In The DC World With Marvel Chat Group
Chapter 723: A New Space, New Misfortunes (1)
In New York, a morning so ordinary it couldn't be more so, the downtown streets bustle with their usual traffic. Yet, on the outskirts, in a tranquil suburban town, peace prevails. Events in this Space have no bearing on the humdrum lives of humans still on Earth.
The ringing of an alarm clock breaks the silence. A hand reaches out, presses it, and in doing so, knocks the small metal clock to the floor. With a sigh, the sleeper awakens from his bed.
Schiller, after nine hours of sleep, shows no signs of restfulness or joy. His face is etched with exhaustion.
Letting guests out of his home is easy. After all, the most energy-consuming task belongs to Charles, who punctures holes in each dream. However, gathering all the guests back proves more challenging.
Every character in each dream is Schiller, and each Schiller shares a trait – a penchant for watching chaos unfold.
The opportunity to travel between individual Spaces is rare, and many are reluctant to board the return bus on time, leaving other Schillers to find them one by one.
Once found, they must be escorted to their respective rooms. Doors and windows are secured before they can escape. Superego and ego spend an entire night just to bring all the Schillers back.
Even MarvelSchiller, merely driving the bus – or the Ship of the Underworld, transporting all personality traits back – is exhausted. When he becomes aware of the state of this Space from the memories of other personas, he is surprised.
Schiller's intention was never to have OAA kick the entire Multiverse out of the Marvel Comics universe.
In theory, maintaining the stability of the whole world is the supreme being's responsibility.
Rebooting is a simple and efficient way to deal with fundamental problems. Interfering with the world line in the rebooted world can eliminate many potential bugs.
However, this perspective is that of an administrator. For the characters in the game, it sounds more like a horrific tale akin to a terror cruise.
Imagine defeating a powerful monster in a game after much effort and consumption of health potions, only to have the rare loot drop before your eyes. Just a few steps more, and it's yours.
But then, the game admin announces a bug in the server, necessitating a reset to before the monster was defeated. While the potions and equipment might be returned, the time and effort spent are irretrievable.
The game characters, reset to their original state, are unaware of their repeated victories over the monster, feeling neither anger nor sorrow. But those who step out of this cycle cannot so easily quell their rage.
Fundamentally, bugs in a program are not the responsibility of the characters or players in the game. Even if a character orders fried rice in a tavern and the program crashes, it's an indication of inadequate testing by the official creators.
If the developers release a game with a highly privileged admin, then it's the admin's responsibility to perfect the program. And if a bug occurs, rollback and repair, along with compensation, are warranted.
However, what OAA did – rolling back individual Spaces – is akin to shutting down the server for a rollback without any compensation, in the eyes of most life forms in this Space, unaware of the rollback. This act appears deceitful and mocking.
Game characters are not destined for resets. Preventing Space destruction doesn't justify rollback without compensation.
The common people, unaware of these events, are like game characters. They can't see the admin or know of their existence.
But beings like Schiller, Stark, and Strange, who are aware of the truth of Space, are like players existing alongside the admin in the third dimension.
Characters in the game don't know of the admin's existence, so even if there's no compensation, they can't do anything. But players won't just sit idly by.
Time and effort spent, materials painstakingly gathered, vanish in an instant. The officials neither compensate nor apologize.
They even post an announcement, accusing players who discovered the bug of seeking Space destruction, brazenly claiming, "You're destroying the game." Their rollback is portrayed as a merciful act of saving Space, a benevolent rescue.
A game surviving three months under such conditions would be a miracle.
Thus, Schiller's initial intention was merely to seek some maintenance compensation.
His demands are modest. After all, OAA repairs bugs quickly, sometimes without even shutting down the server. So, he doesn't demand much.
A bit of energy compensation as if nothing happened, maybe some science and technology, blueprints for amnesia, or a few resource-rich planets would suffice. Schiller would then unilaterally declare OAA as the supreme being of the Multiverse.
Schiller's attitude towards rebooting is clear: either don't do it, or if you must, provide compensation. Maintenance downtime is acceptable, but only with compensation. Fixing bugs and protecting the game world is fine, but there must be compensation. Without it, who else but you should be held accountable?
But perhaps Schiller's demand for compensation was too great or too harshly expressed, or maybe OAA completely misunderstood. This supreme being ended up ejecting the entire Multiverse from the Marvel Comics universe.
Outside the main Marvel Space, there are additional Spaces – like crossover Spaces, legally disputed Spaces, and those still in negotiation. These aren't part of the main Marvel Space but are associated with it, akin to ornaments hanging from it.
If the main Space is likened to a circular cover with countless nested dolls, then these additional Spaces are like ornaments hanging from this cover.
In the current Multiverse where Schiller resides, the entire structure has been attached to a peripheral dome by OAA, making it part of an external Space. This aligns with their usual PR strategy, which, apart from playing dead, mostly involves cutting ties.
We have sternly criticized those involved in the infringement and demanded compensation. The actions of employees do not reflect on the company, the inadequacy of training for temporary staff, expressing regret but denying legal responsibility...
In short, there are countless ways to shift blame. Severing ties with any party potentially involved in legal disputes is common. The mantra is that everything is unrelated to the main creative team; it's the fault of those below for not being meticulous. This method is universally applicable across time and cultures.
Schiller didn't expect OAA to act so decisively, but even more bewildered were the five Gods of this Multiverse.
Each Multiverse has its five Gods, and upon waking up, the Gods of Schiller's Multiverse discovered they had been optimized.
As foundational deities of the Space, resignation was not an option for them. They had merely been demoted from company programmers to gatekeepers of the urban-rural fringe. During OAA's expulsion of the entire Space, Eternity, for the first time, contemplated resignation.
But Eternity is synonymous with Space; they are a lifetime appointment, inextricable. As long as this Space remains Marvel-themed, Eternity is under the jurisdiction of the Life Court, meaning they must attend its meetings.
Previously, Eternity only needed to send a fraction of their power to these meetings. But now, the five Gods, including Eternity, had to traverse barriers of the vast world to clock in for work.
If there's blame to be shared, it's OAA's failure to meticulously check their systems, leading to bugs and lack of compensation post-restart. Schiller's aggressive pursuit of compensation led to a direct severance. Eternity, perhaps, is the most innocent in this affair.
They didn't decide the company's direction, project arrangements, or compensation. They were just a programmer, and now their workplace had shifted from Dazhalan to Tongzhou. As a regular employee of Marvel Space, attending work now meant crossing mountains and seas. What had they done to deserve this?
The five Gods, being sentient beings, were understandably upset. Eternity, in particular, couldn't vent at their employer.
They also wanted to avoid aggravating Schiller, fearing his unleashing of countless personas could plunge Space into chaos, prompting another severance by OAA, possibly relocating their workplace even further to Wuhu.
Eternity, puzzled by these events, began tracing back through time to understand why they were caught in this unwarranted disaster.
As time rewound, the sequence of events became clear.
Schiller's madness was triggered by OAA resetting his Space, prompted by Schiller's actions that caused bugs in the world.
Schiller acted thus to visit the realm of Death, desiring to create a Hall of Heroes, inspired by the cooperation he saw between Death, Asgard, and the Egyptian Pantheon.
Wait, cooperation between Death, Asgard, and the Egyptian Pantheon?
At this point, Eternity grew suspicious. Why would Death collaborate with these organizations?
As deities overseeing Space order, they did have followers like SpaceCaptainSpider-Man and Ancient One, representing Eternity. But the exercise of their powers was regulated. These representatives worked for Eternity, receiving power as their wage, all within regulations.
However, Death, to accumulate more deaths, deliberately denied death to certain beings, allowing their leaders to create more deaths. This was essentially performance padding.
Like deliberately letting criminals go to create more crimes, then apprehending them when their actions worsened, their notoriety increased, just to bolster one's resume.
Was all this a scheme by Death to boost performance?
Eternity felt betrayed, not by humans or ghosts, but by an insider, causing them profound distress.
Without hesitation, Eternity nullified all illegitimately gained achievements and shut down all illegally operated Halls of Heroes. Their message to Death was clear: "Repeat such actions, and I'll report you to the higher-ups."
Thus, all the Halls of Heroes that Death had painstakingly established over millions of years in Space, including those of Asgard and the Egyptian Pantheon, vanished overnight, including other similar realms.
The first new possibility that emerged in this Space was Death's misfortune.
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