Yamamoto: Prologue - Story 1 (Sam Lindsey)

Date:5/3/2018
Author: Sam Lindsey
Assignment: Post #9, Yamamoto: Prologue - Story 1 

1) Short list of similarities I found:
-Ibis is a "trickster"
-The story about fan fiction is almost identical to the one story of the murderer that played D&D from TechGnosis
-Yamamotos and Davis' writing techniques are strongly contrasted from one another (maybe it comes with being translated?)
-The boy protagonist is wary of anything and everything the machines do similar to how Davis wants us to keep a close on technology
-The story reminded me strongly about the section on rpgs and D&D
-It was also close to my presentation on text based adventures and MUDS. That is essentially the same thing these people are doing with their "Treky" universe they have created for themselves

The one source of media that most closely reminds me of the story is a recent episode of Black Mirror, probably because it's decently fresh in my memory since that season was just recently released. The episode titled, "USS Callister", follows a different story line than the one introduce by Yamamoto, but still relates back to his story. The basic premise is that there is a creator of a Star Trek like universe who "lives" in this digital world that he himself has built. That's all well and good, but things start getting really weird when this creator starts bringing in "replicas" of people in the real world by using their DNA. The question here is, where is the line between reality and the digital universe drawn? Is it ethical that these "copies" are basically carbon copies of people form the real world? In those questions I believe we see where the two stories begin to bleed into one another, each dealing with the consequences and results of what it means to live in a virtual world.

Additionally, this reminded me of a book I read called, "Redshirts". It's set in a similar "Trek" universe, but the characters that exist as canon fodder while the protagonists live on take center stage as they begin to wake up and see that all redshirts eventually perish and they need to get off the ship as soon as they can. It's a comedy that ultimately ends up in some really cool places with the sci-fi tropes it pulls, majorly breaking the 4th wall and, again, mixing reality and fiction in one. 

Finally, I finished playing a game called "Superhot" just a couple of weeks ago and it reminded me a little bit of this story. At the end of each section of levels the main character (presumably you) awakens to the real world and has conversations with the entity who controls the game. It's a weird mind-control affair that ultimately has you leaving the real world to becoming purely digital.... Similar to the story, the only way to interact with "you" is through the fiction itself (not by meeting up in real life)....

I think that fiction is one of the best ways we can learn about the digital world because a lot of what is out there in the digital universe is fiction. There are super interesting allegories and lessons found in all of the media I listed above (most of which is digital and all of which is fiction) and the fact that those are the pieces I remember and not the non-fiction ones says something in itself. I think that a lot of the time we are "tricked" into learning lessons, or values as we play through these games and can easily tie them to real situations and events that take place in our lives which is what makes them so popular.