1 Prologue: True History of Gaming

Video games have existed since the dawn of time.

The earliest, most primitive lifeforms, swimming in the primordial seas, did so among units of handheld portable gaming consoles being carried along by the currents.

Dinosaurs fought to the death to claim possession over vitally warmth-giving supercomputers.

Mankind's ancient ancestors "discovered" fire, the wheel, spear crafting and animal husbandry by way of informational videos conveyed through dilapidated TV screens.

Video games served as a catalyst for civilizational growth, having a role in many decisive periods of human history. The Egyptian pharaohs devised the pyramids using an architectural design software. Julius Caesar planned battle strategies in real-time on a war gaming arcade machine clocking in at over 25.723 GHz processing speeds. European princes sent discrete love letters to many a fine maiden via antiquated landline internet connections. Adolf Hitler is said by in-the-know historians to have enjoyed a bit of Nintendogs in his leisure time.

Archaeologists disagree on how exactly the technology first arrived on Earth, on whether it was remnants of an ancient civilization that previously thrived on Earth, or the salvaged technology of crash-landed aliens, or myriad other theories. Regardless, the existence of advanced computing hardware in the fossil record makes it an indisputable—albeit closely guarded—secret. The knowledge of which has served as a prerequisite for entry into a number of secret gaming societies formed over the centuries, including the Freemasons and Illuminati.

It wouldn't be until the early 20th century Deep Karma as a concept came into fruition. Based on a system administration and design framework package salvaged from the burial chambers of King Tutankhamun, Project Deep Karma stemmed from a single ambition: to unify all the secret gamer cell organizations around the globe. To meet this grand requirement, no expertise was spared as Deep Karma was conceived of as a brainchild of some of the world's premier luminaries, artists, philosophers, architects and engineers all working in harmony to create the world's very first VRMMORPG. Environmental design was handled by a crew of savants operating out of an Italian mental asylum. Character design work by an apocalyptic cult of Japanese and Korean men, incorporating a then-unknown "Anime" style. Monster design was tasked to a tribe of African big game hunters and Australians. All whilst billions of lines of code, meanwhile, were being written and compiled by a company of sweatshop wage workers in India; and experimental mind-melding software was systematically forced unto American death row inmates and minority racial groups, under the guise of clinical trials by pre-FBI "Bureau of Investigation" agents. Human Resources staff based in China.

Now nearing the finishing stages of its production, after nearly a century in active development, Deep Karma is being secretly beta tested by a chosen few individuals in positions of great power. 

Although, as with any major game release, there are bound to be leaks…