31 - New Projects underway

[A/N: Larger than usual chapter, will have a bunch of lore, that I got from the Wiki, so for those unaware of the...projects, perhaps the lore would explain a bit, as well as your fellow readers, so feel free to ask questions, let's get educated in here lol]

[2 Days Later]

Humming a song in my mind, I glanced to my right to see a particular Bat staring at me for little to no reason.

Looking back to my computer, I continued humming as my now 11 other 'Minds' worked on my newest projects.

"Every time we lie awake,

After every hit we take,

Every feeling that I get,

But I haven't missed you yet,

Every roommate kept awake,

By every sigh and scream we make,

All the feelings that I get,

But I still don't miss you yet.

Only when I stop to think about it,

I, hate everything about you,

Why do I love you?

I hate everything about you,

Why do I love you?"

Humming and singing 'I hate everything about you by Three Days Grace' seemed to cause Bruce's eyebrow to rise in confusion.

It probably sounded creepier than what I intended due to my voice, but I certainly didn't care, the song was good, whether Bruce liked it or not.

I had no idea what thoughts were going through that paranoid man's brain, but I wasn't even going to bother trying to figure it out, though I was willing to bet it was related in some way to learning more about me, finding my weaknesses, or some other similar form of information gathering.

And although he stared at me, he was also glancing at the other customers, who all came in today at around the same time.

Ivy, Harley, Selina, Volkov, and his buddies, Kyle, and to my surprise, Frank.

Of course, his Assaultron was standing in the other corner of the cafe from Batman, and its eye seemed to be focused on his figure, ready to fight at a moment's notice if Bruce decided to attack Frank.

All that was left, was one empty computer, all of the others were occupied.

And it seems Batman was questioning whether or not he should explore the Game Worlds.

Personally, of all the games, Infamous would probably be the one that spoke to him most, especially since Killing wasn't a requirement.

Well, I guess in the other games you don't have to kill either, but you'll be in for a hard time if you didn't kill.

I mean seriously, being a pacifist in a world like Fallout would be putting the player on a difficulty so hard, that it would probably be on the level of Dark Souls.

"Hey bats, why don't you take a crack at Infamous? I have a feeling you'd enjoy it somewhat since you are a cape and all," I suggested.

"A cape?" Batman asked.

"Hero, as you like to call them, though not all heroes should be even given the honor of that name, hence, Cape, a term that will embody any super that wants to be a 'Hero,' or Justicar," I explained.

"Show me the...trailer of this 'Infamous.'"

"Which one? The first, second, second son, or first light?"

"All of them," He told me simply.

"Suit yourself, let me know your decision afterward," I waved towards the empty computer which had its screen suddenly turned on and had a set of videos ready to play.

With him now distracted, I focused back on the projects my Minds were working on.

For $20k, I purchased three new games.

Specifically, Ark Survival Evolved, Bioshock, and Stardew Valley.

Though to be accurate, I purchased Ark Survival Evolved's Island Map, System, lore, map-specific dinosaurs, and more for the price of 10k.

For Bioshock, I purchased the first game, at the cost of 5k.

And Stardew Valley, I managed to get the whole thing for 5k.

All in all, it was worth the price, though it did take out a majority of my savings, leaving me with not much left.

Of my current 11 other 'Minds,' five were working on the Island, four on Bioshock, and the remaining two on Stardew Valley.

Onto explanations, Ark Survival Evolved.

[Ark]

A world where Humanity advanced at an unprecedented rate due to an energy-dense material named 'Element.'

This material allowed Humanity to eventually create all sorts of advanced technology, referred to as Tek.

In the 22nd century, two superpowers had mastered Element-based technology the United Republic of Earth (URE) and the Terran Federation (Feds). For reasons that are still unclear, the two factions were inevitably drawn into a war that ultimately consumed them both.

During the war, the use of element-powered weapons began to heavily pollute the earth. The war on Earth soon took its toll as the polluted element became almost conscious/self-aware, and the element was revealed to almost be a form of living organism/flora with a hive mind personality with endless hatred, that only wanted to cause devastation and annihilation. Because of its self-awareness, Element has begun to dig deep into Earth at Element-polluted battlefields.

The URE was the first to notice the damage the two factions had caused with their war. Once the two factions realized the damage that they caused and the greater threat of Element, they reconciled and worked together to focus on the real problem. They invested all of their effort in Project Genesis, a conjoined project that plans to preserve and restore all life without Element contamination.

Both sides invested in their projects to rebuild nature and life: the United Republics of Earth decided to build the ARKs to help heal the poisoned Earth and the Terran Federation built the Colony Ship to find a planet with similar conditions to Earth. The humans and Homo Deus, who were transhumans at the time, worked together to construct the ARKs and the Colony Ship (Genesis Simulation) in an attempt to save life on Earth from extinction.

At the same time, these projects were highly classified due to moral and ethical issues that may impede the project. As a result, the general public was kept in the dark and had no idea that Project Genesis was taking drastic measures such as archiving every single human and creating massive ecosystems to save all Earth life.

The Engram Reconstruction Project, A massive project that was done by the Terran Federation humanists and the United Republics of Earth transhumans, its purpose was to hold and record every engrammic matrix, or the minds and personalities of every single known human in Earth's history into an archive. Both the Colony Ship and ARKs will hold a copy of this archive to allow them to repopulate the worlds they will inhabit respectively.

By the end of the Element War, Element grew to critical masses at alarming rates. The entire planet Earth collapsed as Element spread across the planet by first digging roots deep into its crust, enabling it to create Titans to ravage everything in sight. On top of that, natural disasters ravaged the environment and killed a majority of the inhabitants.

In the aftermath, both the URE and Terran Federation collapsed and very few landmarks and monuments remained intact, with most traces of the old world consumed by rapidly-growing veins of Element.

Notable surviving landmark is the city of Sanctuary, the Proto-ARKs of Extinction, and Arat Prime, according to Nida, is the location of a high-light speed link between Earth and the Colony Ship. Most notably, Earth's rotation has stopped for some reason, causing certain locations on Earth to have a constant day, constant night, and a twilight zone.

The ARK in-lore story begins hundreds of years after The Collapse when the ARKs begin to malfunction. Explorer notes indicate that the ARKs have remained in orbit far longer than 646 years.

ARK is a space station intended to house living organisms such as Humans, Creatures, and Plants. These ARKs were launched prior to a global-level extinction event in which Element wiped out Earth's Human population.

They are incredible feats of human engineering, kilometers-wide mobile space stations housing vast vaults of genetic information, cloning devices, and terraforming technology. In their dormant state, they wait in Earth orbit, simulating a diverse ecosystem by controlling onboard climate and animal populations.

The dome that protects this false ecosystem from the void of space also doubles as an artificial horizon, masking the station's true nature with a blue sky and an artificial day/night cycle. Humans are deterred from reaching the edge of this artificial horizon by methods that look like natural boundaries. On The Island, inhabitants are contained by an encircling sea of dangerous predators, making it hard for the inhabitants to reach the edge of the dome and learn the true nature of their 'prison.'

For an unknown period of time, the ARKs awaited an activation signal from Earth. The stations are programmed to perform a controlled descent in response to this signal, touching down on the planet's surface.

Upon landing, containment force fields and artificial horizons deactivate, unleashing the ARK's inhabitants. Each station is a giant seed built to bloom over the Earth's wasteland, its terraforming systems sweeping away the Element infestation. Its terraforming systems are triggered by an order called the Reseed Protocol that calls the ARKs to return back to Earth's surface. However, the Reseed Protocol is blocked by another piece of criteria: the Element Toxicity Rating.

Curiously, although designed to repopulate the planet, modern Earth species are almost entirely absent from every known ARK. Their creators used each model as a whimsical genetic playground, featuring new species that are either heavily modified or completely fabricated. Scorched Earth, a desert ARK, is a breeding ground for wyverns and other fantastical monsters. The Island, the closest known ARK to a 'pure' Earth ecosystem, features modified versions of animals from across prehistory unnaturally mixed together.

The ARKs' strange quirks do not stop at their animal populations. Their builders discovered a hidden part of the brain called an 'engrammic matrix', which stored information in some human bodies even after years of decay. Personalities and memories were recreated for people who had been dead for centuries or even millennia. These people were set loose in the ARKs with no idea of where they were, or how much time had passed.

Every human that is on the ARK has a strange implant in their left wrist in the shape of a prism. This implant somehow acts as a medium between two languages by translating the speaker's language to the listener's language so the listener completely understands what the speaker is actually saying.

On each ARK, there are obelisks, the very objects that power the ARKs.

These Obelisks, after gathering a sufficient amount of materials and trophies, would allow the Survivors to challenge Bosses that would not only grant a trophy but also Tek blueprints and Element to make the Tek.

Once all of the Trophies were gathered, the survivors would be able to challenge the ARKs Guardian, and upon success, allow the Survivors to travel to other ARK stations.

It was basically a challenge of the Survival of the Fittest, with the best warriors and survivors being able to advance, while the rest remained trapped on their ARK stations until the planetfall of the ARK stations.

[Bioshock]

Bioshock, on the other hand, is situated on Earth..only it's much more...strange.

BioShock takes place in 1960, where Jack, the sole survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, discovers the entrance to the recluse underwater city of Rapture, at the end of a civil war that left most of it in disrepair.

Finding himself trapped in a strange and dangerous dystopia, and with only a mysterious man called Atlas helping him, Jack has no choice but to fight for his survival against Rapture's mutated and monstrous denizens, using all types of weapons and genetic enhancements, as he searches for a way to return to the surface.

Rapture (also known as the North Atlantic Project and the Rapture Colony) is a massive underwater city forged from the personal dreams of Andrew Ryan to escape from the political, social, and religious constraints of a post-World War II world. It was first established on November 5, 1946, and construction of the city itself finished in late 1951. Rapture was located within the northern Atlantic Ocean, approximately 433 kilometers west of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.

Andrew Ryan named his city after the goal he set in mind: to create a paradise free from the influence of those he deemed "Parasites"; a place of true rapture.

In terms of its philosophical underpinnings, Rapture can best be described as a "gulch", (a term derived from Galt's Gulch in the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged), which is a localized underground economic and social community of free-minded individuals. It differs from a commune in that it is uniquely freedom-focused and so upholds individual and property rights, but does not operate by the rules of a collective community.

The original goal of Rapture was to create a laissez-faire society free of religious and government interference of any kind, where any citizen could prosper for their own gain, without being hindered by the needs of others.

The "world's best and brightest" would be granted freedom of will and choice in Rapture, unrestrained by government, religion, and other such established institutions. Instead of abiding by the traditions and moral systems imposed by those institutions, values such as ambition, scientific reason, and free thought were to guide the inhabitants in their pursuit of achievement.

This would-be utopia had its flaws. In Rapture's purely capitalistic society, there were no public services; everything within the city was privately owned and hence came at a price. This included the city's food, healthcare, sanitation, and even its oxygen supply.

Even police and fire departments were subscription-based private companies such as Poppadopolis Police Department and Fontaine Fire Fighters. With no restrictions on businesses and labor, there was nothing but competition and customer choice. This allowed many industries to flourish at first but also led to unscrupulous, dangerous business practices.

This system alienated Rapture's less fortunate citizens, who, as their situation deteriorated, began to resent Ryan's society as cold-hearted and elitist. Andrew Ryan's hostility and growing paranoia towards "Parasites", and others he suspected of undermining his vision kicked into motion a chain of events that would ultimately lead to his downfall and that of his city.

Some of the notable creations and discoveries of the city were the discovery of ADAM, the creation of Plasmids, EVE, Big Daddies, Little Sisters, and so much more.

ADAM is a volatile genetic substance that has the ability to rewrite genetic material, allowing the user to alter their body, their genetic makeup, and their natural abilities without any direct limits whatsoever aside from their imagination.

ADAM does this by supporting the formation of potent stem cells that have the ability to differentiate into any cell type, including a variety of unnatural ones. This type of cell formation, however, is also often compared to a benign form of cancer, as the chemical slowly destroys native tissue cells and replaces them with unstable stem versions.

Through ADAM, Plasmids came into being.

Plasmids are special serums made from processed ADAM that introduce modified stem cells into the body, allowing for genetic modification and mutation, giving the user what some might call "superpowers". Active Plasmids require EVE for use, while passive Plasmids, called Gene Tonics, provide an effect merely by being equipped. Plasmids are powerful, but excessive use of them leads to physical and mental addiction and instability. This was a major factor in the eventual downfall of Rapture society.

So, during the events of the first Bioshock Game, the Player must traverse the city of Rapture, fight its crazed and insane inhabitants, and do whatever is necessary to survive.

[Stardew Valley]

Then there was Stardew Valley, the most peaceful of all of my games so far.

The player starts the game by arriving at a quaint farm they inherited from their grandfather that was in a great state of disrepair, with overgrowth, logs, and rock being spread out everywhere.

The farm was just outside a small town by the name of Pelican Town.

The player can farm, mine, fight monsters, fish, and interact with the townspeople.

It was a small game but had a surprising amount of things that the player could do, whether it be romancing a particular townsperson, collecting every artifact, or decorating your farm, there seemingly was an endless task of things to do.

It would probably be the most relaxing game I'd have in stock for a while, something that would desperately be needed for some of my players in the future who couldn't handle being in the other games for too long.