Stories and solutions from inside the instance.

Introduction

I was reading The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu—a sci-fi thriller that left me questioning our existence and origin. Like many of you, I dove down the rabbit hole of how the universe was created, and somewhere along the way, I stumbled into Simulation Theory.

It got me thinking...
What if life really is a simulation?
And more specifically—what if our life is just a ServiceNow instance?

That’s the pretext of this blog.

In this metaphor:

• 🌌 The universe is the instance

• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 We are records in the sys_user table

• 🔐 Our personalities, access, and struggles? Defined by roles and ACLs

If you’ve ever worked in a ServiceNow instance, you probably remember Abel Tutor—that one user record we all use for testing. From an admin’s perspective, Abel plays a minor role. But from his perspective, that’s his whole life.

He doesn’t know anything beyond his role.
The other tables and modules? They exist—but he can’t see them.
He doesn’t have access.

Now imagine this:
The universe is the platform. You are Abel Tutor.

What opportunities have passed you by—not because they weren’t there, but because you didn’t have the role to access them?

This series will explore how life mirrors technology—especially ServiceNow.

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🧬 Tables and Humans

From the moment we’re born, we inherit relationships—our family, our relatives. Like Elijah Mikaelson says in The Originals:

“We may not choose our families; they can be our greatest strength or deepest regret.”

Think of your parents as parent tables—like the task table.
You and your siblings? You’re the extended tables.

Just like child tables in ServiceNow inherit fields, behaviors, and scripts from their parent, we inherit values, behaviors, even biases. Some are helpful. Some are required.

For example:

• The short_description field is mandatory on all tables that extend task

• Likewise, your core traits (like your voice, habits, or temperament) often trace back to your parents

You are a table in your family’s database, extending your parents’ features.

Well, that’s as far as this metaphor goes for now 😄
Let me know if you can think of more—I’d love to hear your version of the analogy.

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💡 Developer Tip

One of the basic but powerful concepts in ServiceNow is table extension. Knowing when to extend a table—and when not to—is crucial for long-term maintainability.

📚 Here’s the official documentation on table extension and classes:
👉 ServiceNow Docs: Table Extension

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🧠 Coming Up Next in the Series

Stay tuned for more life-tech metaphors, like:

• GlideAjax and Intuition: The invisible calls that return answers

• Scheduled Jobs: Why some routines feel like fate

• ACLs: How access shapes our awareness and limitations

• Plugins: Certifications, paid features, and unlocking potential

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🤔 Final Thought:

Maybe you’re not stuck.
Maybe you just haven’t been granted the right role yet.