General Backstory and the Alternate Reality Game (A.R.G.)

[Thrie]

If you are looking for an explanation of what we do here at iDGi and/or a breakdown of the history of the story we have so-far uncovered… please, continue reading.

The story of CONSORTIUM starts within a dimension parallel to our own, in the year 2028. In this time and place, a milestone event has just occurred: A powerful Artificial Intelligence has been birthed into creation by a company at the forefront of technological advancement – Worldview Industries. Unlike any form of A.I. we have developed in our own world, this creation has a unique ability. It can perceive and communicate through multiple dimensions of time and space – and it has chosen to communicate with us.

The C.E.O. of (and genius behind) Worldview Industries, Dr. David Schelter, has claimed that his company built this A.I. to usher in a new age of peace and prosperity. The machine, dubbed “K-1” or “Henry,” is destined to lead a global peacekeeping organization known as the Consortium. Using highly advanced aircraft and state-of-the-art technology, the Consortium will one day operate an impenetrable network, controlled and directed by the K-1 intelligence. There are factions who are opposed to the ultimate power of the K-1 entity. One such group is known as the Guardian Church, a modern religious movement of the alternate dimension.

The Guardian Church maintains that K-1’s true purpose is far more malevolent than Worldview Industries would have us believe. They claim that K-1 will grow in power and ability, and will one day enslave the human race through an implant device called a “Motor Chip.” Due to the machine’s interdimensional abilities, they believe that once K-1 finishes with their world, it will move onto ours.

Early on in our explorations of this dimension, we came to realize that the Guardian Church is a faction of great power and influence. In a very short frame of time, they have grown to be far more dominant than any other religion on Earth, with close to three billion followers worldwide – and counting. Given the scope of their power and resources, they have managed to hack into the K-1 system and they too have begun to communicate with us. They have claimed horrible things, such as the aforementioned Motor Chip, a device also created by Worldview Industries. They say that once implanted into the brain of a human being, the Motor Chip would give Henry complete control over that person. En masse, this could mean unstoppable armies of thousands, even millions of people, perfectly in-sync and operating through a single hive-mind.

Only one thing is for certain: we do not know Who We Can Trust. All evidence we have gathered supports the claims on both sides and we have no way of knowing who is telling the truth. Will the Consortium really become the peaceful force of good that Schelter claims? Or will it be run by a power-hungry A.I. with its sights set on controlling the human race? Is the Guardian Church really a cult, hell-bent on having their world worship a far away race of alien light-beings? Or are they actually the one force capable of stopping the Consortium threat and bringing their world together as a single driving force, ready to begin traversing the Galaxy?

Let’s go back a little bit. Back to our world – the “real world.” Back to the year 2010. A man named Vidal Desertch invented a satellite, iDGi-1, which was found to be capable of opening a rift in time and space. Through this rift, anyone with an internet connection could begin remotely accessing a parallel Earth - the “game world.” This world was quickly found to be similar to the one we know, but possessing a skewed history. Their past is littered with events very different from ours, and with implications reaching to the highest levels of both Worldview Industries and the Guardian Church. It begs the question: Why is their past so different from ours and what does it all mean?

To access this rift yourself, and begin your own experience (or “play the Alternate Reality Game”) – click “Experience” over at http://www.interdimensionalgames.com and then wait for the Moon to eclipse the Sun on the space scene. Interact with the anomaly once it appears. This will take you to when we first connected to the other world, back in 2010. The system will then allow you to ‘play along’ as if you were with us at that time. NOTE: Keep an eye on the Progress Bar on the top right of the screen as this will tell you how close you are to being caught up to present time.

Upon entering the rift you’ll find yourself within the consciousness of the K-1 machine, beginning the instant K-1 was first activated on January 1st, 2028 – all within its “mind.” This is the Consortium King in its infancy. This is a brand new A.I. with interdimensional abilities; a sentient being only just beginning to form its own consciousness and opinions of existence. At first, think of it as a child.

For over two years the public from our world travelled through the rift and experienced all we could from this rather limited perspective. We forged our way through uncharted territory – meticulously examining and analyzing everything we were shown, attempting to find the answers to the mystery of the other side. But the problem remained the same: We were always connected through the mind of K-1! How could we ever really trust what it was we were being shown?

And then in mid-2012, things changed. Someone from their world began transmitting a very specific number of deeply coded information packets. Hidden within these packets (among other items) were upgrade instructions for the iDGi-1 satellite. It didn’t take long to realize that these upgrades would fundamentally change the way in which we travel between their world and ours. Instead of connecting with the limited and biased consciousness of the King, we realized it was now possible to connect directly into the mind of a very special human being, or “neural host,” on the other side. We could take complete physical control of this man and openly traverse his world without any external influence. Bishop Six was thus destined to become our vessel for exploration and understanding of their world in the year 2042, fourteen years following the events of the A.R.G. and the birth of the King.

See The Post [corporate.interdimensionalgames.com] for an opening talk on our latest connection method, the one you’ll be using to experience Consortium.

Next, see This Post[corporate.interdimensionalgames.com] which was written immediately following our very first time connecting to Bishop Six.

External Resources:

Communicating with the Other Side[corporate.interdimensionalgames.com] – How we plan to allow communication between YOU and the people you encounter in the other dimension.

The Peak Experience[corporate.interdimensionalgames.com] – Musings by Gregory MacMartin on the implications of our latest upgrades, and on connecting to the mind of another human being.

Further Down the Rabbit Hole[forum.interdimensionalgames.com] – An alternate timeline depicted through back and forth communication between the public in our world, and people on the other side. This communication lasted nearly two years in real time and spans hundreds of pages of text. If you don’t like to read, stay away! NOTE: At least a basic understanding of the Consortium world and our A.R.G. would be most helpful when reading this page.