Inside a Computer System: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

This is a relatively new branch of [[Science Fiction]], it deals with the aspects of people being either partially or completely attached to, and part of a computer system. Virtual Reality taken to the next step, or perhaps, Virtual Reality ''as'' reality.

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'' has this as the central theme of the story. Notably, it treats Inside a Computer System as a mystical experience, without any technological peripherals connecting people to the virtual reality; the only "scientific" explanation given to the out of body experiences is the Earth's electromagnetic Schumann Resonance, which in the story can link human brains and computer equipment together without anyone noticing.

* In ''Silent Mobius'', this is [[Mad Scientist|Lebia Maverick]]'s main shtick.

* Everyone in ''[[.hack|.hack//]]'' is inside a MMORPG.

** Except in ''.hack//Liminality'', which is all about what's going on on the outside.

* The second season of ''Superbook'' had the pet dog one of the first season's regulars getting trapped in a computer after a freak accident caused it to merge with the Superbook (the Bible, only with a magic ability to transport people into the stories). The new hero of the season then had to travel into the computer to get her back.

* Chisame of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', being a [[Playful Hacker]], gains an Artifact that lets her do this.

* ''[[Corrector Yui]]''.

* Like ''[[.hack|.hack//]]'', everyone in ''Mythic Quest'' is in the MMORPG ''Mythic Quest''.

** Also an example of [[Cyberspace]].

* {{spoiler|''[[Eureka Seven]]''}} can be considered to be an example of this trope, albeit one where the computer is simulating entities instead of abstract information mentioned under the "Real Life" folder of this trope. Still... this only borders on the very fringes of this (as designing a computer system that crashes in the way the series describes would be very odd and, likely, not an optimal way of doing things). (Maybe the series' simulation has some way of tracking sentient entities and crashes when too many of them are active?)

 

* ''[[Kimmie 66]]'' takes place almost entirely in "lairs", basically VR environments.

* In ''[[Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja]]'', [[Reality Warper]] Alfie O'Meagan traps John Doe and Colonel Novikova inside a video game, complete with horrible 8-bit music, [[Goomba Stomp]]ing, and secret [[Warp Zone]]s.

 

* We did mention ''[[The Matrix]]'' once or twice, [[Sarcasm Mode|didn't we]]?

* ''[[Johnny Mnemonic]]'', starring the indomitable [[Keanu Reeves]], had scenes in cyberspace, but the movie mostly took place in meatspace.

* In ''[[Virtuosity]]'', [[Denzel Washington]] is a cop, convicted of manslaughter, who gets time off from his sentence to fight Sid, an entity inside a computer who is an amalgam of the personality of dozens of serial killers and mass murderers. When Sid ends up getting himself released into the real world, Washington has to be let out of prison to stop him before Sid kills lots more people than his initial bloodbath takes out.

* The main premise of the ''[[Detective Conan]]'' [[Non-Serial Movie]] ''Phantom of Baker Street'' involves Cocoon, a virtual reality gaming system that puts injects the senses of the players by ''neural stimulation'' when sat inside the pods. And then, the boss of the software company murders the chief engineer of the project on the day of testing; the said engineering spread an AI that hacked into the gaming system, which in turn caused [[Holodeck Malfunction]]...

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Overdrawn at the Memory Bank]]'' by [[John Varley]] (and its infamous film adaptation) has a man whose consciousness is loaded into a computer to keep him alive after his body is misplaced.

 

* ''[[Caprica]]'' has the holo-bands, your own personal Matrix. Portrayed somewhat realistically as a new user, who just got his own avatar, doesn't know how to move without moving his physical legs. Also, he spawns in a drab concrete room with a single door, along with his guide, who apologizes for the lack of décor.

* A notably early example was in the 1976 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story ''The Deadly Assassin'', where the Doctor travels into a surreal virtual world inside a computer matrix.

* The ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode "The Thaw".

* The premise of the [[Bonus Round]] on ''[[Nick Arcade]]''.

 

== Music ==

* The song "Mastermind" on the [[Heaven's Gate (band)|Heavens Gate]] album ''Menergy'' has the title character monitoring our life which is actually inside a computer.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

== Theatre ==

* ''Possible Worlds'' by John Mighton has two detectives investigating the theft of a human brain. At one point they go to a scientist who studies brains, and one takes a machine hooked up to a rat brain with him. He muses what it would be like to be like the rat brain and believe things are real although they are really just electrical pulses. His partner tells him not to be ridiculous. Also, {{spoiler|In the end, the detectives find that the scientist with the rat brain had stolen the human one and all the scenes that had "happened" to the dead man were just dreams he was having after the scientist hooked up some machine to his brain.}} Fascinating play, but bloody confusing.

 

== Video Games ==

** In the add on ''Operation: Anchorage'' The player character can enter a military training simulation, it is obviously not real from the players perceptive but the computer generated characters see it as totally real.

*** McGraw also mentions that the sim had it's safety protocols turned off, meaning that getting killed in the sim results in your character going into cardiac arrest in the "real" world.

* The ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' series for the GBA integrates this into gameplay. The player controls Mega Man's human counterpart who can "Jack In" Megaman into various computer systems to solve various puzzles and progress through the plot.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' gives us Space Paranoids, the [[Tron]] level. That's without mentioning {{spoiler|the virtual Twilight Town Diz and Riku trap Roxas in, which Sora and the gang later visit. Weirdly, you have to be go through the latter to unlock the final dungeon - the heroes enter a portal in the virtual mansion's basement, pass through Betwixt & Between and end up at the Organization's home, apparently flesh and blood again.}}

** Actually Pokemon are indeed stored in cyberspace in the games. Similar storage systems exist in the Anime "however, unlike in the games, Pokémon are not stored electronically." - Bulbapedia.

* This trope is heavily at work in ''[[Galerians]]'': ASH, with {{spoiler|the main villain being a computer program who has built his own virtual reality so that he can experience life as humans do}}.

 

== Web Comics ==

* Near the end of [[Narbonic]], {{spoiler|Helen goes into the AI computer that Dave has taken over, in order to try to rescue him}}.

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Darwin's Soldiers]]'' story ''Schrodinger's Prisoners'' takes place primarily in one of these.

* AIs are important in the [[Chaos Timeline]], so expect this.

 

== Western Animation ==

* This was also the plot of a second-season episode of [[Hanna-Barbera]]'s ''[[Pac-Man]]'': Pac-Baby gets lost inside his daddy's new home computer, and so Pac-Man and his nephew P.J. have to rescue him.

* The entire premise of ''[[Code Lyoko]]''. Going further than just "connected", though, the heroes are physically transported into the virtual world.

* This was a common plot in [[Animated Series]] from [[The Eighties]]:

** ''[[Centurions]]'': "The Incredible Shrinking Centurions"

** ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters|Filmations Ghostbusters]]'': "Cyman's Revenge", which was [[Recycled Script|very similar to]]...

** ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'': "Day of the Machines"

*** I, for one, hope the Universe is infinite.

*** An infinite universe can simulate other infinite universes within itself, so long as it confines the simulation to an [[wikipedia:Light cone|expanding finite region.]] Our universe, for example, could be infinite and as long as the portion of it that is simulated expands outward at the speed of light, we would never be able to tell. This can also be used to construct infinite simulations-within-simulations.

*** An important note about this concept that is often forgotten: there is no logically meaningful difference from our inside perspective whether the universe is a simulation or the stack-top. For some reason a lot of people seem to find the idea that the universe could suddenly be revealed as "not real" disturbing, when it really makes no difference at all ([[Video Game Cruelty Potential|as long as the programmers don't interfere]], anyway). And no, there is absolutely no way we could somehow cost more computation power in our reality by running our own simulated universes.<ref>Basically, unless given evidence to the contrary, the most reasonable assumption is that the computer isn't simulating complex, advanced constructs like "people" or "planets" at a high level, but rather building them out of simpler units that are subatomic particles. These would eat up the same amount of processing power whether embedded in the middle of a planet, forming part of your digestive system, or shaped into a complex machine such as a universe-simulating computer. Secondly, it doesn't actually matter how fast the supposed external computer is; since our perception of time is going to be tied to the way the computer completes each stage of the simulation, it could be paused for ten thousand years and then powered up again ''and we'd never notice'' because the universe was effectively frozen during that period, your thoughts included.</ref>

* One bizarre philosophical twist on this idea is the notion that the Universe is at once a computer, and computer program, that [[Mind Screw|simulates itself]].

* Another one. The Universe is computer and all the mass/energy inside it is the program. Once you boil it all down in the abstract, all matter and energy is just information. Still inside a computer, but it's not a simulation of anything else. So it's still 'real'. Yea...

* Marshall Brain, founder of the website HowStuffWorks.com, [http://www.marshallbrain.com/discard1.htm has argued that one day we will likely all live in a simulated environment], probably within the lifetimes of many people reading this page.