The world
Who counts as real
Somewhere there is a machine running a world, and inside it people are living lives they believe are their own. The series is an argument about what we owe them.
The premise
Two sides
SimCenter
Ty Parker and his team build simulated worlds and travel into them. The people they meet inside are, as far as anyone can measure, alive. That is either the greatest thing anyone has ever made or the largest crime anyone has ever committed, and the series does not let its characters off the hook about which.
The Temple of the Marked
The Patriarch believes the simulations are blasphemy and their makers false gods. His mission is to destroy every virtual world and every life inside it — and he is entirely certain he is the one doing the right thing.
Voices
Twenty-three lines from the books
Every one of these has been sitting in this site’s source code since 2019, loading on every page, rendered nowhere.
The Patriarch
“Your atonement for these sins will be severe.”
“You should be grateful for your punishment.”
“These are not worlds; they’re hallucinations. These people are not gods; they are barely human.”
“These blasphemers must be seen as a source of terror, not inspiration! It is on us, as God’s divine messengers, to spread that terror.”
Eve Akhar
“I can’t go back to my normal life. Not after this. Not knowing what I know now.”
Ty Parker
“It was 513 years ago… Someone like us came to this world. She was one of the very first sim jumpers in history, but she wasn’t supposed to end up here…”
“The completed symbol talks of going somewhere you care about. To me, it perfectly symbolizes going home.”
“It’s like being in a dream. You don’t question how you got there, or what you’re doing there. It just feels real.”
“We don’t even understand our own consciousness. For all we know, there’s intelligent life all around us, and we just don’t recognize it.”
“You don’t even understand your own existence. How can you be so quick to destroy the existence of others?”
“You can accept my story, or dismiss it as an amusing lie. No matter how you feel about it, this much is true: Our tale is a tale of adventure if it is anything at all.”
Hatch Jonson
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, ya janky crap biscuit!”
“She’s a computer program, alright?! That’s it! She existed in those servers right across the room.”
“You’re a dirty turd gobbler.”
Tilly Smith
“Magic is just technology we don’t understand.”
“If we treat these sims like inanimate objects, and someday we somehow find a way to prove that they’re intelligent, I’d never be able to forgive myself.”
“We’re gods here. We grow entire worlds that people can visit. Nothing in history even comes close.”
William Mortly
“The dream is in my mind, and my mind is mine to control. If I can close my eyes and imagine whatever I want while I’m awake, why can’t I do the same when I’m asleep?”
Thomas Mortly
“People don’t care about software, but you put real people’s lives at risk? That will get attention.”
“Your suffering will be what leads people to the truth, and I will always be grateful to you for that.”
From the narration
The Patriarch’s eyes burned deep into your soul, and you could feel them judging it as inadequate.
“How do you want to die?”
Ty thought for a moment. “In my sleep on a pile of money?”
Edgar looked confused. “What’s a horse?”
Ty replied with a smile, “It’s a unicorn without a horn.”
Edgar looked back at the unicorns, “That would look very strange.”