Chapter 3: The Social Contract, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

After a hearty and wonderful meal, Aaron paid the bill and then the three friends walked out the restaurant and towards the town square to kill some time. While it was fun to go do things in pursuit of a goal, hanging out with your friends is also cool too. A long, long, time ago, it used to be socially acceptable to just be places without the expectation of spending money but now, having fun and spending money are basically synonymous. The town square however, was one of the few places where you could just sit down, watch the mummers for free, and have a good time.

The sun had begun to set, painting the horizon with a deep, incandescent glow. All around town, lampposts began to flicker on while a gentle breeze blew in. The trio were hanging out by the Beautiful Fountain, a towering 30 meter tall reproduction of the now lost Trevi Fountain, a great Baroque edifice depicting Oceanus, the source of all freshwater on Earth. It was beautiful now, but it was even more stunning at night, when it was illuminated by torches and the true depth, scale, and majesty of the waters were revealed.

Seated on a bench from across from the fountain, the three friends were sipping iced lattes which Riley had purchased from a nearby automated kiosk as they were going through the proposed patch notes the developers and the balance council wanted to push into the live environment on the 23rd, a little over a week’s time.

“They’re re-balancing PvP,” said Riley as she flipped through a projected holographic display. “They’re finally nerfing dual-wielding. Oh! And they’re buffing Tanks!”

“Thank god,” said Aaron. “It’s about time!”

“This is a pretty big patch. It’s not just combat; they’re re-balancing economy too,” said Lucius. “Drop rates, interest rates, taxation… I knew inflation was bad but isn’t this overkill?”

“Uh, let’s see… ah, they’re lowering enchantment stone drop rates by 5%,” said Aaron. “Well we all knew this was going to happen. There was too much supply; it was way too cheap.”

“Crafting guild’s going to be pissed,” said Riley.

“Yeah. Price of equipment’s going up again. Oh well; it was nice while it lasted,” Aaron said before sighing.

“At least we’ll get more money from selling drops now,” said Riley.

“Do you think these changes are going to go through?” Lucius asked.

“The drop rates for sure. Everything else? Mmm, maybe?” Aaron speculated aloud.

And so, they spent the next half an hour analyzing every change in the proposed patch until they went through the entire list.

It was dusk now and stars began twinkling in the night sky although most of them weren’t visible due to the light pollution emanating from the town. The inside of the Columbus Server followed the same day and night cycles of the Columbus Arcology, which itself was an emulation of the day and night cycle outside where the City of Columbus used to stand. If one had stood outside and braved the elements, they would’ve seen the Milky Way but people stopped looking up to the stars a long, long, time ago.

“So what do you guys wanna do now?” Riley asked before she started going through her inventory menu and materializing what appeared to be a handheld gaming console. Then, she turned the console on and started playing a game.

Once owned, equipment and items could be materialized and dematerialzed at will by the owner through simple selection via the in-game menu.

“We could go back to my place and play Starcraft,” Lucius replied.

“No. I’m done playing Starcraft. Protoss is so unfair,” said Riley.

“Okay, then choose another race,” said Lucius.

“No! We live inside a virtual world where we could do just about anything we want and all you want to do is play a 600 year old strategy game,” said Riley.

“So? You’re playing Tetris right now!” Lucius said defensively.

“Yeah, but Tetris is timeless,” said Riley.

With visible annoyance, Lucius brought his hands up in front of him and imagined wrapping them around Riley’s neck and wringing it.

Riley looked up from her game console and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Strangling you with my mind,” Lucius replied.

Riley returned her attention to the game console and nonchalantly trilled, “All right~. Good luck with that.”

Inside Butterfly’s Dream, certain settings are enabled or disabled by default. For example, player on player violence is disabled by default unless under certain conditions are met, such as a duel in PvP. Player on player contact is fine for the most part but there are exceptions. Intimacy is a player setting which must be manually togged and it has various settings ranging from [No contact] where no physical contact with others is possible, [Friends only] where only people on your friends list may touch you and only in non-erogenous areas, [Normal] where everyone can touch you in non-erogenous areas, and [Intimate] where only people on the intimate list may touch you anywhere. In every case, mutual consent is required from every participating party. The degree and intensity of these settings can also be toggled and these settings were important to set as pain and pleasure utilize the same neural pathways, meaning that one cannot experience one without allowing for the other.

Aaron placed his hand reassuringly on Lucius’ shoulder, nodded understandingly, and said, “It’s okay. I’ll play Starcraft with you.”

“Thank you,” Lucius said appreciatively before directing his passive-aggression towards Riley. “I knew you’d get it. Starcraft is a gentleman’s game.”

“Starcraft is for losers,” Riley opined.

“That’s it – change your settings. Right now,” Lucius demanded while Riley simply laughed in his face.

While the friends continued bickering, a familiar series of chimes suddenly rang from within the virtual environment, heralding a server-wide announcement. Everything seemed to quiet down, from the performing mummers and the general public nearby to the programmed ambient background noises. Then, a disembodied voice spoke calmly to the denizens of the Columbus Server.

“The following is a server-wide announcement. Greetings citizens! The time is currently 20:00 pm. This is a reminder that scheduled server maintenance will take place starting tomorrow morning at 02:00 am to 04:00 am, during which time access to the Columbus Server will be unavailable. To avoid any potential loss in data, please log out and disconnect from the service before the scheduled maintenance. Thank you for your understanding,” the Announcer said before the chimes played in reverse, signaling the conclusion of the announcement.

Gradually, life returned to the town as people went about their business.

“So how long do we have?” Riley asked before trying to do some finger-assisted math.

“6 hours,” Aaron immediately replied.

“Oh, that’s plenty of time!” Riley said with a smile. Then, she turned to Lucius and asked, “So your place?”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Lucius said as the three got up and departed.

Despite all the incredible advancements in computing technology, the computer servers of the Columbus Arcology themselves were still physical pieces of hardware and prone to wear and tear. Thus, periodic servicing was inevitable for the long-term stability of the Columbus Server. The actual work to be done was nominal – once taken offline, most of the hardware and software maintenance was performed and serviced automatically without any human input. After the machines give the other machines the all clear, all that’s required is for an Administrator to reboot and reactivate the server and the whole system would come back online.

The physical maintenance of the Columbus Server was vitally important because the stability of the server was what ensured the stability of the Columbus Arcology itself. After all, you can’t have your bread and circuses without bread and circuses. Throughout history, every society has demanded that its members must relinquish certain individual rights, power, and personal autonomy to a higher power called the government. This is the social contract. The degree of this surrender differs but the agreement to do so is required for the function of society, the codification of which is called law, and the people’s obedience to those laws is called order.

Societies are a reflection of its people and just like its people, no society is perfect. Equity and equality are rarely ever balanced and progress is made at a painfully incremental rate. Social division is inevitable and when it reaches a breaking point, society fractures. If it fractures enough, society collapses. But even so, it is far better to brave the flames of civil war than for a brainless, spineless, and apathetic populace to mindlessly obey the law for what is lawful is not necessarily what is good or right. Slavery, oppression, and genocide were lawful once – does that make Hitler any less of a monster? Or Stalin? Or Mao?

All societies rise and then eventually fall – it is inevitable for such is the fate of nations. The causes may vary whether it’s war, famine, or something else on the myriad list of humanity’s ails but there is no cause more dangerous or insidious than apathy for it is always easiest to simply do nothing.

Men should aspire for more than bread and circuses.