Digital Data Download (3D) - Issue 2

[Drogue]

The long awaited Issue 2 of the 3D is here, and we think it’s worth the wait. This issue is even more packed full of news, games and things to stir the brain cells. We have all the old favourites, from The Philosophical Section, to The Caption Competition and One Final Thought, as well as new features, such as Where in the World is Colonel Santiago. I would like to thank all contributors, especially Corelli Omega-9, who has done much sterling work for this issue.

System Warning! Attempted Sabotage of the Collective - By Corelli Omega-9

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Cybernetic Consciousness, despite the lack of many foreign concerns to deal with, has, nonetheless, been efficiently utilising its time through various maintenance and research duties. In the process of some of these duties, however, a number of functions have discovered an insidious virus implanted in the Datalinks. Preliminary evidence suggests this virus was loaded into the system aboard the Unity, suggesting that a rival faction is to blame for this outbreak.

The virus functions by flooding our logic pathways with a constant stream of inane data. The logic pathways are unable to cope with the sheer volume of irrelevant and unexplainable data, overheating in the process and fusing. Three functions who were working on the maintenance were affected in such a manner, and have had to have their pathways replaced. Each will also require at least a month of treatment before they can walk properly again. Although the exact location of the virus is classified, it can be revealed that it was found as a number of video files, approximately thirty minutes in length each, in the directory whose label translates into ASCII characters as /entertainment/20thcentury/humour/MPflyingcircus/.

Whoever uploaded this virus, know that the outbreak has been contained, and the damage was minimal. The virus was obviously programmed by an amateur, as it contains no method for self-replication. This fact seems to eliminate Datajack Roze as a culprit, and the level of computer knowledge in Sister Miriam’s faction eliminates them as well.

The virus has been contained, and that the necessary changes have been made to all functions so that a recurrence of this event is no longer a possibility. The files, however, are still located in our Datalinks, and analysis is underway to determine the exact culprit. It is only a matter of time before the perpetrator is discovered, and the Cybernetic Consciousness does not look well upon such enemies.

Newsflash! Population Boom in Capital. - By Corelli Omega-9

On 2117.589, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Cybernetic Consciousness began receiving a number of odd radio signals. Initially, it was believed that a sensor glitch, or other technical anomaly had caused the event, however a quick diagnosis revealed that no system failures were present. It was soon determined that the readings were in fact coming from another human faction. Simulations as to the possible identity, composition, and intentions of the faction were immediately commenced, and initial findings suggested that, regardless of the faction, this encounter was unlikely to produce hostilities, given the likely composition of a scouting party. A team of diplomatic functions, military functions, and foreign affairs functions were immediately assembled and dispatched to meet with the incoming humans.

After several days of travel over rocky terrain and fungus, the team finally caught sight of the other faction. Initially, it was suspected that our simulations were erroneous, as the other party was approaching at high speeds in what appeared to be a number of unity rovers. Positions were taken in expectance of a military conflict. As the rovers approached nearer, however, something unexpected, even in our detailed simulations, occurred. The rovers were filled entirely with children. Our functions revealed themselves, and the rovers came to a halt. Upon closer examination, the identity of the other humans was apparent. The rovers were of low-grade steel, and appeared to have many spelling mistakes in the labels... these were Hiverian children.

The children disembarked from their rovers, armed with nervestapellers. The military functions immediately aimed their weapons preparing to fire. At that point, however, the children laid down their nervestapellers, and pleaded for asylum within the Cybernetic Consciousness. Questioning revealed that the children had been sent out from the Hive with the intention of nervestapelling other factions, thus severely damaging their command and control structures. During the journey, however, the children had turned on their oppressive escorts and nervestapelled them into servitude. They then completed their journey into Consciousness territory. Questioning of the adults revealed little useful information... they either were kept uninformed, or else the nervestapellind had destroyed what knowledge they had.

The children, and the few adults, were granted asylum and were allowed to receive implants, allowing them into the Consciousness. The children are young, however within a few years they will be able to become fully functioning members of the Cybernetic Consciousness. Samples of their DNA have been taken, and submitted to Function TK-Gamma for use in his Japanisation experiments.

Cabinet Reshuffle - By Drogue Beta-8

From top sources in the Government, we have received an advance copy of the election results, two days before that were due to be posted!

Drogue Beta-8 and Mani-Alpha-3 both keep their old jobs as Prime and Second Function respectively. Not since Blair and Brown on old Earth has a duo been so effective in government, yet so public in their disagreements. We hold out hope for another strong and wise term for both of them.

Due to changes in the structure of government among the CyCon, the Cabinet reshuffle has resulted in Corelli Omega-9 moving to the post of Internal Affairs Function, and the function known only as Delta taking the combined Military and Diplomatic roles as External Affairs Function.

These four wise functions now have the task of guiding the CyCon over the next turn, expected to last about 20 years. All at 3D wish them logic and good fortune.


Constitution?

On a side story, 3D was also informed that there is rumour of a Constitution being drawn up, deep in the heart of the government’s office in Apolyton Prime. Nothing has been confirmed yet, but it is rumoured that this information has come right from the top. When it is released, you will be the first to hear about it.

The CyCon Greet Their New-Found Allies - By TK Gamma-8

Early this morning, at approximately 05.00 Cybernetic Standard Time, routine scout patrols unconvered some sort of book. The writings appear to be religious, but bear no mention of the great GooglieGod, and the words on the page were no resemblance to any language encountered before…

This story was altered due to inaccuracies, and references to things that have never happened. The correct story is given here:

The CyCon Greet Their New-Found Allies – Bunnies! - By Drogue Beta-8

It seems that Pi Square has been built near an area of astounding wildlife diversity, which has a whole colony of a species very rare to Chiron, Bunnies! This caused concern with the Major of Pi Square, who is quotes as saying: “these bunnies could prove a real menace to our development”, however he was cut short by a load cries of “ooooh”, “awwww” and “they’re so soft” coming from the gathering crowd, in response to their affection and white, fluffy appearance.

Here is a computer model of one of the bunnies:

Meanwhile a geological survey of the area enriched with bunnies found that it was very high in Nitrates, a group of chemicals know to help plants grow, causing it to be extremely rich in nutrients. Chemical tests on the bunnies have shown that it is caused by the bunnies excretion. The government has therefore urged people to keep the bunnies as pets, causing an outcry of happiness and much support for the government. This radical research has led to many hailing bunnies as then end to all our nutrient problems, and trials are going on. So far all they have discovered is an excellent recipe for bunny stew.

Many of the government are rumoured to also enjoy the company of their own bunnies, the most attentive and affectionate creatures yet to be found on Chiron. Rumours of even more affectionate creatures know as “cat-girls” have been heard around, however they have been dismissed as mere fantasy.

While these bunnies have shown us new ways to grow, there could be problems if their numbers increase much more and a long-term…

decision has not yet been made as to a course of action.

The Philosophical Section - By Mani Alpha-3

This issue I have handed my Philosophical editorial to Mani Alpha-3, who has written this wonderful piece for us [ed.]

As the Consciousness’ 3D information service strives to approach the laudable ideal of objectivity and neutrality as close as possible, we would like to share with you the opinion of the other side in the emotions debate. Below is an extract of Mani Alpha-3's recently published work entitled "Essays on Emotion”:

Lately there have been many debates on the nature of emotions, and whether we Cyborgs should have them. To understand the discussion about emotions, it is useful for outsiders to first give a summary of the nature of our cybernetic implants.

When a fullhuman chooses to become member of the Consciousness, he or she receives a series of implants. Naturally those cybernetic implants are not self-aware, and will probably stay that way, unless in some far future we should discover the appropriate technology to make them self-aware. Also, unlike the popular misconception among fullhumans, we are not controlled by those algorithms. As they are non-sentient, that would make us mindless drones. Those who do claim that we are mindless robots are simply opinion leaders in other factions who wish to prevent all humans to flock to our glorious faction. We are still conscious individuals, and have near-full control over our algorithms. We can choose to use them or not to use them, just as we could choose to or not to switch off a 21th century computer. They simply increase our logical and analytical abilities using advanced software programs, just like those Old Earth computers. They also allow us to communicate with each other, by transmitting casual electromagnetic beams, which are decoded by our algorithms and directly fed to our consciousness.

Currently our algorithms suppress our emotions. This is done by sending electrical impulses and chemical signals to certain areas of the brain responsible for emotions, such as the limbic system and the hypothalamus. The reason for doing so at the dawn of our faction was because it was assumed emotions were per definition illogical, and it would be better to let the physiological processes normally taken care of by emotions be regulated by the rational algorithms. However I fail to see the use of letting our implants instead of our emotions control those physiological processes. I mean, as Prime Function Drogue Beta-8 argued well in the past, emotions are instinctive and autonomous reactions we don’t think consciously about the moment they happen, as our consciousness is too slow to react rationally on certain situations. However, after fifteen years of experience with our cybernetic implants, I fail to see how that has changed now we have implants. Before our implants can become self-conscious due to further technological progress and could take over some of the brain's duties - if we would want that - our consciousness and our center of reason and action still resides completely in our “slow” brains. So even though our implants can process huge amounts of data for us, our reaction speed on that data doesn’t improve much.

In other words, since our algorithms don’t have a consciousness, and our consciousness is still as slow as that of fullhumans, we wouldn’t be able to react as fast to surprising circumstances as emotions can, if all the physiological processes previously regulated by emotions would now have to be done consciously. The solution to that, as implemented fifteen years ago, is pre-programming our algorithms to react on certain situations in certain ways, without us having to take conscious decisions. But then I ask: how is this any different from emotions? Those pre-programmed algorithms are also a sort of “instinctive and autonomous reactions we don’t think consciously about the moment they happen”. The conclusion I reach is we haven’t gained anything by replacing emotions by algorithmic responses.

Therefore I would like to suggest we start an experiment. Let's call it "Unimatrix 001". It would involve asking a large group of volunteers to order their implants to no longer suppress their emotions electrically and chemically. A research team would observe the results of that change and report to the Science Function. He would then, after deliberating with the other High Council members, decide if the experiment should be generalized to the entire Cybernetic population, to further increase the productivity and efficiency of the Cybernetic Consciousness.

The Caption Competition

The winner of last issues competition was please don’t hurt me with that, I’ll let you win! GooglieGod, with "You wanna WHAT with my brain???” He wins an all expenses paid trip to the large bomb crater!

A close second was TKG with "What? the Faculty rejected our demands? very well - RELEASE THE GORILLA!"


This Issues Competition

As usual, guess the caption. Best one wins a prize. And as always, the editors opinion is worthless final.

Where in the World is Colonel Santiago? - By Corelli Omega-9

Greetings young functions and adults from other factions who are receiving this broadcast; we now begin the first scheduled release of our educational game show, teaching children and extra-factional adults about Chironian geography.

You are a young soldier in the Cybernetic Consciousness Dangerous Offenders Security Collective (CyCon DOSC). As a DOSC agent, it is your duty to hunt down dangerous offenders who threaten the security of our faction. You have just arrived for your first day of duty, when your superior contacts you, beckoning you into his alcove.

Greetings Function. As you know, you graduated from your training academy with top honours... the highest, in fact, in recent memory. Given the aptitude you have shown in this field, we have come to the collective decision to assign you to a very important case. You will be working with a team of our best DOSC agents in this task, so use your expertise to help them in this mission.

You well know what happened in the Unity disaster at the beginning of this century, and the personalities who managed to escape the carnage. The followers of the Human Hive, the Lord's Believers, the Data Angels, the Free Drones, the Planet University of Technology, PEACE, and, of course, the Cybernetic Consciousness all managed to safely arrive upon Planet. However, rumour had it that one more escape pod managed to flee the Unity before it broke up. Originally, we believed this to be just another fable that the less logical factions are so quick to indulge in, however one of our scouts has reported sighting someone whom we did not suspect had survived. Due to her absence of any followers, she is considered desperate and extremely dangerous. It is your job to help track her down and take her into custody. However, in order to do so, you must first figure out...


Clue Number 1

The last our agents saw of her she was escaping into the Xenofungus with a machete, but she did not seem to have many travel rations with her.

Good luck on your mission.


Although ultimately Santiago will be hiding in specific tiles, and even particular features within these tiles, Chironian geography is currently limited to orbital scans taken before the exodus from the Unity. A DOSC agent's only hope at this point in time is to find the general location of Santiago, and conduct intensive searches to locate any trace of her presence.

Transmit (PM) one's solutions (only one per individual) directly to Corelli Omega-9. The correct solution shall be posted in each subsequent broadcast.

One Final Thought

This is the last section, devoted to GooglieGod. This issue’s article comes from Corelli Omega-9:

Ode to GooglieGod

10100001001100011010001110101001110101001000111001 01011100111111100111111100111011100010000100000011 10111001010011000010000101011010001110010101010011 01011101011111001100111001000000001100111011100101 00110000000111000100111111100111101000100000100000 01010001000000011111010101011110011001010011101010 01100011011100011001100001000010101001111011001101 10100110011100101110010100000100001010100111010100 11110011010000010000000110111101010011100110111100 11001011011001100000001100111001011001001110001001 00010100101100110100000100001010000100000000111000 10111100010010010010011100010111000000011111010010 01111001010101001001001001110001011100000001110100 001001000101101000011110


Googlie’s Reply

00011110000011110000110100011110100011011110000000 00001101001101010011001010101001000111001010011001 01001101111111100100011100100000100001010100110100 10010000010000100010111001010010101110011011010011 11101001100001000011011001101111001010101101000011 01010000100001100000111100100111100100111010100111 101010101101000



Edited by Drogue Beta-8

[Whaleboy]

As usual, guess the caption

Not yet .NET

Windows NT4 Service Pack 5 released

[Drogue]

I have decided this time not to try to get people to PM me and I publish the best, just post here, and we can all laugh. Then next issue in 2 weeks (should be on time next time) I can remind you of the best

[Whaleboy]

"Fire your lawyers and surrender your licences. Your financial and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own, your customers will adapt to service us, resistance is linux."

[Vev]

There once was a cyborg named "Billy" ...

Spartan Barrack Graffiti

[Snowflake]

Ahh, the LONG awaited 3D ...

[Nubclear]

Hahahahaha!!!

YOU HAVE DEMONS COMING OUT OF YOUR MICROCHIPS WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? NOT EVEN THE DEMONS WISH TO BE WITH YOU!!!

In other news, the Hives demon population exploded recently.
"Well, one of them downloaded the Special Claire Forlani edition of Pravda, and when we saw it....We just knew we had joined the wrong faction." One demon said in a report to Perestroika.
"I mean seriously....CyCon tries to synthesize it, but why not just go to the real thing? Sure, the University Looniversity got cat people, but....For example, in Kommunizma City, they have a Eartly Delights - Become One with the Chairman centre. Really, how could we resist?" he continued. However, not all the demons were happy....
"I wanted to get to see Claire Forlani, but nooooooo. You have to be a member of the 'collective'. Oh well, the torture chambers re-education centres are enough to satisfy my needs."

In OTHER news......Chief Editor Tassadar of the Perestroika recently critisized the CyCon News Agency "Digital Data Download" for not understanding the term "virus".
"Hello?! A VIRUS IS A PROGRAM WHICH SELF-REPLICATES....In your paper you said it did not self-replicate. Therefore, it is not a virus. Ugh. The Hive shows its superiority yet again...." He commented Sunday, while complaining about the lack of education in foreign powers.

And thats it for "Perestroika: 3D Edition".

[Maniac]

Transmit (PM) one's solutions (only one per individual) directly to CISCO. The correct solution shall be posted in each subsequent broadcast.

For those wondering, CISCO is an editorial error. You see, even über-efficient cyborgs can still make small oversights. CISCO stood for "Co-processor Initiating Sensitive Communications Offline". We first intended it to be the name of our newspaper editor, but later we kind of accepted not to use it (3D is on-line edition after all...). So just PM your solution to Drogue. Of course, this issue of "Where's Santiago?" is only an introductionary item. She could be everywhere in the fungus. The game will truly start when most factions have discovered a large portion of the map, so everyone can search for clues on what tile Santiago could be.

[Micha]

Originally posted by Drogue
Upon closer examination, the identity of the other humans was apparent. The rovers were of low-grade steel, and appeared to have many spelling mistakes in the labels... these were Hiverian children.

That´s great stuff! Although it obviously isn´t true...
Where´s the Ministery of Counter-MisInformation? It should immediately post a correction to that!

It´s fun to see minor other faction´s views on life....
And I´m glad the Glorious Hive is not the only faction that periodically releases its own newspaper...

Where´s the PEACE´s, the Drone´s and the University´s women´s gossip magazine serious up-to-date news issue?

[Drogue]

Scratch that Maniac. Please PM Corellion with your guesses (has been edited). This game will progress a lot, as Maniac said, so people are not expected to get it yet. More details will come every issue, and there is a prize for the final winner.

Tass: The reason it is refered to as a virus is because we believed that if we refered to it by it's proper name of a malicious non-self-replicating program, most of our readers would not understand what we were going on about. It is intended to be reasd by it's generic meaning, of a malicious foreign program. It seems you are more technically skilled than many people, and we may have underestimated your expertise. However please be considerate towards the many that would not understand it by it's specific name. It would be highly illogical to alienate a large proportion of our readership by using needless technical language. We must pander somewhat to our readership, and then define it further later for those fullhumans who wish to, and can, understand it.

Micha: You think that all those people in that colony pod that was destroyed died? Are you sure? I had always thought of Hiverians as resourceful people, who could well have taken apart the destroyed pod and created a ramshackle rover from it. Indeed I can attest that they appear to be Hiverians, however what they really are could be anything...

3D is intended to be released every 2 weeks, but due to exams, this one took a while longer. Work is already underway on Issue 3, which should be here sometime near the 2126.153 (14th July)

[Snowflake]

Congratulations on your new found allies! Aren't you the lucky one! I'm sure you've signed a pact of brotherhood with the bunnies?

I take it Corellion is the CISCO? Clue No 1 didn't tell us a lot though ...

BTW, the demon is kind of scary and disgusting, I have tried to avoid looking at it at all.

As for the children, no matter what decendence are them, children are always cherishable. So please take good care of them, will you?

[Drogue]

The CISCO does not exist. It was an open for the name of editor, but we do not have a name for that yet. Name polls are still going. Corellion is the guy that wrote the had the idea and wrote the story, so he is the one that will judge.

It doesn't give you a lot, but when you have 3 or 4 of them it might. However think about it. Stress different parts of the sentance and see if anything springs to mind. If you do not have something, could that mean that you do not need it?

Just a couple of hints, that I probably shouldn't give you, but nothing major.

The demon being the virus story pic or the Bill Gates pic

The children will be looked after. They are of more use in our mining pits when they have grown healthily. Their decendence does not matter to us, they are CyCon now, and will be treated with all the respect that entails.

[Snowflake]

Thanks for the hint although I have already PMed CISCO (I know, I know) my answer so I will not be guilty of being cheated.

[Drogue]

Has been updated. I will ask Corellion to come on and explain the rules for Where in the World is Colonel Santiago, as I am not too sure. It should last most of the game though, and will be built on muchly. Watch 3D and see

[Corellion]

Alright... since there seems to be some confusion about the rules of "Where in the World is Colonel Santiago", I'll clarify.

Santiago is located somewhere on Chiron, and everywhere she goes, she'll leave clues about her location (or her henchmen will leave clues). Generally there will be enough information each issue to nail down her location, however if nobody gets it, then the next issue will contain other clues to her location. Colonel Santiago can and will move, constantly trying to evade her pursuers, and each time you find out where she is, she has moved. Eventually one will be able to catch her, however there is no guarentee as to when that is.

Since knowledge of Chironian geography is limited at the moment, each location will have to be very general, however it is still a specific location. This means it will be limited to large-scale landmarks that can be described with a single phrase (for example, "The Geothermal Flats"). As the game progresses, and we all get more of the map revealed, it will become more specific (the forest in the northern section of the Hiverian continent), and later on down to specific tiles (23,17), or even specific structures (the farm at 14,9, or the rec commons in "the Communal Gardens"). For now though, it is very general.

Hope that clarifies things a bit.

[Kody]

Originally posted by Corellion
(the forest in the northern section of the Hiverian continent),

The rumors of Cyborgs infiltrating our datalinks are true!!!!!!
That's why Cyborg limericks started appearing in Pravda!!!!!!

[Snowflake]

She just got her water and food supply at the farm at 54, 54!

[Vev]

I saw Santiago! She was in an Elvis jumpsuit with a false moustache.