Freezing Shadows, Book 5 Epilogue

Epilogue: Elsewhere

(MetaTech Virtual Headquarters, Shadowmen Control Room)

Demi Turner breathed out slowly. “All right, continued rollout of the Brotherhood plotlines look to be going as expected. Have the AIs pinned down where the eventual locus point will be? We’re goint to need to do some preliminary work on that, if they haven’t already.”

Sally Navarro shook her head as she looked over the readouts. “Not yet. So far, Germany, Ola Serin, Ola Tarin and Kabofya are the only hard no countries. Germany has Krupp-Saeder, with the dragon in charge. Ola Tarin still has the old elves running thing. Ola Serin may have had a revolution, but the old elves are still running things from behind the scenes. They’re keeping a lid on things. Not familiar with this Kabofya place, though.”

“Kabofya… I remember hearing about that,” Demi said thinking. “Oh, yeah, that would be the nation of ghouls in real-world Congo. Turns out, bug spirits don’t get as far with the infiltration when dual-natured creatures are all around and can see them for what they are.”

“Got it. Right now, it looks like the AIs are analyzing the cross section of places with high population densities needed to obscure the primary locus point, matched against areas without dragon lairs, or other powerful magical beings who might expose them. Then, they’re checking against other deep threats that might bump heads with the bugs, and cause unexpected trouble. Which is why Tenochtitlan is off the list, despite its population. And the influence of tribal shamans has the FAN at a lower tier probability, as well.”

“What about the rest of Mixsate? I know Mixsanto runs the country in all but name, but a mega isn’t exactly unified.”

“No,” Sally shook her head. “Rest of the country is still on the table. Right now, though, the most likely countries are the UNAS, CalFree, South Africa, most of the Middle East, much of Eastern Europe and Russia, and some portions of Southeast Asia.”

“Why is the NCSA off the list? The Confederates don’t exactly embrace magic with open arms, after all.”

“Actually, it isn’t off the list, but a lower-tier probability than some of the others. The rabid anti-human racism running through that area is working for them, instead of against them, this time. ‘Mutant freaks’ showing up in sprawls tend to get shot at, a lot, and anyone with a gun, which is anyone who can afford one, starts shooting if giant bugs show up. And the groups that are more on the outs with the racists are usually more tolerant of magic and the Infected, meaning that there are people who can see the bugs for what they are. That means the Brotherhood isn’t able to get its hooks into communities as easily as other places.”

Demi just shook her head. “Racism as a survival strategy? Really?”

Sally shrugged. “Racism, tribalism, and all those things are stupid, in the modern world, but go back to caveman times, and ‘other’ is dangerous. The NPCs just happened to stumble into one of the only times where those things are actually helpful in a modern society, dealing with bodysnatching creatures from another world. Unfortunately, getting that small boost also comes with all the other problems people in those areas are facing.”

“Speaking of which, Holly’s been bugging me for numbers. Do we have anything on how have players been dealing with the bigotry aspect? I know we wanted to make this a ‘real’ world, and that includes putting all the bad things in there, which is part of the reason for the in-game areas where players can talk to therapists, but do we have any real numbers on how this is affecting the player base?”

“Naturally, the therapists aren’t reporting anything that could be used to identify patients, but we do have some demographic data and general numbers. There were some initial rough patches, as one might expect. However, there looks to be a bit of a disconnect with the player base. Because we’re talking about orks, trolls, and elves instead of different real-world ethnicities, people are not having the same reaction that they would to such things in real life.”

“How so?”

“For instance, in players from different minority groups who are playing the local majority, there looks to be 37% who take some form of the Prejudiced negative quality. This group appears to be going with the power fantasy aspect of being the ones in control. However, 81% of those who engage in the practice end up either buying off the quality, or not picking the quality on subsequent characters.

“On the other hand, for players from majority or privileged groups, suddenly being thrust into situations where they are a minority, or otherwise not privileged, is apparently a bit of a wakeup call. While the therapists aren’t giving hard numbers on this, they are saying that more than a few people are coming to them for help unpacking their real-world views, now that they’ve been on the other side. It is likely that some of them, at least, may try to make more permanent changes in real life thanks to being forced to walk a mile in someone’s simulated shoes.”

“Interesting. I’ll forward those numbers to Holly. That’ll be some nice material for one of the slow news days. At the very least, it’ll spark conversation and controversy, which will drive subscription numbers.”

An alert cut off their conversation. Sally turned to her virtual console, and sighed. “Looks like one of the ‘deep plots’ is acting up. Archeology dig in the Caliphate. Looks like one of the death cults got hold of a relic from the previous age of magic.”

Demi grinned. “Oh, that’s a good plotline. Ancient artifacts are always fun. Probably won’t be something that most groups will get involved with, but it should get people talking. And when people start talking, other people will start trying to make money off the talk. Not just with people trafficking artifacts or looking for ancient lore, but forgers, and other fun. And since most people won’t have the magical knowledge to tell one from the other, you’re going to get a lot of jobs in that line. Could have a nice little bubble effect.”

“And when the bubble bursts?”

“There’s always a new crisis, or even just a bit of the normal corporate shenanigans. World-altering chaos is like a triple scoop chocolate sundae with chocolate syrup, hot fudge, Oreos, M&Ms, chocolate sprinkles, brownies, and chocolate chips. Yes, it is glorious. But you’ll get tired of it damn quick if you have it all the time. It is the same problem a lot of the old MMOs had. If every expansion is a world-threatening crisis, then, after a certain point, the story just starts losing impact, and nothing matters any more except getting loot.”

She sighed, and then said, “Anyways, back to the locus talk. Confer with the Ais, and find a good place for it. I know that a lot of the best choices are in North America, but I worry about giving an implication of the game being too NA-centric.”

Sally chuckled. “But that’s why we brought in plot writers for some of the other major servers, boss. The Hong Kong server, for instance, is scaling up into a full corp war, thanks to some of the players there. Plenty of interesting jobs getting thrown around there, which will likely spill over into other areas. Everyone has their local issues to deal with. But I get what you’re saying. We’ll try and spread the love with the big issues, so everyone gets the ‘fun’.”