Mister Dancer - ch 15

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This kind of scene was always inevitable, if I may continue using that word. Drinks with the pizzas probably moved things along faster, but these words needed to be said. Wil's dad loves his son and wants the best for him, but he also can't help blaming his son for what the kid did, and he understands his son is being held back by guilt and shame. That hard truth needed to be said, though Wil is actually more self-aware of that than his dad thinks he is. Meanwhile Wil has learned so much recently, but he can't really expect people to believe him when he shares this stuff; that's why Ned didn't mind giving him that paper and the video. The world isn't quite ready for this revelation.

Still, this was a really short scene, so I'll share some fun sci-fi technical mumbo-jumbo deep lore today. How do the neural jack connections pods actually disconnect someone’s mind from their body? In other words, what's the findings of that study Wil keeps referencing? What's already known is that after the connection pod brings someone into a coma-like state so they don't move in the physical world while doing things elsewhere, the neural jack pulls their consciousness (as a complete electrical signal transfer down to the quantum level, which makes mind cloning impossible) into a brain-like program configuration (generating an electrical consciousness which acts like a program but has the freedom of a person to make decisions) and constructs a software body around them so they can interface directly as allowed with any other software. Normally these software bodies have rules they follow (which keeps the cyberpunk-type hacking to a minimum) but the disconnected free minds can do exactly that, hacking anything because they've learned how to rebuild their software bodies and didn't place any limits on them. As code interfacing with code, hacking is as easy for them as talking to another person, or reaching over a wall to open a gate from the other side. And why have they lost their previous memories but kept their basic personality? That comes back to how the neural jacks create software bodies. Humans using connection pods normally have a link or tether back to their physical body, which allows them to hold onto memories and create new ones while working. The link can stretch practically infinitely and if anything happens to the human body in the pod, their mind is pulled back practically instantly. If disconnected by a chance event while far enough away, a free mind ends up lost in the online world until they create or find a new software body, such as “falling into” one available to use like in the case of Wil's mom being pulled into Marc's android. But once disconnected from their bodies, they no longer have access to the memories stored in their meat brain. They become pure personality without a history, and are often stuck feeling what they were at the time of disconnection.