A Change to a Fictional World

In the fictional world I'm working on, I have a devastating plague that kills roughly 10% of the world's population. Also in this world is a proliferation of "braincomputer" technology a fusion of computer abilities immediately accessible directly through consciousness. I think a more interesting turn would be to combine these two elements, and make braincomputers a near universal phenomenon by making them an endogenous retrovirus DNA computer.

DNA computing works on the concept that its better to have millions of brains than one brain. Rather than one computer doing the problem, billions of different DNA stands compute different parts of the problem simultaneously and then a CPU reports the finished product. In reality people have working models of DNA computers that can solve the "burnt pancake problem" right now, but only with 2 pancakes. I figure around 50 years or so this technology will see some serious improvement, as it is only 15 years old or so as a theory.

Anyway, in this fictional world I want to have such a technology really take off and see mass production. As this technology proliferates a researcher wants to incorporate the idea with another emerging technology, braincomputers. The researcher envisions running an OS within the human body by introducing a tailored ERV. Billions of cells would circulate throughout the body, and would communicate with each other and use the human brain and nervous system as the CPU. The effect would be having a dispersed internal computer. You could interact with hardware and the internet in your field of vision or your mind's eye. I haven't worked out the details of the origin yet, as such a technology would likely be met with stiff opposition. I may pull a "Frankenstein" and have a researcher obsessed with the idea finish the project himself. In any case, the end result would be that the virus becomes airborne and infects nearly everyone in the world over then next couple of decades, providing everyone with an internal computer.

Since I already have a killer plague born from a mistake in biotechnology in my game, fusing these two ideas to make the viral computer kill loads of people seems like a decent idea. Alternatively, I thought of naturalists who hate the idea of being infected with a computer (though it does no harm) concoct vaccine to kill the viral computer to return to a natural state of humanity, however it ends up mutating and constitutes the plague. I kinda like the poetic irony of the latter, though it is more convoluted.

Regardless of the origins, between two individuals with such computers inside them, programs like Skype and MSN messenger could function like telepathy, using wireless networks to communicate. Unfortunately, computer hacking tacks on a far more dangerous form in such a world. Since the computer's OS has essentially become an aspect of your consciousness, your mind could be hacked. Spyware would become tracking 0r voyeur programs. Even more serious is that puppeteer hacks, memory implants or wipes, or even brain damage could be effects of malignant hacks. These effects are essentially psychic powers, since everyone on the planet has one of these internal computers, so hackers become psionicists. In any case, by 2080 nearly everyone on the planet could be considered a post human because of this.

A second change I will be making will change the date of the world from 2060 to 2080 to allow for a more realistic time line, specifically regarding the spread of this braincomputer virus and to allow technology and cultural sensibilities changed enough for transgenic humans to occur. I'd always felt it was a little tight to squeeze transgenic soldiers, and their children, by 2060.

As usual, just recording some thoughts to make em easier to collect later.