SettingThe larp is very strongly inspired by the Black Mirror episode Hang the DJ and to a lesser extent the film The Lobster. In the year 2070, the Virus has been a constant presence in people’s lives for more than 4 decades. Civilization has mostly adapted to it by now thanks to automation and remote work, even though the current way of living is very different from the pre-Infection days. Meeting other people in person is extremely rare these days: kids grow up with their parents and siblings, of course, but all schooling, friendships, hobbies and eventually work is done online. In the past decades, automation has hugely progressed so there are only very few occasions where you need to interact in the flesh with another human being: e.g. a dentist or a plumber. In these situations, the service provider would enter your home in a Hazmat suit to perform their task, and the family would have to thoroughly decontaminate their flat afterwards (or the other way round, the patient would enter a sterilised surgery). Humanity is by now very well accustomed to this way of life; the economy is thriving and all necessities as well as luxuries are readily available to be delivered by self-driving vehicles. Most working-age people work in remote white-collar jobs, a small minority – in the dangerous professions requiring human contact, while roughly a third live off UBI. People don’t in general leave their houses unless it is an emergency – everyone has exercise equipment at home and a big screen capable of displaying a variety of pleasant landscapes. |
Together Forever programmeNon-romantic relationships are not regulated in any way – people make friends and acquaintances through school, work or shared interests, and these friendships can be very strong despite the friends never having met other than in a video chat. However, the Virus proved to be a serious obstacle to the formation of romantic relationships, which in general benefit greatly from physcial contact. After several years of international research collaboration, science has found the only salvation for humanity: the Cross-Immunisation Procedure (CIP for short). CIP is a very complex and invasive medical procedure, during which your immune system is made compatible with one other person, giving a 99.7% guarantee that you won’t infect each other with your personal strains of the deadly Virus upon the removal of your Hazmat suits. CIP is usually a once-in-a-lifetime procedure and cannot be safely performed again for another partner. Therefore, people should not be permitted to undertake such a life-changing decision willy-nilly, just because they fancied someone they met on the internet!
For several years, when people were still allowed to decide themselves whom to CIP-marry, the pre-pandemic divorce rates persisted, leading to 40% of married people spending the rest of their lives cohabiting with someone they despise, or, even worse, trying to elope with a lover into the Wilderness, with disastrous consequences. Fortunately, governments across the world have agreed on the perfect solution to this problem: the Together Forever programme. During the programme, an evidence-based machine-learning algorithm assigns you a sequence of trial romantic partnerships, while constantly registering your emotional reactions through a cortical implant you have been fitted with upon joining the programme. The collected data allows the algorithm to select your Forever Match, which is 97.8% guaranteed to be your perfect, long-term compatible romantic partner. You will then be allowed to undergo the CIP and move in together with that (and only that) person. Participation in the programme is of course voluntary, but most adults choose to join it at some point in their lives in hopes of finding true love (or, at least, not spending the rest of their lives completely alone). |
Together At LastSo far, all of the trial relationships of course needed to remain online-only, but this has changed with a recent medical development: the Multiplex Unrepeatable Limited Time Interval Cross-Immunisation Procedure (Multi-CIP for short), which gives you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to safely interact in person with a few dozen people for 3 days. This enabled the creation of a new variant of the Together Forever programme called Together At Last.
The programme takes place in sterilised domed facilities fitted with both cutting-edge anti-Viral technology, and candle-lit romantic alcoves engineered to offer optimal romantic ambiance. Before entering, you undergo Multi-CIP with a cohort of other eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, allowing you to safely mingle for a limited period of time. These are the first and only people outside of your immediate family you will get to interact with in person, and with 97.8% guarantee your perfect partner is among them. Sharing a physical space with others will give you a unique opportunity to experience various otherwise impossible activities like partner yoga, ballroom dancing, playing Twister, and, in many cases, some forms of physical intimacy. Otherwise, the Together At Last programme works very similarly to the regular Together Forever programme: you get fitted with a cortical implant monitoring your emotional reactions, go through a sequence of computer-assigned romantic relationships, and finally get assigned your Forever Match. |