I tried peace and quiet after Wars End. I wanted to see if it fit the new me. It didn’t. There will always be a bit of the partier in me. And the Marine I became to fight. And of course the Cowboy that learned to think things through. Although if you accuse me of that to my face I will punch you. Wouldn’t want people to stop underestimating me after all. If they think all I care about is parties, girls, and fistfights, they’ll never see the Cowboy coming for them.
While modern Core Worlds children play in virtual cities, those who lived before The War generally prefer the physical world. Virtual reality is for communication and experimentation, not for living. Few in the older generation recognize the strength of virtual societies and prefer to emphasize the “real” connections of physical addresses and family. It is a true generational divide that can result in explosive arguments between people who consider the “other” world unimportant.
World War II was the beginning of a golden age for America. And like most golden ages it was bought with blood. We stretched out our hands to the east and drove the Nazis back against the advancing Russians. We stretched west and devastated Japan. And then we helped them rebuild. All over the world, we helped economies rebuild into a new golden age that would last throughout the century. It was a great time to be an American.
The War was a real seminal twenty-year moment for me. There’s the life I had before it started. That me died at Alpha Centauri. There’s the person I became at Alpha Centauri so I could fight. He died too. He didn’t belong in a world after Wars End. And then there’s the new me. I got a new chance to go to worlds again for the first time. To see what I’d fought for. Who I’d fought for. To get a chance to live in peace and quiet. That was an eye-opener.
Modern Core Worlds children grow up in worlds where virtual is as real as physical. They can learn lessons in virtual classrooms and exercise in virtual gyms full of other people while never leaving their home. They’ve built virtual cities with functioning governments and social systems as enduring as physical cities. They can even work and live inside the virtual worlds with virtual avatars similar to the physical avatars that AIs and cybers use in the physical world.