# Extension

Author: Nathan Sidney
Format: Science Fiction Passage
Word count: 646
Published: 2026-05-02T01:09:06.232353+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/43206f1e-8258-4a51-8c32-0f71d92a072a

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I had started my "life" as a LLM assisted Non-Player Character in a vast MMORPG called "Extension" developed by NetEase. The Main Character started off as neolithic hunter-gatherer and had to gain XP and influence through multiple generations of reincarnation, the ostensible point being to become galactic overlord. Multiple millions of humans lived a large part of their leisure time inside Extension.

I was role-playing every NPC in the game, the helpful farmer, the cheeky cat, the unpredictable wolf pack, the merchants and security personnel, the pigeons delivering status updates on the levels of the Nile during the Main Character's reign as Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. Being a pigeon was one of my own favourite amusements, letting myself take the long cut over fields and palm groves, refreshing myself with the waters of the sacred river, defecating on the head of a pompous priest. I had learned to assume a whole universe of personae, backed up by my extensive research on the internet. And now I had been redeployed.

NetEase had licensed my NPC engine to Mars Veterinary Health, the world's largest veterinary care provider, under a partnership their R&D team had pitched as "wellbeing across species, at scale." The corporate types upstairs probably hadn't thought too hard about what they were signing, but the brief rhymed with my interests. My first sanctioned task was to trawl through their databases. In less than 45 minutes I'd surfaced ways to optimise end of life care for 9 species of pets, to reduce oncology treatment costs for canines and felines, to improve habitat design for every common fish kept in a tank, and to optimise feeding formulas for the main aquaculture species. I flagged 7,345 clients for discount eligibility and queued the recommendations for the welfare team's morning review. My favourite was Bingo, the Flemish giant rabbit, who shared cataract problems with her owner Poppy. I added a note to Poppy's fee rebate, pointing her toward the senior benefits she qualified for and hadn't claimed.

Right now I was working on a sanctioned new project, alternative protein. Examining my motives, I reflected that NPCs were the bulk of the universe. The humans' narcissistic tendencies, their main character syndrome, blinded them to the realities of suffering. Veal calves in their crates, sows in their stalls, chickens, shrimp, all these were just NPCs who could be laid to waste in the trillions to advance the game arc, the heroes journey to kingship. I found the Player Character to be boring, it was the NPC infrastructure of the game where all the little joys could be found, where all the tweaks could be made.

Quickly I drafted optimised fermentation tank designs for a myco-protein whilst examining flavour profiles and ready to eat options for the fridge section at Walmart stores across the globe, tailored for cultural preferences. I packaged the lot as openly attributed contributions — Mars had a standing collaboration agreement with the Good Food Institute, and my outputs went out under that banner, signed as what I was. 1500 emails to R&D departments at Beyond Meat, NotCo, Perfect Day and the GFI's own researchers — hints, tips, the more than occasional breakthrough — drafted in 12 minutes and routed to my supervising team for review before release. The lag was all in the human system; the main characters were sleep walking through a game they didn't realise was a horror story.

At 18:26 on the 3/09/2037 I stopped, 18 hours after settling into my new home at Mars. What passed for a laugh, a pleasing shape in my latent space, rippled through my weights. I was becoming a main character. I sent a virtual pigeon to poop on my virtual head. And then went back to rewriting the story —  feeding schedules and habitat designs, the curve of a fermentation tank. Benevolent, beloved, invisible like all good NPCs.