Living Outside

Episode 06: Neo-Kyoto Explodes! 3

Mike's proxy sat on a cushion which hovered about his virtual studio. In physical reality, he sat on his couch. Even without a Plant, he was able to maintain an effective presence in purely virtual spaces by means of his augmented reality gear. Use of a keysphere and haptic clothing enabled interaction with the sets and precision control over the movie. He also wore a stylish cap which monitored his brain activity and helped him move around the sets intuitively.

His role as Crenshaw consisted mainly of spoken lines and upper body movement. It would have been easier and more immediate with a plant, but he made do and it turned out well enough since Crenshaw was not active on the front lines.

Mike had been watching the scenes unfold in two ways- through a tentative framing of the scenes being recorded, and to the side, as if he was on a physical movie set. Between the two methods, it was easy for him to do things like freeze the action, give direction, and manipulate various aspects of the scenes.

The actors returned to their primary proxies in the common area of Mike's set. The common area was designed to enable the crew to discuss and plan the filming. There were multiple screens of different sizes littered about, displaying footage from various angles as scenes were recorded, along with miniaturized versions of the sets floating here and there, providing easy ways to watch the action unfolding from any angle desired.

Since most scenes were complete 3D recordings in virtual space, actors were typically fully immersed in their roles. Sometimes there was a visual mark to indicate a possible framing perspective where the "camera view" might be placed later, and occasionally Mike's hovering proxy would appear in a scene to give direction, but often actors just performed the scene naturally, with no no impediments to their movement.

Filming inside a virtual space, known as "machinimation," cost nothing by itself, and was far easier than filming with real cameras and physical locations. Even real physical locations were easier to work with once virtualized. Realistic environments, bodies, clothing, makeup, lighting, visual continuity, and most special effects were easily created and simulated. Scenes could be shot and reshot any number of ways, and individual elements in a scene, such as an actor, an object, or an explosion, could be isolated and manipulated separately. A perfect performance by one actor could never be ruined by bad lighting or the actions of other actors.

Megan watched the filming, fascinated with Kyu and Mike's real time editing of the various shots of the film into engaging preliminary sequences. She approached Mike as he was artfully adding some gore into Zero's falling sequence.

Thomas walked up to Mike and showed him various vids of Riful reacting to Blaze Snap as it powered up its weapons. Mike nodded in approval to one and Thomas started tweaking it. Megan watched Sam and Miguel as they reshot various sections of Gakk and Zero's escape. They repeatedly fought through the same floors, with some randomization to keep the fighting fresh. Kyu and Mike would later choose the best takes and edit them together so the action appeared natural and raw.

Overhearing this, Kyu smiled and waved politely while considering camera angles for Blaze Snap's initial barrage.

Sam and Miguel re-inhabited their proxies in the common area and looked through the footage they had just recorded for any particularly exciting or funny bits of action. Thomas, satisfied with what he was working on, came over and helped Mike, who was still working on Zero's escape.

Thomas changed his proxy to the film's Riful/Thomas mixed proxy.

Thomas brought up a detailed hologram of Blaze Snap's schematics.

Miguel walked over to the discussion after finishing with his part of the project.

Thomas brought up a miniature Neo-Kyoto model and replayed the devastation that Blaze unleashed upon Sure Fire's defenses.

Miguel used this comment as an excuse to join Kyu in editing the film.

As per Mike's studio rules enforcing Godwin's Law, Thomas' mouth became a zipper and was instantly zipped shut. His enforced silence would last for 2 minutes.

Thomas glared at Mike for a moment, but had no one but himself to blame. Seeing that most people seemed to be done with their work, Mike brought up Kyu's diagrams, which visualized the various forces and strategic decisions of both sides during the battle.

Mike linked Megan to a mech and she inhabited the proxy inside it. While recording was paused, she settled into her seat, calibrated the mech for her usual settings, and practiced with its weapons on nearby buildings.

Proxies in Ataraxia didn't come with their own preset actions, requiring their users to control their every motion, or to automate them with ghosts. Reloading a weapon, aiming, firing, or even taking a step required more than just pushing a button. Each part of each action had to be done by a player or a ghost. This meant that players could do anything they could in the physical world, with just as much, or more, precision. But it required a good deal more experience than less fully articulated games.

Operating a mech in Ataraxia could be done indirectly using its physical control scheme, or it could be made an extension of a player's proxy senses. As an extension of the player's body, it could be controlled like any proxy body. A combination of control methods was common. Megan had mech experience, and so quickly adopted its sensations and limited the sensations from the mech pilot proxy, to engender the experience of being the mech.

The sensations of a mech were similar to those of a body. Megan could smell the exhaust from her engine and hear distant fighting. She could feel the wind, the gravel under her feet, and the pull of gravity as she balanced the mech on its bulky legs. She also had a complete wraparound view of her environment, unencumbered except by a crisp, mostly transparent heads up display feeding her vital information. She could also feel the heat from the mech's engines, which helped her to prevent overheating. If damaged, she would experience small unpleasant sensations in a corresponding part of her body, just enough to get her attention, assess damage, and help her work around disabled parts.

Inside the mech was the male proxy she was inhabiting, but she only shared sensations with his face and vocal cords, for the purpose of communicating with other players. To Megan, the mech wasn't just a machine she was controlling, or even an extension of her body. For all intents and purposes, to her brain at least, the mech was most of her body. This immediacy provided intuitive control, but more was needed for mastery of the complex combat required by games like Ataraxia. For that, your mech needed to have some life of its own.

Megan loaded her personal ghost into the Strider class mech and it came online gradually. It contained the personalized reflexes and automation she had trained into similar mechs over countless hours of practice and combat. Trained ghost reflexes were much like reflexes of a physical body, which are often faster than conscious decision making. Some reflexes of the biological body are relayed from the spinal cord, external to the human brain. In both biological and ghost reflexes, the brain becomes aware of the reflexive action only after it has occurred, but through immediacy and familiarity, the brain is often under the illusion that it consciously performed the reflexes itself.

Megan's ghost managed predictable mech systems and anticipated Megan's desires based on her motions and commands. It first took over managing the mech's balance as it walked. It did this so smoothly, and so closely mimicking her own manner, that Megan still felt as if she was controlling every aspect of the movement, even as she paid less and less direct attention to it. The first few times she reloaded her hi-explosive launcher, she manually reached for new ammo from the dispenser on her back, and loaded it into the launcher. But then the ghost started taking over so that she only had to start reaching for the ammo and the ghost did the rest. This freed her mind to focus on less mundane details. Only rarely did her ghost misread her intent, and then it was easy to override by simply resisting the action or performing a new one.

The reflexes and automation Megan had built into her mech also helped her participate in high speed combat she could never have consciously kept up with, and helped bridge the gap regarding lag issues for when she was participating in a virtual space hosted on a server geographically far enough away from her to matter.

It turned out that the player Megan was inhabiting had heroically sacrificed himself in order to distract a group of Sure Fire units. Megan let the recorded ghost of her proxy's previous resident replicate its movements through the streets of the city, but she stopped it before it sacrificed itself. She looked for a better way to deal with the situation, or at least a more exciting way to die. While exploring, she found some grafitti of Sure Fire's informal symbol, a blue universal no symbol- a circle with a diagonal line through it from top left to bottom right.

Nearby, she rounded a corner and sighted several cloaked SuFi units. Before she could have consciously reacted, her mech's ghost had taken over in response to the unexpected threat and had jumped back behind the building for cover. But it did it so much like she would have that her brain was convinced it had responded itself, even if Megan knew she wasn't quite that fast.

As it was in an aggressive mode, it also autonomously sent a few scattered laser shots at the enemy units to draw their attention. Again, Megan's ghost acted so perfectly in line with her intent that she couldn't necessarily say whether it had been her ghost or an itchy trigger finger. As quickly as it responded, however, the enemy units sprayed plasma bolts through the building and critically damaged her mech, rattling Megan's teeth and giving her an unpleasant tingling along her right side corresponding to the damage.

Mike reset her scene to just before she rounded the corner.

Megan always wore a smile the entire time she piloted a mech into combat. Fighting and fleeing in an urban jungle with a high speed mech was like a combination of racing cars, gun fighting, parkour, and occasionally sky diving. There was nothing quite like mech combat, even staged as this was, to get her adrenaline pumping.

Megan's mech came around the corner, again and again, feigning surprise each time as it jumped back to cover. Most of the time enemy fire hit her mech, but a few times she managed to jump back and climb the building to get high ground and then shoot back through the building. Occasionally she even took one of the SuFi mech out before being nailed herself. She also discovered, by looking at a local map of events, that she sometimes managed to bring attention to those enemy units, disrupting what turned out to be their covert plans.

She decided to stretch her ghost a bit. She launched her only thermal grenade at the enemy, rocket jumped high in the air while shooting at them, then shot a grappling hook into the top of a building, and reeled her mech in at maximum speed to abruptly change course midair. She landed on the building and shot one of the mech down as it rocket hopped above her in pursuit, before being blasted by another.

Megan returned to her proxy in the common area and watched the other section being filmed while chomping down one of T's donuts as her physical had a granola bar. T and Pawn worked well together, orchestrating their teams to expertly annoy Sure Fire.

That is, until T shot Pawn's head off.

They played through their scenario several more times until they had achieved a sufficiently exciting outcome and returned to the common area. Pawn looked annoyed.

Miguel pointed angrily at T.