U is for Uploading to Virtual Worlds

For the A to Z challenge this year, I’m sharing science fiction and fantasy story ideas…

I love the idea of the singularity and being able to ‘upload’ a human brain and body from biological reality into a computer core that can run them better. I’ve been noodling on a notion that combines that with alien visitation…

So, an alien starship shows up and makes contact with Earth, but it’s really just a robot drone with a gigantic computer core. Inside the computer are billions of uploaded personality from millions of different species. They travel through the galaxy on their computer ship, effectively immortal, and able to ‘explore’ millions upon millions of virtual planets any time they want, some based on real worlds that the starship or similar ones have visited, some entirely made up.

The ship and its digital citizens want to spend a hundred years or so studying the Earth to add it to their library. If we’re interested, they also offer to upload anybody who wants the digital life and take them along. But a few people start to wonder if the aliens are really able to upload Earthlings without running into a few mistakes as they work out the process…

If you’re interested enough to pick this up and write your own version, feel free; ideas are cheap. And let me know! I’ll be keeping the notions vague enough that lots of different stories might be written from them.

Thanks for visiting!