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The CyberSpace of the MetaCyber setting
is based on a technology called Neuralized
Enquiry Technology, or "the NET"
for short. The NET was invented in 1989
by a software engineer working for the huge
European scientific organization CERN. Originally
intended merely as a way to enhance knowledge
sharing among geographically scattered team
members working for CERN, it's general usefulness
ensured that it would quickly become an
end unto itself rather than a mere helper
app. |
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Luckily for the world, the creator of the
NET was a pure-hearted idealist who endlessly
worked to ensure that his creation would
not be just another proprietary technology,
but instead would be freely available to
any who complied with its basic protocols. |
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THE GEEK YEARS |
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Soon the NET found vast grass-roots support
among the world's sub-culture of computer
geeks and nerd and seemingly overnight amateur
NetNodes (often called nNodes), finite user-created
collections of interfaceable \ browseable
content, were popping up on educational
and privately owned servers around the world
(though mostly in North America, western
Europe, and Japan, with the minority being
in scattered pockets of other computerized
nations). |
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CORPORATIZATION |
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However, the NET technology was too powerful
to remain merely an amateur endeavor. It
offered a new, potentially globalized, venue
for reaching potential consumers, conducting
real time Business to Business (B2B) transactions,
and for previously unequaled content-rich
inter-office networking. The NET became
increasingly accepted in the corporate world,
and correspondingly mutated from a fringe
sub-culture with geek overtones into a cutting
edge and very cool thing to know about. |
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A lot of the geeks, nerds, and technophiles
that were early adopters of the NET back
in the pre-corporate years were able to
parlay their specialized knowledge into
very lucrative jobs in the rapidly ripening
infotech field, and those that already had
technology jobs to begin with got a nice
shot of adrenaline into their careers. |
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THE BOOM |
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By 1992 a few tech-savvy businesses were
exploring what they could do with the NET,
by 1994 practically everyone else was scrambling
to get in the game too, and by 1996 the
NET was the single biggest concept affecting
the business world. Everyone had NET on
the brain; new positions like Chief Technology
Officer and New Technologies Director and
other such corporatese euphemisms for "Person
In Charge Of Figuring Out How To Make A
Buck Off Of This NET Thing" were created.
Stocks were levereaged, startups were venture
capitalized, Corporate nNodes selling things
via the NET sprung up like weeds.
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DOMESTICATION |
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Home computer sales spiked as soccer moms
became convinced that they absolutely HAD
to have a way to get on the NET to access
this smorgasborg of retailing oportunities,
kids insisted they needed the NET for interactive
games and of course access to educational
sites (wink wink nudge nudge), and henpecked
husbands realized that there was a lot of
porn to be had on the NET.
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Where before only a few companies offered
Personal Computers of any sort, suddenly
new computer manufactures sprung up like
strange mushrooms. |
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THE COLLAPSE |
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By 1998 the promise of money by the truckload
to be had via the NET wasn't panning out,
as most burgeoning new companies still struggled
to get out of the red and established companies
started to reconsider their bottom lines
vis a vis their various NET based initiatives.
To be sure, some companies were very successful
via the NET, but they were the exception.
The bottom started to fall out, at first
slowly and then with a sickening slide akin
to an avalanche as hundreds of startups
and quite a few pre-NET companies collapsed
outright, were liquidated by parent companies,
or saw their stocks depreciate to the point
that they were snatched up for pennies on
the dollar and gutted for their client lists
or core technology. |
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{UNDER CONSTRUCTION} |
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