[Torg] The Spasm and The Surge (The GodNet and The Grid: 4 of 7)

[Jasyn Jones]

A Perfect World

The Grid became everything. All communications traversed its circuits, using interdimensional routers. Through the Grid, it was just as easy to communicate with people on the other side of the planet, as it was to talk to people on the other side of the room. The Grid hosted backup data for anything a user desired, and the bandwidth available to a single user was effectively unlimited, sufficient to send full-sensory data in real-time. Recorded sense entertainments-sensoriums-were consumed in massive quantities.

Virtual worlds, hosted in the Grid, were also immensely popular. Some were meeting halls, where people could meet to talk and share data (sensoriums, photos, designs for virtual clothing, anything). Objects that represented the data-called icons-could be exchanged, and the transfer of even massive amounts of data took almost no time.

Other Grid worlds were historical simulations that allowed people to relive ancient battles (or romanticized versions of the same), take the role of a famed conquering general, or become a spaceship captain and explore the depths of space; nearly any fantasy desired could be offered. All of these felt real, as real as life itself.

People could mold their online presentations as they wished. If they were ugly, they could be attractive. If short or fat, they could be tall and skinny. A cripple could walk and people with painful medical conditions could inhabit a virtual body that was free of pain, that never got hungry, that never needed to go to the bathroom.

People loved the Grid.

To cater to people’s desire to remain on the Grid as long as possible, companies began manufacturing protein beds en masse. A protein bed was a reclining couch set in a bath of colored gel that maintained the body-kept it fed, took care of waste, stimulated the muscles to prevent atrophy and calcium loss, fought diseases. Originally developed for trauma surgeons and military casualties, the automated care of their bodies allowed people to remain in the Grid indefinitely.

In time, this might have meant the end of civilization. Fortunately, not long after protein beds became common, the Spasm ended it first.

The Spasm and The Surge

For 500 years after the Spasm, Tharkold has been a world riven. The once-massive cities of human civilization lie in ruins. Many places are poisoned by ancient spells or nuclear radiation, and only monsters live there. Some places are habitable, barely. Human tribes and demon prides roam the outlands, fighting the horrors and each other. In a few, rare places humans and demons have driven back the barbarisms and horrors of the wastes, built walls high and strong, and behind them live in a semblance of peace. It rarely lasts long.

The world as it was is a powerful legend. It was a place of great peace, compared to the Tharkold of today. There were no demons, no technohorrors, just human nations and technological wonders, not the least of which was the Grid.

Race members, when scavenging the ruins, often come upon sensoriums. Though the data plaques are usually damaged, most contain at least some recoverable material. The scavengers download the sensoriums in bits and pieces, then stitch the different clips together as best they can. These compilations of fragments of ancient entertainments help keep hope alive.

Imperfect as they are, still they depict a world of wealth and ease, where work was unnecessary and everyone had good food, uncontaminated food and clean, soft clothes. If the world was like that once, could it not be again?

These compilations are very popular among the nomadic outlanders, and very unpopular in the Free Nations. Nationals don’t like to be reminded that their lifestyle, which they boast of so much, is grim, desperate, and grimy when compared to the wonders of the past.

In the initial stages of the invasion of Earth, a young Race warrior, an outlander, traveled to the False Papacy along with other Storm Knights, where they planned to confront and defeat the High Lord. Her task was to distract Malraux, freeing the other Storm Knights to carry out their mission.

Malraux descended on a bridge of glowing light, in front of a crowd of worshipful devotees. Suddenly next to him was an assailant, bearing sinister tattoos and carrying extracosmic weapons. Before the Pope could react, he felt a cold prick on the back of his neck (where the Race warrior had attached a neural shunt). To this shunt was connected a plaque carrying one of the compilations.

In an instant, the Pope was rendered blind as the shunt overrode over his senses. Then, the sensorium began to play and Malraux recoiled in shock, barely comprehending the many images and sensations flooding his mind. To him, it seemed like a vision sent from God.

As part of the High Lord’s plan, a great deal of possibility energy had been gathered. As as he experienced the sensorium, the possibility energy washed through him. Thrilling to religious ecstasy, battered by the compiled fragments of a culture long vanished, lost in a revelation from God, Malraux opened his mind to the impossible. The massive amounts of possibility energy rushed through him, but instead of empowering him they flew outward in a Surge, making his vision real, changing the nature of his reality.

Jasyn Jones
jasynj (at) gmail (dot) com

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Check out my Torg webpage, Storm Knights:
darleyconsulting.com/games/stormknights/