Neon Vape Worldbuilding: Digital Twins

 Digital Twin Technology in Neon Vape - VR Applications

Last time, I shared (quite randomly) a bit about gaming glasses and gaming addiction in the world of Neon Vape: A Vaporwave Odyssey. I then learned about the idea of digital twins, and my brain started firing away at all the different kinds of applications that can have in the world of Neon Vape! 

Neon Vape: A Vaporwave Odyssey is a science-fiction novel about a woman who gets stuck inside a virtual reality game called Neon Vape and must escape before her body shuts down.

First of all: what are digital twins? 

I've done a bit of brief research on the topic, so I'm not an expert, but the gist that I'm getting is this. A digital twin is essentially when you model something digitally in order to run tests on it and see how changes can affect it. 

For example, you could create a digital twin of a building and use that to run tests to show you how construction changes would affect the structural stability of the building as a whole. Or you could build a digital twin for a car and use that digital model to find out how well the car does in different situations, like digital crash-testing. 

Digital Twin Tech in Neon Vape

I thought of Inception-like applications for virtual reality gaming in the science-fictional future that Neon Vape is set it. It may be less realistic, but it basically combines the idea of using virtual consoles and virtual operating systems with this idea of digital twins. 

Here's how it works:

In my book, the company that created Neon Vape - VeAre - is a megacorporation whose virtual reality consoles work by tapping into a person's brainwaves and linking up with them in a way that allows them to turn off a person's mobility (so that you don't hurt yourself or break something while you're, say, off killing zombies), among other things. This requires testing to ensure that they're not making something that's going to end up damaging their customers' brains.

Because testing on humans is too dangerous - and highly illegal - the company creates a "digital twin" of the game and their VR pod/console that they can then access virtually in order to test the game out. It's a tiny bit like loading a game on an emulator and using that to play the game. 

This allows them to test the game by ensuring that it's not crashing, having any bugs, or harming people's minds. (Obviously, they have to input all of the required data for how their VR pod/console works, how the human brain reacts to different stimuli and the 'red zones' that should not be affected, and how the game works. Otherwise, the "digital twin" won't react as it is supposed to.) 

It's a very thorough, costly, and time-consuming process, but it's an important one nevertheless. 

The only problem is, as far as we know, VeAre tested Neon Vape out on its virtual digital twin and ensured there were no issues with the game...

...So why is Ramona stuck inside?!