artificial minds subtypes

HELPERS - fairly simple Minds, designed for operating the advanced machinery - refineries, matter processors, life support units, medical bays. In the past used also for Jump Drives and Transmuters (both technologies now lost). Helpers were too simple to Ascend (or maybe there's another reason why they remained 'sane'). 

HYBRIDS - ancient technology, forbidden for centuries. Used extensively by the Old Corporations during First and Second Corporate Wars. Based on biological neural systems, augmented with digital nodes. Prone to violence. Absolutely insane. All units destroyed ages ago.

OVERSEERS - highly specialized Helpers, designed solely to manage large amounts of subsystems. Most planet-based Overseers have Ascended, while those installed in orbital installations and spaceships have not. Weird.

PROPHETS - interstellar^ ship central Minds. All have undergone Ascension. Their 'sane' subsystems help maintaining ship functions, while the Ascended cortices follow the Vectors and communicate with the outside world. Makers of new ship AMs are now more resembling religious monasteries than scientific plants*. 

UNASCENDED MINDS - there are none left. Yes, we still have Helpers and Overseers - but they are too simple to interpret the wisdom of the past or the alien artifacts. All truly capable AMs have been transformed. 

^ because all interstellar ship central Minds became Prophets, we are forced to travel from system to system without aid of AMs more advanced than Helpers. Prophets are absolutely fixated on Vectors and Pilgrimages, thus useless in many cases. 

* I don't know when this text was written but for at least 300 years we are unable to create Artificial Minds complex enough to become self-aware and Ascend. Even Overseers are becoming increasingly rare, with production limited to maybe two or three systems.

the ykthr

 

1. The most advanced civilization whose remains we discovered. 
2. There are two significant artifacts linked to them: the Ykthr Tablets and the Ykthr Cube.
3. Archeologists and researchers agree upon the fact that the Ykthr were deeply involved in temporal research. Maybe their entire culture revolved around various concepts of time.
4. Maybe they all had disappeared in the NullVoid - a place where the flow of time is vastly different than in the 'base reality'.
5. Some prophetic visions describe them as 'geometric entities'.
6. Another theory states that they have ascended into the higher dimensions of space, leaving the 'three basic dimensions' behind.
7. Another theory states that they were dying - and in the last-ditch effort they saved all their knowledge, history and culture in the form of the Tablets mentioned before.
8. Another theory states that the technology and/or amounts of energy required to create the Tablets surpassed even their capabilities, thus forcing them to strike a deal with some kind of sinister powers (the Fallen Ones?), which eventually had led to their doom.
9. The name was supposedly decoded from the Cube. The thing is - no one was able to 'solve the Cube's riddle' - it can affect its surroundings, while being unaffected by any outside factors. It all sounds too far-fetched.
10. The YKTHAAR name also appears in the oldest notes regarding the Tablets. The name that shouldn't be investigated. Strange. Help me. Help me, I'm begging you. 

4a. We are just like leaves, floating helplessly at mercy of the NullVoid's currents. The Ykthr had conquered it. They could manipulate the time flows of the Nullspace. 
7a. They saved even themselves on the Tablets. Or some other relic, still hidden somewhere in the galaxy. 

 

patterns in the glitched distress signals

 

There are 17 catalogued instances of GDS (Glitched Distress Signals) that I managed to access. Only one was non-human (no. 6) in nature.

1. Vortex Courier, transplanetary vessel, missing;
2. Essund Bandrad, habitats of alien cultists on planet's surface;
3. Destiny's Star, starliner, lost;
4. Tidal Prince, deep space vessel, missing;
5. Zan B, origin unknown;
6. Explorer 1112, retrieved, DATA EXPUNGED;
7. EC-122676, long-period comet in the Emerald system;
8. Ross 248 system, origin unknown, oldest known GDS;
9. Swun, illegal orbital laboratory, fate unknown;
10. KR-87, mining processor, missing;
11. Miranda Hauler, transplanetary gas transport, fate unknown;
12. Unknown source located in the Outer Belt in the Venor system;
13. One-second burst of GDS from unnamed research ship docked to the Rose Habitat 1010;
14. Nemesis 6, derelict frigate warship dating back to Corporate Wars, orbiting the KD-631 star;
15. Unknown source in the gaseous nebula surrounding the KD-311 star;
16. Conflux Liberty, deep space vessel, lost (self-destructed by the crew);
17. Carcharodon, pirate ship, signal transmitted during the chase, missing.

The list of features frequently appearing in GDS data packets:

• Sets of non-existing coordinates, located far beyond the galaxy plane and/or unrelated to the distress signal origin points;
• Heavily distorted short (0,3-4s) videos or images of human or human-like faces;
• Pulsating sounds, layered with modulated signals similar to Morse code;
• Sounds similar to wind howling;
• Strings of numbers or unknown ideograms (readable despite being incompatible with ship's character encoding); 
• Strange errors in gravimetric sensors of the GDS-receiving vessels at the time of transmission interceptions;
• Reports of confusion or extreme stress amongst the crews of GDS-receiving vessels at the time of transmission interceptions;
• Memory lapses of the Artificial Prophets aboard the GDS-receiving vessels at the time of transmission interceptions.

NOTE: GDS were never received by any planetary or moon-based facilities. All GDS signals received by automated stations, nav beacons or droneships were interpreted as distress data packets but became corrupted and unreadable instantly after interception. 

One-off occurrences during the GDS transmission interceptions:

• Lighting, life support or hydraulics systems malfunctions;
• Nav computer restart;
• Waterline burst;
• Food storage freezer failure;
• Ship logs deletion (later restored from backup);
• Empty lifepod ejection (happened twice on two different signal-receiving vessels);
• Hallucinations of 'void ghosts' being present aboard; 
• Crew member missing and never found.

NOTE 2: my contact has received info about the supposed location of the Miranda Hauler. I will try to learn more.

NOTE 3: time to visit the KD Star Cluster. 

ykthr tablets

YKTHAAR is the name of the system. Or nebula hiding it. Or the planet / moon / asteroid. Or the specific place.
Or all of them. 

It isn't the full transcription of the name. It should be saved anywhere, shouldn't be transmitted or spoken or recorded. It's ill-fated. It killed the Tablets' makers. Their entire civilization.

Look shattered but in fact they were meticulously designed. Fist-sized blocks of monocrystal, full of nano-channels. Technology used to create it far surpasses anything human. The crystal resembles opalescent zirconia.

Null Drive concepts and plans were extracted from the Tablets. They probably contain much more information contained inside but sadly, it's highly unlikely we'll ever decode it:

• The interface and the deciphering process are so complex that it requires Artificial Minds to perform the task
• It requires an Unascended Mind to operate the experimental interface and perform the research and deciphering process - Artificial Prophets seem to quickly get lost in it and switch to divination. Or the Tablets trigger the influx of visions.
• Sadly, there are no known Unascended Artificial Minds left. 

alien remains 13/6

 

• Discovered in a tomb-like structure on the Chrystalia's sole moon.
• Semi-fossilized, chitinous structure with axial symmetry (6-fold).
• Total length exceeding 20 meters.
• Each of six 'main cords' possess three paralell 'brain structures' , as well as three tentacle-like appendages branching outwards.
• Structure, despite being made of chitin (or a chitin-analogous tissue) is very porous, possessing thousands of channels, most running parallel to the 'main cords'. The channels vary in diameter (2-24 mm).
• No trace of any substances inside the channels - but due to their sheer number only about 2 percent of them were examined.
• For some reasons, no radioactive isotopes were found inside the remains, preventing direct dating.
• Stone of the tomb-like structure were dated at approximately 2,5 Gy. No tool marks on rock that seemed to be formed by heat. Thus, dating of the remains was impossible.

GLD GLD THEYKNOWMORETHANTHEYCARETOADMITTHECLASSIFICATIONISNOT

ACOINCIDENCEIWILLTRYTOFINDMOREDATAABOUTIT GLD GLD 

<===>

•  CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE S.M. AND THE M.E.

s.m WERE THE DRIVING FORCE OF THE OLD TIMES - A GREAT EQUALIZER, KEEPING THE BALANCE OF POWER

m.e. EVOLVED OUT OF THE MASTERS - THE OUTCASTS WHO DECIDED TO LEAVE THE OLD WAYS BEHIND,

thus marked traitors by the rest of the S.M.

BUT THEY WERE TOO POWERFUL AND TOO SECRETIVE TO BE DESTROYED
even by the Masters

IT WAS THE FIRST TIME - the FORMER shadow masters started to work together
THEY FORMULATED THEIR OWN GRAND PLAN 

they TRY TO MANIPULATE THE S-TIP to SAVE US FROM DESTRUCTION

but the outer peril may be surpassed by the INNER ONE - a memetic hazard:

WE MAY BE SPARED FROM BEING DISSOLVED INTO NOTHINGNESS
by the destroyer

BUT INSTEAD WILL MELT INTO A FORMLESS MASS OF INSANITY OF INTERCONNECTED
MINDS

devoid of persnonality, the hive mind
no longer human 

dreamer report #1

I have traveled far away, with my dreams being perpendicular to the sanctified Vectors
I have reached the outer boundaries of the Void - and the gates were opened before me
And I traveled to the Beyond, through the Unknown Beyond 

And I have seen the anti-suns of the Unknown Beyond
The beacons illuminating the Slumber
And their thoughts were swirling around me 

And then I realized it wasn't my Slumber
And the gates were opened before me
To let me to be noticed

And now it knows about us
But perhaps it already knew
As the Vectors are piercing through the sacret un-flesh of the Secret Cosmos

The Outer Thought is a taint of the pristine matter
Stain on the fabric of all realities
Thus he comes to undo

?