Personality Upload

Okay, this was a dream I had, so lots of holes and such, but looking to see if anything like this has been made into a movie. If not, I'm going to write it out and probably even script it. Has elements of Lawnmower Man and Millennium Man. I think a SeaQuest episode may have had something similar too. Can't remember. Capt was talking to his dead wife, a holographic representation but I don't think her personality was there.

On to it then. 

When I died, my memories and personality were stored on a computer in a beta test opened to only a few hundred randomly picked people for new preservation tech. I could be accessed at anytime when I was kept on. It made my death easier for my family to handle. It was like I never died.

Reports came in that some others were destroyed due to angry family members, home fires & floods, willing disconnects & natural disasters. Soon, only a few dozen of the original group were left.

Time moved forward. I watched my family age, my husband die, my kids & my grand kids grow up. But I was being powered down more frequently due to an energy crises. Being powered down was akin to being sedated. I could tell time was passing, but not the amount. It wasn't long before I was accessed less and less. Then, eventually, forgotten. The programming didn't take away emotions, so I felt lonely & frustrated, depressed & sad.

Years later I was finally accessed again. My great great granddaughter, a sad, neglected, 11 year old child, who bore a striking resemblance to myself, found me in the attic of the family home. I was among family heirlooms, passed down and stored away.

Her name was Arlene, but she preferred Arly. She kept me a secret from her family. I would come to learn that her parents were too involved with work and social parties to pay much attention to her & she was constantly bullied in school.

As we learned about each other, we realized how much we had in common. We formed a mother-daughter relationship, complete with the occasional argument.

Arly found out the company that first produced the preservation pc had gone out of business due to problems with the "product". They couldn't turn off our emotions & personalities, it was the basis of their entire program.

The technology became reviled soon after it opened to the general public. Those who had come after me included many jealous, controlling, manipulating people who could afford the tech. Many ended up tearing their families apart instead of keeping them together.

Then you had the murder victims, those who were forced into this new existence to solve their crimes. They were bitter & angry at having their real life cut short and forced into a "fake" one. Many of them were shut down & destroyed by family who could no longer take the abuse.

People wanted family members preserved without their personalities & emotions, but still wanted to access memories and information.

A new company achieved this using 3D holograms of emotionless verbal data banks with no trace of personalities. Families were able to change the appearance of their dead family member for a fee. Credits were used to buy virtual clothing, body parts, hair styles. They were 3D paper dolls who could be turned into anything, even aliens & monsters, without complaint.

It was a farce, no love or respect for the family member lost. They had become novelties, like avatars from the XBox 360.

It disgusted me. A move backward, not forward. Arly was also appalled and vowed to never do that to me. I was grateful, but allowed myself to think that being deleted might be for the best. I wouldn't age, but Arly would. Who knew what would become of me when Arly moved on or passed away. Arly assured me she'd find a way.

Years rolled by, Arly grew into an intelligent, confident teenager, excelling in school. As we were talking about senior prom, her mom came up to the attic. One of those rare moments when she remembered she had a daughter. She saw Arly talking to me and was horrified, thinking I was one of the "bad ones"! She rushed a tearful Arly out of the attic. I yelled out to Arly to stay strong, that the red dress was the one she should wear to prom & to do keep doing good in school.

Her mom looked at me hatefully and screamed that I wasn't Arly's mother. Then she smashed my pc to bits & everything went dark. Disheartened, saddened, angry, I screamed through the darkness, but no one else could hear it.

After a time, I'm startled from my "slumber" as I felt energy rush through me. Arly, now an adult in her 30s, had found a way to repair me. With an upgrade! I was turned into a hologram. Unlike the robotic-like holograms, I had my personality & emotions. I could also wander her home freely through a series of lasers set into what looked like lighting tracks, set throughout the home. She invented the system. She surprised me by saying she spent years tracking down as many pcs like me and had built something even more extraordinary. I spent a few days, exploring my new found freedom. Arly then said it was time for the big reveal but she has to shut me down for travel.

When I'm powered up again, I'm in an extremely large building on a vast plot of land, at least 5000 acres, fully powered by renewable energy. There were different levels below and above ground. The building housed 23 large apartments for each preservation pc, virtual stores with digital products we could actually manipulate and entertainment areas that allowed us to access every bit of media that was ever created.

Outside had parks, ponds, a lake, gardens, a sports arena & sports fields, like it's own little town. And that's what it was. It was a protected area, in the way National Parks were protected.

People could visit and learn about the past, not just facts, but how we FELT in the era we were from. Others, like me & who were willing, were moved here. We'd never be shut off here and we had everything we could want, even AI pets of every type, with restrictions to size. Dinosaurs & dragons could be no bigger than a horse. They were incredibly realistic, but, thankfully, programmed to not be aggressive.

So we lived, content, teaching others, sharing memories, making new memories, forming new bonds. Building new confidence in the combination of new & old technology.