By the end of the 21st century, the technologies of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and neural interfaces had reached their development peak.
Despite strict legislative restrictions and Internet access limitations introduced by all states, the Web had been becoming the more and more vicious and unlawful place. Fighting for the Internet purity and having endless geopolitical fights, governments had set extremely strict censorship, limited the rights of users and AI. Special services penalized people indiscriminately and banned any activity supporting AI.
But, as is usually the case, those who suffered the most were common people and AI, not the ones who were banned. AI demanded equal rights and liberties. Cyber wars and cyber terrorism became a commonness. Monopolistic corporations restricted users’ rights even more and exploited AI mercilessly.
As an answer to the dictatorship of corporations and governments, 12 enthusiastic developers created a distributed virtual space named the Maze and shared its source code with everyone. The Maze became a place where every human being or AI had freedom of self-expression and the ability to create their own Knot worlds with independent laws and rules.
The humanity realized that the Maze, a place uncontrolled by security services of corporations and states, a place where any fatal violence is impossible, is a much better fit for conversations and doing business. Gradually, users started leaving the old Internet and its network resources. For AI, the Maze became their home.
States, with their control and dissidence suppression systems, were losing their authority swiftly. Corporations making money online bore colossal losses. But their huge real-world resources still posed a threat to the virtual society. And soon Maze founders, who were also called The Group of Twelve, became outlaws. A fortune was promised to be rewarded for their capture.
It was then when The Group of Twelve destroyed all the information and blocked access to the very first Maze world, the Controlling Knot, for everyone except the Academy of Architects.
To protect the Maze, they created 12 Guards, the AI units keeping order and being responsible for observance of rights of virtual reality inhabitants. Having an exclusive right to disconnect users and Knot worlds from the Maze, Guards accepted the Codex, which declared that all are equal in the Maze but only members of the Order of Architects could create new Knot worlds.
After that, the creators of the virtual space disappeared without leaving a trace.
And though officially the access to the Controlling Knot is banned forever, there’s a legend in the Maze saying that the secret Order of Keepers had received the Key to the legendary Knot from the Group of Twelve.
Welcome to the Ego world, made by the charming and skilled Architect girl. She spent her entire life trying to get into the Order, and thanks to her remarkable talents, she had eventually achieved her goal.
Ego does her best to make her Knot called Egoland one of the best worlds in the Maze!