Glitched ATS Therapy Device

Glitched ATS Therapy Device
Creator	Beverly Barlowe
Type	Augmented Reality Interface
Intended Effect	Simulates a version of one’s daily life to provide therapy sessions
Malfunction	Makes user believe they are still in the physical world. Will slowly erase the created geography and NPCs until user goes into cardiac arrest.
Location	The Eureka Vault
Activation	Wearing
Collected by	Warehouse 13
Date of Incident	July 31, 2007
[Source]

Origin

Created by Beverley Barlowe to help patients willingly express their personal concerns. Some were too private or emotionally conflicted to admit to true issues brought up during sessions. This tool simulated a version of one’s daily life drawn from their memories. In the case of Eureka, a plethora of biological scans on record allowed the program to imitate everyone else in the town with startling accuracy.

Feedback based on this system was used as a case study for the fine-tuning the Consortium VR-Matrix System. Beverly would later place the Astraeus crew into a false computer-generated Eureka once it was able to handle interactions between multiple NPCs and in-program users.

Effects

All people besides the wearer became interactable characters that behaved as expected from the user, whether such actions are true or not. Each is programmed to maintain different percentages of interaction with the user. The more intimate and sincere a relationship they already have, the greater likelihood each avatar will probe the user for emotional responses.

Most are trying to trigger an outburst and verbalize any repressed feelings. Seeing a familiar face when catharsis happens makes the user more trusting. Open acknowledgement of the problem is a first step to improvement, and nobody can be harmed if the user becomes overly physical. If anything, the user now has a better understanding of what type of response to expect from others and where to seek help.

During use their body is unresponsive similar to deep sleep. The eyes twitch about heavily as their mental state is similar to REM. Most people can exit any time when functioning properly. All sessions are recorded and shared between only the participant, therapist and GD employment records.

Appearances

It appears in the Season 2 episode “Games Play People“. Sheriff Carter had struck his head earlier that day while regulating a garage-made quantum device. Zoe was upset about having no choice in whether she stayed in Eureka, and Carter tried her ATS device to alleviate some of his stresses.

Functioning Glasses

A concussion diverted more power to maintain cortex linking. Electrical shorts in the projection disabled the mesh collisions, a safety feature to prevent disassociating from real to virtual reality. The population parameters were also switched to regression, so avatars would disappear from the program if the user did not interact with them long enough to save processing power. A flash of light would occur when one was removed, along with all memories of them keyed into the remaining figures. From Carter’s perspective, a 3000 strong town was completely vanishing with nobody remembering why.

On the outside, the glitching damaged the neural feedback loop. Disconnecting would only result in paralytic shock since the system was wasting more energy to keep the faulty signal stable. All that could be done was watch profuse twitching until it developed into tremors. The only way to escape was from inside the simulation. Once Eureka was down to only Carter and Zoe, he realized he never took off the ATS. Remembering it was to administer therapy, he decided to confront virtual Zoe about his fears of abandonment, entitlement and intimacy with Zoe possibly being taken away. He later regained conscious control of his body without health problems and confessed to Zoe his concerns.