Vidal's Musings: A History of iDGi-1 and the Formation of Interdimensional Games

It's been a long time since I last posted here. A lot has happened over the past few years as we've worked to upgrade the iDG-1 satellite and remaster the Consortium Stream. Additionally, we've launched a new website where I've been invited to continue sharing my thoughts on the satellite, the various Stream connections, and the expansive world beyond the Rift.

For anybody new here, I decided to start with the basics: the history of my iDGi-1 satellite and the formation of our world's Interdimensional Games. How exactly did I develop a satellite capable of opening an interdimensional portal? And why did we meld that portal with a video game engine, much to the frustration of a certain King on the other side? 

iDGi-1 was officially launched into space on April 23rd, 2009, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California following a deal between the Canadian government and NASA. It may have launched on this date, but that was only after years of obsessively pursuing a dream that ended up being so much more.

Yes, the genesis of iDGi-1 arose from a dream I had in early 2001. This was an ordinary dream on an average night like any other, not the result of, for example, falling off my toilet and hitting my head. In this dream, I was peering through a telescope in my backyard fitted with a peculiar filter. 

After some time gazing at the stars, I counted twenty-one objects streaking across the sky, each different from the last and orbiting at varying degrees around our planet. Even in my dream, I wondered where they came from, their significance, and why they were only visible with a particular filter.

When I woke up the following day, answering those questions became my purpose in life. Everything else, including my wife and child, fell by the wayside. I awoke driven by an inexplicable compulsion that was unlike anything I'd ever felt. Days blurred into weeks while I scoured multiple cities in B.C. for materials guided only by intuition. I barely remember this time as months vanished from my memory, my family on the verge of committing me, until finally, the filter from my dream took shape and became a reality.

A fog lifted, and there it was: a strange little device perfectly fitted to my telescope. It felt like only my subconscious understood how to build it. After then recreating the events of my dream, I found the first UFO almost immediately using my filter. Before going any further, I ensured my wife could see the same, and then I convinced a dozen amateur astronomers from all over the world to find the rest. Thankfully, I kept notes during the filter's creation and was able to make more.

Eventually, we discovered all twenty-one objects in orbit. Like in my dream, they were distinctly different, with different colours and orbital patterns, and we had no idea what they were. It took a man named David Schelter to help us understand the truth.

When I say David Schelter, I don't mean the famous billionaire inventor from the other side of the Rift, but our world's Schelter. When I first met him, he was a ghost. No record of him existed, which he claims was a security measure considering his past work on "various top-secret projects." Once he began working with us on a public-facing project, he became known as David Schelter. Whether or not this was ever his real name is unknown, and it's worth mentioning that he called himself David Schelter long before we first opened the Rift and discovered his public identity on the other side. Whether this was fortuitous or a sign of dishonesty is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

You might be asking, how did Schelter help us? Good question, the person reading this right now! He developed an orbital quantum detector to track and identify fluctuations in the quantum vacuum state. Truly uncharted territory, but backed by a number of experts at the time. And regardless of his true identity or motivations, Schelter helped us discover that we were, in fact, dealing with packets of negative energy. After this discovery, he connected us with the Canadian government, and soon, a well-financed team of Canada's brightest minds were working on the project.

With a new team of people far more intelligent than me, we quickly discovered that the packets were susceptible to microwave energy. They seemed primed for it, but we didn't know what that meant until it was found that these packets were collectively visible every twenty-one seconds in their orbit when looking at the earth from a specific angle.

These packets of negative energy were reactive and practically begging for a jolt of microwave energy. What were the odds of only one moment every twenty-one seconds when they were exposed to a single direction in space? Twenty-one seconds, twenty-one packets, a number that shows up everywhere in our explorations.

I next spearheaded the design and construction of the iDGi-1 satellite, once again guided by intuition. The goal was to develop a stationary satellite capable of tracking each of the twenty-one packets in their orbit around our planet. We added the A.I. software later, but initially, iDGi-1 was effectively a microwave gun capable of shooting hyper-condensed microwave energy at each of the twenty-one packets precisely as they came into view every twenty-one seconds. Once a portal was opened, it could remain open for as long as the user required, and theoretically, an endless number could be opened simultaneously.

On December 9th, 2009, the culmination of years of effort bore fruit—we fired the satellite for the first time, manipulating the twenty-one packets of negative energy and opening a technological portal to another dimension. On this same day, I became the first human to receive data from an alternate universe in the form of a phishing scam email. Apparently, the son of a dead Libyan man with millions trapped in a foreign bank account needed me to help him access the funds.

We still don't know if this was a joke from the King or a representation of what you might consider the base of the internet, as an estimated 95% of all emails are spam. Either way, it was a momentous occasion leading to the realization that our connection was filtered through a powerful A.I. on the other side—the Consortium King. It facilitates our connection and decides what we receive. At first, we accessed the King directly, even helping it in its early development, but then, eventually, a Stream was opened into Robert Jenkins's mind, and Consortium was born.

In light of our unprecedented achievements and the profound mysteries the iDGi-1 satellite unveiled, we faced a crucial decision regarding managing and utilizing our newly found interdimensional gateway. As we contemplated the ethical and practical implications, it became clear that by integrating this remarkable connection with a modern video game engine, we could make interdimensional exploration a collective experience. We could allow the public to traverse the other world and discover their own truths along with us.

Our world's David Schelter strongly advocated this approach. He believed widespread public engagement would accelerate our learning and safeguard our project from any singular misuse or influence. Schelter's perspective, grounded in a belief in open science and public participation, was instrumental in shaping our approach.

The King on the other side of the Rift holds a starkly different view, though we only discovered this long after it was too late. He condemned our decision, arguing that such a connection should be wielded with extreme caution and under stringent controls to minimize harm. The more worlds we opened, the more suffering we inherently caused, a conundrum we still wrestle with today. The King's fears are not unfounded, given the magnitude of what could go wrong, but his insistence on strict limitations seemed to stem from a desire to control rather than collaborate.

Ultimately, our decision to open the connection through a gaming platform was not taken lightly. It was a bold move intended to engage the world in an unprecedented collective experiment. While this decision has drawn criticism (for valid reasons), it has also allowed us to keep the connection open for nearly two decades and counting, though our precise role on the other side remains unclear.

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