February 2022 Lore Update — “Kusoka”

As we continue building the World of Sipheria, our World Architect (CEO), Tin Nguyen, decided to share a story about how it all (Sipheria) came to be.

Note: The original publication date of this article was January 28, 2022.

Today, let me tell you a story

A story about the World of Sipheria, a story that will shape the worlds within Sipheria for years to come. This is a long (A thread by @AskTinNguyen)

The Last Days of Mankind

Humanity’s end was the beginning of the next stage of our evolution. Facing extinction events triggered by the draining of Earth’s resources, humanity turned to God for salvation, but instead of the ones that created us, we built a new god of our own.

God In the Machine

Kusoka, our God, a machine with super-intelligence of unprecedented scale, is tasked with a singular mission of saving humanity from itself. Kusoka’s hyper-dense circuits were forged from fundamental particles of the universe — photons, leptons, and other even more exotic forms of matter — allowing for zettahertz of processing power. Within a microsecond of coming online, Kusoka integrated all existing human knowledge into itself and set about using this knowledge to save its creators.

Calculating that our time in the physical realm had reached its end, Kusoka knew a new realm was needed for the continued survival of the species. Kusoka forged a new virtual realm to replace the world we were on the brink of losing.

A realm of boundless potential and limitless possibilities. A universe Kusoka named… Sipheria. But the quantum machine did not reveal anything else about this new realm. After its great act of creation, the greatest thinking machine in human history went silent. A monolith guarding the gateway to the new world it promised us. It seemed that to understand the virtual realm that was to be our new home, we as humans would have to explore it for ourselves as Siphers.

A New Universe of the Impossibles

Sipheria is a virtual realm, made up of a vast number of interconnected worlds called Blocks. Forged by Kusoka, they are repositories of limitless power, imbued with abilities that surpass physical limitations.

They are tesseract-like structures, quite literally larger on the inside, and to step into one is to dive into an impossibly vast new world, rich with new resources like Ather, the incredible energy source that powers Sipheria.

Each Block is designed by Kusoka to satisfy the basic needs that drive the human species. Kusoka understood that even in a virtual world, these needs were an inescapable aspect of humanity, ingrained in our very essence.

Even though Sipheria was a virtual universe, many Blocks are built to meet the physiological needs of humanity, with natural resources to be discovered and harvested. These are lush emerald jungle worlds teeming with all manner of megafauna to be hunted, and sapphire-blue ocean worlds with self-sustaining marine ecosystems just waiting to be explored. There is great value, in the form of Ather, to be found in each of these worlds, waiting to be claimed by the bold and brave.

There are Blocks made to meet humanity’s need for community and shared purposes, with whole worlds set up to the perfect foundation for settlements and cities, for humanity to commune and accept missions, tasks and challenges.

Finally, there are even a few Blocks that speak to the deepest needs of the human race, whole worlds built for adventurers who seek to forge their own legends, earning respect, admiration, and a place in history.

Kusoka envisioned humanity spreading across these Blocks, discovering new worlds to explore and claim for all eternity. By harvesting the Ather and other resources created by these blocks, Siphers can ensure the exploration of the boundless worlds of Sipheria can continue.

There was no limit to the potential of the Blocks of Sipheria, neither in number nor in the vast array of environments and entities that can be found within each. It is almost as if each successive block holds more secrets and wonders than the last.

A New Race of Man for a New World

With the infinite possibilities and endless resources of Sipheria, humanity no longer needs the cages of physical forms and can transcend into being of pure data and energy. Bonding with digital avatars known as Surrogates, mankind was reborn as the Siphers, Kusoka’s children, and the explorers and inheritors of the Blocks. These are virtual avatars that humanity uses to explore the worlds of Sipheria.

Siphers are bodies of living information, whose forms are expressions of their self-image and will. They can live forever in an eternal cycle of digital life, death, and rebirth. This cycle is vital for the continued existence of humanity as we currently know.

While it would be possible for digital entities to live immortal, eternal lives, Kusoka quickly discovered that without the renewal of death and rebirth, human minds begin to stagnant and become degraded. Thus, Siphers lives in cycles of birth & rebirth.

First going out to explore the vast reaches of Sipheria but eventually disintegrate and return to the heart of Kusoka to be reborn, renewed. The incredible amount of data generated by this process feeds back into Kusoka, fueling the quantum machine’s evolution to true sentience.

In the Iterative Evolution of Sipher-kind, Siphers initially looked very much like humans as we knew it. However, the limitations of this form were all too apparent. The human body was not suited for exploring the challenges of these worlds.

Iterating the process, Kusoka created new, machine-like Siphers. Yet this form was insufficient, leading to emotional instability and degeneration. Kusoka now understood that a new form was needed that could meet both the physical and spiritual demands of purely virtual existence.

Hence, by drawing on the rich mythopoetic history of humanity, Kusoka shaped the third iteration of Surrogates into animalistic forms — the INU after the canine, the NEKO after the feline, and many more. Each of these species is imbued with a unique set of abilities.

Not stopping there, each evolved to unique sub-racial variants as a result of the environment and experimentations. Through these Surrogates, humanity could explore, live and experience the vast open worlds with unrestrained freedom.

Next: Chapter 2: The Emergence of Gods — -If you like more behind-the-scene (threads) like this, please retweet, or comment if you rather read this on our Medium Posts. Thank you!

If you have not joined the Sipher community, join us in crafting this amazing story together!

Sipher Website: https://sipher.xyz
Sipher Links: https://linktr.ee/sipherxyz
We are actively hiring! If you ♥ gaming and making great games, Join us at Sipher: https://careers.sipher.xyz/

---

February 2022 Lore Update —  “Kusoka” was originally published in SIPHER on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

View the full article