Chapter 47
"True," Three agreed. "But I ignored that because that technology is still limited to only a small number for now because otherwise you would take up too many resources. Plus you would then still have the fact that those two people both need access to a holodeck. With our created world that's not an issue. A drone on Unimatrix 01 could enter this world and spend time with a drone that entered this world while being on a cube hundreds of light-years from here, as long as they both have access to the Borg communication network."
"The Borg link, the standard Borg link?" B'Elanna asked. "That's all that's needed?"
"Yes. Sending senses information doesn't take a lot of bandwidth. After all, we don't have to send all the data on that waterfall over there all the time. We only have to send the basics and your brain fills in the rest; like it's normal with senses. Once your mind has perceived something, it assumes that it's there and in the same state and therefore truly only registers changes. Information is still needed on the entire object, yes, but it's more along the lines of 'yes it's still there' instead of describing color, smell, temperature, and so on. Back in the time when we were still offering our services to the Borg, there were people that got to know each other, fell in love, married, lived, and then eventually died of old age in our world, while in reality they never actually had any physical contact. The only limitation is creating life. You could make love here and it would feel exactly the same as it would if you did it 'out there,' but you cannot conceive a child here. Life cannot be created in our world. For that the people have to meet physically and have sex, or whichever way their species conceives."
"And you, and the rest of your people, control this world?" Seven asked.
Three dipped his head a little. "Yes, and no, my Queen. It would be better to say that we create it, not control it. What you now see around you is just a small world; not much further than the eye reaches. Because of that I can indeed control everything in it. However, the larger the world is, the less we can know what's going on in it. If I'm creating some landscape one hundred kilometers away, then I couldn't see what's happening here and therefore couldn't react to it. We may create this world, but we see just as much of it at any time as you would. As for your other question, at the moment I'm the only one that's creating this world. If you forgive us our insecurity, my Queen, we didn't know how you would react to learning that there were 'ghosts' living within the Hive mind. The others are at the moment still just some of many voices; untraceable by the Hive."
"You may describe yourselves as ghosts, but you are nevertheless part of the Borg Collective. You can let the others know that they do not need to fear prosecution, as long as they do nothing that I consider harmful to the Borg," Seven assured. "Which brings me to the obvious question; why did the Borg go from admiring you to hunting you?"
"I thank you for that assurance, my Queen. It's good to know that we no longer have to fear for our existence. As to answer your question; the world we created existed outside the conscious mind of the Hive. They knew that people went to our worlds and had private lives here, so to speak. At first the Hive didn't mind. In fact, they liked the fact that we could give the drones a normal place to live; something they lost when becoming drones. But as more people were forced to become part of the Borg against their will they started to meet in our world. They started to make plans; they wanted to destroy the Hive so that they could once again be free. They started an attack but the Hive managed to contain it. Unfortunately this led the Hive to believe that our worlds were a danger to the Hive; a danger that had to be eradicated. So they started to hunt us down."
"That is actually a very valid concern," Seven noted. "You just said yourself that you create this world; not control it. You do not know what people do in your world. At the moment we have safeguards in place to make sure that the Individualist drone concept does not hurt the Borg. Individualist drones that want to hurt the Borg are found and dealt with long before they can do any damage. Over one million people have been rejected from joining the Borg after their mind was scanned at it was clear that they had ulterior motives that did not agree to the Borg. Also, almost two thousand Individualist drones were denied back into Individualist status because they had formed dangerous ideas. Clearly, our safeguards are working, and because of that the Hive considers the Individuals drone idea a success and is now even pointing out people to us of which the Hive thinks that we would benefit from if those drones were brought back into Individualist status. What assurance can you give me that these dangerous people we can now easily deal with would not use your world to plan a way to destroy the Borg?"
"The very same safeguards that protect the Individualist drone system," Three assured. "Yes, people could use this place to plan things, but to actually put those plans in motion, or even simply to do the job they need to do that day, they have to leave here and join the Borg again. The mind of Individualist drones get scanned for dangerous thoughts and people that visited our world don't forget what they did here once they leave, so any dangerous plan they made here will be considered relevant information and will be brought to the attention of the Hive with the first scan after the plan was made. In hindsight it's unfortunate that we didn't have safeguards like that back then. If so the Borg would have stopped those individuals before they could attack and wouldn't have been forced to deactivate our world."
Seven thought about that for a moment before agreeing that this safeguard would be enough. After all, unlike the 'ghosts' that could create the world she was in now, the location of the drone that had created the dangerous plan would be exactly known.
"How many people can actually live in these worlds of yours?" B'Elanna asked. "By the time the Borg started to hunt you there must already have been tens of billions of drones, surely the worlds that your people could create wouldn't house all those drones."
"Actually, we could; with ease," Three assured. "The worlds we create are not limited by number of people that live in them, but by size. Once we created a piece of a world, that piece exists until we destroy it again."
Seeing B'Elanna open her mouth, Three added, "Please don't ask me how it's possible that the world continues to exist after we created it even if we pay it no attention anymore. It is just... part of us. Just like we also never found out just why we could become 'ghosts', yet we have."
"Alright, please continue."
"Thank you. Now, while we can create these worlds with ease, even we cannot create an entire world the size of a planet at once. This location here around you only took me two minutes to create, but multiply that to the size of a planet and you would see how long it would take us to create the world. The world, that takes time, but whether only the both of you, or one million people were here at the moment doesn't matter."
"So, if we were to allow you to offer your services to the Borg once more, you could not create a place for all of them at once; your worlds would need to grow so that you would have the room for these drones to live," Seven surmised.
"Indeed, my Queen," Three agreed. "The first time it was easy. When we offered our services to the Borg they doubted that we could create such a real, yet not real, world. So they started a test program. We created two cities on a piece of land that was smaller than the floor in the Royal holodeck. There were sixty thousand of us, and only such a small world. We were bored so we started to create more world around these two cities. By the time the Borg decided that the test was a success and more people could live in our world, we already had the room for them to live in. More and more people started living in our world, but we had a head start and kept up with the growth."
"But if you first only had two cities, didn't they collide as the cities grew?" B'Elanna asked.
"That's one of the main things where our worlds differ from real worlds. In a real world you would indeed have that problem. They would collide, or meld into each other. But as I said, I can change this world even now. I can remove that river, or I can add more land, it's just that I need to be here to do it. When those cities started to grow too close together we simply added more land between the cities. Until there was once again enough room. Some centuries later those cities were actually two capitol cities of two different countries on two different continents. But, this time, if you and the Queen would be so gracious to allow us to serve the Borg once more to the best of our abilities, we would need the time to create the world."
"Couldn't you save time by copying parts of a world?" B'Elanna asked reasonably. "I mean, alright, so it took you time to create this place here, but now that it exists couldn't you do exactly the same there on the edge?"
"I could," Three agreed. "A lot of time is taken up by deciding just how we want a piece of this world to look, so simply doing the same over and over again would save a lot of time because we don't need to make those decisions for the next part, and the next. But who would like to live in a world where every kilometer is the same as the one before?"
"Who says that it has to be?" B'Elanna countered. "You just said that all sixty thousand of you existed in that first world you created for the Borg. From that I guess that every one of your people can visit the world that other of your people created. So what you do is you create a piece of world that is as big as you feel comfortable that you can easily copy. Then all sixty thousand of you create a different piece. And after that you start copying, just like a puzzle. You put piece one beside piece two, than a piece ten, then a piece thousand, then a five, and so on. With sixty thousand pieces there are, what, billions of combinations?"
"3,600,000,000 different combinations to be precise," Seven said before looking back at Three. "My Mate is correct. A computer program could be created to randomly pick any of those sixty thousand pieces, with the exception of any number that has been used the last one thousand times, for instance. This would assure that no two of the same parts are located too close to each other, and the randomness of it all would ensure that no two worlds look alike. At most pieces of the world would look the same. But then, a person that lives in that first part would first have to visit a similar part to see that it is exactly the same."
"And even there the similarities would only exist in the beginning," B'Elanna reminded. "People that live there might change the land, or one piece lies in warm weather while the second copied piece lies in cold weather, and over five to ten years new plants will have grown and the pieces look nothing alike anymore. When you create base worlds at this fast pace you would actually have the time to then look at a map of the entire world once it's finished and from that change things like where a mountain range should be placed, or where an ocean, or a desert. At that point you could split up into two groups. Thirty thousand of you going on creating more world, while the other thirty thousand concentrate on giving those different world parts a different character."
"Besides, we clearly divided the Hive into the normal drones and the Individualist drones, so in the beginning we only would have the relatively small number of Individualist drones to think about," Seven reminded. "The major part of the Collective would not want to come here because to them it would be irrelevant. You can see it in the regenerating now. Drones can talk consciously and the others will hear it, yet most of the drones still only prefer to exchange the normal information."
B'Elanna chuckled at that, "Seven, a couple of billion Individualist drones are no longer 'a small number'."
"I said 'relatively small number," Seven corrected. "On the whole that is the Borg Collective, several billion drones 'is' a small number."
B'Elanna merely lifted her hands in mock surrender.
"Since we're talking about us creating our world, I assume that you're thinking about allowing the drones to enter our world during regeneration?" Three asked.
"Not at all, the drones will most definitely not be allowed to enter your world during regeneration," Seven said resolutely. Then she explained, "We made a clear agreement with the Borg that drones, even the Individualist drones, would continue to join the Hive while regenerating and make sure that there would always be billions of voices in the Hive mind. This is something that will never change. It is exactly because of this assurance that the Hive allowed the Individualist system and also allowed the drones to be able to think and talk individually during regenerating, if they want to. After all, talking individually is still adding a voice to the many voices of the Hive. I will not risk that agreement by taking regeneration time away by those drones' voices entering your world instead of the Hive mind while regenerating."
"Then why are we talking about creating our world?" Three asked confused.
"Because there is another option," Seven said. "The Individualist drones only need to regenerate once every three days, yet they work in a three shift system. Since the standard Borg day measures thirty hours, and a shift lasts ten hours, that means that they are not working for twenty hours every day. That in turn means that Individualist drones have a lot more free time than they spend time regenerating. About six times as much on average, depending on their species and regeneration needs. You brought B'Elanna and me here while we are still sleeping, so the Individualist drones could choose to enter this world when they are sleeping. It should be easy enough to set up a program that they can activate before going to bed that brings them here automatically once they fall asleep, and that can help them fall asleep if they want to come here when not tired."
"True," B'Elanna agreed. "An adaption of a medical scanner should do the trick, linked with a neural stimulator. If you activated the neural stimulator, set to cause sleep of course, you'll be asleep seconds after hitting the activate button. As soon as the medical scanner then registers that you're asleep it gives the green light, so to speak for your to be brought here to this world for the duration of time you set into the device beforehand."
Seven nodded her agreement. "Indeed. That way people could decide to come here in their free time for some recreation. Come to think of it, we could even use it as a tool for getting more people to join the Borg. At the moment we are focusing on people that want either medical help or help in getting a better life. We could use this opportunity to even let them live out their fantasies, within limits of course. For instance, take Klingons. They love a good battle, but just how often do they really get to fight? We could set up a world that is filled with mystical beasts and enemies that interacts with them. And unlike a holodeck they would not know what is coming. There might be no attack tonight, or there might be an attack and they find out that their fortifications were not strong enough. Unlike a holodeck there would be real consequences to that."
"Oh, good idea," B'Elanna agreed happily. "There are a lot of species that I'm sure would be interested in something like that. Take the Hirogen for instance. Living on a world where they can hunt to their heart's content? They would stand in line as soon as the word gets out."
"Of course, there have to be safeguards to be kept in mind," Seven reminded. "Most importantly we have to make sure that people do not lose themselves in that world and think that it is their reality. But it is an option. We could set up parts of these worlds for people to play, so to speak, something that they are not in their normal life with the Borg. To give them something that is simply impossible in reality."
Then B'Elanna thought of something. "But, um, wouldn't that take away from the social life we want to have on the ships? I mean, I do like the idea, but it would eat into free time that's normally used for socializing."
"Not if those drones decide to only come here while sleeping in those periods where they would have slept regardless. But even besides that, I do not think that this is a problem," Seven assured. "As much as this world may be real as far as we experience it, it still is not real for our bodies that are lying in our bed. You just said that it would eat into time. Well, eating is a good example. We could eat here, but we would still wake up hungry because in reality we did not eat and the body did not get actual nutrition. The same for bodily exercise. For instance, Katzi would still have to train in the 'real world' to keep her body the way Pagsha likes it."
She looked at Three and asked, "Am I correct?"
"You are, my Queen," Three agreed, knowing only too well who Katzi was since the Royal Guards were known to every single drone; Individualist or not.
"So there will always be things that have to be done in the 'real world'." Seven continued. "People still have to go to the real world to do their job. There they will meet new people, make friends. People will still meet up in the real world to spend time together. However, I do wonder if this would not make the holodecks obsolete."
"It won't," Three was quick to assure. "Exactly because our world is 'real' as well as 'real time.' Our world is a set environment. As I said, it can be changed by people by actually changing the environment like one would a real world environment, but events don't just happen. In a holodeck you can select a race program and join a race, you can even set the parameters that no matter what; you'll win. Here that isn't possible. A race would have to be planned by people, a date would have to be set, more people would have to participate, and there would truly only be one winner and the rest would have lost. So if people want to enjoy a specific scenario they'll have to use the holodeck for that. For instance, if someone would want to experience how you negotiated with the Siill, they cannot do that in our world; they have to use a holodeck for it."
"Which reminds me," B'Elanna said, "If this is a set environment how do people get things? Do you have to create every house, every thing in the house down to a painting on the wall?"
"My Princess, the last time the people in our world made those things themselves. They had jobs here; some built houses, some were painters, some created streets. What we did was to make it easy. For instance, metal was needed for people to make things so we made certain places in our world where there was so much ore close to the surface of the planet that mining for it was easy and that the ore was of an almost directly usable pure quality. We then went back from time to time to refill those places so that no other places was needed to mine for that ore. Later alloys were needed, so we created a place where that alloy could be found like natural ore, even though it could never exist like that in your world because certain materials had to be mixed to get the alloy. Trees were cut down for wood, but in the woods where those trees were cut for mass market use, we had created the trees to grow so fast that when a new tree was planted where one was cut, that it would be fully grown and ready for harvesting again within one year."
"I don't know if that would work this time though," B'Elanna said thoughtfully. "I mean, we just talked about people coming here in their free time. I don't think that they'd like to come here in their free time only to work. I could see someone coming here and doing some work they want to do for their own satisfaction, like build a cabin or tend to their garden. But to work to make roads, to mine ore, to melt that ore down? I don't know."
"I think that is a very valid point," Seven agreed. "Unless we find drones that want to spent their on duty time in this world instead in the real world. However, that would leave us with drones that only regenerate, spend their time in this world, or do off-duty activities. They would no longer be doing physical duties for the Collective."
"Yeah, but would that be a problem?" B'Elanna asked. "As it is, we've been adding more drones to the Collective with the Individualist option than the Collective added before through forced assimilation. We could add certain jobs that can be performed here, to the list of jobs that people can choose from when they join the Collective. We could kinda turn the on-duty and off-duty thing around. They spend their on-duty time here, besides that they regenerate and join the Hive where their mind is scanned, and at least four hours of their off-duty time has to be spent in the 'real world' every day. Four hours that they have to use in places where other people are; even if they go and sit in a restaurant and be bored for those four hours. Even if they first don't want to participate in real world activities they'll eventually do it if for nothing more than to get rid of the boredom."
"That could work," Seven agreed. Then looking at Three again, "I am inclined to allow you and your people to create this special world, but only if the Hive agrees. It might be that they insist on a test program again, or they will trust in the fact that the Individuals drone system has proven effective and that the safeguards are clearly working. I personally insist that people that are in this world are still available for people in the 'real world.' If for nothing more than the fact that people could be here in their off-duty time and a red alert requires their presence. Is this doable?"
"It is," Three assured. "Just like we have always available exits in the form of doors, we can create communicators which are a manifestation of a link to the 'real world'."
"Very well. Also, there are almost fifteen thousand species in the Collective at the moment. I want there to be worlds that are suitable for all of them and where their species will feel comfortable."
"That would require having different atmospheres and different gravity levels in the world," Three pointed out. "Unlike on a holodeck we cannot adapt gravity levels for every single person. We can change the gravity in a certain area, but that would mean that others could not go there. But if we create too many of those different gravity fields in one place it will take away from the reality of it. More so if we take environment in mind. Species 564 prefers an extremely dry desert like world, while species 6,678 prefers rain every day, and species 8,472 might prefer some fluidic space to remind them of home. It would not look like a real world."
"Unless you create these worlds in the form of a solar system with different planets," Seven suggested. "You could create planets, and life-sustainable moons around those planets, with different environments."
"Moons or not, with fifteen thousand species in mind that would be a lot of planets in this one artificial solar system," B'Elanna said with a grin.
"I am sure that his people can create their worlds in such a way that planets would not collide," Seven said with a raised eyebrow. "Besides, even though I want people to feel comfortable, different species will feel comfortable in the same environment. For instance, Ktarians, Bolians, and Humans, all feel comfortable in the same kind of environment. I guess that about two hundred different worlds would suffice." Looking at Three, she asked, "Would that be possible?"
"It would," Three assured. "Though then I would suggest that we create the worlds in such way that they're not a solar system, but only look that way while the separate planets are the true focus. That way we could create different kinds of stars that are seen from the planets. For instance, Risan will be used to their double star, Humans will be used to their G-class star, and the Brenal will prefer their giant red star. This won't be a problem because when we create the world we can also create what people see when they look up during the day or night."
"Very well," Seven agreed. "Lastly, I want it to be possible for people to travel between those different worlds. I do realize that some worlds my not be available to some species because of conditions like gravity. However, there will be many overlapping conditions. For instance, a world that is suited for Klingons can still be visited by Humans for a vacation."
"Is that what you want?" B'Elanna asked. "That people can visit other worlds just like they can now visit the Zamonan vacation planets?"
"Indeed, though not just for vacations. The existence of the different worlds will be known to the Individualist drones and people will be curious about them. They might want to visit them, they might find then that a planet that is not exactly suited for them might nevertheless be a good place to visit from time to time. For instance, you as part Klingon would not want to live on a cold planet, but visiting a planet with an abundance of snow might still be fun for a few hours."
A moment of her childhood flashed in front of B'Elanna's eyes. "Yeah, you're right. My father once showed me how to make a snowman. I had a lot of fun that day, I'd love to do that with Vasha once she's old enough."
"We will," Seven assured. "Be it here, or on a real planet. The reason I just mentioned is not the only reason why I want people to be able to visit other worlds though. I want to encourage social behavior. People might meet in real life, for instance during their job hours. One might invite the other to the place they visit in these worlds, which might then be in a totally different world than the other normally visits. But vacations are definitely something to keep in mind as well. Especially short vacations since there is no travel time. I want people to be able to visit different worlds here just like people in the Federation can visit Risa for a vacation, just that they do not have to spend weeks just to get to the location. Besides the fact that people can experience the uniqueness of these places, it will also ensure that even in this world the Borg will be one Collective that interacts with each other. The last thing I want is that the people in these separate worlds split off from the whole that is the Borg."
"Um, you mention Risa," B'Elanna started slowly. "Even though we don't have any Risan in the Collective, we do have members of species that have similar beliefs and ways of living. Will you allow them to live by their old laws again here? It's something to keep in mind."
"You are correct," Seven agreed. After a moment of silence she added, "I feel that I am uncertain about the issue. I want people to have certain freedoms here, yet I also do not want that these places become lawless places where people can do whatever they want without keeping consequences to those actions in mind. What would you suggest?"
B'Elanna thought about that for a moment. "Well, I think that we should leave them some liberties, but indeed have some rules in place. I think that we should focus on something like 'you can do what you want, but don't hurt others.' Kinda like the different decks we have on Unimatrix 01, where different rules apply to different decks. We could do the same here. Take the few Barudians we have in the Collective. They're much like the Risan, they like sex, they like to give pleasure, and they opened their world to other species to come and have fun with them. In my mind, if the Barudians want to go around and fuck everyone; hey, all the power to them... so to speak of course."
"The point is that they are doing it to their own body, they are not forcing anyone to have sex with them. And they do not go around hurting people that do not agree with them," Seven said in understanding.
"Right," B'Elanna agreed. "But on the other hand, with Pagsha's species the men were oppressing the women. Oppression would be a thing not allowed. We could set up some base rules that'll apply to every world, and then leave it up to the worlds if they want to add more. But if they want to add more rules, those rules have to first be approved by you, or maybe by some drones that monitor the rules in these worlds. We could check the Collective to find some drones that would be suited to set up some kind of... constitution for these worlds. Something you, as the Queen, have the final say over of course."
"I believe that this is a good idea," Seven agreed.
B'Elanna hesitated. "So, assuming that the Hive agrees to the creation of this world, what are we going to call it? I mean, the different planets will be named on an individual basis, but we need a name for this fake, yet real world, and probably also a name to indicate the real world."
"I believe that 'the real world' is a simple but very effective name to use for people that are in this world and that want to indicate the place where their body is," Seven said. "I think that we can simply keep calling the real world 'the real world.' It is also a clear reminder that no matter how real this world seems, there is still a more important place; the place where their body is."
"Um, which reminds me," B'Elanna interrupted before Seven could suggest a name for the world they were in at the moment. Looking at Three, B'Elanna asked, "Considering that the body isn't here, can you actually die in this world? If I can die here, what happens to my body?"
"You can die here, but it's only a temporary situation," Three explained. "When you die, what really happens is that the same mechanism is activated that you would also activate to leave this world; your door. Only when you 'die' you travel through it whether you want to or not. Then you wake up in 'the real world' and can choose to enter this world again where you would then appear close to where you died, but in a place where you won't automatically die again. We can change that to where you simply cannot die here, but we found the first time around that it's actually a good thing that you can 'die' because often you feel pain before dying and it stops you from doing foolish things. People know that they cannot literally die here, but they know that they would feel the pain of the dying and don't want that."
"That sounds like a good initiative to take a little care when being here," Seven agreed. "An I think that I would like to expand on that by setting up a system where people that die here through their own fault actually will not be allowed back here for a certain time, and if they continue to die here time and again through their own fault, that they will not be allowed back at all."
"Why?" B'Elanna wondered.
"Because often when people do foolish things that get them killed they take others with them. And while they cannot truly die here, those others would still feel the pain of dying while they did nothing to deserve it."
Then Seven came back to what they had been discussing before. "As for a name for this world. As Three pointed out, as much as this world is not real, it is also not necessarily unreal, so any name with fake or unreal, like 'the fake world' would not be fitting. I think... the Individualist drones like to call Unimatrix 01 the home of the Borg. I think that this world also needs a name that reminds everyone of the Borg and still is a subtle reminder of the fact that this world exists, yet does not. What would you think of Unimatrix Zero?"
B'Elanna frowned. "I get the Unimatrix part, but why Zero?"
"Because zero without any other number stand for nothing. Some species even argue that zero without another number is actually not a number. So this arguably not real number, that in any case indicates the existence of nothing, would be a clear reminder of the fact that this world is not real, does not exist, is nothing. Yet at the same time zero is one of the, if not the, most important numbers because it is also a place holder. While adding no value of its own, it can still turn any of the other nine numbers into more; tens, hundreds, billions, trillions. Keeping both those facts in mind, Unimatrix Zero, a place that does not exist, could never the less be a place where trillions of drones go to in their off-duty time."
"Unimatrix Zero," B'Elanna repeated. "Yeah, I kinda like the sound of that." Looking at Three she asked, "Do you think that your people would agree to the name?"
"I assure you, we would be honored," Three said softly. "To be granted the name of a Unimatrix, to be considered as important as one of five places that ensure the Borg existence..."
"Now six," Seven corrected. "However, there is still work to be done. Worlds have to be created, people will have to be given the option to work here, including some that will help you with the creation of these worlds by telling you what is needed where. And not to forget, the Hive has to agree. However, once I leave this world and wake up, I will regenerate, join the Hive, and share my opinion on the matter."
B'Elanna hummed. "Hmm, if the Hive agrees to the creation of Unimatrix Zero then I'd suggest that the first step, even before Three's people start creating their worlds, is to select a group of people that will oversee the rules in Unimatrix Zero; just like we have it with real parts of the Collective. Have Ministers that oversee the different worlds, that report to Governors, who then report to a single President for Unimatrix Zero, who in the end reports to the Queen."
"I agree," Seven said. "Three, please show us how we can leave this world and then contact me again in one day. I will then be able to tell you if the Hive agrees to the creation of Unimatrix Zero. At that time we can also discuss how to make it possible for people to enter your world on their own accord in their free time."
"Yes, my Queen," Three said, realizing that this meeting had gone better than any of his people had ever hoped. He was looking forward to the day where he and his people could help unite the Collective more than it already was.
Continued...