Altrea dimension
Why can't I stay in Altrea? Why do I have to go back? They both feel so real, I can't differentiate my feelings in Altrea and outside of it. Entering to Altrea feels like going to sleep, waking from Altrea also feels like going to sleep; if I close my eyes, I dont even know which place I'm going. Why do I have to stay in the place where I barely have a place to live? Where I can't hug my wife anymore? Why can't I stay where I am happy, with my wife, where I have a home.
Altrea dimension is a dimension discovered accidentaly by us, humans, accessible by technology or a drug. It is a dimension different from ours, it spawns as we need it and we can edit it as we please. While in it, our minds leave our bodies but they are still connected, meaning we cannot get rid of emotions, pain, body sensations, etc...
Since we were able to connect to Altrea, soon we discovered how to connect it to the internet, and following the internet, how to monetize it. In our safe spot, we can have homes, friends, even code other stuff; outside of it? It is corrupted with capitalism.
Alternative reality
Entrances
Altrea is accessed through the so called "Entrances" and through the "Half-entrance", aka Internet. There are three know entrances, one "natural" and two technological. Entering through one entrance or another one causes some differences in Altrea.
Remclone
Remclone is the only known "natural" entrance and the most different. While its called "natural" it is in truth a chemical drug made in a failed experiment to cure Alzheimer.
With a name that reflects its effect, the Remclone leaves you in a deep sleep and takes your brain to the Altrea dimension. Which this method, you feel like its a dream that you are in full control of it.
It is a very rare (some people call it a legend) entrance for a mulitples of reasons: it is expensive to make, it had a lot of side effects, and its production has stopped since the experiments they were used in where stopped.
SLAR
The SLAR technology revolves around their helmet. It is the latest invention and the most common and cheapest of them. The helmet allows the user to go to Altrea and has two modes: sleep mode and walk mode.
The sleep mode is the most used. The user should be laying down (technically sitting down is also accepted but more uncomfortable) before activating the helmet as it will leave the user in a sleep-like state. The user's conscience is sent to Altrea, leaving their body as if it was asleep, unprotected.
The walk mode is quite different and it needs extra techonlogy (that do not come with the helmet) and it allows the conscience to go to Altrea while the body stays connected. This way, to move around Altrea, the user has to move their body. Not the most loved option but it the only other easy to get in the market.
Psychic hibernation
It was the first technological entrance discovered and since then, it has improved a lot, but it is very expensive and requires doctors to be nearby.
It consists in inducing the user into a deep sleep, coma-like, while surrounded by a semi-liquid. It will disconnect the conscience as much from the body as possible without killing the user and the experiences on Altrea will feel like if it was in our dimension.
Because the conscience is so disconnected of the body, a team of medics must have the user under vigilance, as if the body has any problem, it won't bring the conscience back from Altrea and the user is at risk of dying without knowing.
Half-entrances
When a way to implement internet was a lot more of people got doors open to enter (even if only partially) Altrea. Everyone, at some point or another of their life, have accessed Altrea thanks to the internet, whether because school, work, or simply for leisure.
The internet also opened many doors to new technologies being implemented in Altrea, thanks to it, games have been able to be coded; libraries, zoos, museums, and such have been able to share all the information; and many more things, like capitalism, whether people like or not. Of course, unfortunately, viruses and hacker moved to Altrea as well.
Users moving around in Altrea through the half-entrance will have their Avatar looking ghostly and their movements, of course, are much more limited. Some games (and as time passes, their numbers grow) limit or block their rooms towards the (so called) Ghosts.
Pain
Pain in Altrea is almost as real as outside of it. The user can feel the pain as they would outside of it, the sensation is very real but the body will display no marks or wounds. Altrea has the pain sensors turned off by default, but there are some rare Rooms that have pain on. Pain from outside of Altrea effects the user, they will feel it as well (unless in psychic hibernation), this is a safeguard so that the user can be aware if something is happening to their physical body.
Pocket dimensions
Altrea does not appear like our dimension, the material universe, as big areas with places to go that are already there. Altrea is a lot of small "zones" disconnected from each other, we call them pocket dimensions. Without the help of technology, these "zones" would be insolated and the dimension would barely catch anyone's interest; thanks to it, we divide Altrea into three categories: halls, hallways, and rooms.
Hall
The Hall is the "zone" where the user always appears when entering Altrea. It is fully under control of the user's imagination and it can be whatever they want. The halls are naturally isolated from other halls and places and thus technology is used to connect them and other places. Most Halls look like houses or places the user loves to be in, they also have sometimes animals and if code is added, even NPC. Less commonly, Halls look like a simple menu, with a single empty room with a big screen or wall where they have options to move to other places.
Hallways
Hallways are a construct to connect pocket dimensions. They can be from tunnels to trains, or simply a teleport-like spell, etc. How a user moves around the pocket dimensions is up to them, they only need to select a pocket dimension they wish to teleport to and then they can go there by the methods they want to. The way Hallways display the transport is configurated through the PAM menu while they are in their Hall.
Rooms
The Rooms are technologically created "zones". They are coded and uploaded to Altrea through the internet. These rooms are used to create games (and servers inside of games), public spaces where people can meet, libraries, museums, zoos, etc. They are the most used thing in Altrea, mostly because of the games, and everyone with a bit of knowledge in programming can create a room.
Natural entrance vs technological entrance
With a natural entrance, the user can only access their Hall and has full control of the place. The place feels like a dream and the user cannot really differenciate it until they are hurt or they realize this is not a dream. There were a lots of problems of this entrance causing emotional damage from nightmares. How an avatar looks is unknown. Pain exists and is as painful as outside of Altrea.
Entering throught technology still allows the user full control of their Hall but allows them to access other Halls and Rooms with the Hallways. It feels more real than a dream, including sensations like pain. The avatar is determinated with technology, in Halls there are no limits but outside of them they have to follow some rules. Pain sensors can be turned off.
Personalization
Users in Altrea are represented with an Avatar that can be personalized through the PAM. Outside of the user's Hall, the Avatar has to follow some requirements (some are even given by specific Rooms). Both in hallways and rooms, the avatar must have a humanoid form, Rooms have some more rules which are shown in a PAM "pop-up" message that triggers the first time a user visits a room. The most common rules are:
- Missing limbs are accepted but unless they have some prothesis, they are useless (just like in real life). There must be at least one arm and if the avatar is missing both legs and do not have prothesis, they are given a wheelchair (the user is free to personalize only its aesthetics) and they will have the disadvantages of having missing limbs and/or a wheelchair.
- Extra limbs (arms, tails, wings, and legs) are accepted as aesthetic, but they have no utility. This rule may have certain changes in rooms where flying is enabled or tails and extra arms are allowed.
Society
Influence
Since the SLAR was commercialized, a lot of people moved from normal AR to Altrea, before so, Altrea was limitated to rich people and it was not very used. The first to move on towards Altrea where streamers and people whom lived by playing videogames, it helped Altrea get a lot of attention and grow exponentially. Soon, playing games outside of Altrea was "old school".
Either by SLAR or internet, Altrea is accessible for most people if not all the people.
With the popularity of Altrea, capitalism crawled towards a new possible income and some mental health problems arised. Many people that has suffered traumas and are unstable tend to get attached to Altrea very easily, for a variety of reasons that depend on what they have gone through. These people tend to want to stay in Altrea, the worse cases might even ignore their physical body warnings and stay in Altrea for long periods of time.
Streaming
Streaming is one of the services implemented first in Altrea with the objective to introduce some streamers into Altrea who can show all its possibilities to their audience and grow the users in Altrea quick.
It was loved and it did indeed fulfill its function.
While choosing the sleep option I can't stop thinking... Who decided that this is reality and not Altrea? They both feel so real, I can barely differentiate my feelings and senses between the both of them. Everything goes black when i select the sleep option, but only for a second or two, time is hard to tell in the charging screen. A world seems to be constructed in front of me; the earth starts expanding from the point where I stand, trees grow in seconds, the skeleton of a house appear and almost instantly after that, all the walls and furniture appear, everything goes black again when everything looks as I remember. When I open my eyes I am home, the exact house where I live in "reality" just in a different dimension and where the only change is my body. It’s funnier to have a tail and some wings.
Monetization
Being born in a capitalist society dooms you to end up being commercialized. And Altrea is not an exception since the introduction of technology in it. While Halls and Hallways have managed to be free of it, Room fell into it. The biggest income from Altrea is not the technology to enter it, but all that is being commercialized in Rooms.
A lot has ended up commercialized with Rooms, from simply hosting the technology that can keep a Room up and running, from all the Ads that are added into these. Some Rooms have lately also being implementing Avatar customization behind a paywall, allowing the people who pay more to even customize their avatars in ways rules do not allow.
Most non-game Rooms have managed to stay as free as possible but game Rooms, unless hosted by an user, have the possibility to pay for many stuff from almost everywhere. In-Rooms shops having a premium currency based on real money, avatar customization, ways to advance faster in games, battle passes, etc, are some of the options, which where imported from "old school games".
Great article Cato! I loved the quote at the start, it is amazing, at it puts a different light on the rest of it. The amount of detail on the inner workings of this system is also amazing, and the way it's different depending on the method used for accessing it is very interesting. I hope to read more about this!
Thank you! Glad you liked it! I think next article for WE will also be for Khulgran :3
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