Chapter 1: “Rare”
Year 12 of the new calendar. Before striving to break free from the fetters of Earth’s gravity, humanity has poured all its energy into escaping the fetters of the flesh.
Through the development of Virtual Reality technology.
Once defined as a digital version of reality, now, when the term precedes “technology,” it has advanced enough that it is no exaggeration to consider it another actual domain of existence. It was initially developed for the purposes of healthcare, but it expanded into education, various infrastructure operations, manufacturing, the service industry, engineering, architecture, real estate, finance, and of course leisure… It had practical applications for every field imaginable and thus advanced society.
Huge numbers of office workers connected daily to virtual office spaces. There, they could do work, attend meetings, and even oversee and operate robots that performed work in manufacturing factories. Financial matters were also handled via Internet banking and virtual currency, all connected through the use of VR. Legal documents could be signed and notarized in VR. You could even go from getting a loan straight to gambling at a casino.
For meals, if you went to the enormous VR grocery store, you could check how fresh food was with your own hands. With the latest full-scan technology, products stored in warehouses could be virtually reproduced down to the tiniest detail. Whatever you bought would be immediately packaged and sent right to your home via the underground transportation network. Your purchases would arrive within an hour. The grocery store’s warehouses were stocked with produce from a large-scale farm. Using the perfect replication achievable in VR, agricultural technologists can monitor fields and direct the robots to plow, water, or harvest.
Sports can also be watched in VR. In stadiums, players’ tiniest movements are captured through real-time scanning, and the match can be viewed from any angle desired in VR. You can create specialized rooms for friends to join and get rowdy and watch games, or you can go to public spaces to hit it off with other similar fans of your preferred team.
If you’re feeling ill, you can go to a VR clinic. Your VR equipment can perform scans to give your attending physician real-time updates on your health. You can even have a physical examination, then get any prescribed medications sent to your home that day. If it’s something serious that can’t be resolved during a standard office visit, unfortunately you’d still have to go to an actual medical facility in person. However, there are no doctors there. You lie on a bed assigned by the medical technologist, then medical robots treat you. Of course, you’re actually being treated by a qualified physician via VR.
Virtual reality was truly another reality.
Indeed, this refers to how the VR space has come so close to the real world. However, at the same time, it also refers to the way real-world society has come to embrace VR.