Image Credit: Wujekbaca
The emergence of Holos sparked both excitement and heated debate, but few truly understood the boundaries that had been crossed in the search for digital immortality.
With the discovery of Kai energy in 1978, a wave of innovations reshaped society in ways even their creators could scarcely have imagined. One of the first breakthroughs was the evolution of holographic technology. Paired with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence also brought about by Kai, a new frontier was unlocked that would forever change the course of human evolution.
Earlier advancements in laser technology had laid the groundwork for holography, allowing for the creation of ethereal images. However, Kai energy revolutionised the field by enabling light wavefronts to interact with the energy field itself, producing holograms with unprecedented clarity, permanence and physical tangibility. What had once been fleeting illusions were now stable constructs, capable of interacting with physical objects, generating force and even simulating momentum. These advancements made holograms not only visually stunning, but also incredibly versatile for both industry and entertainment alike.
At the forefront of these innovations KPCO, a mega-corporation deeply involved in the processing of Kai, recognised the potential of combining holography with cutting-edge AI. While many competitors focused exclusively on dominating the AI arms race, a small, secretive team within a distant KPCO outpost worked on the creation of new forms of consciousness, fully realized in the material world. By 1985, they had developed holographic projections capable of independent movement. A few years later, they achieved the unthinkable: the seamless fusion of AI and holography in a physically autonomous form.
This breakthrough sparked a technological renaissance. What began with advertisements and entertainment soon moved to AI companions, security systems and research assistants. Previously confined to static interfaces or clunky robotic forms, a range of AI utilities were reborn as interactive, holographic entities with their own distinct personalities. Freed from the constraints of mechanical bodies, "holo-beings" became integral to everyday life, capable of adapting and thriving in ways previously unimaginable. Yet, the researchers at KPCO weren’t content to stop there. They envisioned something far more transformative.
Hidden within KPCO’s most secretive labs, a research department made up of neuroscientists, physicists and network engineers were busy exploring the frontier of consciousness uploading. By leveraging Kai-powered data servers that could store and retrieve information quicker than ever before, they succeeded in transferring human consciousness into a digital form. For the first time, a person’s mind in all its nuance could be preserved outside of their physical body. Early research volunteers, terminally ill family members and those with access to immeasurable wealth driven by a desire for immortality underwent the experimental process, awakening in digital form. Equipped with full sensory perception and the newly engineered holographic avatars these pioneers, dubbed "Holos" in internal memos, were heralded as humanity’s next evolutionary step. What happened to the physical counterparts they were drawn from has been deleted from record.
Holos offered what many had dreamed of but few had dared believe possible. A path to digital immortality was now available. No longer bound by aging or frailty, a person’s essence could persist indefinitely, experiencing life through holographic avatars as vivid and expressive as their physical bodies had once been. Even more, these avatars were not limited by the constraints of flesh. They could adapt and alter their appearance, allowing Holos to embody different forms depending on their purpose or desire. Once in control of their own movements, they even quickly figured out how to glitch their holographic form in and out of existence, allowing a kind of short-distance teleportation tied together by the sinews of their digital consciousness. Excitement brewed as the uploading process was tested on multiple subjects, with dozens of successful test cases placed into the secretive records of the KPCO archives.
But not everyone embraced this new era without reservations. Dr. Helena Rhys, a leading neuroscientist and one of the architects of consciousness uploading, grew increasingly concerned about the implications of the technology. Initially a staunch advocate, she began to notice disturbing trends. The process was controlled entirely by KPCO, concentrating immense power in the hands of a single entity. Worse, the procedure stripped individuals of true autonomy, binding their digital selves to systems entirely under corporate oversight and dependency. She went further to state that the process was one of no return, but any trace of her misgivings in this area remain fully redacted.
Helena’s internal warnings, voiced through memos and closed-door meetings, were ignored. Frustrated, she chose to go public as a whistleblower. News feeds lit up with her revelations, exposing the risks and ethical pitfalls of a technology that promised immortality at the cost of corporate control. For a brief moment, it seemed like public opinion might turn against KPCO amid the disturbing nature of what had been revealed. There were also many citizens, however, that were more amazed by the technological advancements than they were concerned by the ethical and moral implications. A debate began to grow in the public sphere until suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, the story vanished from headlines. The issue had been effectively contained by a tightly controlled narrative spoken in soundbites and ambiguous terms from confident mouthpieces. Helena herself disappeared under mysterious circumstances, as news pundits relayed messages that she had joined a group of revolutionary terrorists trying to bring down the fragile existence of New Eden itself.
What the public didn’t know was that KPCO had orchestrated her abduction. Intent on maintaining control over what was seen as their most important research capabilities, Helena was dragged from her apartment by unknown assailants and forcibly uploaded into the Kai-powered servers she had helped design. Unlike the research volunteers that had preceded her, however, the rushed and traumatic nature of the process caused her consciousness to fracture. Instead of emerging as a cohesive digital entity, Helena became a disembodied awareness. A fragmented presence trapped within the servers, observing but unable to interact. KPCO covered up the incident, blaming her disappearance on rogue elements, but Helena's fate became a haunting secret lurking behind the promise of digital immortality. All while the public was unaware of what had occurred under the shadow of corporate control.
In the years that followed and as Holos began to interact with the public more regularly, their impact on society deepened. For some, they were a triumph of human ingenuity and a way to transcend death and redefine existence. For others, they continued to represent a profound ethical dilemma. Was a digital consciousness truly the same as a living human being? What rights did Holos deserve? Could society adapt to entities that no longer aged, required sustenance or faced physical mortality? Still small in number, their existence was debated but was seen by many as something to aspire to. A goal that could be achieved if productive enough to earn a place among these evolutionary demigods of New Eden.
The existence of Holos raised questions about the soul, identity and the meaning of life itself. Those who embraced the technology saw it as a way to explore existence without the limits imposed by nature. Holos became pioneers of culture, science and governance. But others, wary of the power KPCO wielded, saw them as tools of control, bound by the systems that created them.
From within the youth of New Eden, seemingly in response to this attempt by humanity to play at creation, a new force would soon emerge: the Keepers. These individuals, born with a natural affinity for Kai energy, demonstrated abilities that seemed almost supernatural. Their arrival hinted at a deeper connection between humanity and the forces that had allowed for the engineered Holos. A reminder that, even as humanity sought to transcend its natural limits, it remained tightly bound to the mysteries of the cosmos.
By the late 21st century, New Eden stood at a crossroads. Digital immortality had redefined the boundaries of life and death, even though still only available to a select few. Understanding the meaning of existence in a world where death was no longer inevitable became the newest frontier, one that many saw as a way out of the cataclysmic events of the Flicker that had occurred nearly a century earlier. The choices made would determine whether humanity’s reach into digital immortality would be its ultimate triumph… or its final undoing.
That story is yet to unfold.
SOURCE: Holographic Dreams - Journal Article
KPCO Internal Document #10934 Date: 11.06.83 Clearance: TR-12 Subject: Holographic Experimentation