Chapter 40 (Virtual Reality II): Confined Space

August 2031, Rocket City, Sa State, Liang Country

Clinical statistics show that women engaged in intellectual work are more prone to postpartum depression.

Daphne’s symptoms were not severe. The doctor recommended moderate exercise, dietary adjustments, and as much distraction as possible—watching movies, traveling, or playing games.

Little Vito, however, had been diagnosed with epilepsy. There was a small region in his brain where the neurons were unusually dense, causing intermittent, uncontrolled discharges.

The doctor advised that, since the child was still young and his skull not yet fully formed, a minimally invasive resection surgery could be performed, offering the possibility of a complete cure.

Even though the surgical risk was low, Daphne, as a mother, was deeply worried, which only added to her depression.

Michael understood Daphne’s feelings and tried everything he could to help her adjust her mood. The best method, of course, was to distract her.

With little Vito sleeping soundly in his swaddling, Michael opened his computer and played a video for Daphne, saying:

“Darling, our transport ship has delivered the first batch of supplies for the ‘Capsule’ project to Mars. The fully enclosed Mars habitat module is about to be completed.”

Daphne noticed the fast-moving electric driverless pickups on the Martian surface in the video, as well as humanoid robots inside the module, and asked curiously, “Is this computer-generated or real footage?”

“It’s a simulation, but the pickups and humanoid robots have indeed been sent to Mars. The scene in the video will become reality in the very near future,” Michael replied.

“Humanoid robots can’t fully replace humans just yet. Has your recruitment for Mars volunteers begun? I envy those volunteers, and I even feel an impulse to take little Vito to live inside a Martian capsule,” Daphne murmured, almost to herself.

Michael put his arm around Daphne, conveying love and security through his touch to ease her anxiety. He smiled and said, “The selection of volunteers is very strict. They need tremendous psychological resilience. Enduring loneliness in a cramped, enclosed space for a long time is extremely difficult.”

Daphne pondered this, as if imagining herself in that claustrophobic space on a distant planet. She asked, “So have you taken the necessary measures to enrich the volunteers’ daily lives as much as possible, to help them cope with loneliness and solitude?”

Michael closed the video and opened a presentation, sharing anecdotes from the Mars volunteer recruitment process.

To prevent severe claustrophobia among the volunteers in the confined Martian habitat, Michael’s company engineers made the “Capsule” modules as humane as possible, diversifying even food and flowers.

But humans are emotional creatures; good living conditions and food alone can’t solve psychological issues. The best way to combat claustrophobia and loneliness is freedom of body and mind.

Playing games is an excellent way to gain pleasure and pass the time. But what kind of games to design? The engineers left that choice to the volunteers. Thus, the “My Universe” game design proposal became a mandatory question for all applicants.

This approach had two benefits: one, a universe created by the volunteer themselves would naturally suit them best; two, the design could reveal the psychological preferences and health of each applicant.

For instance, one applicant designed their universe as a jungle full of monsters, while they played the omnipotent god, wiping out monsters in droves with guns, cannons, or even atomic bombs, progressing through ever-harder levels.

It was obvious that this person’s evaluation showed an excessive tendency toward violence and a lack of patience and cooperation.

Another applicant designed a construction game: on a barren land, they tilled fields, dug canals, built walls and towers, amassed wealth through trade, gambling, or even deceit, erected palatial, resplendent castles, and adorned themselves with fine clothes and costly jewelry.

The assessment panel believed these games were common on Earth, and most people could not derive lasting satisfaction from them.

Indeed, a few players do become addicted, endlessly stimulated by the intense audio-visual experience. Yet, once such individuals get the chance to fulfill their dreams in reality, they abandon their internet addictions without a second thought.

“So, have you found a better virtual universe and its creator?” Daphne asked Michael.

“I can’t say it’s the best solution yet, but at the very least it fully utilizes the tools of our rapidly advancing technology,” Michael replied. “Some applicants still aren’t bold enough. Actually, our virtual reality tech has made huge strides.”

“You mean, if I were the creator of a universe, I could imagine my abilities—which is to say, your technology—as being limitless, right?” Daphne asked.

“Yes. The design we’ve chosen now was inspired by one applicant, Li Xiaoxuan—you’ve probably heard her name,” Michael said, meeting Daphne’s eyes as if to jog her memory.

“Li Xiaoxuan? Wasn’t she the Chinese girl who wrote to you, the one VESSEL mentioned when we first met?” Daphne recalled, a note of surprise in her voice.

Li Xiaoxuan’s virtual universe proposal was to turn the claustrophobic Martian habitat into a virtual reality world, where the volunteer could alter the simulated environment at will, fulfilling every wish with the aid of immersive technology.

The core of her vision was that only when the creator of the metaverse became an equal participant could they attain sustained pleasure and satisfaction from the unpredictable, indistinguishable sensory experiences.

Raising pets, she suggested, brought less joy and novelty than “raising oneself.” True novelty might, in fact, lie in the mundane.

At first, imagination and curiosity would drive creators to make everything different—square moons, a notched universe, humans turning into dinosaurs or beetles. But after repeating these experiences again and again, they would discover that blurring the lines between virtual and real was most fascinating.

The pinnacle of human science is unity in diversity; the pinnacle of human technology is the replication of the self.

Following Li Xiaoxuan’s plan, Michael’s team designed a “studio-like” communal space in the Mars module. The 3D printing equipment could manufacture all sorts of objects indistinguishable from reality by human touch.

Wearable devices would be made lighter, giving volunteers lifelike vision, hearing, smell, and touch. With the help of 3D printing, a volunteer could grip ski poles, step into skis, and race down the slopes, or grasp a steering wheel and accelerator, chasing each other in cars.

Beyond personal participation, volunteers could invite old friends, make new ones, organize parties, attend balls—whatever existed in real life could be mirrored in the virtual world, offering participants sensory experiences indistinguishable from reality.

For those confined long-term, the thrill of novelty was appealing, but what they loved even more was life itself.

Besides engagement, a sense of achievement is the greatest cure for loneliness. So the Martian virtual reality would not be isolated; it could connect with real life on Earth. Imagine how cool it would be to livestream from Mars! Earth’s social media would be abuzz.

Yet if the livestream always showed the same little room, and the volunteers endlessly discussed their food and clothing, it would soon fade as a fleeting trend.

Imagine, instead, if Martian volunteers could invite family, friends, or even strangers from Earth to join them on adventures in their virtual universe—what an enticing vision that would be.

The sea, the beach, the bonfire, one, two, or as many moons as you wished, casting rainbow hues across the sky, with hosts and guests alike growing wings and soaring like angels.

“Wasn’t it said that the creator always chooses protagonists in their own likeness? Why do they have wings now?” Daphne, for once, smiled and asked Michael.

He laughed, too. “Angels with wings might really exist, or perhaps our ancestors imagined them. Either way, they're still human in form. When a creator joins their own creation, they certainly wouldn’t want to hold hands with a dinosaur’s claw.”

Daphne mused, “The creator’s most arduous task, and their greatest achievement, is to virtualize their own reality, and to replicate themselves and participate within it.”

She then wondered, if gods were conceived by human imagination, then the ancestors who “imagined” deities neither had nor needed virtual reality technology.

How did our ancestors come up with gods?

Why do the chief deities created by different peoples and religions, despite their differences, all take human form?

Could it be that the creator is human?

That humanity itself is the very image of the creator!

Michael was swept by emotion. He embraced Daphne tightly and pleaded:

“Darling, support me—help me to restart and deeply develop Mars. Maybe there we’ll truly find traces of the creator.”

&

Poem of Collected Seals:

Among the crowd, her beauty stands apart. —Chen Tingjing, Qing Dynasty

Driven into the crucible of nature’s creation. —Wang Jichang, Yuan Dynasty

Who says the rules of history are unchanging? —Wang Zhi, Song Dynasty

Let it be, whether it is like me or not. —Zhou Bida, Song Dynasty