Accessing ARCNET
Michael
Charley has a king's ransom of data from ARC! Time to analyze it and do research on it. We can involve Roger in this scene too if Bill is down
So Charley realizes there's a lot of data here to sift through. Two ways we can approach it. One, just do a straight set of Research rolls as you (and Roger?) sift through pages of printouts. I know neither of you have Research but you do have the Renshaw Method machine and the two of you could become expert researchers in four hours or less. Second would be for Charley to program some kind of algorithm to look for interesting patterns in the data — both text and software — and that would be a Computer Programming roll. Basically, you can do both, but each of them will take the better part of a day.
So you could do regular research today and a computer program tomorrow (Thursday), or vice versa depending on what you want to do. Or Charley could program and Roger could read. All your call, team.
Bill
Four hours in the “box” and then hours of putting data together: sounds like fun. (My librarian, my librarian, why hath thou forsaken me!)
Michael
I know, and with Jo and Archie in the field our other capital-R researchers are unavailable.
Bill
Suddenly Roger understands why Jo goes for surveillance duty so much. But yes, he’ll help out. Official request to wrench Research.
Michael
Okay, 4 points in Research will give you it at IQ+1. I want to wait to see whether Charley wants to wrench Research as well or just do the Computer Programming so I'll wait to see what Mel says. But I'll put Research on Roger's sheet right now.
Mel
Can Houdini be utilized in this project as well?
Michael
Houdini-ORACLE can predict the future from input data. I would say that depending on what the data reveals, yes, it is possible that ORACLE could, say, project a most likely result from the ARC project. But that does require the data to be sorted and analyzed first.
Mel
Charley will research with Roger 1st then work on the program.
Michael
Cool. So four hours in the Renshaw closet will give Charley a Research of 16. So you both can roll your respective Research skills: Charley with Research-16, Roger with Research-13.
I will put it on Charley's sheet as well.
Mel
>>>> SUCCESS by 7
Research success by 7
Bill
>>>> FAILURE by 1
Roger really isn’t into this.
Michael
Hah, oh no! Well, at the very least both of you are gonna be backup Researchers until you re-spec your wrenching.
A success by 7 will give Charley plenty even if Roger was more hindrance than help.
So there are two elements to the ARC project that Charley can see clearly from the data and the records and the software. First, the actual software development. The mission statements, the meeting notes, and all the accompanying documentation reveal a "model office" that Engelbart and the rest of the ARC team are putting together. Every office worker has a terminal, and that terminal has the capability to do lots — ledgers, document creation and editing, collaborative project planning — it takes the paper flow out of the office and replaces it with digital bits. Estimates on productivity increases for the typical mid-sized office are promising! And with the connection to ARPANET, these computer programmers can effortlessly enlist other programmers over electronic mail to consult on their work. No more secretaries! As an office automation project, ARC is, so far, a rampant success.
But there's a flipside to that. You're always connected to everyone else in the ARC and a step or three away from anyone on ARPANET. And in the internal reports, early signs in '72 showed that this constant connection was wearing psychologically on the ARC team. Electronic mails would pile up like memos in an inbox, waiting to be addressed. Passive-aggressive jabs on the community bulletin boards. SRI staff psychologists said last year that this was not sustainable. The younger workers were finding their work discounted, their warnings about the automation adding to people's emotional burden unheeded, and eventually there emerged a schism just like the one happening out there in the world: the older engineers vs. the younger implementers. So earlier this year Engelbart and the management decided to do something to help with project cohesion. They "invited" the entire ARC team to participate in an Erhard Seminar Training weekend in the City under the tutelage of Werner Erhard.
The electronic mails that began circulating after that first weekend were … vitriolic. Everyone had been forced to get into huge collective criticism circles, the older ARC team members savaged the younger members, deeming them lazy, unsophisticated, pie-in-the-sky dreamers, the younger team members got in their elders' faces about Vietnam, about a computerized future where no one was free. Each side felt not just more sure of their side of the "argument" after the weekend, but because of the nature of the est training, they felt more free to express those feelings, and it turns out it all happened on the ARC system. Anonymous posts on the bulletin board. Secret mailing lists. Digital snooping and sabotage. And then, the first of the staff losses among the younger members of the team. The two sides have calcified by July of '73, with a few trusted emissaries ferrying messages from management to programming. A shitshow. The ARC system itself still is proving itself great at automating the office and making ARPANET access easier. But everyone is fucking miserable and hates each other.
Also, a good chunk of both sides of the ARC project still are attending est forums of their own free will, months later.
Mel
Noticing Roger nodding off. Charley says, “Roger, I’m not finding anything nefarious here, just misery. If you want to go.” She smiles knowingly.
(I’d like to have Charley send out feelers to APRANET for any mysterious encounters with LO.)
Michael
I love it. Will get you some rolls later today.
Yeah, we'll do Savoir-Faire (ARPANET) at 14 (defaulting from your Computer Operation minus 3) for this information gathering roll.
(Obviously also if Roger wants to reply to Charley he should feel free.)
Mel
Charley reaches out to the NET. “Ghost hunting! Has anyone been visited by the mysterious LO? The light in the dark?”
>>>> SUCCESS by 6
(Made it by 6)
Bill
Roger would start to deny it and volunteer for more, but but he’ll catch himself and say “Hey, yeah, I’m sorry I’m not so good with these paper trails. But call me if you get tired yourself; I’m at least good for some company.”
Then he’ll slink out and find himself something to do.
Michael
Hey, you've got this new ability to Research all of a sudden … is there something in the files Roger's always wanted a peek at? He's the only one there, after all.
Or in the library! I'm not necessarily encouraging peeking at something in a file cabinet.
Bill
You are the devil. Wow, yeah, Sophie would have always been there … Shit, Roger’s suddenly confronted with the opportunity to figure out the truth behind a lot of conspiracies keeping the folks down.
Michael
Devil, opening locks, it's all thematically apposite.
Bill
Well, he’s also a team player. He’ll mull it over.
OK, this is more a statement of what my character would do more than a call for a GM to answer back with an info dump. "He finds little" is as satisfying an answer to me as any hugely researched thing, because the satisfaction was in discovering what Roger would do, not what he'd get.
After thinking about conspiracies for a bit, ramifications for getting caught, or finding out mind-blowing shit on top of the mind-blowing shit he already knows, Roger backs off from some of his wilder ideas. No, what he'd like to know about is his own business: what's going on with spiritual possession? What do the brass think about it where they've even noticed it? Hell, is there a lot of it going on in SF? Could a person with a different opinion about what spirits are, that they have motivations, look at the data differently and see something the brass missed?
I don't think he'll get far in the few hours, but as a first real research project, it feels like what he'd do the first time he "went into the stacks" for himself.
Totally not helpful to the SRI investigation, but he can make up for it later with a shift on surveillance duty.
I could also see him just getting sucked into the rabbit hole of a particularly legendary field report for hours and totally forgetting the main objective. Sophie probably suddenly feels the need to sigh wherever she is. Amateurs messing in her system …
Michael
Okay, so Charley sends out some messages to the ARPANET folks, asking have they heard from this mysterious LO, and Charley's bulletin board post gets nearly a dozen responses in the first couple of hours. And the upshot is, no one has heard of LO specifically, but almost everyone on-line has an opinion about the rapidly-growing on-line legend of a rogue chat program, like the classic MIT program ELIZA, that wanders the Network, slowly building up its repertoire of conversations and growing more and more self-aware. Of course most of the people are naysayers, saying that no program could do those sorts of things and exist on the Net of its own accord but many of the Weirder, more chaotic elements on-line like the Midnight Irregulars love spreading this set of rumors. Some of them wonder if Charley encountered someone using this urban legend to get people to talk to them.
After thinking about conspiracies for a bit, ramifications for getting caught, or finding out mind-blowing shit on top of the mind-blowing shit he already knows, Roger backs off from some of his wilder ideas. No, what he'd like to know about is his own business: what's going on with spiritual possession? What do the brass think about it where they've even noticed it? Hell, is there a lot of it going on in SF? Could a person with a different opinion about what spirits are, that they have motivations, look at the data differently and see something the brass missed?
Michael
This will be a Research-14 roll, giving you a +1 for familiarity with the URIEL library.
Bill
>>>> SUCCESS by 6
Made it by 6.
Michael
I'm going to abstract this out a little bit because it's an afternoon's worth of work in both the reference materials and SANDMAN-created files and microfilms, but Roger can see that the spiritual possession/shamanism section of the URIEL library is oddly well-thumbed. Sophie was pretty obsessive about the state of the library, making sure books were well-respected and not scribbled in/dog-eared, but Roger can see clearly that these books have been referenced a lot. They're not shelved in strict catalogue order, and every now and again as he goes through these books — again, mostly white Western dude anthropologists and psychologists studying the social and individual mechanisms of contact with spirits — Roger will find a tiny scrap of paper acting as a bookmark or even light pencil underlining. Apparently Sophie — or someone else — has been using these books intensely.
When he gets to the library's copy of Eliade's Shamanism, Roger is almost unsurprised to find a half-sheet of torn paper folded into the book's front matter. He unfolds it and sees a series of what he knows from past work with Archie are esmological calculations. They're esoterically and cryptically annotated (in Sophie's handwriting, of course) in the mathematical/game theory-esque jargon of esmology, and do occasionally feature some easily-understandable notes like, "GRANITE PEAK INTEREST" and "BRAIN HACKING" but the important thing is the name circled at the bottom of the sheet: AMBROSE O'CONNOR. As far as the SANDMAN-penned research papers and studies into possession go, the first thing they're all careful to say is that not all cases of possession are ekimmû; ekimmû themselves are quite rare in History A and usually are used by the Red Kings in situations where no bodied Irruptor is likely or able to irrupt. The SANDMAN braintrust seems to think spirit possession is a form of applied memetics — cultures with thousands of years of (admittedly made-up) history have certain myths and legends worn like grooves into their very societies, and every now and again into the tribe is born someone who can spontaneously manifest these collective thoughtforms. Shamans, mediums, channelers, sensitives. And given the mucking about the Anunnaki did with our brains, in some cases these powerful memes can activate parts of the brain that trigger latent psychic ability.
SANDMAN calls these "personae subroutines" because the collective myths act like a computer program: "IF Loki is confronted with an opportunity to make mischief, THEN he will do x y or z." Funnily enough this is also how the ekimmû are supposed to work; a memeplex that continues a series of commands to the possessed victim depending on input. Computer science has been very good for SANDMAN theorists seeking to understand much of how the Anunnaki's brains work.
Bill
Roger actively snorts at this. “Just because the stories are the same, don’t mean you know what a spirit’s gonna do. Hmph, unless people spirits are smarter than Annunaki ones. So what if they use my mouth to speak, my arms to gesture, maybe even my mind to remember. They’re still alive, and the smarts don’t come from me.” Roger will take the Eliade calculations still in the book out of the library with him, to show Archie at some point when we get a chance.