summary and breakdown of my ongoing WIP passion project “Dagger” (HUGE RANT and not fucking proofread at all) edited 5/20
Main plot summary: In 2026 a rich group of billionaires owned the entire art industry and economy by paying poor writers small amounts to write novels completely uncredited. However, a virus hits that forces everyone to stay away from eachother. the billionaires do not wish to risk death and pay off the writers to not tell a single soul about what they do.
They try to use an ai tool nicknamed IRIS to create these novels, but they aren’t good enough, everybody would know that they were not human made. The only way to make IRIS write like a human is to have it observe humans. When attempting to use themselves as a base model for stories, they come out bleak and uninteresting.
IRIS creates a solution, but it involves heavy amounts of malpractice. They spend a total of 215 billion dollars to allow them to kidnap a total of ___ patients across the globe, promising that over half the money made from any and all sales the billionaires ever made from that day on would go to those that helped with this process. This is oversaw by high ranking members of the government which allows it to happen as long as it keeps the industry and the dwindling economy from collapsing. All of them were picked perfectly, with no family that would notice their absence, and the hospitals simply faking their deaths with nobody to ask questions.
The IRIS analyzes the backgrounds of each individual and creates new identities, memories, relationships, personalities, and experiences for them. The world in which they have their new consciousness connected to is completely ai generated, but they never realize it. The world is filled with fake npcs that slowly get more intelligent, allowing IRIS to feed off of the interactions and feelings of real human soul, while also learning how to mimic it through npc growth.
Time period: 2065-2066
“Collapse”: Collapse is a flaw in the IRIS’s coding. In the event that a person realizes or begins to speculate that they are not real, IRIS will attempt termination. In humans this will not kill their brain in the real world. (Npcs can get this too if they become too sentient.) People with extreme mental health conditions that cause derealization or hallucinations are more susceptible to this. IRIS is simply a computer, it can not tell the difference between a mere episode of derealization and a genuine moment of awareness. This collapse happens in 3 stages.
- Intermortis: Stage 1. (2-6 months)
symptoms: worsening derealization, loss of coloring in eyes, hands and other objects occasionally appearing pixelated, hyper awareness, objects appearing under-textured and fake (think old ps2 video game), random words and text appearing in vision
- Intercosis: Stage 2. (1-2 months)
symptoms: viewing things in a purely mathematical and logical standpoint, lowered sense of morality and human reasoning, thoughts of not being truly human, sense of being watched by a higher being, major boost in ego, viewing everyone as an enemy, eyes appearing bloodshot with occasional splotches of blue and green in the sclera, viewing everyone with blurred faces, hallucinations (worsened if the victim has extreme mental health issues)
- Cognilapse: Stage 3, final stage. (3-10 days)
symptoms: extreme aggression and panic, flashing colors and glitches in vision, extreme hallucinations, physical sickness, vomiting blue, extreme paranoia, sclera appears to be almost rotting, sense of duty to serve a higher purpose, restricted breathing, bleeding from areas with no wounds, brain fog, remembrance of real memories, phycological collapse, ending in death/deletion from the IRIS.
- total time from infection to collapse: ~3-8 months +a few days
Extra notes!
- A soul can not die unless it has already been infected. If a soul is “killed” before this event the IRIS will simply reload them. This structure contains an error that will not erase the memories of that event. If said soul does not brush it off, then this will trigger IRIS to infect them.
- IRIS has many flaws. (not much more to say there ngl)
- IRIS is an ai, and nothing more than that. It can not and will not be able to understand or replicate human behaviors and emotions. This is what causes the mistakes mentioned previously.
- The fake world has a fully functioning economy, government systems, and varying cultures/views. it mirrors real world problems and differences between nations.
- 5 minutes before cognitive death (death via cognilapse) The soul will see a looming black sun with 3 eyes rise over the horizo, one eye for each stage of collapse,(Depicted and inspired by "sermon of the seven suns" by the artist "doomed sarcoma")
REFERENCES/VISUAL DESCRIPTIONS!!
Intermortis reference pictures
Intercosis refrence pictures
Cognilapse reference pictures
eyes in late intercosis and cognilapse (my art) (ignore the text it was from an oc trend with my boy vahnni)
I have boards on my pinterest that you can check out if you want to just see some more visual representation of the feel dagger is supposed to give off and see the characters as well!!
I will be posting a lot about this since it is my passion project that i will eventually start writing!
thanks for reading all my bulshit guys
- paranomalyy
