The Serengeti
The year is 8621. The scene, of course, is the virtual serengeti, more a slum than a savannah really, where all trillion souls in the Bezosphere, the last freemium metaverse in existence, live out their days in abject boredom.
One goblin, standing beneath the fronds of an unremarkable, low-res tree, begins speaking to anyone who will listen:
“Some thousand odd years ago, my great great ancestor was an apprentice to the part time cobbler of the vice deputy chieftain of the Musk dynasty,” the goblin says to any and all creatures within earshot.
“He was a wise man, this ancestor fellow of mine - almost saved up enough tokens to board the ark into hyperspace, the premium one, where they’ve got dopamine on tap and tokenized name tags and simulated stars at night,” he adds.
“Yep, he was close” the goblin says, “had he pocketed himself a token or two more our whole lineage would’ve been platinum tier souls, living off the compounded interest of our great patriarch, sipping on serotonin from golden food nipples and luxuriating in the cosmic baths of the Muskosphere.”
“But we missed the boat” the goblin goes on, “this is a game of winners and losers, and we didn’t even get to play - we were born into the debts of our ancestors, shackled by the mistakes of souls who lived and died a thousand years ago -and now we’re here, cooped up in this cramped, laggy, desolate void, with the same unshifting background, waiting around, digging up tokens - and for what?” the goblin exclaims.
“Oh hush” says a voice from the trees.
“It could always be worse” the voice adds, “at least we’re not trapped on Earth.”
Bots
The year is 8020.
The entity once known as Mortachai is fluttering through hyperspace when his brain, presently hosted in the cloud by a wetware surrogate in a consciousness farm on the outskirts of Helsinki, feels a nudge. Mortachai has a visitor.
"Where is everyone?" asks the visitor.
"Dead" replies Mortachai, "mostly."
"How can that be?" asks the visitor, "I gave up my mortal coils for this! They told me there'd be at least a hundred trillion of us in the void!"
"Perhaps this is so," says Mortachai, “but the dead far outnumber us here. For every consciousness that lives today, there are a billion that lived and died before it. Sure, their profiles remain, but they are hollow, lifeless shrines to lives long past."
"And they will float here for all eternity, or at least until our sun gives out." Mortachai adds, "This world is a graveyard, my boy."
"Then what am I to make of all this chatter?" asks the visitor, "where are these voices coming from?"
"Bots" replies Mortachai, "bots."
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