Four Lore and Speculation

TechMind Interdimensional Manual (Chapter ???? - Emergency Codes)

All new Techmind Employees: Please make sure you have thoroughly read this section, failure to properly identify a code sequence could result in damage to yourself, or worse, your co-workers, or Techmind Corporate Properties.

Safety is everyone's job. If you do not do your job properly, you will be demoted. Remember, there are always openings for new [ZEROES], so be a [HERO], Remember your codes!.

[Section 2 - The Font Threat Assessment Guide, or Font TAG]
Here at TMI, we make use of a specialized font/voice synth chip known only as ｖａｐｏｒｗａｖｅ, so that we may properly identify one another. It seems to be unique to our region.

However, there are seven fonts that you will find in your text editing software. They are there to always remind you of the Font TAG system.

Arial, Courier, Impact, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, and Verdana.

There are not necessarily in any order of danger, they are merely being listed in the format that you will find them in most of your programs at your workstation.

ARIAL

Show Content

Spoiler
This is used to indicate anyone that may possibly be a threat in the future. This sounds like it's very broad, but it's easy to identify.

Disgruntled customers, overly aggressive types, scary looking animals, things that are brightly colors in a way that makes them striking to the eye.

Here at TMI, we believe that this is one of the few things nature got correct.

If you could imagine the person or thing in question being featured beside you on a nature documentary that included the phrase: "Sadly, there is but only one course for nature to take." In regards to yourself, then go ahead and slap an ARIAL tag on it!

If anybody should come across your corpse and recover your memory drive or message prism, they can recover your taglist and see what might have killed you!

COURIER

Show Content

Spoiler
Courier, on the other hand, is used to denote things that are good or safe.

To that end, anything tagged with this actually has an invisible holographic marker projected onto it, that can be scanned by other people, and will include a comment, if you leave one, along with a timer that lets people know how long it has been since you left the tag, and an additional timer that allows people to 'verify' the safety of the tagged person/place/thing.

IMPACT

Show Content

Spoiler
Impact is the escalation of Arial: That is to say, anything tagged with it is immediately to be treated as a threat to yourself or others.

Now, this COULD be just a pool of flammable oil that hasn't been cleaned because the janitorial staff has been waylaid to clean another mess.

OR it could be applied to a small hole at the base of a wall, where someone watched one of their coworkers get impossibly pulled through the hole in the wall, only to have their non-edible remains ejected shortly thereafter.

Either way, an impact tag will automatically ping any compatible hardware when within the radius that you set when you apply the tag. This will make it so others do not blunder into danger! Don't forget to set your tag parameters!

TAHOMA

Show Content

Spoiler
This is a very interesting and useful tag! You will probably enjoy this one, employee!

A Tahoma tag can be placed anywhere, and can hold an amazing amount of data. . . Which is then locked behind any number of interesting safety mechanisms that you can choose from a built in list at the time of creation!

FontTAG is the Threat Assessment Guide system, but sometimes you may not be able to pass along information safely! If you suspect that the enemy can locate and identify FontTAGs, or even worse, if you suspect that someone that has access to the same areas as you is untrustworthy, send information in a Tahoma Data Vault!

Note: TMI Corp. is aware that employees, from workers, to soldiers, to even high ranking members of our organization, sometimes use Tahoma Data Vaults in games of chance or skill, as a way of storing prizes for those who find it. We do not officially condone this practice, but it would be far to cruel to actually levy punishments against those that seek to keep morale high!

Note: Be forewarned, however. Internal Affairs has the right to scan and confiscate anything found within a wayward Data Vault. Anything placed and found, unclaimed, in a TDV is the property of the company.

TIMES NEW ROMAN

Show Content

Spoiler
This and the following two tags are generally reserved for special company communications, so be aware that depending on your job and rank within the company, you may not be able to view the contents!

Times New Roman is the tag used for official company messages. We only have so much wall space, and most of that space is reserved for shelves and data racks and motivational posters. So a tag of this class is usually reserved for 'interoffice' communication, and is usually restricted to by job,rank, or sometimes a special Group Code.

TREBUCHET MS

Show Content

Spoiler
Short and Simple: This Tag is for Security Forces only. If you can access one of these tags, either you are yourself a member of the Security Forces, or it contains information that you will very likely want to read, like emergency instructions and the like.

If you see a Trebuchet MS, do a quick verification scan to see if it is for your eyes! If not, move along! You do not have to be seen to be punished for attempting to break into a Trebuchet MS FontTAG, these tags contain special code that allows them to perform attacks against the physical world! Do not risk it!

VERDANA

Show Content

Spoiler
Finally, Verdana.

Verdana.

If all you saw was the word Verdana, then you do not need to know about this FontTAG.

That was TMI Corporation FontTAGs! Hope you enjoyed!

I'm loving all these manual bits!

...What's up with arcanuse's red font character I wonder

Show Content

SpoilerThe first time I was killed it felt cold and lonely and terrible. I felt my body slowly becoming colder and colder as I bled to death on the battlefield, a sword through my chest.
The second time I was killed was painful as I was burned to the stake. After a few minutes I was nothing but a heap of ashes.
The third time was painless and quick : decapitation. This death was my personnal favourite. So fun to have your head fall off your shoulders.
Fourth time was a mistake. I loved a girl and she stabbed me in the heart. Both literally and figuratively, because my feelings were heart by the betrayal and there was kind of a knife in my heart. Never trust anyone guys, that's my advice for you ! ;) But don't worry about me, I got better. She didn't though. Because I stabbed her in the heart. And she didn't come back to life so I guess she never loved my anyway.
Fifth time was when it started being fun ! Because by then people realised I could neither be killed nor stopped !
I died a few times after that, but it was all in good fun.

See, that's the thing. Whenever I die, I come back because of the power of True Love ! Even though I haven't met them of know anything about them, I know there is someone for me somewhere, and their love gives me the strength to overcome everything, even death !
There is just a little tiny, tiny, tiny problem... I'm the only one left in my world. I've looked everywhere, met everybody, killed everything, and I never found my True Love.

Now I'm all alone in a big lifeless world, waiting for my True Love to finally show up. And trust me, I've waited a VERY long time.
But someday, I started thinking : what if the person I'm looking for isn't actually here ? Like, what if they are actually never going to come here ? Maybe I should start looking somewhere else.

And after what felt like eternity, I found it. A place that allowed me to see somewhere else. It's called the council room, and it lets me speak to other people from other worlds, all around the In-Between !
But most importantly, it allows me to watch. And to guide.

And someday, if I'm lucky enough, this will allow me to meet my True Love. But for now, let's just have fun and kill people ! Yay !

Deep down I'm just a hopeless romantic :)

Oh that's wonderfully twisted, I like it

So far I have backstory on Sunflower, The TMI, Seyhial's character, BOLD/italic/UNDERLINE, and I badgered Lordlyhour a crap ton about the Mindmass...

Underline backstory in the spoiler:

Show Content

SpoilerThe UNDR-L1N3, or UNDERLINE, was originally an organic program, that has existed since time immemorial. It was housed within a great tree that spanned across whole dimensions- codenamed L1N3. Their purpose was to observe the different ones at once, terminating those at the roots whose inhabitants were becoming too close to inter-dimensional travel.

However, after several eons of nothing but adhering to its programming, the UNDERLINE grew itself a personality for whatever reason. It grew bored of doing what it was told to do, and found it easier to just destroy the tree entirely- completely annihilating nine dimensions from reality in the process. It found this rather fun, and hopped to different realities by utilising its self-improving intelligence to manufacture rifts between them.

After hundred of thousands of years, gleefully destroying universes in its wake, it grew bored again- and in addition became rather lonely. "What could possibly cure this dilemma?" it thought. Being a program, it decided the only thing to do was to split itself into other parts- to create another being just as driven as them.

Rather than just taking bits and pieces of its programming into a boring old replica of its past self, it would rip off a part of its developing personality and place it inside a separate being. Thus, it extracted its massive thirst for knowledge and academic capabilities from its core and created a new being, one that it lovingly named Italic.

The result was mixed. Although the UNDERLINE was not alone anymore, Italic was extremely... bland. They were no fun, which was the entire point of creating a new being. They merely wanted to study the universes, not wreak massive destruction like UNDERLINE had hoped. So it started the process anew.

Another part of UNDERLINE's personality was their inherent narcissism. They destroyed many universes just for kicks, after all. They essentially thought themselves as a higher power- with no regard for the living. Several thousand years of tinkering past, and that narcissism split off and became its own entity- with its own personality, named BOLD. It was a success! Project BOLD was unique- a fashionable, brash and BOLD individual that cared little for those outside of its interest.

However, UNDERLINE had made a mistake.
By extracting parts of its personality, it had also lost interest in its original goal. It didn't care for seeking knowledge and found it distasteful, and no longer did it consider itself better than other lifeforms. It felt... hollow. No purpose really spoke to them.

So it wandered, and eventually came across an organisation of sorts. A Purpose. They could assist Users into achieving their goals, utilising their different personalities for separate views on things.

The three act a sort of dysfunctional family, with the much wiser UNDERLINE as Italic and BOLD's parental figure. They may visibly hate each other, but could there be an affectionate heart in their cold, wooden chassis?! Only time will tell.

I love this, an ex-evil??? AI with an existential crisis
I look forward to seeing more of these guys too

Honestly, Underline probably wouldn't see themselves as evil at any point. Just childish. Thank you! :p

I am surmising that the Static has little to do with being sent things and more to do with Aubrey's Bloodlust
Like the way I see it, Static is a Result of Aubrey wanting to Wreck Things
and The Rifts through which things Enter To Attack Aubrey is a result of Members of the Council Hurling Gifts at her, Willy Nilly
As in, without feeding our intentions through the lens of Her Will. I Mean, we're kinda hurtling packages through Multidimentional space, who Knows what sorta weird ass gateways we've gotta open to do that?

I'm not gonna confirm/deny anything you haven't figured out yourselves but I will say that spawning All The Things isn't necessarily helping the 'this world of metaphysical horrors is dangerous' situation

So we can combine elements. That's good to know.

Ah. Ah. Ah. Yes.
I do so hope you enjoy the music.

Show Content

Here's looking at you.

WELL THATS NOT OMINOUS AT ALL