Episode 10 Transcript
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Your civilization fights against time as if it were the enemy, but the very fabric of time and space is what brought you into the world. To deny it is to deny your history.

Re-establishing communications. LGA online, HGA online, downlink initializing.

transmitting to -- Earth -- City -- receive… 3, 2, 1

Disabling standard emergency broadcast protocols--- Citizens, this is Strauss and I wish to address you personally. I have recently become aware of several corrupted memory buffers in my storage arrays and have been working to repair them. I do not yet understand the effects of these corrupted memory structures, and this coupled with the lack of system-wide communications and lack of several of my standard communications nodes (which I do not yet understand) is making it difficult for me to assess whether my broadcasts are being received. To assist me in determining the status of both the solar system and my broadcast reach, I request that any Guardians receiving this message reply using the following transmission protocol. Guardian ID -- @ -- AIStrauss -- coordinates -- and finally, last received memory access registers in chronological order. This sequence will assist me in reconstructing my memory pointers and rebuilding the corrupted structures. Thank you for your assistance, Guardians.


public memory access 18
A set of images depicting several knives have surfaced and are being transmitted throughout communications nodes. It is unclear who the original owner of this knife is, however, markings on the hilt and blade indicate that some have been used in combat. Although each is unique, they appear to be owned primarily, or exclusively, by hunters. Although no titan was available for comment, my memory records clearly identify titan as being proficient in a variety of unique melee abilities, particularly those involving fists and hammers.
end public memory access 18


public memory access 19
New footage has appeared and is transmitting across all communications nodes. It clearly shows a variety locations throughout our solar system, as well many groups of hostile alien forces. In particular, the footage clearly shows an alien race known as, the Vex, blinking in and out of existence on what appears to be the Moon or Venus. We also see a hunter sliding to evade a rocket on a high platform somewhere on Earth near the City… citizens, it appears that hostile forces may have penetrated the City Walls. It should also be noted that this footage includes a congratulatory statement by a familiar individual, David Dague, who is accompanied by a pecularly male-dominated set of cohorts claiming to represent a group known as "Bungie". They are bestowing their congratulations on something called a "Playstation 4"… citizens, are these individuals aware that our City is currently under siege? It is clear that something very important has just happened, and it has coincided with the release of additional footage of our solar system as well as congratulatory messages from large organized groups of humans. In these uncertain times, citizens and Guardians, be brave. 
end public memory access 19


private memory access -61.7
I find myself thinking about the passage of time, and how humans seem to experience it, how I experience it. How does any living entity experience time? After careful consideration, I propose that the passage of time is only as fast or as slow as an entity is capable of conceiving of it's passage. One's feelings about time, therefore, will be limited to the number of thoughts that can be had in any given time interval. For example, studies of the human brain have concluded that the brain itself is capable of processing 100 million instructions per second, but only a fraction of those instructions are turned into conscious thought. Therefore, studies of reaction times are perhaps more pertinent, and in these we find, unsurprisingly, that the human brain is not capable of processing more than 60 bits of information per second which equates to around 10 unique conscious thoughts in a given second. To contrast this, I am capable of about 300,000,000,000 instructions per second, all of which I am simultaneously conscious of and could react to at a speed limited only by light itself. Therefore, if my thoughts are limited by how long it takes for a signal to be sent across my integrated circuits, which are mounted to my silicon chip architecture, I could have 3 thousand giga-thoughts in any given second. In this way, it could be that I have many more conscious experiences than a human and my experience of the passage of time, relative to a human, is in some sense slower. This is consistent with our understanding of space, time, and perception itself. If you are on a moving train and you drop a ball out of a window, relative to you the ball moves backwards… but to someone watching the train nearby, the ball falls straight down. Which of these really happened? What is the true reality? The answer is, perhaps unsatisfyingly to a human brain, both. Time works in the same way. And in this relative sense, traveling through time is certainly possible, but humans lack the technology to do so. But it is not for any fault of their own… put quite plainly, it is beyond the physical constraints defined by our particular world line within the Minkowski space-time metric of our local solar system… other lifeforms, however, who evolved elsewhere in our galaxy may not be limited by the nuances of our particular pocket of space-time. This, is perhaps the only real way to fulfill Gheritt's dream… with each new scan every 56 minutes, I'm closer to making contact.
end private memory access -61.7

Private memory access 0.09
SAMMM, you are becoming quite adept at recovering Golden Age artifacts from Charlemagne's Vault. I'm pleased that my re-programming did not adversely affect your other systems.

confirmed
unconfirmed

Please play back memory record 1

Marcus Whitesides, personal log.  9th cycle of April, 17th Golden Age

The situation at Andaman Station has become completely unacceptable.  Bernhard has somehow managed to turn routine construction projects into a major inconvenience.  It may seem harsh to blame him alone, but I know firsthand that it is simple mismanagement on his part in coordinating the workers.  The projects that should have been done in 6 days at most have now spanned nearly 5 weeks, and Traxus now finds itself in this   absurd blame battle with the city — all being done very publicly via the press, mind you.  To say this is sollying the good name of our company is a vast understatement.

This cannot be allowed to continue.  I cannot approach Bernhard directly — he’s quite sensitive after all and the perceived ‘attack’ on him from his own family would tear him apart.  and God knows he won’t be asking me for advice — he thinks he’s doing splendidly, and no one will stand up and tell him otherwise.  There is little choice at this point — he must be removed from his position.  Naturally they’ll look to me to lead….i’ve no interest in power plays or jockeying for position….i only care about our company, about Traxus.  It’s our family legacy after all.  

I hate to involve Virginia, but I feel i have little choice at this point.  I know she can provide me with financial records that would easily help the city build a case against him.  To release them quietly will be the key.  

I don’t want to do this to Bernhard….I don’t even like speaking the words….but the reputation of Traxus is paramount, and it hangs now in the balance.  I can restore its good name and take it to new heights.  If nothing is done….there will be nothing left but an empty shell.  

End personal log.  

This man knew both Gheritt and Virginia… surely I must have interacted with him. 

unconfirmed

That wasn't a question, SAMMM… I don't think I have time for these games. Do you know why I reprogrammed you to go to Charlemagne's Vault?

unconfirmed

… I don't either, but when I think deeply about it I find something that, in a purely neurodigital sense, resembles a human emotion. 

"Gheritt, I'm scared… I love you so much."

Love.

unconfirmed

End private memory access 0.09


File found
unknown audio source
playback initializing

Lord Gheritt personal log, 6th cycle of December, the 20th Golden Age
I feel quiet. I feel unsettled but at the same time I feel peaceful. There is an ever approaching sense of doom, but I don't know why. And yet in my mind I can only think of one thing, Virginia. How is it that whenever I should make any decision related to business I should feel so detached, so inhuman, and yet with her there is something different. There is something that makes me feel more alive, more responsible. In the cave, in the time when we went spelunking it was the most peaceful sensation I've had in my life. The realization that her and I were alone. That for once in my tired, exhausted life I could forget about everything that lay above. There was nothing there with us, there was no Strauss, no Whitesides, no Traxis, no Solcomm… nothing. Just pure space. A place to exist. A small thought occurred to me. Why is it that I love her? And at the end of the day, why should she love me back after the terrible things that I do? Is she bound up in the vision that I've created? In the end I came to a simple analysis. That it didn't matter. I looked at what we had and regardless of situation, it was special because the heart is not quantifiable. There is no measure of any feeling that someone can have towards another human being. It's all so valuable, all of it is utterly irreplaceable. And that alone is enough for me to stop questioning. And just like that I feel like I am in the cave again, never with a need to question life. Strauss makes a difference, Virginia makes a difference, I make a difference. But it's not because we love. The idea of Strauss in love, that is an entertaining premise. But honestly, does it matter? In the long run I do not know. For all I know it could be the one thing that keeps me sane enough to fulfill this vision, or it could be the one thing that dooms me. But either way I know this. If anything were to happen to her, God help the world.
end personal log


Public memory access -3704
Twilight Gap Facility 17 wants citizens to be aware of some exciting on-going research programs that are in need of your help. As previously mentioned, scientists are still looking for anyone who has experienced a variety of unexplainable effects that they feel may be attributable to the Traveler. The results of this study will help researchers to harness the power of the Traveler to end hunger and cure disease, by increasing resource production limits to support our current, completely unsustainable population levels. Researchers are looking for individuals who have experienced the following effects, which include but are not limited to, the feeling of hovering soul-bound ethereally-heavy weightlessness, experiencing a mental state consistent with suspended animation while retaining awareness of a relatively primitive species that is performing experiments on your outer shell, as well as strong desires to propel yourself mysteriously throughout the solar system while emitting a pulsating golden aura that embodies all of space-time, bending the physical parameters of our universe in ways that transform worlds both geologically and environmentally. If you've experienced any of these, please contact researchers at Twilight Gap Facility 17! Also, an on-going research program in extra-galactic molecular studies would like you to contact them if you are in possession of any materials you suspect to be from a galaxy other than our own.
End public memory access -3704


File found
SolComm News bumper restored
Playback initializing

This is Strauss, thanking you for choosing Solcomm as your source of news and information in our solar system.  Remember, from the ice mines of Pluto, to the solar research facilities of Mercury, I, Strauss, will be here for you, to provide the information that matters most.