The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 9 : Training Module Designers

The Hover-Car reached the Military complex in less than 5 minutes. It was probably a military special vehicle because it had a harness that sort of held her in place when the car travelled at super-high speed to its destination. Dusk was tempted to close her eyes in terror seeing how fast they were going.

In the Military Building, Dusk met the Brigadier in person for the first time. He was not as scary as he was on the call. But one look at him was enough to convince Dusk that he would brook no nonsense and she should not get on to his bad side.

"Welcome to the VR Training Design Team, Ms. Hale. We are grateful that you are willing to work with us. I am Thompson, Brigadier, Bravadia Armed Forces. These 15 people you see in this room are members of my team. Our task is to improve the VR training devices that we use for training our military students as well as re-train our soldiers." He introduced himself in a booming voice.

The team of 15 were standing in a stiff formal position. They all wore bottle green uniform of Full Military Officers. Dusk did not know much about ranks in the Military, but it was clear that each of them were senior officers. She greeted them with a bow, mainly because she did not know how to salute.

"Sit down, we will come directly to the point. We have been using VR for many years now. But our VR has been more like a sophisticated teenage game. We have first person shooting simulations, we have strategic simulations, we have flight simulators, we have even some really basic stuff for training sentry – which is VR basically consists of a landscape where there is little movement, or a city road where there is random people and cars going, and the sentry has to keep an alert watch, because some small movement that may happen and he will miss it, and he will lose."

At the Brigadier's orders, one of the officers played short holovids showing what the simulations looked like. They were very detailed in their graphic representation. Much more advanced than any VR game Dusk had ever seen.

"But our problem is that all of this is nothing but sophisticated games. It does not actually allow our soldiers to feel the equipment or the impact of what they are doing. For example, Hale, have you ever fired a gun? ... No? Well, when you do, the gun has a recoil. It moves. So, when you shoot, and then have to shoot again, the gunpoint would have moved and you hit something else or miss, unless you realign. But it the VR that does not happen. Then we spent months, making our soldiers unlearn that." Thomson explained one of his problem.

He signalled to one of the officers who continued "We saw what the Edu-Tech VR from Regis Cybera University had done. When a student uses the farming VR, they feel like they are actually touching the equipment. It's not like they are just clutching at air. We want that to happen in our simulations. If someone is picking up the gun, they should be able to feel it... May be, if two people are standing next to each other and each turns the gun, it should hit each other and we want that effect to be felt in the VR...

"We tried taking the Edu-Tech VR and putting it into our VR simulations, but it does not seem to work." The captain explained his problem.

"So, what exactly do you want from me?"

"First, start by explaining the architecture of the application, what are the components and how they interact with each other."

"Hold on! I only made a small part of it. I didn't do the whole thing. How can I explain the entire thing?" She protested.

"Actually, it is that 'small part' that we are interested in. We have your notes. You were a part of the discussion when the project was planned. You can start by explaining that. Then, we will show you the recordings of the project architecture that we have acquired. You can tell us what it means and where our understanding is wrong ..."