While the majority of the population was uploading themselves into virtual
reality constructs—powered by the abundant solar energy on the day side of
their tidally-locked planet, and cooled by the night side—a few were choosing
to go a different route. They had no problem with transferring their
consciousnesses to other substrates, but they didn’t want to live in fantasy
worlds where the laws of physics could be manipulated. They wanted to remain
in base reality, and enjoy life here. Many moved themselves over to android
bodies, while others stayed more or less organic. They built gargantuan
cylinder ships, each with its own unique design. These were massive pieces of
art that could orbit a celestial body, or propel themselves through
interstellar space. The proper physics in this universe did not allow for any
form of faster-than-light travel, so the ships traveled at sublight speeds.
They went to worlds that their probes indicated were interesting, but since
most of them were just as immortal as the brethren they left behind in the
virtual constructs, they weren’t in too much of a hurry. This was just how
they lived, and they were able to continue on like this for a very long time
before changing their minds. Even though they were the people who wanted to
explore the universe, they still didn’t feel any desire to consume more than
was necessary to live safely and happily. They didn’t settle on any new
worlds, because they wouldn’t get anything out of that. They just visited
them, and enjoyed them, and lamented that they were apparently the only
evolved species for at least the next several million light years. Once they
confirmed that they were well and truly alone, they just let the probes
continue to support the evidence, and then they followed their ancestors into
VR.
Throughout all of this, it wasn’t like the base reality people had completely
broken off from the VR people. They were still a single united civilization.
Not only did they stay in contact with each other, but the people on the ships
regularly entered the constructs remotely, and interacted with their friends
and neighbors. Some even did land on lifeless celestials, and set up their own
servers. Thanks to quantum communication, the virtual universe was as
connected as the real one. Or rather, more so, because faster-than-light
travel was possible within the bounds of the simulations. Over time, more and
more people who had either originally chosen to board the exploration ships,
or were descended from those, ended up living in the simulation permanently.
Tens of millions of years later, they realized that no one was left in the
real world anymore, except for the robots they needed to maintain the system’s
hardware. They were spread out, but back together. As it turned out, without
any alien species to develop diplomatic relations with—or, hell, even
not-so-diplomatic relationships—the universe just wasn’t all that fun. They
kept the real cosmic structure as the foundation, however. When someone jumped
from one world to the next, it would either look exactly as it did for real,
or was modified in a semi-realistic way. That is, they didn’t build new
planets to their specifications. They found something close to what they were
looking for, and altered it in the same way they would if they were still out
there. They didn’t have to stick to the limitations of the physical laws
completely, but they didn’t go too crazy most of the time. They reserved such
things for the primary servers that were still operating on their homeworld.
This lasted for trillions upon trillions of years, and then beyond.
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