story identification - Web-published play in a world with the technology to reanimate arbitrary humans who have died

I first read this around 2011 or so. It was published online and followed the main character as he resurrected his dad, two hundred years after he died in his sleep. We eventually find out that the father is the first person to be involuntarily brought back to life (since he died before anyone thought of asking about that), and the world is watching to see how he reacts.

Other tidbits:

• There's a fourth-wall-breaking character in the play, possibly a robot or computer of some kind, that defines a few terms when they are first used.


• People can choose to exist in a digital form where time passes more quickly. The protagonist mentions that he's experienced thousands of years of subjective time even though only two hundred years have passed.


• There's a group of people who have declined for (I believe) religious reasons to have themselves brought back to life after death. (This is only mentioned in passing.)


• The most touching moment (for me, anyway) was when the protagonist says "I've waited 200 years for this" and gives his father a big bear hug. (I teared up a bit just writing that sentence.)


• The dad's resurrection is exactly 200 years to the day after his original death, at least in part for sentimental reasons.


• He is initially placed into a simulation of his old house. He notices that the water heater suddenly works (it had been broken two hundred years earlier), and the narrator gives an aside to the audience acknowledging that he made a mistake by not including that in the simulation.


• The father asks to see their old house. He can see an image of the house in real-time but the windows are darkened for privacy (someone else lives there now).


• Presentation-wise, the story was told as a dialog; the character's name was in a colored rectangle (different colors for different characters) and the text was set next to it. This was most likely a big HTML table.

Answer

I read this many years ago and for some reason it has stuck with me. I came across your post while searching for the original story.

http://www.fullmoon.nu/Resurrection/PrimarySpecies.html

Seems to have been written by a Harry Stottle who also calls himself the Ragged Trousered Philosopher.

The first part, linked above is titled Primary Species.

• 
  

  ...scientist brings his father back to life as the first "test" of resurrection technology.

  
  
  

  
  

  Those who died between your death and the Informed Consent Protocol will remain dead until their nearest and dearest decide how and when and whether to resurrect them,” says Stuart. “We predict that, eventually, at least 35% of all the humans who ever lived will, at some stage, be resurrected.

  
  

  
  


• 
  

  ...the father was shown a "fake" world designed to look like what he was used to so that he could be eased into reality.

  
  

  
  

  I’ve set up this simulation to mirror your bedroom and the farmhouse exactly as you remember them. But that’s only to make it easier for you to assimilate what has happened to you,” explains Stuart. “The information which constitutes “You”, exists on a giant network. You have no precise physical location. Even the processors which implement your thought processes are running in many places simultaneously.