Publisher's Synopsis
That lead to why not create a story where the players have the skills they have in real life and you play through a world created from stories about the players based on their own words. So there has to be a conflict and a resolution, so looking to the deep dive and stranding players in games, what if the game takes into account that you are only staring at a screen an inch in front of your face but in sensory deprivation tank, so that to your mind you are seeing the world not a picture on the screen. It is more than a VR helmet and allows for marathon gaming sessions but in theory it is still only a racing seat or peripheral. Then I take twist it to what if you use a Faraday cage to map the muscle movement. Then have that some how trap players inside the tanks. It only happens at the world launch of the game, because one of the developers adds a bit of bad code hoping to hold the players hostage and ends killed at the lunch party because someone's kid dies and no one knows how it happens but the developers are forced into their own death traps which were not before the code update. This means that all the developers that had code access are forced into the game and shutting down the tanks electrocutes players. So we have twenty five million players trapped in sensory deprivation tanks and no safe way to get them out, except to send in the military. So cyber command is tapped to rescue the American's trapped in the game.Only most of cyber command is made up logistics and scientists that can reverse engineer code. Only the game uses your physical body and skills you can physically perform via the tank. So they turn to delta force and operators some of which are in ready reserve status as retires. Because if they can get access to the servers which are in Greenland, they need a password to force a code update that allows the normal log off process. So the operators some of which do not even play video games are going to over the course the series attempt to track down at least one developers who thinks the government is out to kill him or her, and convince them to give enough information to modify the server code keeping that developer alive. These are artists, programmers, writers and managers. They know the game systems back and forth are likely hiding in plain sight in one of millions of locals as the game was designed to not need to expand the dominion or the players political and local environments. I split the game environments into the dominions which are NPC controlled but players can earn their way into control of a keep, then a throne a castle that controls twenty five keeps around it, and then up to the dominion bastion which controls twenty five thrones. So the first book only deals with getting into what is the character creation part of the game and the first hour or so in the live game. Book two brings those characters you meet in book one before they log in back together, and the whole series is intended to get stressful then silly then stressful again. The idea is to not have the team find the developer but get side tracked by playing the game and forgetting it is a game along the way. The title is due to several people die in the book and are still walking around in the game. In book three and four we find out that angels seeing twenty five million people about to die decide to try and save all of them and in doing so cause the players to get trapped into the game. Then the impact of people logging into a game and showing up in the world via gates in secret military bases alive and well and in better shape, as they return from crossing into the game as a soul and then walking back out of a portal into the real world. Since the characters avatars are based on body scans of themselves, they come back as themselves not someone else only healthier due to magic healing. The twist there is that the protagonists have to convince God to let them come back to earth. The next book is halfway written
