Simulation – 1990 was written as both a continuation and a consequence. Everything that happened in the first two books about glitches, broken systems, and abandoned simulants had to mean something. This story is where those long term consequences finally land.
Rosie is the catalyst, but Ella is the person who would actually go back in for her. She owes her freedom to Rosie’s earlier risks. Giving Ella the lead meant writing someone older, tired, and deeply aware of what re-entering a simulation really costs.
The death limit and singularity were created to answer a simple question: what happens if people can die indefinitely? The answer couldn’t be infinite resets, there had to be psychological and metaphysical wear. The “five percent per death” idea turns each death into an act of erosion, not a clean reboot.
The NPCs evolving into active hunters grew from the idea that a system cannot be exploited forever without push back. If simulants from the outside can enter, move, and affect the world, then the inside has to develop survival mechanisms of its own.
Caroline exists to show what almost two hundred years inside the simulation does to someone. She isn’t just exposition, she’s the mirror of what Ella could become if she never escapes and never gives up the fight.
The tone of Simulation – 1990 had to walk a narrow line. The world is harsher, the rules are crueler, but the story still centers on love, loyalty, and the stubborn refusal to abandon the people you care about, even when the system is stacked against you.
