A ripple distorted the virtual air, then solidified into Dr. Xanoplatu – an alien anthropologist, galactic historian, and simulation time traveler materialized on the podium stage, embodying the ancient form of his ancestors. His avatar appeared as a large green praying-mantis-like creature with multifaceted black eyes. His hands, if you could call them that consisted of eight highly manipulative digits spaced at various positions on each arm.

He was speaking, or more precisely communicating, from inside an auditorium of a virtualized spherical space station rendered as a metaverse space-time virtuality.

This computational virtual reality was running upon cultivated hybrid von Neumann-quantum computers. The power source was the local M dwarf star system. The “computer farm” was grown inside an orbiting Dyson Swarm mega-structure of the main sequence star. The good doctor was a member species of an extremely advanced Type II civilization capable of technological magic.

Present in the same auditorium space was an impossible assortment of alien life requiring diverse support environs: different atmospheric gases, liquids, varying gravity, temperatures, light, and radiation levels. Each individual’s “brain” or cognitive structures were simulated at appropriate thought speeds, translated across multiple communication mediums, and clarified through a common conceptual symbolic language. Living computers masterfully manifested each individual present down to actual quantum thought levels; simulated yes, but no less “real”.