Project Overworld

- "Ugh, finally done!" Michael exclaimed.

- "Yeah, it's nice we were able to do it before the end of the summer." Tyler responded to his friend.

The six original Spacol members were currently standing before their finished pipeline, admiring the fruits of their long labor. It has been a bit over eleven months since they established on the Moon and the group of friends had now completed a large portion of their initial plans to arrange the satellite to their liking.

During the construction of the really long pipeline, the group also made sure to build the foundations of their future 'Ice factory' supposed to be extracting ice from the South pole of the Moon before routing it as water through a pipe system leading to the 'SMB'.

In any case, now that the pipeline was completed the 'Alpha team' of Spacol consisting of Jim, Keith, Leyla, Michael, Tyler and Xena would be able to freely focus on the construction of their factory while the 'Beta team' consisting of all the new members would launch new sorts of materials up there.

Up until now, they had only required some aluminum and other essential resources for their survival but things would be changing quite a lot from now on.

- "Alright, let's celebrate this event by Moon football, shall we?" Keith suggested.

Actually, this was not the only thing the leader of Spacol wanted ot celebrate on this occasion. Xena, also referred to as 'Jiya-Ling' by her friends, finally graduated and would now be able to join the other on their adventures with the NASA. Jim would be the last one to be graduated from his school but Keith insisted on him finishing his studies before embarking on a risky journey.

In any case, years were passing by a lot quicker than everyone anticipated. From a simple encounter at an event organized by Keith a few years ago to being best friends and working full time for the NASA while developing their base on the Moon, things indeed escalated quite a lot for the six of them.

Well, Keith had already known Michael and Tyler for a long time before Project Overworld was even released but they met with the rest of them inside this game. It was kind of impressive what a simple game could accomplish for the lives of many, and Keith sure was pleased by the encounters he made along the way.

That was why, instead of celebrating for a simple pipeline, he prefered to use this occasion to spend some enjoyable time with his friends and discuss about the future of their group.

- "So, Jiya-Ling, are you ready to cross the ocean and get all the way to North America?" Keith asked with a mischievous smile.

- "Wait, so early after I finished my studies? Aren't there some papers to sign or some administrative procedures to go through?"

- "Haha, we're talking about the NASA there. They're affiliated to the government and these procedures are already being taken care of. In any case, you should still be able to enjoy the rest of the summer without problems, but I guess there isn't a lot of time left."

Xena smiled back at him and thanked him for caring so much about her future, to which the young man responded quite simply : "You shouldn't be thanking me. Horace Johnson is the man who has taken a liking into our group and is willing to recruit us all into one of the most famous administrations of this world. That's why, you should be thanking that man over me."

- "I'll sure do once I meet with him, but you still are our leader in my mind."

Regarding the progress of their job at the NASA, the Project Overworld plan was going quite smoothly for the time being. The 'Area 51' was still heavily guarded and their identity has been kept a secret for the numerous months since the start of their investigation of this simulation.

Though, the large quantity of rockets they launched up there did not go unnoticed and questions started being raised all over the community. In fact, the company Starise was already affiliated with the municipal team of Yggdrasil and people did not get why there were tests being conducted within this desert over simple rocketry.

In any case, people still trusted Amber and though the reason she has been so elusive as of recently was related to this new project. Maybe they were finally about to embark on a journey towards the stars and start colonizing other planets? Thus, the rest of the population continued their current job while spending even more time enjoying 'Project : Vanilla' and the casinos of Asgard. In fact, the quality of the amus.e.m.e.nt centers of this city had improved quite a lot since a few months ago and it somewhat felt like an in-game Los Angeles.

Other than that, people could now cross over the continents through airports and various jobs started appearing here and there. The comparison between this game and the real-life was getting quite shallow and people were quite impressed by this fact. If they had been told several years ago that they would have recreated civilization within a game, nobody would have believed it. However, Project Overworld now played the role of a utopia of the 'real world' were people could enjoy their time without any risks related to social interactions.

Though, the reason this game was not being more popular was because of the large investment someone had to put within this game to be entertained. In fact, people still had to work to earn a few bucks to bet within the casinos of Asgard. They also had to travel over long distances while paying their place on a ship or an airplane to get across another continent.

When compared to other games, this was so much efforts for very little. If someone wanted to have a true Player versus Player experience, they could dive into the most popular First Person Shooter of the moment and hop into a game in under a few minutes. If they wanted to relax after a long day of work they could instead join one of these Simulated Reality 'MMORPG' where they would be able to talk to their friends while farming dungeons over and over again.

That was why, even though Project Overworld could be a much more fulfilling experience it became kind of niche over the years. In a way, there was not enough content in there to be interesting for the majority of the newer players.

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- "This is kind of sad..." Amber breathed out. If there had not been those technical limitations concerning the Project Overworld servers, no doubt she could have driven the community towards the construction of really elaborate games and other kinds of amus.e.m.e.nts.

In fact, 'Project : Vanilla' was supposed to be the first stepping stone of a very large project she has had in mind for so long. Project Overworld had the potential to become every game genre at once, according to the efforts its playerbase decided to put into it. They could have built a First Person Shooter arena, or 'FPS' arena, where people would have been able to earn a few bucks to upgrade their equipment or simply use it in Asgard city to enjoy some other types of content. Everything could have been interconnected in a way this simulation could have become a platform for people to meet with their friends and try out new games without spending a single real-world buck, other than the monthly subscribtion fee.

However, this project would never come to fruition. Maybe the company 'Advanced Simulations' did not see such eventualities or simply wanted to cash out their investment, in any case the servers of this game were giving out from the large amount of electronical devices people had invented within this simulated reality.

'Maybe after a full wipe we would be able to control things a lot more smoothly and achieve those dreams that currently seems unattainable.' Amber pondered. 'However, years of progress would be going down the drain at the same time.' She realized.

Currently, the only thing she could hope was for the NASA and Spacol to achieve some new feats for Humanity as a whole.

'Well, in that case, wouldn't it be better for them to destroy the rest of the population and move on with their own plans? Let's not give them bad ideas, though. Such eventuality should have some severe repercussions on the real life too, as the medias would be talking about such a disaster for months even though it happened within a game!' She smiled at her own thoughts before returning to the matters at hand. She still had to supply the 'Area 51' with all the materials she could get her hands on without alarming the rest of the population.