I’d like to take a little moment to draft out a timeline for the story I want to write (or universe I want to write stories in, depending) just so I have a visible skeleton to refer to in future posts. I’m not sure I really want to put dates on there, but I will just as a very basic indication of my desired time lapse between events. Highly subject to change.
2020 – First “hearing” individual gets a cochlear implant with auxiliary input, which adds itself as a layer on top of his real hearing. Viable optical implants are now available (“out of beta”) and blind individuals start lining up for the procedure to get (or regain) their vision. Research is well under way for olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste) implants. A solution to give back the sense of touch to war amps through simulated skin and a direct interface to the nerves is very advanced.
2035 – Cochlear implants are now common and can cut the input from the natural ear, making them the perfect way to listen to pure music and other inputs (from computers) without any sort of interference. Optical implants are now high definition and 3D (two implants working together) and some individuals (a fringe group called “Grinders”) are now regularly enhancing themselves with these technologies. Olfactory, Gustatory and Tactile implants are available commercially but still have limited use. The Military complex has now branched off the research on the 5 senses and are developing ‘enhanced’ soldiers that can, for example, “zoom in” with their natural eye, filter out and enhance certain sound and video frequencies. Works is being done on enhancing those senses as well, such as full spectrum camera being fed directly in the brain (very trippy for those test soldiers). Furthermore, neural links (link directly to the brain, thought processes and memories) are being developed.
2050 – Enhancement implants have become commonplace enough that Augmented Reality has become the standard interface for communication and interaction between humans and with computers. Screens on desks have become obsolete, computers are now relegated to small boxes that can easily be carried around – but they have no direct interface (no keyboard, mouse, screen, displays of any kind). They rely on communication through the optic nerve for display and capture of information (eye movement and capture of hand motions). Grinders still define the fringe group that are one step ahead of the rest – they often boast full part replacement such as limbs, ears, eyes, etc. They generally also have a full access to the Internet cloud and can call up information on any subject, at any time. Direct neural interfaces are also common place with Grinders, so they barely ever speak in the real world and can now communicate in a pseudo-telepathic link. By this point, Grinders have achieved a Borg-like state minus the collective controlled thoughts and actions. However, electronic implants are slowly replaced with biological counterparts – a bio-technological meld that no longer requires external sources of power (only food) and that intertwine with the user’s actual biological systems. Grinders decide that they’ve had enough of the human race however, and they retreat in a secret location, only to be seen one day ascending to the heavens in a shuttle, going god knows where. Will they be seen again? (That’s a story, right there)
2070 – The first case of a test subject submitting to complete body hijacking into virtual reality is being announced. The subject’s natural senses are completely cut off and are all replaced with those from a simulated VR world inside the computer. The “Matrix” has been achieved. Bodily functions, since they are no longer provided by the brain, are controlled via the same implants – the brain is completely detached from the body at this point (through the implants, not physically). Popping up everywhere are venture companies jumping on the bandwagon and developing full immersion video games as well as the very popular sex fantasy clubs, where even the most far fetched dreams can become a virtual reality, with no limit except that of our own imagination. They quickly establish themselves within a couple of years.
2080 – “Farms” of bodies jacked into the virtual world start to become visible around most major cities. Some “users” are jacked in 24/7 with no desire to come out in the real life, and have to pay “in game” with services that are materialized in the real world, working part time (yep, they escape real life to be within a simulated real life). The rest of their time, as with the full time spent by people who continue to work in real life, they are free to create and roam the virtual universes and do precisely what they want with no restrictions whatsoever. (a story about society’s outlook on those who live in a virtual “fake” life can be made here, and also another about a new era of creativity is born)
2090 – A great step in human evolution has finally been made – it is now possible to fully transfer one’s consciousness inside of a computer through a simulation of the human brain, removing the need for the physical body to remain. “Harmond VS Harmond” becomes the most famous case in legal history, immediately after the first man being declared clinically dead after his transfer into the digital world is given full legal rights as a human being, including control over his own money. His wife, defeated, renounces technology and retreats to a mountain cabin, never to accept any communication from the rest of the world. (This is one of the stories I want to tell)
2100 – From its peak of 12.5 billion human bodies, a full 40% of the world’s population has been digitized, and a great schism is starting to appear – on one side the “Digitals” and those who have not yet taken the step towards conversion (but will), and on the other the “Pures” who pride themselves in not changing a single molecule of their bodies. They tend to leave the cities and escape back to nature, where most remove themselves completely from technology and return to the land.
2105 – “The Great Crash” happens. A virus wipes out nearly half of the digital world’s denizens. Billions of souls are lost in the course of a few hours before a defense is made against the virus. Proponents of the Pures that remain in the city scream “we told you so” while the Digitals scramble to secure their programming. The amount of space left behind by the destroyed Digitals is quickly converted into redundant backup systems that are updated “live” in order to prevent future loss of life. The Schism grows wider and more people leave the cities to join the Pures, while the remainder quickly star pouring into the Digital world. (obviously this is another story, right there)
2125 – Cities are left barren except for immense server farms housing the world’s 7 billion Digitals and a number of people staying behind to maintain the physical presence of these farms (electricity, protection against the elements). They are, however, slowly being replaced by machines which are controlled from within the digital world via a simulation. By 2130, there are no more humans in cities, and only 2.5 billion Pures are scattered throughout world.
Each year, a varying percentage of Pures decide that they want to leave the community to join the digital world. They make the pilgrimage to the nearest city where they need only to enter a small room where surgical tools controlled by a surgeon inside the digital world puts them to sleep and does the procedure for the consciousness transfer. By 2200, less than a billion Pures remain, as they impress upon themselves strict guidelines of population control.
In 2250, the first case of a digital “Baby” is recorded. Through a special program created by a 270 year old hacker, the code of both parents is combined and a new program starts developing. Fearing the propagation of the procedure, the group administering the maintenance of the server farms go to work and they start churning out new hardware to accommodate a population that, after almost a hundred years of stagnation, starts growing again.
– At this point I think it makes no sense for me to place arbitrary numbers on events that happen in the future, as years go by in varying ways. Perhaps everything up to this point will happen in 50 years, not 240, or maybe it’ll take 500 years, who knows. –
– Research made in nanomaterials have come to a point where the body of a Digital can be simulated back in the real world, in however shape they desire. Though all of the human senses have been reproduced in the digital world, people start going “out” of the machine back into the real world. They are immediately taken aback by the state of the cities which have slowly degraded into ruins, their guts stripped clean by the machines that expanded the farms to grow their digital world. Some, especially the children of the digital age, are so revolted by the result that they decide to leave the digital world and join the Pures in their nanotech bodies. For the first time, the migration of the population can go both ways. Though the acceptance of these newcomers into communities that reject technology is hard at first, they quickly understand that their life philosophy fits well enough together to integrate the Nanos into their arms. (yep, another story here)
– Nanotech “DNA” is now possible, making reproduction between Nanos and Pures a possibility. The Schism has started to diminish and mend itself. At this point, science has progressed enough that energy is abundant with a reactor that can take any type of molecule and harness the power of the atom fully. At the same time, the farms have slowly shrunk down to small areas no larger than today’s average family home, one for each very large city that existed in the world.
– A rogue planet, passing through the solar system and getting caught by the sun’s gravitational field, has caused complete chaos in the system. Earth is slowly spiraling into a closer orbit to the sun and will become uninhabitable within a few years. With theoretical science having made massive strides, the physical implementation of these theories becomes rather trivial. Massive spaceships are built from the remaining metals on earth, and small missions are quickly put together to pull as much resources from the rogue planet as well as the moon and Mars. As the Digitals are slowly transfered into the mammoth ships and the Pures take shelter from the destabilized elements, the remaining materials are scavenged from the farms themselves as they empty out. With months to spare before the Pures can no longer survive, they launch across the void of space towards the closest star system – Alpha Centauri.
– During the flight, the Pures are placed in suspended animation, as there would not have been enough resources to feed them during the thousand-year long voyage. 500 years later however, the suspended animation systems fail and the Pures are left with a hard choice: die of starvation or convert to Digitals. Though a minimal amount decide to take to the airlocks rather than be corrupted by the technology, most decide that life is more important than anything and thus the last of the Pures disappears and humanity is fully digitized. But a new Schism takes its place immediately – those who want to establish themselves on a planet that is livable in order for Nanos to roam the lands and perhaps touch again with nature, as alien as it would be, and those who simply want to find the most effective planet for maintaining their digital world – one with plenty of metals, minerals, and energy in abundance. Thus, the ships connect together and begin transferring Digitals into the appropriate ships. 3 of the 10 original mammoths head for Alpha Centauri, now confirmed to bear a planet where nature is abundant, the rest split into 3 groups that each head for a different resource-rich planet, each hundreds of light years away.
– Thousands of years passed, and humanity has settled into 4 groups, of which the contacts have been null due to the absence of a method of communication that is faster than light. But that is about to change – One of the colonies on the resource-rich worlds finally breaks the barrier and is able to send a small cluster of nanobots to any point in space, instantly. It immediately starts sending bits and pieces of data through to the other colonies as they work together to establish a communication and travel protocol between the colonies. Humanity is whole once again.
– Humanity discovers a step further in its exploration of making its presence in the physical space as effective as possible – computers made out of pure energy and, not only that, but fully self-contained and self-powered, able to communicate directly into hyperspace without the need for nanobot packets, instantaneously. Rapidly, the method is applied to all the colonies, and each individual entity is now free to roam the galaxy at their own whim while keeping contact with all other humans in the universe. With only the need to stop by a star for power once ever few thousand years, Humanity roams and expands the known universe and beyond.
– It takes a relatively short time for hyperspace itself to become the medium for the data encompassing humanity, with only a tiny fraction of each human remaining permanently within the real universe to keep an open channel with the changing worlds. Thus, full independence from the shackles of the physical world has been achieved and humans are completely free. What we do with this freedom, will be up to us at that point.
So there you have it. A timeline that perhaps shows a Utopian future where we don’t blow ourselves up, and obviously lacking a lot of polish and details in regards to each of these transitions are made. I also forgot things like what happens with the military, robots, AIs and such. I think it’s a good start though, and if you’ve stuck through this wall of text, what do you think?