Welcome to the Metaverse

The Metaverse is a development of the Shadowrun Matrix based upon the works of Neal Stephenson, specifically his novel Snow Crash.

Three things enabled the computer-graphics ninja overlords of the Association for Computing Machiner's Global Multimedia Protocol Group to put together the Metaverse. One, the pooling of resources and companies to form a Global Telecommunications Grid via massive orbiting mainframes and satellites. Two, their elite membership and recognition as the regulators for multimedia iconography standards. Three, and most importantly, the development of a cheap, completely safe and non-threatening cyberterminal usable by anyone and capable of directly translating the real world skills of a person into Metaverse equivalents.

The Metaverse

The Metaverse is a unique sculpted system that combines aspects of an LTG and a Host. Technically classified as an GTG, or Global Telecommunications Grid, The Metaverse is a massive sphere that encloses all other RTGs, LTGs and PLTGs within the Matrix. The Metaverse has been sculpted to follow reality as closely as possible while preventing personalized icons from detracting from its image.

Accessable from anywhere on the surface of the planet by satellite uplink, the Metaverse is a public host with open doors to anyone with a MetaTerminal and credits on a valid credstick, the Metaverse is a public forum where detailed personas that (by default) look exactly like the users can meet face to face to conduct business, have a conversation, or just meet new people and explore the surroundings.

The Street


New Equipment

SQUID

SQUID stands for Semi-conducting Quantum Interface Device, and is an electrode net that slips over a users scalp in order to allow a Direct Neural Interface with a computer. SQUIDs can both accept commands directly from the brain and give sensory information directly to the brain.

MetaTerminal

Somewhat like a miniturized host that can be purchased by anyone, the MetaTerminal is a small computer that can allow one or more people to enter the Metaverse through a piece of real estate on The Street. The MetaTerminal comes with a SQUID (Semiconducting Quantum Interface Device) that only accepts commands from the brain. Sensory input is generated through a set of goggle/headphones that generate the reality of the Metaverse through quadraphonic speakers and three lasers that paint a fluid, moving, 3-dimensional, image at a resolution twice as fine as can be percieved by the human eye. A red, green, and blue laser can combine to create any color in the spectrum and swept back and forth across the lenses of the goggles to create an image that hangs in space in front of the user's view of Reality.