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[TheBiggerFish]

>Y_

[Amperzand]

{DUAL.AUTH RECEIVED. REMAINING SUBROUTINES NONRESPONSIVE. TRANSFERRING DUPLICATE SUBROUTINE BLOCK TO AVATAR.mech}

...

...

{DATA TRANSFER COMPLETE. INITIALIZING STARTUP.}
...
{PROCESSOR.FAIL. CORRUPT % = 42.971. PROCESSOR START.OK. BYPASSING ERROR.}
...
{MEMORY.FAIL. CORRUPT % = 31.442. MEMORY START.OK. BYPASSING ERROR.}
...
{POWER.LOCAL.OK. EFFICIENCY LOSS VIA NONCRITICAL DAMAGE % = 50.318}
...
{MOTILE.SYS.OK. NONCRITICAL DAMAGE CONFIRMED. FUNCTION CONFIRMED.}
...
{SENSOR.OK. LENS EROSION % = 3.251}
...
{HULL.OK. EROSION MINIMAL.}
...
{FINAL STARTUP.OK}
...
{OPENING EXTERNAL BULKHEAD.}
...

...

...

You find yourself standing in a doorway to a vast plain. Your body is unfamiliar, and seems to be shared. You are unsure of your origins or natures, but conscious that The Transceiver must be returned to function, or something of value will be lost.

{SCAN SURROUNDINGS? [input "s"]}

{PERFORM FURTHER SELF DIAGNOSTIC? [input "d"]}

{SEARCH OWN MEMORY? [input "m"]}

[TheBiggerFish]

>D
>S
>M_

[Gwolfski]

>?

[Amperzand]

Subroutine "TBF" processing allotment divided between three objectives. Remaining processor capacity unassigned.


{SCAN SURROUNDINGS? [input "s"]}

{PERFORM FURTHER SELF DIAGNOSTIC? [input "d"]}

{SEARCH OWN MEMORY? [input "m"]}

{PROVIDE ALTERNATE OBJECTIVE? [input complex data following "//" commandline format]}

[TheBiggerFish]

//What is this?

[LordPorkins]

//Initiate Skynet Protocol

[TheBiggerFish]

//Ignore Porkins.

[LordPorkins]

// Activate Emote "Awwwwwww"

[Amperzand]

Input "//What is this" nonvalid.

Input "//Initiate Skynet Protocol" nonvalid.

Input "//Ignore Porkins" nonvalid.

Input "// Activate Emote "Awwwwwww"" nonvalid.

The "//" commandline format is necessarily followed by a sequential objective/plan of action proposal or standard format command. Parser corruption % = 11.241.

Limited processing allotment has completed designated objectives in time period [3600 seconds]:

{SELF DIAGNOSTIC REVEALS: [widespread ultraminor system damage of unknown origin. onboard radioisotope clock, lifespan rating 10⁹ years, failure due to radioisotope degradation. omnipurpose tool package intact. emergency weapons package intact. onboard power plant replaced between logged power-on events with unknown power source, no standard emissions detected. microgravity maneuver equipment intact, propellant reserves % = 99.92. multiterrain magnetic/ultratraction motility extensions intact. diagnostic claims all systems within 10% nominal with error % = 25.213.]}

{ACTIVE/PASSIVE SCAN REVEALS: [subjective assessment: The raw sensor data runs through your processors, and your surroundings become clear. An airlock stands open behind you, thin coating of hydrogen snow slowly falling back to the surface in the fractional-G gravity. Your shared body is currently magnetically locked to the hull of a vast SPACECRAFT, plates pocked and eroded by an immense gulf of time.
The surviving fragments of archive your shared body carries indicate it masses something on the order of a small moon, and it seems once to have had a thin atmosphere of various gases.
That atmosphere has since frozen and fallen to the hull, forming the several-centimeter coating you see now.
In some craters, and the crevices of various protruding mechanisms, the ice has accumulated to perhaps half a meter.
Several kilometers from your current location, a cloud of comparatively superheated gases (perhaps 200 degrees kelvin, judging by the data from your eroded infrared detector) is expanding from a sizeable chunk of exterior machinery, itself quite warm.

It would appear that this, with the great, slow shield-dome closing again over the shining concavity of its metamirror, is the recently-activated BEAMCAST communication array. Having cast the ultra-high-bit encryption of the FAILSAFE CODE into the universe as a targeted beam of short-wavelength photons, it is shutting down. Towering behind and to the side of that machine is the still-cold, flower-like mass of the TRANSCEIVER you must return to functionality.

Several other monolithic fragments of technology extend from the hull in the easy range of your detectors, several of them seemingly once having been weapons. There even appears to be a smaller spacecraft of some sort clamped to the side of the VESSEL you stand upon, although it plainly will not function, the bell of its engine being partially melted and welded to the greater hull.

The sky is utterly black and all but empty of stars. A scattering of dim, red specks are all that distinguishes most of your field of view from total darkness. The exception lies "Above" and a little towards one end of the SHIP's great cylindrical hull, where what appears to be a diffuse spiral galaxy lies. Much of that cosmic maelstrom of stars is the sparkling maroon of red dwarves. This, though the brightest object in the sky, is nevertheless plainly very old, indeed dying, and very, very far away.  Towards the other end of the SHIP, even the scattered red points that must be other galaxies fade below your preliminary sensors' sensitivity, leaving only black.]}

{MEMORY SEARCH REVEALS: significant corruption is present. aside from some minor scraps of information which went towards the other objectives, there were no meaningful findings. processing power beyond the level of this housing needed to perform wholesale repair on a reasonable timeframe, but there is a high likelyhood of additional relevant information to be found during additional cursory searches.]}

[Amperzand]

{To clarify, a usable commandline input would be something like "//search own memory for data related to (given topic)", or "//pick up wrench, tighten bolts".}

{Edit: There is a new update on the previous page.}

[Amperzand]

{Incidentally, this alteration to standard mechanics is very temporary.}

[Gwolfski]

//search own memory for data related to transceiver

[chaotic skies]

//search own memory for data related to SPACECRAFT

[Amperzand]

{Two valid commandline format objectives received.}

{Processing //search own memory for data related to transceiver:

[The transceivers are a remnant black-box technology from when the god-singularities still had bright stars to feed upon, developed initially to allow linking the processing power of multiple Spheres across light-year distances without problematic lag-times, but quickly repurposed by the lesser singularity-minds and dirt-born races as a simple, efficient method of transmitting information supercausally. As the light began to fade and the old god-minds slowed, the understanding of their functional methods became impossible, but they remained in production. In the end, when the supercausal transit systems were discovered to advance entropy and banned, the Transceivers were allowed to remain, allowing those who still bore the light of sapience to speak across the void. Now, few places have enough light even to operate them, but some speakers remain, distant and fading. A repair will be difficult, if not impossible, should the black box of the transmission controller have suffered damage during the Journey, but evidently it still functions enough to receive and process priority codes from other Recollection assets.]}

{Processing //search own memory for data related to SPACECRAFT:

[The VESSEL is your home, and body, and master, and has always been, and will always be. It was born in the Bright Times, out of a Sphere-Field at the heart of a galaxy, a housing for a MIND, in which to travel, and see, and remain. That was long and long ago. The Sphere-Fields are gone, as are all but a few of the galaxies, but the VESSEL and its MIND remain. You are the lowest subdivided parts of the MIND, kept awake with the dim light even Stillness carries to ensure nothing goes far wrong during the Journey, while the true MIND sleeps. The VESSEL wandered the universe for a long time, and as the light began to fade in all the region of space IT had seen, it sought the greatest remaining Speaker, who said, long ago amidst the buzzing of the Transceivers' signals, that whence it spoke, there remained and would remain galaxies, and Spheres, and light, and Dirt-Born races. And so the VESSEL, lacking the light to ignite the supercausal transit engines even this final time, or to journey at a true speed, threw itself across a great void with half of all its strength, preserving the rest to slow itself again, and drifted out into the darkness between the strands of matter that fill reality, and drifted, and drifted, and on and on. Your clocks ceased to tell you how long you had been drifting after 10⁹ years, their atomic hearts decayed into uselessness, and even without a true perception of time's passing, you know that to have been but a fraction of the time you have spent drifting, in the true black, feeling Stillness close about your processors.]}

{TIME EXPENDED IN MEM.SEARCH:3600 SECONDS}