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Fleet Commander Log 00002
=========================
=> dodecapolis.png SRU Dodecapolis Banner
Fleet Commander Amanda Rivers
SRU Dodecapolis
Amanda Rivers
SRU Dodecapolis, Commander
Rising Dawn, Squad Leader
USS Timberwolf, Captain
---
Preperations are nearly complete. We are scheduled to depart JOVE-1 next
tenday.
Preperations are complete.
The final fleet manifest for SRU Dodecapolis:
We are scheduled to depart JOVE-1 at the start of next tenday.
Each individual starship has been outfitted with cryotech, and has had its
navigation and propulsion modules upgraded with the parts needed to get to the
Far Reaches.
The new cryotech will enable the crew to be suspended for 4_096 jovannos. The
vastly extended period of suspension, combined with the new FTL module, should
put us just inside the Far Reaches by the time AI starts to download us.
---
The final fleet manifest of SRU Dodecapolis did indeed turn out much as I had
initially planned on, save for one exception: Captain Avery of the USS Kraken,
my first pick to lead the Twilight Dusk Squadron, turned out to be far
outclassed during evaluations by Singh of the USS Jerakeen. A surprise to be
sure.
Singh is still early on his career, and displays much of the bravado and
idealism of the inexperienced. Still, his composure and effectiveness during
the Edsmith Protocol surpassed some captains with twice again his years of
experience. Including, significantly, Avery, who became ineffective and
inactive when faced with the simulated crisis.
While Avery is by far the more experienced and more skilled of the two, Singh
has proven himself the better leader. Singh and the Jerakeen will take command
of Twilight Dusk, and will benefit from having Avery at his right hand.
---
Speaking of ones right hand, I have furthermore decided to place Gustav Wash of
the Nicodemus at my right hand and shall expect him to manage most of the day
to day operations of Rising Dawn Squadron while I focus my attention and
resources on the needs of the fleet. I have the utmost confidence in Wash. He
will likely lead his own fleet some day--ah, but I forget myself: none of us
shall have another assignment after this one. The establishment of Dodecapolis
is both our mission and our fate. There will be no coming back from this one.
SRU Dodecapolis Fleet Manifest
------------------------------
1. **Rising Dawn Squadron**
- [Squad Lead] USS Timberwolf | Captain Amanda Rivers
- USS Nicodemus | Captain Gustav Wash
- USS Sköldpadda | Captain Ainslee Martin
- [!] USS Timberwolf | Captain Amanda Rivers
- USS Nicodemus | Captain Gustav Wash
- USS Sköldpadda | Captain Ainslee Martin
2. **Daylight Squadron**
- [Squad Lead] USS Kuniklo | Captain Hazel Adams
- USS Harpy | Captain Samantha Drake
- USS Beagle | Captain Charles Teach
- [!] USS Kuniklo | Captain Hazel Adams
- USS Harpy | Captain Samantha Drake
- USS Beagle | Captain Charles Teach
3. **Twilight Dusk Squadron**
- [Squad Lead] USS Jerakeen | Captain Ganesh Singh
- USS Kraken | Captain Enzo Avery
- USS Shardik | Captain Detroit London
- [!] USS Jerakeen | Captain Ganesh Singh
- USS Kraken | Captain Enzo Avery
- USS Shardik | Captain Detroit London
4. **Midnight Sun Squadron**
- [Squad Lead] USS Flying Fox | Captain Katarina Russo
- USS Aslan | Captain Loren Canon
- USS Rocinante | Captain Cole Gruber
- [!] USS Flying Fox | Captain Katarina Russo
- USS Aslan | Captain Loren Canon
- USS Rocinante | Captain Cole Gruber
[!] - Squadron Leader
EOF

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USS Kraken, Captain's Log 00001
===============================
Captain Enzo Avery
USS Kraken
The dodecads received their final assignments today.
A bit of a surprise if I'm being honest: the Kraken is to join Twilight Dusk
under Ganesh Singh of the Jerakeen.
I must say I don't care much for Fleet Commander Rivers's brand of leadership.
Her loyalties are unpredictable. She shows no sense of allegiance, nor does she
hold to our customs and traditions.
For many of the same reasons, nor am I especially crazy about her right hand
man, Wash.
Nevertheless, I'm not above saying that Singh was most impressive during the
evaluations, especially considering his relative inexperience.
And so I readily accept my role and will ensure that Kraken and Shardik serve
Jerakeen well, and that if SRU Dodecapolis fails because of Rivers's chaotic
whims, it will not be because of Twilight Dusk.
Furthermore, experience has shown me time and again that I need not necessarily
be in the seat of power in order to exert my will. With me at his side, I'm
sure that Singh will be an exemplary squad leader, and that Twilight Dusk will
be the pride of Dodecapolis.
EOF

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Year 3782, QEC adjusted
[Autotranslator enabled...]
[Voice recording initialize...ON]
[Crew autodetection...ON]
[Narrative mode...ON]
[Autodisconnect after 5 minute silence...ON]
[Retroactive transmission of work-log enabled...]
Maureen Hendrix, Staff Sergeant

59
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Left only with my new, unusual gifts I decided to read through in full the notes
that were jotted upon the first and only inscribed page within the book. It
began explained the location of the craft I would using, where in the craft the
smuggled contents are, the coordinates
smuggled contents are, the coordinates of the rendezvous, who I would be meeting
there, and how much I will be selling it all for. It went on to entail that I
would be keeping the proceeds from the exchange and upon completion would be
assigned my next task. While I found all of this to be quite generous, I was far
more concerned with the everything else that followed from The Elder's notes.
According to what was written here, that bizarre remote I was given is
apparently a device that can manipulate the fabric of space and time in a very
specific way. The device has a screen in the middle, a dial beneath it, and a
button on either side. If I press the left button it will set a "checkpoint" of
sorts that gets stored to the memory of the device and I can search through
those checkpoints using the dial to cycle through them on the display as a
counter that goes up and down (coorsponding to the checkpoints in order of
creation). That is all fine, but what is baffling is the alleged function of the
right button. That, when pressed, it will send the user of the device back to
the exact position in time that the selected "checkpoint" was created. After
reading that section over a few times to make sure I was understanding it
correctly I decided I needed to prove that this device worked.
I started with a few simple experiments. First, I checked the time and set a
checkpoint followed by walking a few steps away and waiting. After a few minutes
passed I set the dial to my checkpoint and pressed the button that should
trigger the jump in space-time. Sure enough, I was standing in the same spot but
the time read the same time as when I set the checkpoint. Amazing! The potential
that this holds is beyond comprehension but I am going to try and do so anyways!
Which is what led to my second test, to determine once and for all how time
worked in our universe. This test is simple: I will create a checkpoint and then
after a few moments I will take a few steps back followed by flipping the coin I
was given. If it lands on heads, I go back and punch myself in the right eye;
and if it lands on tails, I go back and punch myself in the left eye. A bit
violent, but it is all in the name of science and gets the job done. With the
checkpoint set, I flipped the coin.
What followed next left me a bit confused. Instead of being punched in the face
by a future version of myself, I was approached by two versions of myself that
both punched me (one to my right eye and the other to my left eye). After given
it some thought, here is what I think happened: the unvierse we exist in obeys
the multiverse theory so after the coin was flipped there were two universes
created where one has the coin landing on heads and the other the coin lands on
tails. Since both occurred, the respective future versions both went back in
time and punched the eye they were supposed to punch. However, that now leaves
us in the awkward situation where there is now three of me. It looks like the
universe has no problems with us all being here, so I guess all those who
believed this would "violate the laws of space-time" were wrong since the
universe did not explode when they punched me in the face, but my eyes sure do
feel that way now. After the awkward moment passed the one who punched me in the
right eye suggested we read the rest of the book. It explained how part of my
employment will require detailed documentation of the series of the events that
unfold as a means to audit my work to trigger receiving my next assignment. I am
to do this using communications over QEC, but due to the nature of the work I am
to not use my real name nor the name of my craft. I am also meant to do so for
today, hence the reason I am right this message. For "The Elder" to identify my
messages I am to refer to myself as "The DeLorian" and for my craft I can call
it whatever I want here as long as it does not give away anything. Since I
cannot think of anything good right now I'll just pick a placeholder name and
come back to it later. So for now, I emback on my voyage into the unknown as a
smuggler to enact revenge against the empire that has forsaken me aboard my ship
Boaty McBoatface.

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* The DeLorian *
-----------------------------------
Captain's Log: Stardate 0000 0002
Clone Code: 0
-----------------------------------
Once Me, Myself, and I embarked out to our journey we ran into an issue very
quickly. With there being three of us who were (as far as I can tell) all the
same person, we ran into the communication issue of what to call each other.
After some discussion, we came to the agreement that I would be "Captain", the
version of me that was created from the universe where the coin landed on heads
would be "Heads", and of course for the same reason the other would be "Tails".
After that was agreed we decided to take inventory of what we have to work with
within Boaty McBoatface while we wait for the autopilot to take us to the
rendevous point with the client. Heads and Tails went to search opposite ends of
the ship, but I decided I might try to make use of my new time device (which
according to The Elder is called the "Deus Ex Machina") to save myself some time
(ha, get it?) by trying to find some more exploits like the coin trick that
created Heads and Tails. I set a checkpoint and decided that I would go search
the ship, and after doing so I would return to that checkpoint and give myself
the report so that I don't need to do all of the work! With the checkpoint set
I immediately received a tap on the shoulder to find a slightly exhaused version
of myself standing behind me. They informed me they were going to go take a nap
since they have completed taking inventory and left towards what I can only
assume the location of the sleeping quarters were at. A bit miffed that my plan
backfired I asked them why they would not simply tell me what they found so I
could skip the boring chore. They informed me that when they were me they were
not told anything either and their future version simply left to go take a nap
as well, so if they did not get to skip doing the work than neither do I. With
that, they completed their journey out of the room and left me alone again. The
nerve, I cannot believe I would be such a jerk to myself! ...Well, on second
thought, this is not too shocking. My first experience meeting my time clone was
being punched in the face by them. At least when I am done with this I can a nap
and get back at myself by making the previous version of myself do all this work
too. That will surely teach myself a lesson from being so stubborn.
After going back in time to enjoy my nap I decided to go look for Heads and
Tails since they should be finishing up with their search of the ship by then.
Finding Heads was easy enough since they were on their way back, so we decided
to head out together to find Tails. We each took notes in our respective copies
of the book we received from The Elder, so I just copied down Heads's notes into
mine and then swapped so they could do the same. By the time that was done we
found Tails, but also a lot more. Apparently I was not the only one who decided
to try more time shenanigans since we stumbled upon a large crowd of time clones
all arguing with each other. After it was clear from watching the chaos unfold
for a few moments, I decided that since I am the captain of Boaty McBoatface it
was my job to try and get to the bottom of what happened here and try to restore
order. With a sustained, high-pitched whistle I drew the attention of the Tails
clones and requested for the audience of the original Tails. This seemed to
trigger the same arguing from before so I let forth the same whistle again and
this time just grabbed the closest one and asked them to explain what is going
on here. Apparently Tails discovered that we have a weapons system aboard the
ship, but not enough crew to make effective usage of it. So, the logical
conclusion was to create perform the same experiment that created the initial
clones a few times. However, since I forgot how quickly exponential growth can
get out of hand, this very quickly created way too many time clones. It was
suggested that we can fix the problem by ejecting the extras into space, but
that meant that there needed to be some sort of system to determine who would be
getting ejected. Since no one wanted to volunteer another suggested that they
could flip coins to decide, but the others disagreed since that is what
originally got them into this mess. The last suggestion of removing the clones
in order who who was created last and working backwards is what triggered the
fighting since the newer clones found this unfair since this system was not
agreed upon before their creation, as well as the older clones had no way to
determine who was the newest clones and none of them wanted to identify
themselves.
It is moments like this that are quite humbling as you realize just how much of
a moron you can be. Fortunately, from what Heads found during their search of
Boaty McBoatface we had a better compromise for the Tails army. Aboard the ship
are some cryostatis pods, so instead of needing to evacuate the excess clones we
can just have them sleep in there until they are needed or we are in a better
situation for having that many clones of myself around. After some murmuring it
looked like the clones were find with agreeing to this plan. Before Heads guided
the excess clones to cryostatis chamber I called forth for a meeting since we
really needed to sort out this time cloning business to make sure something like
this does not happen again. This meeting went on far longer than I would have
expected since we are all the same person, but the previous threat of death via
ejection into space and not being a good team player with other versions of
myself was enough to already begin splintering off differences in the
personalities of the clones (definitely something to think about later and
probably keep me up at night). Eventually we all agreed to the seniority system
where older clones will get to make the final decision on any disagreements
along with creating an identification system using our books. The identification
system works as follows:
Since I am the original DeLorian, on the last page of my book I will right a
zero. For each clone that follows, if they were created with a heads flip they
will append another zero to their sequence and if they were created by a one
they would instead append a one. Since we did not do this originally, each clone
had to manually catch up by writing in their sequence from their respective
memory. However, for all future versions they need only append to the end of
their sequence since their book should be a copy of the version that created
them. Then, to handle if additional sets of clones are created (e.g. if I
decided to make additional clones from myself) we simply use the next pair of
digits (e.g. in the previous example this would be 2 and 3 instead of 0 and 1).
We were all fine with this until one of the Tails clones, who identified
themself as "01019", asked about what we plan to do if one of us makes a 6th set
of clones (the set after 8 and 9 are used). This had us stumped for a bit and we
almost decided on a rule to never make a sixth pair of clones to avoid this
(which left a few clones with a nervous look in their eye), until another Tails
clone brought up something The Elder wrote in their original notes. Across the
bottom of the page the following was written:
01234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ-_
At first I (or should I now say we?) throught this was just some weird way of
testing out their penmanship on the page, but upon further inspection it looks
like this would be the perfect solution for continuing on our clone code
sequence past six sets. Now, we could make a full 32 sets of clones until we ran
into a "roadblock" again. Since we all felt far more comfortable with the idea
of having 32 as the hard cap on clones, we agreed to using this system moving
forward and finalized our agreement by all writing down these rules into the
last page of our books as our formal way of acknowledging our consensus. With
that out of the way the extra clones were filed to the cryostatis chamber and
order seemed to be restored at last. I met up with Tails (now also known as
"01") to get their notes for the inventory of the ship to add to my notes. Once
that was done Heads (now also knowns as "00") returned back from escorting the
clones to complete their set of notes as well. It was after doing so and
reviewing everything together that we came to a concerning revelation: we did
not have enough food for all of the mouths we now had to feed. However, from my
own search of the ship I found a hangar filled with lesser crafts and came up
with a plan. I explained to Heads and Tails my plan of sending out some of the
remaining Tails clones in one of the vessels to acquire more supplies and meet
back with us at the rendevous point. They agreed with this plan so we tracked
down "0100", "0110", "0101", and "0111" to do handle this mission for us. The
four were not thrilled with the news, but they liked the idea better than us all
starving to death so early into our life among the stars. With that we sent them
off on "Mini Boaty McBoatface I" and the rest of the DeLorian time clone crew
continued its journey to meet with our first clients as smugglers against the
Federation.

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0Melchizedek - So I'm Crazy I Guess /Melchizedek/024.txt
0The DeLorian - Getting To Know The Crew /The DeLorian/0001.txt
0Dodecapolis - USS Kraken, Captain's Log 00001 /Dodecapolis/00003.txt
0Dodecapolis - Fleet Commander Log 00002 /Dodecapolis/00002.txt
0The DeLorian - Embarkment /The DeLorian/0000.txt
0Melchizedek - Jerome Pasani - Personal Letter 2 /Melchizedek/023.txt
0Melchizedek - Jerome Pasani - Personal Letter 1 /Melchizedek/022.txt
0Melchizedek - Rhetorical Ecclesiastic Report /Melchizedek/021.txt

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<title>Cosmic Voyage</title>
<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage</link>
<description>Messages from the human stellar diaspora</description>
<item>
<title>Melchizedek - So I'm Crazy I Guess</title>
<author>tomasino@cosmic.voyage (tomasino)</author>
<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/024.txt</link>
<guid>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/024.txt</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 01 Nov 2020 14:15:48 GMT</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[<pre>
Message Incoming...
Source Melchizedek.0294
β Hyi, 3rd Planet
Ascension 00h 25m 45.07037s
Declination –77° 15′ 15.2860″
Distance 24.37ly
Equinox J2000.0 SOL
Year 3782, QEC adjusted
[Autotranslator enabled...]
Stephanie Janssen, Specialist First-class
:::
Doctor Nguyen (the medical one, not the biologist) thinks I'm
crazy. No, seriously. She actually said that in our session today.
So, either I'm certifiable or she's the worst psychologist on the
planet. Actually, it's probably both. She's only one of five
people on the planet after all, and the only psychologist, so that
makes her the worst one. Yes it also makes her the best, shut it.
According to the worst doctor on the planet it's not okay to break
things or throw things at doctors when you are angry. That's
apparently a problem, which I think is just ridiculous. I mean,
they have special hospitals and stuff back on Earth for people
like that and I bet those doctors get things thrown at their heads
all the time. And I'll bet they don't call their patients crazy
and run out of the room. I mean, seriously, it wasn't like it was
a knife or anything. A microscope can't hurt that bad. She's such
a drama queen.
So in good news I have this habitat to myself now. In the bad news
category I'm not allowed to leave it without an escort. I'm not
sure how that's fair to the escort, though. I mean, it's going to
be Eva cause they make her do everything where I'm concerned and
Eva didn't do anything wrong at all. She's perfect. And what sort
of punishment is that for throwing a microscope, anyway? "You,
stay in this tent and you're only allowed to spend time with this
hot science lady on this totally foreign world where there's like
nobody around. No duties, just private tent time." Okay, I think
I might like the sound of this, actually.
Jerome, though. First Dr. Idjani and now Jerome and that
cold-hearted bitch won't even go look for him. There's something
out there eating our crew and she just wants to mess around with
a machine that sprays man juice all over the ground. If you ask
me, she's the one that's sick in the head. That's like totally an
Oedipus complex, or Odysseus complex or one of those old Greek
dudes that was into spraying man juice all over. I dunno, I'm not
a historian. Yeah, we're here to bring life to the galaxy,
awesome. And what's the count on that so far? OH, NEGATIVE THREE!?
No, this is all wrong and I'm going to fix it somehow. I've got to
get off three and over to four, though. All the equipment is on
four, unless I'm going to laser-measure my way into saving Jerome
from an interstellar octopus or whatever is out there. Range-find
him right into oblivion, yeah. No, for real, we have actual stuff
on four that could help. Probes and whatnots. We don't actually
need to risk a ship! I told her this and still she pulls this
rank-and-file shit as if there's some echelon of command waiting
to check in on us. THEY ARE ALL DEAD! YOU ARE ALL DEAD! Or might
as well be. 1300 years? Yeah, is the Rhetorical Ecclesia even
around anymore? We haven't heard a peep out of Earth since we woke
up. Plenty of sad sappy screaming from all the other ships out
there, though. This universe hates us and wants to kill us all and
I am the only one who wants to god-damn fight back!
Eva. She's with me. Or, well, she's like physically with me. She's
sleeping on the cot right now and I snagged her tablet to write
this. I'm encrypting this shit too, so it doesn't echo back to the
rest of the team. One-way QEC messages, bitches. Didn't know you
could do that, did ya, Prezzi? Yeah, the fascists forgot I'm
actually on this mission cause I know shit. At least when I'm not
drunk. And I'm sober as anything right now.
Oh my god, Sandy. Holy shit, I'm a horrible person. Jerome is like
my ship dad or something, so I talked about him and I totally
skipped over Sandy. She's a gem. I met her before she started
transitioning and it has been the best decision ever. She's
a god-damned inspiration. Live your truth, be who you are meant to
be. She deserves better than this, not just from me. I'm not going
to let her down, or Jerome. They're out there, I know it.
"Oh Stephanie, that's nonsense. You read the transcript, something
happened to them. They were hallucinating. Bullshit bullshit
bullshit." No. I've heard it all. Prezzi's logic is Right and Just
and Holy and it's utterly wrong. I HEARD the recording when I read
it. I can feel it and hear it in my head. I know the sound those
alarms make. I know the voice of the computer speaking and there's
no way to confuse that with Dr. Idjani. There's no way the captain
would confuse it. And even if he did, even if both of them heard
some crazy stuff or their nitrogen mix was wrong, the transcript
finished. It came through!
"Autodisconnect after 5 minute silence". That's what it says.
That's what it did. Something happened and they stopped talking
for five full minutes and THEN the ship relayed the message. That
shuttle is out there and they need us. They need help, and I'll be
damned if I'm going to leave them to the black.
Eva will help. She knows what's at stake. I trust her, but I need
more. If I do this, whatever this is, I'm not jumping in without
a plan. The Vos 144A has 6 shuttles and they can peer-dock without
an umbilical, but only if someone is awake on both sides to link
the seals. That's a problem. Also it sounds like Jerome was doing
his funny math to backtrack to the spot we lost the doctor. I'm
a fair whiz at maths but those sort of transverse orbitals
accounting for stellar drift will need a proper navigator. Lucky
me I've got best navigator for 20 light years drooling on my
pillow. So gross. So cute. What else? Oh, right, I'm on the wrong
planet.
That's not so bad, as far as plans go. Get Eva, get others, get
a ship, get to four, get more stuff, find Jerome and Sandy, bring
our people home, punch Prezzi in her dumb face, make out with Eva.
This is doable. I can do this. We can do this. Please let me be
able to do this.
.
</pre>]]></description>
</item>
<item>
<title>The DeLorian - Getting To Know The Crew</title>
<author>aewens@cosmic.voyage (aewens)</author>
<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/The DeLorian/0001.txt</link>
<guid>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/The DeLorian/0001.txt</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2020 18:39:11 GMT</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[<pre>
* The DeLorian *
-----------------------------------
Captain's Log: Stardate 0000 0002
Clone Code: 0
-----------------------------------
Once Me, Myself, and I embarked out to our journey we ran into an issue very
quickly. With there being three of us who were (as far as I can tell) all the
same person, we ran into the communication issue of what to call each other.
After some discussion, we came to the agreement that I would be "Captain", the
version of me that was created from the universe where the coin landed on heads
would be "Heads", and of course for the same reason the other would be "Tails".
After that was agreed we decided to take inventory of what we have to work with
within Boaty McBoatface while we wait for the autopilot to take us to the
rendevous point with the client. Heads and Tails went to search opposite ends of
the ship, but I decided I might try to make use of my new time device (which
according to The Elder is called the "Deus Ex Machina") to save myself some time
(ha, get it?) by trying to find some more exploits like the coin trick that
created Heads and Tails. I set a checkpoint and decided that I would go search
the ship, and after doing so I would return to that checkpoint and give myself
the report so that I don't need to do all of the work! With the checkpoint set
I immediately received a tap on the shoulder to find a slightly exhaused version
of myself standing behind me. They informed me they were going to go take a nap
since they have completed taking inventory and left towards what I can only
assume the location of the sleeping quarters were at. A bit miffed that my plan
backfired I asked them why they would not simply tell me what they found so I
could skip the boring chore. They informed me that when they were me they were
not told anything either and their future version simply left to go take a nap
as well, so if they did not get to skip doing the work than neither do I. With
that, they completed their journey out of the room and left me alone again. The
nerve, I cannot believe I would be such a jerk to myself! ...Well, on second
thought, this is not too shocking. My first experience meeting my time clone was
being punched in the face by them. At least when I am done with this I can a nap
and get back at myself by making the previous version of myself do all this work
too. That will surely teach myself a lesson from being so stubborn.
After going back in time to enjoy my nap I decided to go look for Heads and
Tails since they should be finishing up with their search of the ship by then.
Finding Heads was easy enough since they were on their way back, so we decided
to head out together to find Tails. We each took notes in our respective copies
of the book we received from The Elder, so I just copied down Heads's notes into
mine and then swapped so they could do the same. By the time that was done we
found Tails, but also a lot more. Apparently I was not the only one who decided
to try more time shenanigans since we stumbled upon a large crowd of time clones
all arguing with each other. After it was clear from watching the chaos unfold
for a few moments, I decided that since I am the captain of Boaty McBoatface it
was my job to try and get to the bottom of what happened here and try to restore
order. With a sustained, high-pitched whistle I drew the attention of the Tails
clones and requested for the audience of the original Tails. This seemed to
trigger the same arguing from before so I let forth the same whistle again and
this time just grabbed the closest one and asked them to explain what is going
on here. Apparently Tails discovered that we have a weapons system aboard the
ship, but not enough crew to make effective usage of it. So, the logical
conclusion was to create perform the same experiment that created the initial
clones a few times. However, since I forgot how quickly exponential growth can
get out of hand, this very quickly created way too many time clones. It was
suggested that we can fix the problem by ejecting the extras into space, but
that meant that there needed to be some sort of system to determine who would be
getting ejected. Since no one wanted to volunteer another suggested that they
could flip coins to decide, but the others disagreed since that is what
originally got them into this mess. The last suggestion of removing the clones
in order who who was created last and working backwards is what triggered the
fighting since the newer clones found this unfair since this system was not
agreed upon before their creation, as well as the older clones had no way to
determine who was the newest clones and none of them wanted to identify
themselves.
It is moments like this that are quite humbling as you realize just how much of
a moron you can be. Fortunately, from what Heads found during their search of
Boaty McBoatface we had a better compromise for the Tails army. Aboard the ship
are some cryostatis pods, so instead of needing to evacuate the excess clones we
can just have them sleep in there until they are needed or we are in a better
situation for having that many clones of myself around. After some murmuring it
looked like the clones were find with agreeing to this plan. Before Heads guided
the excess clones to cryostatis chamber I called forth for a meeting since we
really needed to sort out this time cloning business to make sure something like
this does not happen again. This meeting went on far longer than I would have
expected since we are all the same person, but the previous threat of death via
ejection into space and not being a good team player with other versions of
myself was enough to already begin splintering off differences in the
personalities of the clones (definitely something to think about later and
probably keep me up at night). Eventually we all agreed to the seniority system
where older clones will get to make the final decision on any disagreements
along with creating an identification system using our books. The identification
system works as follows:
Since I am the original DeLorian, on the last page of my book I will right a
zero. For each clone that follows, if they were created with a heads flip they
will append another zero to their sequence and if they were created by a one
they would instead append a one. Since we did not do this originally, each clone
had to manually catch up by writing in their sequence from their respective
memory. However, for all future versions they need only append to the end of
their sequence since their book should be a copy of the version that created
them. Then, to handle if additional sets of clones are created (e.g. if I
decided to make additional clones from myself) we simply use the next pair of
digits (e.g. in the previous example this would be 2 and 3 instead of 0 and 1).
We were all fine with this until one of the Tails clones, who identified
themself as "01019", asked about what we plan to do if one of us makes a 6th set
of clones (the set after 8 and 9 are used). This had us stumped for a bit and we
almost decided on a rule to never make a sixth pair of clones to avoid this
(which left a few clones with a nervous look in their eye), until another Tails
clone brought up something The Elder wrote in their original notes. Across the
bottom of the page the following was written:
01234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ-_
At first I (or should I now say we?) throught this was just some weird way of
testing out their penmanship on the page, but upon further inspection it looks
like this would be the perfect solution for continuing on our clone code
sequence past six sets. Now, we could make a full 32 sets of clones until we ran
into a "roadblock" again. Since we all felt far more comfortable with the idea
of having 32 as the hard cap on clones, we agreed to using this system moving
forward and finalized our agreement by all writing down these rules into the
last page of our books as our formal way of acknowledging our consensus. With
that out of the way the extra clones were filed to the cryostatis chamber and
order seemed to be restored at last. I met up with Tails (now also known as
"01") to get their notes for the inventory of the ship to add to my notes. Once
that was done Heads (now also knowns as "00") returned back from escorting the
clones to complete their set of notes as well. It was after doing so and
reviewing everything together that we came to a concerning revelation: we did
not have enough food for all of the mouths we now had to feed. However, from my
own search of the ship I found a hangar filled with lesser crafts and came up
with a plan. I explained to Heads and Tails my plan of sending out some of the
remaining Tails clones in one of the vessels to acquire more supplies and meet
back with us at the rendevous point. They agreed with this plan so we tracked
down "0100", "0110", "0101", and "0111" to do handle this mission for us. The
four were not thrilled with the news, but they liked the idea better than us all
starving to death so early into our life among the stars. With that we sent them
off on "Mini Boaty McBoatface I" and the rest of the DeLorian time clone crew
continued its journey to meet with our first clients as smugglers against the
Federation.
</pre>]]></description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Dodecapolis - USS Kraken, Captain's Log 00001</title>
<author>dozens@cosmic.voyage (dozens)</author>
<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Dodecapolis/00003.txt</link>
<guid>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Dodecapolis/00003.txt</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2020 03:27:48 GMT</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[<pre>
USS Kraken, Captain's Log 00001
===============================
Captain Enzo Avery
USS Kraken
The dodecads received their final assignments today.
A bit of a surprise if I'm being honest: the Kraken is to join Twilight Dusk
under Ganesh Singh of the Jerakeen.
I must say I don't care much for Fleet Commander Rivers's brand of leadership.
Her loyalties are unpredictable. She shows no sense of allegiance, nor does she
hold to our customs and traditions.
For many of the same reasons, nor am I especially crazy about her right hand
man, Wash.
Nevertheless, I'm not above saying that Singh was most impressive during the
evaluations, especially considering his relative inexperience.
And so I readily accept my role and will ensure that Kraken and Shardik serve
Jerakeen well, and that if SRU Dodecapolis fails because of Rivers's chaotic
whims, it will not be because of Twilight Dusk.
Furthermore, experience has shown me time and again that I need not necessarily
be in the seat of power in order to exert my will. With me at his side, I'm
sure that Singh will be an exemplary squad leader, and that Twilight Dusk will
be the pride of Dodecapolis.
EOF
</pre>]]></description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Dodecapolis - Fleet Commander Log 00002</title>
<author>dozens@cosmic.voyage (dozens)</author>
<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Dodecapolis/00002.txt</link>
<guid>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Dodecapolis/00002.txt</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2020 03:29:45 GMT</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[<pre>
Fleet Commander Log 00002
=========================
Fleet Commander Amanda Rivers
SRU Dodecapolis
---
Preperations are complete.
We are scheduled to depart JOVE-1 at the start of next tenday.
Each individual starship has been outfitted with cryotech, and has had its
navigation and propulsion modules upgraded with the parts needed to get to the
Far Reaches.
The new cryotech will enable the crew to be suspended for 4_096 jovannos. The
vastly extended period of suspension, combined with the new FTL module, should
put us just inside the Far Reaches by the time AI starts to download us.
---
The final fleet manifest of SRU Dodecapolis did indeed turn out much as I had
initially planned on, save for one exception: Captain Avery of the USS Kraken,
my first pick to lead the Twilight Dusk Squadron, turned out to be far
outclassed during evaluations by Singh of the USS Jerakeen. A surprise to be
sure.
Singh is still early on his career, and displays much of the bravado and
idealism of the inexperienced. Still, his composure and effectiveness during
the Edsmith Protocol surpassed some captains with twice again his years of
experience. Including, significantly, Avery, who became ineffective and
inactive when faced with the simulated crisis.
While Avery is by far the more experienced and more skilled of the two, Singh
has proven himself the better leader. Singh and the Jerakeen will take command
of Twilight Dusk, and will benefit from having Avery at his right hand.
---
Speaking of ones right hand, I have furthermore decided to place Gustav Wash of
the Nicodemus at my right hand and shall expect him to manage most of the day
to day operations of Rising Dawn Squadron while I focus my attention and
resources on the needs of the fleet. I have the utmost confidence in Wash. He
will likely lead his own fleet some day--ah, but I forget myself: none of us
shall have another assignment after this one. The establishment of Dodecapolis
is both our mission and our fate. There will be no coming back from this one.
SRU Dodecapolis Fleet Manifest
------------------------------
1. **Rising Dawn Squadron**
- [!] USS Timberwolf | Captain Amanda Rivers
- USS Nicodemus | Captain Gustav Wash
- USS Sköldpadda | Captain Ainslee Martin
2. **Daylight Squadron**
- [!] USS Kuniklo | Captain Hazel Adams
- USS Harpy | Captain Samantha Drake
- USS Beagle | Captain Charles Teach
3. **Twilight Dusk Squadron**
- [!] USS Jerakeen | Captain Ganesh Singh
- USS Kraken | Captain Enzo Avery
- USS Shardik | Captain Detroit London
4. **Midnight Sun Squadron**
- [!] USS Flying Fox | Captain Katarina Russo
- USS Aslan | Captain Loren Canon
- USS Rocinante | Captain Cole Gruber
[!] - Squadron Leader
EOF
</pre>]]></description>
</item>
<item>
<title>The DeLorian - Embarkment</title>
<author>aewens@cosmic.voyage (aewens)</author>
<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/The DeLorian/0000.txt</link>
<guid>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/The DeLorian/0000.txt</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2020 01:35:29 GMT</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[<pre>
* The DeLorian *
-----------------------------------
Captain's Log: Stardate 0000 0001
-----------------------------------
I began this morning thinking that my life has reached a dead end. Ever since I
was a youngling I dreamed of journeying among the stars and yesterday I tried to
follow that dream. I went to enlist my services to the space force of the
Federation's, but I was informed that I did not meet their standards and my
offer was declined. I had no idea what I would be doing now since I was banking
my whole future on being able to live my life out in space. After my enlistment
was rejected my love for the Federation was replaced with resentment and anger.
How DARE they destroy my dreams, to so easily discard my services just because
my current phsyique is not "up to par" with their quality of "standards"! I know
my around a starship better than any of those morons, and if they just gave me a
chance I could have been an invaluable asset! I wish I could show them, all I
would need is a ship. I don't need a crew, I could handle it all myself... But
what good would that do? I am just one person, and they are an entire fleet. How
could I do anything to something so much larger than myself all on my own?
So you can imagine my shock when I was approached by a shrouded, mysterious
figure that would only disclose themself as "The Elder" showed up offering me a
means to do exactly that. Their offer was simple:
I will be given the task of smuggling weapons and intelligence documents
past the Federation and to deliver them to their enemies. In payment, I would be
given a space craft and a device that it promised to give me an edge over any
adversarial force I may encounter if used properly. While I did not plan for my
life as a space captain to be working as a smuggler, it is the only option I
have left. And if I am being honest, I would really enjoy right now to help make
the lives of the Federation more difficult after what they did to me.
After taking a moment to consider this stranger's offer I accepted it. They
bestowed upon me three items: a fairly banged up coin, a leather bound book, and
an odd looking remote. Upon handing me these items I was told that inside the
book will hold the answers to all of my questions. On first inspection the
leather cover appeared to be quite worn out from what I can only assume to be
from years of age, but the papers inside looked to be brand new. The fact that I
was being given a book at all was quite strange since they have not been used in
years now that everything is digitized these days. Affixed to the outside of the
cover is a simple pencil and eraser which I assume is meant for writing in it.
When opening the book I found that the pages were removable and bound only by an
elastic band inside the book, which would suggest that one could add more pages
later as well as remove sections as well later on. The pencil made more since
after skimming over the first page since everything was hand written, but that
was also the only page with anything on it. Every following page was left blank.
Confused by this I looked up from the book to ask how that single page could
somehow answer all my questions, but only to find that my cryptic employer had
vanished.
Left only with my new, unusual gifts I decided to read through in full the notes
that were jotted upon the first and only inscribed page within the book. It
began explained the location of the craft I would using, where in the craft the
smuggled contents are, the coordinates of the rendezvous, who I would be meeting
there, and how much I will be selling it all for. It went on to entail that I
would be keeping the proceeds from the exchange and upon completion would be
assigned my next task. While I found all of this to be quite generous, I was far
more concerned with the everything else that followed from The Elder's notes.
According to what was written here, that bizarre remote I was given is
apparently a device that can manipulate the fabric of space and time in a very
specific way. The device has a screen in the middle, a dial beneath it, and a
button on either side. If I press the left button it will set a "checkpoint" of
sorts that gets stored to the memory of the device and I can search through
those checkpoints using the dial to cycle through them on the display as a
counter that goes up and down (coorsponding to the checkpoints in order of
creation). That is all fine, but what is baffling is the alleged function of the
right button. That, when pressed, it will send the user of the device back to
the exact position in time that the selected "checkpoint" was created. After
reading that section over a few times to make sure I was understanding it
correctly I decided I needed to prove that this device worked.
I started with a few simple experiments. First, I checked the time and set a
checkpoint followed by walking a few steps away and waiting. After a few minutes
passed I set the dial to my checkpoint and pressed the button that should
trigger the jump in space-time. Sure enough, I was standing in the same spot but
the time read the same time as when I set the checkpoint. Amazing! The potential
that this holds is beyond comprehension but I am going to try and do so anyways!
Which is what led to my second test, to determine once and for all how time
worked in our universe. This test is simple: I will create a checkpoint and then
after a few moments I will take a few steps back followed by flipping the coin I
was given. If it lands on heads, I go back and punch myself in the right eye;
and if it lands on tails, I go back and punch myself in the left eye. A bit
violent, but it is all in the name of science and gets the job done. With the
checkpoint set, I flipped the coin.
What followed next left me a bit confused. Instead of being punched in the face
by a future version of myself, I was approached by two versions of myself that
both punched me (one to my right eye and the other to my left eye). After given
it some thought, here is what I think happened: the unvierse we exist in obeys
the multiverse theory so after the coin was flipped there were two universes
created where one has the coin landing on heads and the other the coin lands on
tails. Since both occurred, the respective future versions both went back in
time and punched the eye they were supposed to punch. However, that now leaves
us in the awkward situation where there is now three of me. It looks like the
universe has no problems with us all being here, so I guess all those who
believed this would "violate the laws of space-time" were wrong since the
universe did not explode when they punched me in the face, but my eyes sure do
feel that way now. After the awkward moment passed the one who punched me in the
right eye suggested we read the rest of the book. It explained how part of my
employment will require detailed documentation of the series of the events that
unfold as a means to audit my work to trigger receiving my next assignment. I am
to do this using communications over QEC, but due to the nature of the work I am
to not use my real name nor the name of my craft. I am also meant to do so for
today, hence the reason I am right this message. For "The Elder" to identify my
messages I am to refer to myself as "The DeLorian" and for my craft I can call
it whatever I want here as long as it does not give away anything. Since I
cannot think of anything good right now I'll just pick a placeholder name and
come back to it later. So for now, I emback on my voyage into the unknown as a
smuggler to enact revenge against the empire that has forsaken me aboard my ship
Boaty McBoatface.
</pre>]]></description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Melchizedek - Jerome Pasani - Personal Letter 2</title>
<author>tomasino@cosmic.voyage (tomasino)</author>