The Real World

I‘m not really interested in computer games. However, my wife bought me Flight Simulator for Christmas a few years ago and I play it from time to time.

The other day I took off from Barbados in the Cessna. I climbed to 12,000 feet and set the simulation rate to ‘Fastest’ as I don’t like long flights. In fact, I’m more interested in the scenery than in the art of flying, so I turned off the Instrument Panel to get a better view.

Flying at about 15,000 miles an hour I followed the island chain, known as the Lesser Antilles, round to the west towards Hispaniola and Jamaica. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the visibility was about 50 miles. I made a detour, northwards, over Cuba then flew along the coast of Yucatan to the great flooded crater - the site of the meteorite impact that killed off the dinosaurs. There I turned south towards Guatemala, intending to follow the southern coast down to Panama.

Far off, on the eastern horizon, I spotted some strange shapes. They looked like three church spires, like the skyline of Coventry city-centre. Intrigued, I changed course and flew towards them. Nothing, in my experience, prepared me for what I was about to see…

By their overpowering size and shape, these spires are very sinister. If I were a nervous person I would even call them frightening. Their shadows cast a brooding presence over the jungle. Even more sinister is the black mouth of a shaft at the base of one of the spires. Like a black hole waiting to suck any unwary traveller into oblivion. These shafts are the inverse of the spires, extending thousands of feet down into the ground. You won’t catch me flying into one of those things!

Of course these spires and shafts do not exist in the real world but are errors in the data which defines the elevation of the surface at these points. However, they started a train of thought and within minutes I had the scenario for a film script or book.

The story

A rich explorer gets hooked on FS. He discovers these virtual spires in Guatemala and organises an expedition to the jungle. There they find that the spires actually exist...

Reports start to come in, from all over the world, of other strange geographical anomalies such as pits many miles deep, rivers running uphill, cubic waves crashing on the shore and fog banks that look like giant crystals. More and more unidentified aircraft are seen in the sky and on radar screens. FS reality has somehow slipped into the real world.

A UFO streaks across the Earth's skies at an enormous speed then stops in an instant. (Someone is flying at the fastest simulation speed and hits the Pause key)

Hackers turn their attention to FS and compete with each other to create more and more outrageous physical anomalies in the real world, threatening complete chaos.

There follows a frantic race by Microsoft, and others, to shut down the link, between FS and the real world, and save the Earth from destruction...

The links between the worlds

The crux of the story is the link between the FS world and the real world. It should not be too technical and, above all, it should be believable. The answer turns out to be remarkably simple.

There are three realities, nested like layers of an onion. At the centre there is the FS world, part of and contained within the real world. Then there is the real world, part of and contained within the Real World. (Note the capital letters)

In the Real World a young scientist creates a computer simulation – the real world. One of the people in this world is his alter ego, the rich explorer. There is also a software company, called Microsoft, that has created a Flight Simulator program. The program is part of the real world simulation, which explains the possibility of the (software) link between the two worlds.

The story progresses as described above. (The hackers are part of the simulation) The young scientist seeing that his simulated world is in danger tries to modify his software, but without success. As a last resort he decides to use a virtual reality device to go into the simulation to try to get help. There he meets his alter ego and, after many adventures they, together with Bill Gates (also a simulation), eventually succeed.
 
More story ideas

• So far all the characters have been men. Although this is an adventure story a romantic thread is essential with women playing more than just a passive role. The virtual reality device could have been designed and built by a women colleague. She and the young scientist could then venture into the simulation together. Once there, there is the possibility of a love triangle with them and the alter-ego.

• During his adventures in Guatemala the explorer tries to descend the shaft in his Cessna - A very scary scenario.

• Maybe Bill Gates could be persuaded to make a guest appearance!

• By the end of the story, the audience should have become aware of the possibility that our world could actually be the real world (no capitals), and that we could all be part of a simulation.