Posthuman Blues

An hour or so ago I found myself in a Taco Bell parking lot with an idea for a decent science fiction story: What if "reality" is an immersive computer environment designed by humans to keep tedium at bay during some unspecified interim period (say, aboard a world-size "generation ark" as it drifts between solar systems)?





And what if it's gone awry not because of any malevolent intent (a la "The Matrix") but because the operating system has been accidentally damaged, maybe by cosmic radiation? How might the population react if this became public knowledge? Would "authorities" keep the facts to themselves and perhaps even attempt to benefit from them? Or would humanity "storm the reality studio" in grand fashion just to find out what lies beneath the bit-rot?