2 Back to My Roots Part II

Throughout my childhood, I played a lot of video games. I'll never forget the day I played my first game. I honestly don't remember the name of it since a lot of my memories from that time are a bit blurred. I just remember having an absolute blast, spending every free second I had playing it.

As I continued to grow, I kept playing video games but around the beginning of my senior year of highschool, I stopped playing them. This was when I lost my mom in a freak accident. I can't be certain, but the grief was probably why I stopped playing.

I felt it slightly weird that I'd all of a sudden start gaming again. This feeling, however, was greatly outweighed by the Star Wars aspect. Most instances of family time were Star Wars related. We'd watch the old movies, the cartoons, the newer movies, and the live action shows. Sometimes we'd even just explore some lore videos on YouTube.

After my mom died, my dad and I still continued the tradition. It was what she would want us to do. However, it was much less frequent. The funny part is that it is actually my dad that sucked my mom into the Star Wars fandom. She really got into it as the fascination she found with it was a great way to rest her mind after work.

While she worked, it wasn't as if my dad was a freeloader. Aside from handling most, if not all, of the household duties, he was also a somewhat successful YouTuber and streamer. He fell off a little bit due to his intense grieving, but he still had a cult following. His occasional posts bring in a decent amount of income that allows us to not dip into mom's life insurance policy.

Wrestling with this thought process, I pulled up the website for the game. It was called Star Wars: Galactic Expedition. When I got to the website, I had to put in my date of birth, confirming I was above 18. As I scrolled through, I immediately noticed something weird. There was no game studio credited with the creation of the game. The only credits went to Disney and LucasFilm, who published the game. Maybe they had their own studio now? I couldn't be sure since I had been out of touch with the gaming space for about 5 years.

Pushing that to the back of my mind, I moved on, wanting to learn more about the game. I found some really interesting, but vague things. Firstly, there were two buzz words that they used; open-world and hyper-realistic. There was actually a whole section on realism with various disclaimers. Essentially, players can experience everything in the game that can be experienced in real life aside from getting pregnant.

This includes the five senses, emotions, and love. Yes, that apparently includes sex. I guess I'd try it. However, this also includes negative things as well such as pain, disease, dismemberment, and most surprisingly, at least to me, addiction. There are plenty of addictive drugs within the galaxy that have very real effects.

To balance the risk involved with this, the AI that fully controls the game will step in to stop incidents that involve extreme mental affliction. There are also rules to prevent players from mentally harming others through actions such as torture, sexual assault, or harassment. If players break these rules, they will be permanently barred from the game and also punished to the fullest extent of the law. They have everyone's DNA after all.

Unfortunately, aside from some screenshots and a few "trailers", if you could even call them that, which showed sweeping images of battles and landscapes, there was almost no information on the game. They were either trying to preserve the authenticity of experiencing the game, or they were hiding something big. Either way, I'd find out in two days.

As I shifted from the website to some news articles covering the game, Taylor spoke to me. "Is your dad going to play?"

I realized that this question made a lot of sense. He was a content creator and also very into Star Wars. This would be perfect for him. Regardless, I didn't know the answer so I shrugged. "Not sure. I'll ask him though."

Swapping from my internet browser, I sent a text to my dad asking if he was going to play. I was about to swap back to the article I was reading but he had already replied saying, "Yeah, I got the headset last week. Why do you ask?"

I chuckled. He had never replied this fast ever since I got my first phone. Turning to Taylor, I answered his question. "Yes, he is apparently playing."

Taylor nodded. "That's cool. Maybe we can party up with him."

I shrugged again. "That could be cool. He does know more about Star Wars than anyone I know. If the game has a party system, I'm sure it could be fun."

-3:45 PM, May 18th, 2053-

I was currently sitting on the floor, leaning against one of the displays in the GameStop. We had been waiting for almost an hour now but luckily we were next. Even though we were next, I didn't feel any strange burst of energy from the excitement. The game didn't even release until Friday so this honestly just felt like a tedious waste of time.

A dull and bored voice called out from in front of us as a group of 5 people exited the back room. "Next."

This task must have been just as awful for the technician taking care of the process as it was for all of us. I stood up from the ground, walking towards the door to the back room. Having walked through the door, I saw their setup.

There was a massive pallet of headset boxes, 5 chairs, two metal machines on a table that looked like medical equipment, a contaminated waste basket, and 4 workers.

One of the workers was a security guard, two were lab technicians, and the last was the IT guy that would set up the headset.

The lab tech that called us inside gestured towards the chairs. He spoke with a monotonous voice as if he was miserable. "Sit."

My group of three and the two strangers all sat down, not wanting to bother this clearly irritated man. He then handed the 5 of us a form and a pen each. "Sign this and we can get started. It's a consent form for us to take your blood."

I nodded, quickly skimming through the form before signing it. He collected the forms and pens, placing them in a large pile to the side. The other lab technician came over and handed him two small blue devices and two vials.

He then spoke again as he walked up to me. "Stick out your thumb."

Again, I complied as he gently grabbed my hand, placing one end of the blue device on the tip of my thumb. Without any warning, I felt a prick in my thumb. The tech then pulled the blue device away from my thumb and started intermittently squeezing my thumb. Blood slowly dribbled out and into the vial.

It took about a minute but once the vial was half full, he pulled it away. He then pulled what looked like a strip of laminated paper out and took another drop of blood. After this, he took a cotton ball out of his pocket and handed it to me. I understood his intention and held it on my thumb, soaking up the small amount of blood still dripping out. After several minutes, all of our blood had been drawn and the vials labeled.

The IT guy then walked over, handing us more forms. Unlike the first form which was just one page, this one was a whole booklet. "This is the waiver that you must sign to play the game. Signing this means that you waive your right to sue Disney and all related parties should anything go wrong in the game. There are exceptions but those will only hold true for class action cases. Essentially, play at your own risk. Sign on pages 2, 7, and 26 if you agree."

I immediately went to those pages and signed them. Earlier, while waiting in line, I had read an article that outlined the things we were consenting to by signing this form. It was written by a lawyer who would definitely understand the contract better than the average person. The massive 30 page booklet was merely just a legal way of saying what the IT guy had just said.

Everyone quickly signed the contracts. Using a perforated edge on the pages with our signatures, he pulled them out, sorting them into three piles. We were to keep the booklets.

He then pulled out a credit card reader, charging each of us $2,160. This was the cost of the headset including sales tax.

This, unfortunately, led to another bout of silence that lasted about 10 minutes. The lab techs were using the machinery and at some point, they checked off some more forms and handed the paper strips to the IT guy. He then proceeded to open 5 headset boxes one by one. Hooking up a device to the headset, he put the strips of paper into the device.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

The device beeped 5 times as he went through the 5 boxes. He then handed the box to us and plastered a forced smile onto his face. "Here is your headset. On behalf of all of us at Disney, we hope you have a magical experience in the game!"