Chapter 8: Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes – Part 1

September 23, 2652 – 369 Days Before Judgment Day

It was 02:00 when the Columbus Server went down for server maintenance in anticipation of the live patch being launched at 04:00. Server maintenance is normally comprised of 4 steps: 1) Disconnecting everyone out of the virtual environment, 2) Inducing sleep via the Deep Dive neural implant, 3) Actual server maintenance, and then 4) Gradual re-introduction of the populace back into the virtual environment. Server maintenance is normally done by temporarily suspending the Routine Rotation Schedule (RRS), which is the organizational matrix the general population of the Columbus Arcology followed to make maximum use of the arcology’s shared facilities.

Of the roughly 200,000 members of the Columbus Arcology’s general population, half the population was separated into 2 groups by sex and housed in physically separate buildings and facilities. As a result, men and women of the general population would never encounter each other in the Real World under normal circumstances. In accordance with the RRS, each male and female group is then further subdivided into 22 groups with each group rotated out of the Deep Dive environment once every 11 hours for an hour, twice a day. During those 2 hours in the Real World, travel, eating, exercising, bowel evacuation, and personal grooming is all scheduled, with each activity being timed to maximize the utility of each action station. Though the Deep Dive neural implant is not directly capable of manipulating the endocrine system, it is capable of seizing motor control, including gastronomical function and thus, people can be induced into emptying their bowels whenever desired. This is also the mechanism by which people are made to sleep inside their capsules. Thus, every man and woman of the general population is functionally told when to eat, shit, sleep, exercise, and shower with the only major exception between the two being that women are expected to use and maintain a small, flexible menstrual cup for the capture of menstrual flows.

It was a perfectly efficient system – it even left 5 minutes and 27 seconds every day for the facilities automated upkeep and maintenance robots to clean everything in-between each group.

At 04:00, the servers were up and as the general population was gradually reintroduced into the server. Upon logging in, every player was greeted by the following message:

*****

[Greetings citizens! After weeks of rigorous balance testing, Patch 19.8.4.0 is finally ready for release! Jointly developed after consultation with the balance council, this patch is aimed towards addressing deficiencies in PvE, PvP, the economy, and bug fixes, along with general quality of life improvements. We are thankful to the entire community for making your voices heard by providing valuable feedback on the proposed changes. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, the release of Patch 19.8.4.0 has been temporarily delayed.

As you know, the Columbus Arcology is a semi-autonomous closed-system and any disruption to carefully calibrated resource inputs/outputs could affect the stability of the arcology itself. Due to a combination of higher-than-expected life expectancy and lower-than-expected crop yields, it has been determined that the current population is no longer sustainable. At the current rate of consumption, the Columbus Arcology will fail within 1 year. Thus, a player culling has been determined necessary with the target rate set to eliminate 6% of the general population on September 30th, 2658, at the current season’s end.

To meet the culling target, everyone over the age of 55 will automatically be culled, leaving only a 4% target to cull from the remaining population. Based on current metrics, it has been determined that the C division is currently the largest player division as it represents almost 23% of the total population and is almost 5% over the target distribution. As a result, the C division has been selected for culling and as of now, all C-ranked players will be temporarily exempt from promotion and demotion from this division. At the current season’s end, the bottom 20% of the C division will be culled to bring the population back to sustainable levels. This is done in accordance with Article 2, Section 2, Clause 5 of the Columbus Arcology Constitution.

There is no need for concern. Cullings are a natural part of the human life cycle and is a 100% ethical method of population control. Not only do cullings help promote population stability, cullings are also a great way of improving general health, reducing wasteful consumption, and encouraging competition to ensure that only the fittest survive. It is a perfectly fair and unbiased system based purely on player metrics.

As always, you have a voice. If you believe that the current selection criteria is unduly punishing or otherwise unfair, please bring your concerns to your local representative in the balance council. In accordance with the Fourteen Amendment to the Columbus Arcology Constitution, otherwise known as the Self-Determination Compromise, the balance council is empowered to give ultimate determination in regards to setting all non-age restrictive culling criteria. So long as the total culling requirement reaches the necessary 4% culling target, any proposed culling method which passes the council majority vote will supersede any previously proposed method and be adopted, if the vote to do so is passed on or just before 17:00, on September 29th, 2658, 1 standard day before the culling deadline.

If you have any properties which you wish to confer to someone else upon your passing, please be sure to book an appointment at any official Estate Preparation Center (EPC) near you for a free consultation with a licensed estate lawyer, conveniently located in District 1 of any municipality.

And as always, Good Luck and Have Fun!

Dev Team]

*****

When Aaron finished reading the message, he found himself suffering from a state of shock as his brain both could and could not comprehended what he had just read. Who could blame him? There was no warning – it was like getting swallowed by a sinkhole or being struck by lightning. And as Aaron was reeling from the implications, his heads-up display lit up as Riley and Lucius invited him to a group call. Gingerly, he pressed the virtual button and accepted.

“Hey! Did you read the patch notes yet!?” Riley shouted with what appeared to be a loud and unruly mob in the background.

“Yeah!” Aaron shouted back. “It’s… I… Is it real!?”

“That’s what everyone’s saying!” Riley yelled.

“What are we going to do!?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t know!” Riley replied.

“Hey, it’s me!” Lucius suddenly interjected. “We can talk later after the spawns deactivate – Riley and I are at the south gate. Meet us there!”

“Okay! I’m on my way!” Aaron shouted before he took off running.

It didn’t take long for Aaron to arrive and when he did, he arrived to see his friends standing up on top of a flower bed’s retaining wall, desperately gesticulating to him through the torrent of people pouring out of the city and into the plains of New Haven. Evidently, everybody and their mother had the same idea. After forcing his way through the crowd, Aaron and his friends linked up and then exited the city.

After passing through the gates, the trio realized for the first time just how many people had actually gathered here. According to the virtual city census, almost 8,000 people were registered permanent residents of the City of New Haven but lag had never really been an issue because a) everyone was usually spread out over a larger area which reduced demand for computational resources and b) computation and bandwidth output had become so advanced that even 1000x1000 simultaneous player interactions (and therefore 1,000,000 simultaneous computational updates) was virtually seamless. At this moment however, the sheer player density was so high in the area that lag and asset stutters began to appear, even on an entirely local server due to the n2 scaling problem in both simultaneous computation and bandwidth consumption [f = (n+y)2].

“Holy shit. I’ve never seen lag on our server before,” Aaron remarked while being slowly jostled out of the city.

“That’s what happens when thousands of people are trying not to die,” said Riley.

“You think it’ll get better once we get out of the city?” Lucius asked.

“I hope so,” Aaron replied.

But things weren’t better when they got out of the city. Computationally? Sure, but that was about it because humans make everything worse.

Outside on the outskirts of the city, a gaggle of players had gathered, looking at what was happening in the closest spawns and what was happening was simply deplorable behavior.

In Butterfly’s Dream, whomever gets the last strike which kills an enemy gets rewarded, not who contributed the most to getting there, which meant that someone could swoop in at the last moment and steal a kill from someone else who had done the work. This practice was considered bad manners and was generally shunned but assholes will be assholes. Kill-stealing was already bad when it was only the B-ranked players competing for the promotion but desperation and self-interest had pushed the tactic into overdrive as basically every good spawn site in sight was now being camped by kill-stealers.

“Oh these rat bastards,” Riley swore with a disapproving scowl.

“Guess there’s no point grinding out here,” said Lucius. “We’re going to have to go somewhere else if we don’t want to get ksed (kill-stolen).”

“Mount?” Aaron asked before he scrolled through his menu and summoned his horse, Bill.

“Mount,” Lucius replied with an affirmative nod. Then, he summoned his horse, Entei.

“Where to?” Riley asked while already atop of her horse, Rocinante.

“Anywhere that’s not here,” said Aaron before he started riding away from the city.