I, Superman, the Supreme Commander

"What's wrong? What happened?"

Faced with Old John's sudden loss of control of his emotions, Jenny was obviously a little confused and couldn't understand, and hurriedly asked him what happened.

"It's okay. It's okay... It's so good to see you again!"

Old John released his embrace, grabbed Jenny's arm, and looked at her carefully. He found that her voice, smile, expression and temperament were exactly the same as he remembered, without any difference.

[She is Jenny! She is Jenny! ]

[Oh my god, they look so similar! Oh my god, I can't tell them apart! ]

Jenny saw Old John staring at her blankly, as if he was possessed by a demon. She couldn't help but touch his forehead and asked worriedly, "Are you not sick?"

The familiar touch and the familiar breath made Old John unable to hold back any longer. He hugged her tightly again and kissed her hard.

[Oh my god, even the kissing experience is exactly the same! This virtual technology is amazing! ]

After a few minutes, a teasing voice interrupted their passionate kiss.

"Hey, Dad, Mom. Do you want me to go out for a while and give you two hours?"

Jenny quickly pushed her husband away.

Old John looked up excitedly.

He saw a pretty and bright girl who looked 70% like him, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, leaning on the stairs with her arms crossed on her chest, looking at the two of them teasingly as if she was watching a show.

"Jennifer!"

Old John's face flushed with joy, he opened his arms and shouted loudly: "Daddy misses you so much, come and hug me!"

The girl in jeans pouted in disgust, but still walked down the stairs and gave her father a big hug.

【Oh, the familiar hug is my little cotton-padded jacket! 】

Old John pulled his wife over, held his wife in one hand and his daughter in the other, and felt that his life was complete.

"Click."

At this time, the door of the living room opened, and a tall man in his thirties wearing a stand-up collar coat walked in dragging a suitcase, followed by a beautiful young woman with brown hair, who was holding the hand of a girl of seven or eight years old.

When the tall man opened the door, he saw Old John and his family of three hugging each other. He was surprised at first, then he said with a smile: "Tired of logging? It seems we came back just in time."

"Hello, John, Jenny, Jennifer." The young woman greeted with a smile.

"Hello, Grandpa and Grandma. Oh, this beautiful sister must be my aunt." The little girl also greeted them with a sweet smile.

"Kevin!"

Old John's eyes turned red, and he stepped forward to give the tall man a manly hug, muttering, "It's good to be back, it's good to be back..."

Jenny was also moved to tears. She wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes and said with a smile, "We haven't had a family gathering for a long time. Today is Christmas Eve, and I have prepared a sumptuous dinner. You guys sit down first, and I'll go cook."

"I'll help." Daughter-in-law Caitlin said quickly, and the two women walked into the kitchen together.

Old John helped Kevin carry the luggage and chatted about some manly topics while working.

Jennifer turned on the TV with her little niece and played video games.

Looking at the smiles of his family members so close to him and listening to their familiar laughter, Old John unknowingly forgot how he came to this place and the fact that he was in a virtual world.

the next day.

Old John woke up from a sweet dream. He hadn't slept so well in a long time.

When he smelled that familiar scent, his subconscious mind calmed down and his sleep quality improved several levels.

[Oops, I'm going to be late for work! ]

The sudden thought in his mind made him sit up suddenly in bed.

But when he found himself lying on the bed in his bedroom with a familiar figure lying next to him, Old John was suddenly confused again.

[Isn't it the end of the world? Am I not in Republic City? How come I'm back in Idaho? ]

[…By the way, I took the test and entered the virtual earth…So, I am still in the virtual world?!]

Thinking back to everything that had happened before, Old John was extremely shocked.

He pinched his arm in disbelief and touched his wife's butt.

"Hate it! Stop it. I want to sleep a little longer."

From inside the cup came the wife's confused complaints.

Last night, that damn old John was crazy and tormented her for half the night. She was so tired at her age that she couldn't get out of bed.

Old John was a little confused and doubted his life.

Is this really virtual?

Or am I having memory problems? There is no such thing as the end of the world?

[The user has been detected to have severe cognitive disorder, and the virtual world time has been suspended. ]

Suddenly, the world around him fell silent. A mechanical electronic synthesized sound rang in Old John's ears, and a blue light curtain popped up in front of him with a line of text on it.

【Do you want to exit Virtual Earth? 】

【whether】

Old John did not make a choice immediately, but got out of bed and looked out the window. As expected, the pedestrians, vehicles, birds and everything else on the street outside were frozen, and time really stood still.

When he tried to open the door, his hand went straight through it, as if the door had turned into an illusion.

Old John suddenly felt an uncontrollable and intense disappointment in his heart.

Fake, all fake...

【No……】

【Fake can also become real. 】

[Officials have said that the virtual personality of the virtual world will be inherited by the clone, making the clone have thoughts and personality that are extremely close to the original. ]

【As long as I admit that they are true, then they can be true! 】

After some ideological struggle, Old John cleared away the haze in his heart and became excited.

Today is Christmas and he doesn't want to miss this opportunity for family reunion.

So he decisively chose [No].

Time passed again, and Old John's eyes blurred. He was sitting on the bed again, as if he had just woken up.

"Stop messing around, damn..."

The familiar mumbling of his wife came into his ears again.

Old John got up with a chuckle, got dressed and went to prepare for today's activities.

[Today I want to see how realistic they can make my family! ]

The result was naturally that old John was greatly disappointed.

No matter how he observed, how he tried openly or tested secretly, the performance of Jenny and others in the virtual world was no different from the real family in his memory.

His family understands what they understand.

His family should have a reaction, they all have.

His demeanor, tone of voice, movements, even the subtle expressions and small gestures, were exactly the same as those of his deceased family members.

Old John had no idea how the people who invented the virtual earth did it.

When Old John and his family walked out of the house and came to the town square, they participated in Christmas activities with the townspeople.

Looking at the bustling pedestrians in the town, those familiar neighbors and friends met one by one, greeted each other, chatted and played together. There were dozens of people together, and Old John did not notice any difference between them and real people.

Are they really just [NPCs]?

Why is it that even an insignificant passerby acts so realistically, making it so hard to tell whether he is real or fake?

Old John fell into doubt about his life.

He didn't know that at this moment, other citizens of Republic City who were logging into the "Virtual Earth" were feeling the same confusion as him.

【Project: Virtual Earth】

【Version: A5.1】

【Online users: 4385】

[Number of people offline: 0]

[Matrix occupancy rate: 2.5%]

[System stable operation time: 2 hours, 38 minutes and 21 seconds]

【…】

Hive underground base.

Zhang Hong, Alicia and researchers from the Academy of Sciences' electronic information technology team are observing the operation of the "virtual earth" in real time.

The staff looked at the data on the big screen and said excitedly: "Commander, we succeeded!"

"Yeah." Zhang Hong nodded calmly.

Compared to the excited staff, Zhang Hong was very calm and unperturbed, as if he had fully anticipated the scene before him.

The big screen randomly displays scenes that some citizens are experiencing in the virtual world.

More than 4,000 citizens and over 40,000 "digital human NPCs" are interacting in the virtual world and recreating their lives in the old days.

Alicia watched carefully for a long time, and suddenly realized something. She asked Zhang Hong: "You used a technology similar to dream control, right?"

Zhang Hong nodded in appreciation and said with a smile, "Smart guess. Yes, this is indeed not an ordinary virtual reality technology."

"I combined dream control, memory transfer, data simulation and other technologies to achieve a virtual effect that is indistinguishable from the real thing. The reason why users feel it is so realistic and each NPC is so intelligent is that the computer reads their brain activity information in real time, making the presentation of the virtual world completely consistent with the user's subconscious mind."

"Those incredibly realistic sensory experiences are actually the user's brain revisiting their memories. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing what it feels like to eat those foods or touch those things."

"Moreover, based on dream control, the Matrix can save a lot of computing power used to build the virtual world. The user's brain has already built 90% of it for us. The system only needs to add icing on the cake, fill in the details, and control the logic."

"Each user's brain is like one of our sub-servers. The computing power and memory of thousands of brains combined together can build a virtual world that makes it impossible to distinguish between the real and the fake!"

As Zhang Hong spoke, he became slightly excited, with the corners of his mouth slightly curled up, as if he was enjoying the satisfaction of some evil taste.

He took the initiative to explain to Alicia: "You see, users think that the hundreds and thousands of NPCs they see are as intelligent as real people, but in fact only a few NPCs are intelligent, and their intelligence is far from that of real people."

"This is actually a kind of [real-time computing]. The human brain has limitations. As long as we can simulate the limited information that people can pay attention to, it is enough to deceive the brain. And it just so happens that the human brain has this kind of real-time computing mechanism when dreaming. When the user pays attention to the NPC, the NPC performs perfectly, but outside the user's attention, there is nothing at all."

Zhang Hong used projection to show a concept map. A character walks in the game scene, and only the area in front of the character is perfectly simulated, while the scene behind him is all blurred lines. From the user's perspective, he always sees a perfect world.

Alicia intuitively understood what Zhang Hong meant.

——In simple terms, it is always up to the users to fill in the blanks on their own.

But then she couldn't help but frown and questioned: "What's the point of this? Didn't you say that the virtual earth is used to cultivate digital personalities?"

“Yes, this is the development of a digital personality.”

Zhang Hong smiled confidently. After being a scientific researcher for so long, the time had finally come for him to explain things to others and show off.

He said proudly: "Alicia, you have fallen into a misconception. Digital life or digital people are not in a living state like living people, but in a relatively static state."

“When data is running, digital people come alive. When the computer switches to other programs, digital people fall into a state of suspended animation.”

“They are Schrodinger’s cat!”

Zhang Hong still demonstrated the same model as before.

An NPC appears in front of the character. When it leaves the character's field of vision, the original NPC quickly disappears. When the character focuses on the NPC again, the NPC reappears at the right time as predicted.

Alicia suddenly realized——NPC is also [real-time calculation] data!

Zhang Hong looked at Alicia with deep eyes and said in a deep voice: "So if data wants to become a digital person, it must get rid of this real-time computing state and become a relatively fixed quantum state."

"Obviously, the data we have now is not enough to build a digital human with a mind comparable to that of a human, not to mention that our digital human is customized to highly restore the people on the resurrection list."

"Although we have previously used memory cloning to scan the user's memory and used it as a blueprint to build a digital human personality model and memory bank, this is still a certain distance from real humans, and this distance will just trigger the uncanny valley effect..."

"So, I designed the virtual earth to further collect the user's subconscious information and use it to adjust the model of our digital people. I believe that in the near future, digital people who have undergone sufficient actual combat training will be able to be highly synchronized with their original genes..."

"Besides, I have a big plan..."