This station, for lack of a better term, is rather weird. It's just a big chunk of tungsten with carvings everywhere. There seem to be two different types of writing, one with every character in the sentence connected, designated A, for now, the other not, designated B for now. No electronics, or anything really, other than just an intricate solid piece of metal floating in the middle of nowhere.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Ion drive camera drones have gone over everything on the topological surface. The carvings seem to be more or less the same depth with some minor variation. Assuming for now the depth doesn't matter. Time for high-energy gamma-rays and sonar.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
The interior of the thing is pretty much entirely tunnels of type A writing, no type B. Maybe the interior is supposed to be communication only accessible to those able to look inside structures (so, like everyone?) with type B being a key for type A? Font size of characters for type A varies a bunch both between and within sentences.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Oh dear god why, both languages use a base 37 number system.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Everyone can conjure semi-gaseous blue stuff from their fingertips. Most of our instruments say the stuff doesn't exist. Construction of additions to station begun.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Blue stuff phenomenon everywhere. Happens very shortly after we discover this place. Low odds of coincidence. Operation under high level of secrecy going forward. Both languages use a sequential character system rather than something particularly wierd, but still, while the translation program AVIs are trying to work on a rudimentary translation without actual interaction there's gonna be little progress.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Entire facility shifted into and kept at warp 1.00001 for secrecy's sake.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
The blue stuff is officially called X for now. A cloud of X is short-lived, dissipates quickly. X can be pushed with whatever but behavior inconsistent. Pressure sensors pushed against a cloud of X register no force. Gravity sensors register nothing. Only instruments that register it as existing are electromagnetic radiation detectors, aka cameras.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Trying to compress a cloud of X just leads to it phasing through whatever is pushing against it.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
A cloud of X sitting in a container will just phase through the container.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
X can be conjured wherever in the body, or at least anywhere we can see with internal cameras.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Magnets can move X. That university managed to contain X in a tiny low-power particle accelerator. Results confirmed here.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Resource shipments here slow b/c secrecy why tho.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
We've started storing X in a series of X containment units, aka just a low power particle accelerator with a big interior cavity. You get sort of a headache when you run out of X, except a couple of centimeters to the left of your head. X fills back up fairly quickly.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
The volume of X summonable at once seems to be exercisable; small but measurable increase over time noted. Parallels have started being drawn between X and mana.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Gravity manipulators can't affect the stuff. We shot a stream of X from a containment unit into a black hole. The stream came out the other side, the only delta velocity being due to the magnetic fields involved.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Blackhole experiment repeated a few times, this stuff seems to just ignore gravity. How that works is anyone's guess.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
With type A writing each character always connects to the next, like cursive, or since it’s a carving, a channel not a line. There’s always a trailing channel connected to the first (or maybe last who knows) character. There’s almost always a channel connected to some of the other characters not connected to anything else. Every character besides the first with a second channel connected to it is the same but in different sizes. Calling such characters c-chars for now.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
David, the guy that's pretty much a ball of tentacles, got the idea to pump X through some of the writing, after all this station and X are most likely connected. Tungsten sheet put over carving being tested so the X actually goes through the channels instead of everywhere. We did this remotely, and with the containment unit several meters away from the actual channel, because duh. First couple of tries did nothing, or at least we observed nothing happening. Shoving a bunch of X into both of the trailing channels resulted in everything in a sphere of radius of 1.3554ish meters heating up and continuing to heat up more and more until we stopped sending in more X. Stopped it when the tungsten was at about 3200 degrees. Cooled down as normal. Good thing we still have the place as vacuum. Also, wat the fuck?
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Experiment repeated several times with the heat sentence, henceforth known as s[0]. Sphere has a radius of 1.3554087 meters and is centered on the geometric center of s[0]. s[0] has minimum cm^3 X /s input into both trailing channels before it does anything. Second t-chan controls rate of heating, first t-chan seems to act as power source. If input to first channel insufficient nothing happens. If more than required then the excess seems to just disappear. Unclear at this point whether or not conservation of mass is being violated, X could be coming from and disappearing to a limited pool, with X used up being turned into energy.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
s[0] copied onto a blank sheet of tungsten not attached to site Diner. Worked just the same. Copied onto plywood, worked just the same, though obviously, it caught fire rather quickly. Copied onto a variety of materials, acted the same every time, up until it melted or burned anyway. Small tolerance in deviation of shape of character before cessation of function. Anyway, the carving is the important part, not the material.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Carving depth doesn't seem to matter beyond adjusting the geometric center. Overall carving can be shaped, however, such as along a sculpture of a snake we had lying around for whatever reason, with no difference in effect other than adjusting center, so long as the characters and connections are the same.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Well, no, adjusting the depth means adjusting the maximum flow rate of X through the carving.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
No characters are shared between type A and type B writing. Pumping X into type B writing has done nothing for any of the type B writing. Assumed for now that type B writing is actually just writing, not whatever the hell type A is.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Replacing the character for one with the character for two doubled the radius. From this we can conclude 1.3554087 meters equivalent to 1 s[dist]. Input cost to first channel increased more than volume did, maybe b/c greater distance to affect a thing means more cost in addition to more cost from larger colume?
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Adjusting character sizes does nothing, assuming for now that differing sizes, especially into c-chars, is just for regulating maximum flow rate.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Removing certain parts of s[0], connecting the remaining characters, and then pumping X into it, is something you do not want to be next to. As best we can tell all the electrons in the sphere, including that of the steel the carving was in, were, briefly, shoved in random directions. Turns out yanking electrons from their orbitals like that is not particularly conducive to maintaining that state of matter.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
s[1] is the same as s[0] except the center of the sphere is offset by 2 s[dist], direction always the same relative to the orientation of s[1].
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
The input characters seem to be able to consume as much X as you can throw at them, barring restriction by physical size of opening.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
We've successfully made a "sentence" of our own, s[-1]. We already have s[1] for the second sentence we got to work that we found here, so why not label the ones we make as negative. s[-1] takes in four inputs plus the power one. Power + heating rate + x offset + y offset + z offset.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Another carving draws in everything in a 5 s[dist] sphere towards it. Another pushes stuff away from whichever direction we have be down with our gravity manipulators.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
These things have been informally renamed to spells, runes, and mana. Because, well.
Either these carvings and the pseudo-gas is magic, or this stuff is actually the underpinnings of gravity and the speed of lights and whatnot, or this is the result of tech we can't detect.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
I think this station, well "station," maybe sort of a museum of different spells. Except people started being able to summon mana when we arrived here, so it was also suppressing that somehow. Why?
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Putting a thin sheet of algae in the containment units results in more mana being added, ripped away from the algae. No difference between the algae in question and the control group as of yet.
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
I think we're starting to figure out what some of the characters mean. This whole thing is like a weird analog programming language. Points for the universe being a simulation?
!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?
Been a while since I last updated this log. Hah, "a while." I can't believe it's only been what like 5ish days? I think we've more or less translated s[-1] (funny how it worked out with sentence and spell both starting with s) into something actually readable.
//CHONKY section defining atoms and molecules to the spell, see file spellChemDefs for details.
mol = Molecule within input[1] of new Point(0, input[0], 0);
i = 0;
while(i parts = all within mol[i]; vel = new Vector(0,0,0); j = 0; while(j vel += parts[i].velocity; } vel /= parts.size(); j = 0; while(j applyForce(parts[i], vel * parts[i].mass * input[2]); } } More or less anyway. There are patterns to it. Of course, this could all be completely off. There was much moving of only up quarks or only down quarks or only electrons or etc before we figured this out. If we have figured it out. Also, magic just completely ignores the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? We're making progress in translating more and more stuff by trial and error. We took the translated to English version of s[-1], made changes, and turned that back into runes. Told a fabricator to make the spell in question out of layers of tiny steel plates. It worked. Labeled s[-1.1] //CHONKY section defining atoms and molecules to the spell, see file spellChemDefs for details. mol = Molecule within input[1] of new Point(0, input[0], 0); i = 0; while(i parts = all within mol[i]; vel = new Vector(0,0,0); j = 0; while(j vel += parts[i].velocity; } vel /= parts.size(); j = 0; while(j applyForce(parts[i], vel * parts[i].mass * input[2] * (input[3] ? -1 : 1)); } } Any input at all or the lack thereof can be used as a boolean. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Figuring out the section defining atoms and molecules is still going slowly. It's a lot more complex than the section actually doing things. Seems like the sort of thing that you just copy and paste between programs and hope to hell nothing goes wrong. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Took a while to get the hang of, but we can cast s[-1.1] by pushing mana into the main power input and variable input channels of the steel plate sandwiched between two without the carving. Quilbog (the most baseline human guy here) strapped it to his arm and burned a sentence into a big piece of paper across the room. Just, ya know, make sure you have it pointing in the right direction. You can actually impart quite a bit of very controlled force with personal mana pool. And of course, you can just tell the station's AVI (the stuff we've added on now out masses the original chunk of metal by several factors) to cast it where you want. Much bigger mana pool. Even if we never figure out anything further, how to move stuff around in a more controlled manner, there are bound to be a few industrial applications to being able to heat the inside of something in such a specific manner. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Every living carbon-based thing seems to have some bit of resistance to magic being cast on/inside them. Not that hard to overcome that resistance and boil the brain stem of a guinea pig though. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Figured out how to have the origin of spell at a point other than geometric center. Special character for it. If multiple of origin-char in spell then the origin is at the geometric center between them. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Got confirmation that none of the known non-carbon species can summon mana. Plus points to the theory of it having to do with some complex interaction between carbon atoms. Also, a couple of people specializing in genetic history were swearing about us accidentally fucking ourselves over? !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Work has been started on writing libraries for spells. Defining atoms and molecules is now just import Atom and import Molecule. The compiler adds the actual section to the beginning of the spell. We're more or less able to make spells in an IDE and have them turned into template files for a fabricator to use. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Somebody make a laser spell. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? So far our best guess on how this station was blocking mana from being summoned was that it was essentially just turning off that section of physics within a region. Best we can tell that region must have been covering about 1/5th the galaxy. We’re yet to find a mana source, maybe it was some sort of self-sustaining system we interrupted? !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Spells are getting complex enough that a person has no chance in hell of casting manually. A computer controlling a multitude of tiny inputs, a multitude of tiny electromagnets diverting specific amounts of mana to specific channels, however, works just fine. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Using a metric fucktonne of algae to fly around is pretty neat. !@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>?!@#$%^&*()_+|[];'<>? Template files store the material of each part via standardized material codes. Trying to store the exact position of every particle would just be stupid, but taking a known chemical formula for a specific material, or formulas and ratios thereof, and tiling that across the same space as where that material would be? I see no reason why you can't turn some random rock, or say a cube of some dense material specifically designated to be transmuted, into a bunch of hamburgers or PCBs. Assuming, that is, that we can figure out this ‘applied telekinesis’ as some have been calling it to the point of ripping apart molecules and atoms and remaking them into the ones we want.