Devil's Paradise

12: Wizard's Workshop: Economic Revival

We knew the Virtual Reality helmet would have appeal; VR had been common before the war. But we had no idea how powerful Merlin's helmet would be.

People with disfiguring scars from disease or injury could put on a helmet and look and sound like themselves, but with no imperfections. And anyone could program the helmet to look and sound like anyone or anything they wanted, just by talking to it. Halloween became an adult costume party, everywhere.

Gamers and lovers of fantasy, of course, wanted the helmets for the unlimited opportunities they created for realistic fantasy reality. The helmet could make the world outside the helmet appear any way it was programmed. A group of gamers could see each other and their fantasy surroundings in perfect detail as they interacted in a game.

But the largest appeal was to see the world as it had been before the war. It wasn't safe to walk in the areas burned by radioactive fire, and the bombs flattened more than they burned. Now, one could visit the Louvre or the Taj Mahal or the pyramids and see them new, without the dangers of travel. Sights and sounds were utterly realistic. For a distant future model, Merlin told me he could make realistic scents to go with the fresh air that circulated inside the helmet.

It took a full year before we got the helmet completed. We got it tested in record time as Merlin missed nothing in the planning. He checked every circuit as I finished it, did all the soldering, and ordered parts for the manufacturing facility he was setting up, so he could go ahead with production as soon as the prototype passed muster.

We had to wait months for some of the parts, and scrounge substitutes for others, but he had more knowledge of what was in various warehouses scattered around our part of the country than the surviving owners did. Teams went out to get loads of specific items from various places.

By the time we finished the prototype, the manufacturing facility, which was entirely clean and robotic under Merlin's control, was ready to roll. After a day of testing, Tony and Delilah and I gave Merlin the go-ahead to make a limited run of the helmets.

Once the helmets began to sell, three things happened, all at once. Everyone who saw a helmet wanted one, everyone who didn't live in or near the Frederick Republic wanted both trading connections with us to get the helmets and network connections to use the helmets, and the fresh hen's egg became the basis for an international bit-chain currency.

Ten eggs made a "loaf," which represented a half-kilo loaf of bread. Ten loaves made a hen. Ten hens equaled one goat. Ten goats equaled a cow. So a cow in money was worth 10,000 eggs.

When they heard this, the farmers objected that those price ratios weren't right, as the values of animals varied throughout the year and depending on demand and on the quality of the animal.

It took time and effort, but Tony convinced them that the names were arbitrary names, just as dollar, nickel, and penny were arbitrary once we stopped using them for physical measures. The important thing was that egg, loaf, hen, goat, and cow were all terms that would translate into every language in the world. Only the egg would be a consistent physical value, but everyone understood that a loaf of bread was worth more than a single egg, and the other symbols had relative values that no one would confuse.

Since there was no physical money, only bit-chain, people could immediately use the currency world-wide, as soon as there was buy-in on the bit-chain. The problem with bitcoin had been that no one knew what a single bitcoin had been worth, but "one fresh hen's egg" was something that everyone from New Zealand to the Ukraine could grasp. Perhaps most important of all, it created a "hard currency" value to the bit-chain, even though there was no government standing behind it. It gave people the all-important confidence needed for acceptance.

Besides creating an international currency and economy, this resulted in a global resurrection of the Internet. Overseas transactions were limited to cable connections, but with far lower populations using that structure, there was no issue with bandwidth. It would be years before global connections were available again via satellite, but people were now motivated to make them happen as quickly as possible.

While manufacturing in the automated facility was underway, Merlin and I got busy on the next few projects. The first things we worked on were a series of assistant bots with waldos that made life easier in the home. They used AI, programmed by Merlin and very flexible, to do things like wash dishes and clothes, cook meals, and manage house cleaning and repairs.

Using the new VR technology, I could wear the helmet and "see" a virtual prototype of each invention. I would interact with it and see how it worked, in virtual reality. Once it was satisfactory that way, Merlin cranked out a half dozen to test and get human feedback, while we worked on the next invention. Once we collected and integrated the feedback, Merlin immediately started to production on the final product. In the automated general production facility, Merlin started out with three general purpose robotic assemblers. By the time a year had gone by, he was up to six. They could all produce the same item, they could each produce different components of the same item, or they could produce six different items, depending on need. In another year, he expected to have thirty assemblers running around the clock, but we didn't have enough parts to keep that many busy yet.

We were changing the world.

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