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A few days ago I was choosing a gift for the New year. As I was standing in the gift shop and my sight was caught by the mug with memes.

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I thought that it looks like the internet somehow crawled into reality. Every shop I saw during my journey through the mall had something inherited purely from internet culture. One might agree that it looks like the "barrier" between the internet and reality is getting "thinner" in such places. Of course, I am saying it with some irony, because today the "internet rift" is impossible. It is just an example of why I am even considering to treat the internet as a seed for the immaterium.

The question is how the evolution of the internet might go for it to become somewhat similar to warp from the Warhammer universe.

Some logical constraints should help it to stay at least semi-realistic:

  • No usual type of magic(though it might form it's own "magic") or aliens

  • It does not physically exist in form of subspace as immaterium in the Warhammer universe does.

  • Starting evolution point is the present time.

But at the same time, in my opinion, there should be some defining properties:

  • It should provide the means to use it as some kind of transport.

  • There should be entities that are "living" there.

  • It should be very hard/impossible to control it even if everybody(the human race) decides to unite their efforts.

In my opinion for starting, this "immaterium" should be restricted to Earth, to put the space travel out of scope to avoid all paradoxes and decisions related to FTL traveling. But I would like to hear how to port this idea to the universe with reasonable space travel mechanics.

Edit:

As requested by AlexP I am defining what I mean by "immaterium". Firstly, it is effectively a parallel universe(or subspace) with its own logic of existence. Usually, it is associated with superluminal travel, but here it is not the case.

There are limited means to access this universe to use it for some purpose. Here are some examples of such spaces:

  • StarTrack or Starwars like hyperspace. It is uninhabited and used only as a means of transport.

  • Blame! like subspace which only exists as virtual reality simulated by hardware in megastructures.

  • Warp in Warhammer universe as mentioned above.

FrogOfJuly
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  • Questions about popular fiction, games and such things are off topic here –  Jan 05 '21 at 21:50
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    As I see it, my question is about the evolution process for internet to became like a separate dimension. Warhammer universe is an example of such dimension. Correct me if I am wrong – FrogOfJuly Jan 05 '21 at 21:57
  • Just the mention of it is apparently enough for someone to vote to close. –  Jan 05 '21 at 22:02
  • What is an "immaterium"? (The links lead to technobabble. Not useful.) Voting to close as completely unclear what you are asking. Will retract the close vote if the question is edited to explain what it is about. – AlexP Jan 05 '21 at 22:23
  • This scenario happened in the metaplot of Mage: The Ascension tabletop roleplaying game. The Internet awoke and became self aware. Well, at least to an extent. It wasn't a separate "dimension" but...it already kind of was even before its self-realisation. Technomages could travel to the Internet and achieve all sorts of tasks there - from hacking systems in the grossly exaggerated Hollywood fashion (where computer systems are apparently 3D virtual simulations) to using it to travel to another connected node via the wires and packets. – VLAZ Jan 05 '21 at 22:52
  • @AlexP, I've edited the question and defined what I mean by immaterium. If it is not enough, let me know what is expected of me to change. – FrogOfJuly Jan 05 '21 at 23:00
  • @VLAZ, as I found from googling there is just a statement of how this internet and related magic works, but nothing about the evolution of it. The idea is very interesting(but a little bit more magical than it should be, to my taste) and if you have links with more detailed lore of this universe I will appreciate them. – FrogOfJuly Jan 05 '21 at 23:05
  • i dont quite get your question but reading this remind me of digimon – Li Jun Jan 06 '21 at 00:07
  • @FrogOfJuly the wiki is perhaps a good start. Although, there is a lot of lore and while the wiki is quite wide, it really doesn't cover all of it completely. There is at least two decades of supplementary materials released for the setting, so it's not something really easy to cover. However, the short of it is that there is a lot of animism in the universe. There are spirits around and they represent concepts. Some are simple like fox spirits, some are grand, like the spirit of the Sun. The more important something is, the more of a chance it – VLAZ Jan 06 '21 at 00:16
  • gets a spirit to represent it and the more powerful the spirit. A very old tree, for example, might have a spirit. The Internet does. It's technology that has become monumental for society, so the spirit of the Internet is quite powerful indeed. It only recently-ish was it created due to its significance and it awoke (the metaplot implies it to be quite young). The link I gave was how mages treat the web as another realm. They can visit either as a fancy VR, Matrix style (body stays IRL, mind enters), or literally enter it. So, there is two aspects - the evolution and the separate realm. – VLAZ Jan 06 '21 at 00:16
  • Can the objects or people completely cross from "materium" to "immaterium" and come back? Or this is an information-only exchange? – Alexander Jan 06 '21 at 00:30
  • @Alexander, if there is a way for the internet to evolve to the state where it is possible to put material object there and then "download" it somewhere else, like 3D printing from .cad file, then it is possible for object or human to cross "materium"--"immaterium" border. The problem is to come up with an evolution path for the internet, that will lead to such state of things. – FrogOfJuly Jan 06 '21 at 00:46
  • @FrogOfJuly "Crossing the border" so that the original can be destroyed? It's one thing for an inanimate object and completely different for a human being. A technological path can be outlined for the former, but not quite so for the latter. – Alexander Jan 06 '21 at 01:19
  • @Alexander, quantum teleportation does the latter. One can not clone an unmeasured state, it is possible only to "move" it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem – FrogOfJuly Jan 06 '21 at 01:31
  • @FrogOfJuly how to move it (even in theory) is a trillion dollar question. In the meantime, we can not even move it into a traditional internet: No-teleportation theorem – Alexander Jan 06 '21 at 02:21
  • @Alexander, I think you are right about it, hence crossing the border in such setup is possible only by making a digital copy and then physical copy if one wants to put it back into reality. – FrogOfJuly Jan 06 '21 at 03:53
  • Isn't this just "Cyberspace" meets the Internet Of Things? Not sure what it has to do with worldbuilding, so voting to close. – rek Jan 07 '21 at 17:27

1 Answers1

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It already is like that

  • It should provide the means to use it as some kind of transport.

I buy stuff online. I clickety-click on a product, and magically a few days later it materializes at my doorstep.

Have you ever seen the sweatshops factories those things come from? Some would even dare say that those places do not exist, because of a certain conspiracy theory involving the shape of the planet.

Cheap shot at flat-eathers aside, the internets can be used to transport money overseas with a few clicks. It can even generate magic money, which only exists within the network but which can be traded for actual money which then can become cash.

  • There should be entities that are "living" there.

One of my favorite musicians is an internets being.

GEM TOS has been existing as an entity circulating around Data Airlines for a while now, as a repeating voice talking about chiptunes, reasons for skipping school and famous kraftwerk quotes, as a serie of strange sounds and she even featured on Oai Stars latest album clashing about essential ingredients for a good production, or life, or a night out. As hard to interpret as to know who she is, GEM TOS, more than just an entity circulating around Data Airlines then, like a ghost assuring a certain german attitude in everything released by the label.

She even has some lyrics about it:

I fly through hyperspace
In my green computer interface
I travel my own place

And

Then it begins
We go back to my place
I connect and log in
This time it's no lost race
My PC on your line
Ever since the feds cut mine
Best Speed and ELiTE detector
Hosted by Tristar & Red Sector iNC
Like three straight sevens
And I go to heaven

  • It should be very hard/impossible to control it even if everybody (the human race) decides to unite their efforts.

You can activate Internet Kill Switch'es locally, but if you do it globally you basically crash every economy where people use electronics. Practically all banks nowadays work through the network. You use the internet when you make a credit or debit payment.

We know it cannot be deactivated without causing something worse than the 1929 crash, now think about content. You can moderate it in some sites, but there is always somewhere else with different ideas and rules. You can't control all the content that is generated and published.

And then there is the magic money I mentioned some paragraphs ago. It was meant to make transactions hard to trace and its development led to a new technology which can be used to move not just money, but any kind of information. It is a colossal effort, and some would even say it's impossible, to tap on blockchain stuff.

The Square-Cube Law
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  • Exectly these thoughts were in my head while I was writing my question. But the problem is that internet today is all human-powered. Take away humans and nothing will work. Even those musicians that appear to be internet-only beings luck their own concesness-like properties. Take away the human who press a button to run the algorithm and no more music then. In my opinion, a camera from the highway is closer to "internet being" then virtual musician, because camre does not reqier human to operate. If suddenly humans dissapear it will send data to processing center until it is broken. – FrogOfJuly Jan 09 '21 at 00:01
  • The blockchain stuff is interesting bc it allows to store a copy of something important on many computers and be sure that it survives even the nuclear war. But still it is only storage. So one can see that that there is a long road until the internet will became "separate dimension" and that is exectly why I've asked the question here. What is possbile way for the internet to become so complex it will be effectivly a subspace of our reality? – FrogOfJuly Jan 09 '21 at 00:08
  • @frogofjuly take away humans and you still have bots and AI's. By the way, for inspiration, you might like to read about Werewolf: the Apocalypse. It's and old school tabletop RPG, with its own mythology where the internet is exactly what you ask for in the question. – The Square-Cube Law Jan 09 '21 at 02:29