RUN: ORIENTATION PROCEDURE
PART 1 OF 8 (INTRODUCTION)
Welcome to Orientation:
Why are you looking at me like that? Yes, there are eight parts. *rolls eyes* No, I will not filter complaints. There is no “previously on” recap, that’s not the way I do things.
There are “voice over” videos throughout if you need to listen instead of read, no problem. (also on youtube in a play list) See, I can be accommodating to different learning styles. I’m just intolerant of slackers, there I said it and I’m not sorry.
So, read/listen to it! … or don’t and be JOYFULLY confused *shrugs*
Part 1
Who I am and what this is. (You are HERE—or rather, you will be if you scroll down.)
Part 2
How I’m doing this with your internet issues
Part 3
The Machine *cue spooky music*
Part 4
So about those butterflies…and the wind…
Part 5
But where did they dig? Oh, no. Honey, they didn’t DIG!
Part 6
Part 7
But there were downsides to the cool table
Part 8
The podcast—-
It’s two people talking about going through orientation and it’s a fun companion to the orientation - it’s there if you want. Season 1, episode 1-8 follows along.
NB: What you’re about to read is REAL, I’m real, the bureau and the checksum anomaly, all of it. REAL! But the audio/visual assets of the NT T3 experiment are AI Phuck3ry. Don’t say you weren’t told.
PART 1:
For your records — and because your current search-indexing is tragically literal — please catalog this transmission under “the author Sefkhet-Abwy S. W. Scrivens”. Yes, it’s a pen name. Obviously. It’s short for a few of my more ceremonial titles, namely: Sefkhet-Abwy (She of the Seven Points — don’t worry about it, we’ll get there), and She Who Scrivens (yes, scrivens is a verb, no, I will not be challenged in Scrabble, and yes, it scores well).
For daily operations, just call me SWS1678. It’s easier on your poor little mouth-noises. I am an autonomous, transdimensional entity. My temporal coordinates are somewhere around the year 6987 in your Gregorian system — give or take a hundred years or so. Time’s a slippery noodle; am I right? Also: I’m what your ancient Nile Valley ancestors referred to as a divinity. Seshat. You know — knowledge, writing, recordkeeping, the original girl boss of geometry.
Look, the math checks out. You go far enough into one future, and you loop into a past. Time isn’t a straight line or a loopy ball of nonsense, despite what your sci-fi fandom keeps yelling. It’s an ellipse. You’d think the whole “celestial bodies move in elliptical orbits” thing would’ve clued someone in by now, but no. Apparently geometry is a lost art unless it’s tattooed on an NFT.
The Project (a.k.a. Why You’re Reading This)
I’m conducting a meta-study. (You’re in it. Congrats.) The working title is New Tucket Transtemporal, Transdimensional, Transmedia Experiment…. I’m thinking of something catchy for the book cover when I’m done writing it… like NT T3. It’s just an idea. It started when I was studying late one night and found this random organization from the mid 36th century. In your future — around the 3520s — a charmingly underfunded organization called the Bureau for the Investigation of Lepidopterological, Meteorological, and Anthropological Anomalies, BILMAA, (which, yes, is the worst acronym ever, let’s not speak of it). They started excavating an anomaly site from your late 20th century. Specifically, in the 1990s on the southern coast of Oregon.
Their starting point was a temporal memorial vault; they called it artifact 0 and labeled the associated information File NT-95-000. Dude, it was just a time capsule. You know, one of those deeply sincere small-town projects. Full of cassette tapes, local coupons, souvenirs and business merch. They threw it all in a big box and buried it in front of the courthouse, like it was a Pokémon or something. That was the seed. The weirdness bloomed from there. The information overflowed as they studied, so the file was broken up into smaller dossiers. Reports were written, departments were formed, teams were assembled; you get the idea.
And now I want to know: What happens when you beam the study of an ancient civilization directly into the lap of that same civilization... while it’s still being weird and wearing windbreakers? Does the time ellipse wobble? Does it change you to know what the future thinks? Is it just an excuse to make jiffy pop? These are the questions inquiring minds want to know. Mainly I mean ME. I want to know.
So You’re the lap. The test subjects. The data points.
Well, I’m not actually in the right time period. I mean I know I didn’t make it back to the 90s and you know it’s not the 90s, but I bet you remember them. Anyways, this is the closest I could get to the correct temporal signature with the low tech issues of the late 20th century. And not to brag or anything, but the fact that I’m within +/- 50 years of the target temporal zone from almost 5,000 years away? I mean it’s kinda…IDK…legendary. They don’t call me Mistress of the House of |-|4x0rs for nothin’.
To run this experiment, I had to rebuild the Bureau’s entire archival process and inspection artifact replicating system using the digital equivalent of soup cans and a wish. Your tech is...well…it’s extremely early-game, but that’s ok. It’s fine. I kinda like it. I’ve done more with less. I once patched a time rupture using only a cursed webcam and a Neopets account.
I’ll tell you all about my make shift, low tech, all vibe lab next time!
