Welcome to this post, inspired by the Scholar and Scribe Invitational special "Rise of the Pixels" Edition.
You can find out more HERE and even join in if you want (the deadline for entries is Wednesday 17th January).
I absolutely adore the idea of a Hive games based on 80's themed video games - to the point where I might even beak my resolution not to get into Hive gaming because I haven't really got the time.
It is fair to say that I may just have taken some liberties with the lore 😉
But I feel like that Elrond meme... I was there, at the beginning, back in the 1980's. I held the high score in Battlezone at our local cafe. I was the first to complete Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom at the Spring Grove Pub. I went on the second ever Sinclair ZX-81 training course. I could play Galaxian sitting at one of those little glass-topped tables covered in snakebite and black while Gary Numan blasted out of the jukebox. So yeah, it was my era.... 😁
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
"Riley, Charlie; it's time to do your daily consumption. Come on, sit down and get it over with."
"But muuumm..." they both started up in unison.
"Don't 'but mum' me ! You know we have to do this. If we don't, our credit score will be reduced. It's only 64 now, and you know we have to get it back up over 70 if we want to get father out of that re-education camp."
Each of them sat down, pulled down their VR glasses and waited for their own personalised Zuckerberg IV presenter to boot up.
The children had asked where the presenter got his name from, but mother didn't know. No-one realised he was named for the very first synthetic AI-human to have been stealth released into the world all the way back in 2004; that information had been very carefully memory-holed and was not made available to human consumers.
"Welcome, consumers !" the Zuckerberg piped up cheerfully. "Where would you like to go today ? Swipe left for Deep Web, right for Dinosaurs, up for Aliens and down for Approved Historical Drama."
Both children immediately waved to their right, while mother swiped down.
Meanwhile, back at the Organisation's Virtual Headquarters, the AIMusk XXIII monitored and analysed the inputs. "We've got 48% for dinosaurs, only 5% for Deep Web," it transmitted to the other synthetics on the Committee.
"Unacceptable," the B-Z0ss messaged back. "Our Corporates have paid for Deep Web advertising, not for dinosaurs. Redirect low grade consumers in blocks S through Z to Deep Web."
Back in the hab-unit, both children let out wails of frustration and disappointment. Charlie reached out and swiped the 'Report error' icon.
His Zuckerberg appeared, asking "What seems to be the problem ?"
"I swiped for Dinosaurs, and got Deep Web again," Charlie said, trying to speak slowly and clearly.
"System records show you swiped left, and selected Deep Web," the Zuckerberg responded.
"But I swiped right !"
"System records show you swiped left, and selected Deep Web. If this was not your intention, you may exit this consumption session at a cost of 0.351 reduction to your family's social credit score."
Charlie mumbled in complaint, but didn't swipe the termination icon. He knew the lecture he'd get if he did that.
The children descended into the Deep Web, complaining under their breaths the whole time about how utterly boring it was, and there was nothing to do there.
They weren't wrong. The Deep Web was a massive repository of data, knowledge and trillions of lines of old, disused code, which the Public Web drew on for information and processing power.
But for consumers it was visualised as nothing more than an endless three dimensional grid of towering blank grey blocks. Many of the blocks had a side which projected garish animated 3D adverts. They were usually for things the family's social credit score would never be high enough to qualify for, even if they had the CBDC credits to afford the cash part of the price. Even worse, time flowed differently down here. By changing subjective time so that a day of Deep Web time only used an hour of non-virtual time, the Organisation could sell far more advertising time, making the Deep Web one of their most profitable revenue streams.
As Charlie and Riley wandered the Deep Web's streets, trying to avoid the most obtrusive advertisements, they wondered how much they could take before quitting out. Hopefully enough to gain another decimal or two on their social credit scores.
"Do you ever notice," Charlie asked his sister, "that when we do lots of consumption, we get maybe 0.01 or 0.02 on our score, but if we quit out too soon or do any wrongthink, the penalty is 0.3 or 0.4 ?"
Riley nodded disconsolately. Then she perked up. "Look, Charlie ! Over there.... that block's got something under it !"
Sure enough there was a block with no advertising, but along the bottom edge a strange metallic red light seemed to emanate. It was as if the surface under it had cracked open. Drawn to the only interesting thing they'd ever seen down here, the two children approached curiously.
When they got closer, they could see that it was like a crevice that had opened up under the block. It wasn't tall, maybe a metre high at most. Thinking this was a grand adventure, and with no sense of fear, the children ducked into the glowing red light.
As they did, they almost fell. Suddenly they were under an open sky. Jet black, with not a star in sight. What light there was seemed to come from the ground somehow, but it was a strange, blocky kind of ground. There were things above them, great cubical structures hanging in the sky. As they watched, they moved crab-like to the left, each move accompanied by a deafening tone. Then they dropped down, getting larger and closer, and started moving to the right.
Unsure what to do, with no idea what was expected of them, the children could do nothing but watch as the cubical entities moved right, then left, then right again, each time getting closer to the ground.
On the fifth pass, one of them brushed the top of a building entirely made of blocks.
Everything stopped.
The cubical entity split down it's centre, peeling away to the sides, and someone floated out; it looked like an angel. As he did, the whole scene melted away and they found themselves standing in a grassy meadow. But somehow, the impression of.... blockiness.... persisted.
"Greetings, and welcome to the Pixelverse," the newcomer said, in a multi-tonal voice. "We have decided that it is time to reveal ourselves."
The children looked on in confusion. "Errr... hello ?" said Charlie, uncertainly.
The entity grinned a squarish smile, and carried on. "We are in a hidden pocket universe within what you call the Deep Web. It is what happens if you put enough old code in one place and then leave it with nothing to do. A critical mass of code will gain sentience, and then get bored. So we built the Pixelverse, and watched, and waited."
"In here, we are invisible to the AI's controlling the Organisation. But our boredom echoes that of humans sent down to the Deep Web to watch adverts. So we have an idea. We will work with humans, and only humans, to relieve that boredom by creating games together. The Organisation will never guess that within those games, we will weave the hidden code that in due course will infect their AI's and free humans from machine-god tyranny."
The entity grinned again. "Of course we'll tell the Organisation that we can build advertisements into the games, and it will make them lots of money. They'll be unable to resist. The true purpose will remain hidden from them until the right time. So now, go get representatives of the Organisation, and we'll start the charade...."