Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
formerself) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
wondrousplace2022-11-30 01:51 pm
formerself) wrote in wondrousplace2022-11-30 01:51 pm
cyberspace for Tommy
The world outside is, to put it nicely, bullshit.
The nicest thing you can say about Earth these days is that it's not actively on fire. Carbon capture technology and clean energy have developed to a point where the situation isn't getting worse, but the planet's habitable areas are fewer and more crowded than ever. There isn't enough gainful work to keep everyone employed, but state-provided basic income doesn't leave much spare after you've paid to stay housed and fed. People with nothing to do all day who might otherwise become great artists or athletes or politicians just...don't, because they can't afford to.
At least, not in the real world.
To call the AltSpace a game or a social space or a repository would be an insult, although it's all those things. A headset that's so cheap anyone can get it, a nominal subscription fee, and your sensory experience is completely removed to a different world. You can learn anything, do anything, create anything, go anywhere, be anyone.
With such limitless opportunity, it's no great surprise that the headsets automatically time-out every six hours so you'll remember to eat and use the bathroom in real life.
Eggsy has very few expectations for that real life. He lives in a vast tower block which has been the site of an ongoing turf war - more like a constant, uneasy ceasefire - between the Peaky Blinders and his stepdad's fuckers, the Mad Dogs. He doesn't have the education or the connections to ever get out; he washed out of the military when it became clear his mum's heart couldn't take it. So he gets by. He deals drugs, he plays lookout, he sometimes travels out into the rich part of town and picks pockets.
And he logs onto the AltSpace, where it feels like his real life actually is, even if the body he's living it in is usually the pretty blonde avatar he designed for a joke one day and then just kind of...kept using.
The nicest thing you can say about Earth these days is that it's not actively on fire. Carbon capture technology and clean energy have developed to a point where the situation isn't getting worse, but the planet's habitable areas are fewer and more crowded than ever. There isn't enough gainful work to keep everyone employed, but state-provided basic income doesn't leave much spare after you've paid to stay housed and fed. People with nothing to do all day who might otherwise become great artists or athletes or politicians just...don't, because they can't afford to.
At least, not in the real world.
To call the AltSpace a game or a social space or a repository would be an insult, although it's all those things. A headset that's so cheap anyone can get it, a nominal subscription fee, and your sensory experience is completely removed to a different world. You can learn anything, do anything, create anything, go anywhere, be anyone.
With such limitless opportunity, it's no great surprise that the headsets automatically time-out every six hours so you'll remember to eat and use the bathroom in real life.
Eggsy has very few expectations for that real life. He lives in a vast tower block which has been the site of an ongoing turf war - more like a constant, uneasy ceasefire - between the Peaky Blinders and his stepdad's fuckers, the Mad Dogs. He doesn't have the education or the connections to ever get out; he washed out of the military when it became clear his mum's heart couldn't take it. So he gets by. He deals drugs, he plays lookout, he sometimes travels out into the rich part of town and picks pockets.
And he logs onto the AltSpace, where it feels like his real life actually is, even if the body he's living it in is usually the pretty blonde avatar he designed for a joke one day and then just kind of...kept using.