There exist worlds beyond ours, infinite parallel realities that differ in minor or major ways. This is the story of one of these worlds, and some of the worlds connected to it.
The Digital Expanse
In a world that mirrors our own, the past year has been very eventful, more so even than our own. This is due to the main difference between the two realities: The formation of Aleph Corp., a merger of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Sony. This merger had been planned well in advance; a lobbying group was formed in 2019 to convince several governments to approve the transaction, and in February 2020, the merger was finalized. By April, Aleph Corp. had released a new technology: a portable computer under the guise of a phone, capable of accessing the new Aleph Corp. program library, the “Omniphone”. On April 25, the corporation ended all support for the programs and systems that the companies that formed it had released.
The Omniphone was unlike any other device at the time: a folding touch-sensitive cellphone with a holographic display and a “Base Unit,” a mini computer in its own right that the Omniphone could dock and wirelessly connect with. It was on these Base Units that Aleph Corp. began releasing video games and streaming services, which the Omniphone could piggyback off of at gigabit connection speeds. There was even an additional hardware released to convert the phone into a game controller, and special edition models quickly became highly sought-after by the rich. It took only 21 days for the Omniphone to completely sell out, and production was halted completely.
In June, production was resumed, and the new operating system for Omniphones, the “Silver” OS, replaced the previous “Bronze” OS. At the end of the month the Omniphone had once again been totally sold-out, having released a total of 1 billion units worldwide. The new OS enabled wireless connections using hardware that had been built into the Omniphones from the beginning, but had no firmware support until the upgrade. This new “Expansion Network” ran from recently completed satellites and created a “web” of data around the planet.
In November, a final run of the Omniphone 1.0 was completed, including 100 random units running the newest software, the “Gold” OS, for testing before the release of the Omniphone 1.1, which the OS was made for. This meant overclocking the Omniphone 1.0, a requirement for running the operating system on the now-dated hardware.
You play as a person who just obtained one of the 100 overclocked Omniphones running the “Gold” OS, and who is a fan of the series Digimon, Megaman Battle Network, or both. This person owns any two (or simply the PET) of the following items before obtaining their Omniphone: A Digimon Vpet, a Digimon Digivice game toy, and/or a Megaman PET game toy. Your story begins in December upon receiving your Omniphone. These game toys fuse with the Omniphones to create “Expanse Callers,” the “Digivices” of the Digital Expanse. This story is fraught with danger; death is a real possibility for all involved. Will you and your fellows be able to save the worlds that you find yourself in? Or will they be lost to darkness forever?
