Expanding Capabilities

Despite the boost in available power we seemed to be hitting a limit to how fast we could go using this particular type of drive. The technological upgrades that were possible from the research Evan had found gave us hopes of making Niracina a much more powerful ship. We had just begun the upgrade process, it would still be awhile before it would be finished, but already we had the potential to create the heavy energy conversion chamber so we could actually enter her virtual world and survive. What this meant was that instead of having individual chambers or having a need for a garden we would be able to have a main room, a transport room, and a pod room which we would use to travel between the two realities. This of course brought a lot of excitement to Ambri and Nira (as she had started going by) as we all would be able to live together in this environment and only need to leave when we arrived at our destinations or had other things to work on outside of the reality. This brought about the need of some changes in the virtual world, namely creating controls and screens that could show us what was going on outside of the world and keep us up-to-date on things. The construction of them would not be difficult in and of itself, nor would the needed technology as we had already been testing a few of these things, but the tricky part came in making sure we were alerted and remembered that, though this was an excellent home, we still had to live our lives outside of it as well. This also meant that, in order to get rid of the garden area, we would need to develop a food system so that the virtual foods we ate actually gave us sustenance when we left the world. This hadn't been a problem for the other realities as they were in proximity to a world where food was being grown, but for us it meant we were going to need to keep up on our resources and supplies.

Nira had already begun the process of creating the new room, she was too excited not to do it as soon as it was possible and so we were limited in the areas of the ship that we could go. Ambri didn't mind this, she simply spent her time in the virtual world, I however had things to prepare for, so not having the space was a bit of a problem, but I managed anyway. The control room was completely redesigned, instead of the mental interface it was given proper controls, which would give Nira the ability to disconnect and for us to automate some of the systems as well as allow us to control it from the virtual world as well. She really would begin to exist exclusively in the virtual world as this project made progress, which seemed to suit her well, she liked her virtual body much better than just being a ship. It was interesting how things changed when you saw new potentials that weren't there before. Once some of the basics were in place that would give me the control I needed I also went into the virtual world to make the matching systems in there. This took very little time, actually, once Nira made the start of the system I needed I could use it to create the rest which was simply a process of entering the parameters into the simulation. Once this was done Nira said she felt her control lessened on the virtual world, but we would be able to continue shaping it through this interface. As I finished up and she continued telling me how it felt I realized it had been a huge burden on her, she had so much creativity and potential and she had been having to use part of it just to maintain the systems. I was happy to know that these changes would allow her to really live in here, but also saddened that it meant our interactions outside of the reality would be more limited. She knew this was hard on me, but her elation was far greater than her sorrow and so I was happier for the changes.

Going between the two worlds through the chair interface was cumbersome, there were some things that would be easier once I was able to enter and leave as I wished without having to go through an interface that only simulated the sensations. I had plans to make a very good control interface to the ship and it was going well in the real world, but would be much easier to simulate in the virtual world if I didn't have such limitations. It also didn't help much that most of the resources Niracina had were being directed to the construction of the pods, I could easily make my project a priority, but mine wasn't necessary, though the pods weren't either, but they were desired more by all of us. So I worked at the pace that I could, making the designs I needed to and watching them slowly grow. By my calculations the parts I was working on would be finished at about the same time as the pods, forcing me to take some time relaxing with Ambri and Nira in the virtual world.