her small head, from the simplest to the most complex.  Her parents would be very proud of her loot, she thought happily.  The boat slid silently over the dense liquid and finally tired of looking at that sad world she nestled in the bottom of the barge while imagining colourful fish darting in playful waves, the glittering blue she had always dreamed of, corals, underwater forests.  Then darkness.  When she awoke, they had already arrived at the Centre.  Right away many new friends, new games, new life.  That was the real surprise.  And the Centre was undoubtedly the most beautiful place she had ever imagined.  An uninhabitable rock transformed into a lush oasis, she realized later.  Yet from its heights, far out to the east she could see the sea!  Every now and then she would look out from the stunning terraces of the last level of laboratories, those cradled in the rocks of the steepest slope, and ignoring the rotting mangroves below she would plunge her looks away into the waves in search of the corals and tropical fishes.

Now she sits on the bed of the ship's cabin and finally out there, the sea! But at this moment Lara has lost her old desire for the great blue water and the only thing she feels are the rivers of words inside that thin black box.  Just the idea of what it might contain has already brought to her mind a piece of time.  Sen Lao had given it to her the previous morning, at the end of the last assembly.  She looked at the object intently and a sudden thought shattered the refuge of lost time.  Those moments of her childhood, flowing from her memory like molten rock, and the terrible events of the last twenty-four hours had something in common: a farewell and a boat.

It is dawn of the previous day.  The alarm rings at the Centre.  Everyone follows instructions and moves toward the vaulted hall, often used for assemblies, its rounded corners naturally amplifying the words.  An orderly chaos of minds moves through the living units.  Students, researchers, technicians, heads of research, group leaders; a whole army meets the light of dawn and descends to the second level of the eastern rampart.  The room is fresh, the flavour of the night still lingers.  On the small side podium Sen Lao, the founder of the Centre, is awaiting them.

Colleagues, dear friends... his emotion echoed in the silence.  Until yesterday this hall hosted choruses of thoughts and ideas.  Unfortunately, today this vault will only increase the volume of my voice.  I wish I could listen to objections and suggestions, but we do not have time.  What we hoped would never occur, happened last night.  The four Mayaks were destroyed so we can now no longer defend the plateau and ourselves.

The news has sent a shockwave throughout the whole assembly.  The Centre was supposed to be impregnable, a fortress of technology.  Its height and the simulations should have ensured safety.  But as Sen Lao continued to explain the entire structure had lost its invisibility shield.

The audience stopped talking as soon Sen Lao took the floor again.  But now hardening the tone of his voice, he said: One of us or an infiltrated spy or I do not know, he said.

In any case, an insane mind, an insect, a rotten soul... I would not know what else to call it.  Someone has forwarded the coordinates of the four Mayak Lighthouses to the Outsiders.  I know it's hard to believe that they've been able to locate the plateau and the Lighthouses.  Above all, it is unthinkable that without the help of an informer they have understood the purpose of them.

A gentle murmur echoed his words.

During the night you will all have heard the explosions halfway down the slope.  We immediately sent reconnaissance shuttles to see if we could remedy the damage and the moonless night was in our favour.  Unfortunately, all the Lighthouses have been destroyed.  The Outsiders had mined them.  For the last few hours since then the plateau and the Centre have been visible.

For many years, the solar powered Mayak Lighthouses had produced a simulation of dense fog that descended to the lower part of the plateau with the dual purpose of hiding the entire height and at the same time surrounding