Topic: The Autistic Spectrum Conundrum Part 1: Catherine's Day Off.
Anonymous A started this discussion 7 years ago#79,457
Catherine awoke in a pile of burnt out modems and ancient routers. She was having sleep paralysis and could only focus on a faint outline that appeared to be her friend, the demon, or maybe the Lord Jesus Christ, her rapist and abuser. After a few more minutes in bed the visions faded away and Cathy turned her attention to the problematic networking devices surrounding her.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! I fucking hate Spectrum!" Catherine exclaimed.
She started to walk to her desk to grab her Nintendo Switch, hoping to play some Splatoon but the connection dropped when she was half-way to her desk and she de-rezzed from her bedroom.
---
"I'll never get used to that!" Cathy exclaimed, lifting the visor from her eyes.
The lights came up and as Catherine's eyes began to adjust, she saw that she was back on the ship.
A figure in the corner of the holo-sim console room spoke, while typing on an interface;
"don' worry, it's only a small hitch in the systems until we can lock down on the temporal wavelength cycles"
Catherine looked glum and let out a sigh. "I thought it would be okay this time... all I did was post to facebook last night"
The figure, hands still on the interface console replied curtly- "Maybe that *would* have been fine, but you went too many layers deep... we talked about this last time. It takes a lot to keep these systems running when you go wild like that.. I mean FUCK Cathy- Facebook INSIDE of Minecraft INSIDE the Holo- you've got to calm down and focus on the mission!"
"I forgot again.. I'm sorry- I'm sorry... the downclocking effects me more than you know when I'm in there."
Cathy started rapidly unplugging herself from the systems. The figure in the corner stopped her; "You've got to go back in..."
Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 7 years ago, 1 day later[^][v]#926,394
Part 2: Day-tripping on Big Campus
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Cathy's NavMesh routing systems were engaged and flowing her down into HoloSim space. She began to feel the familiar shock to her senses that told her she was about to begin rezzing in-system.
A room began to unfold out of thin-space around her. Chairs... Classmates... Tables... Papers... Books- She was at her old community college campus attending a Gay-Straight Alliance club meeting.
As her body clicked into temporal sync, she realized that she was in mid-sentence.
"-so that's why I think the club minutes should be written in pink glitter ink."
As Catherine gained full control of herself, she noticed the gazes of her fellow club members. "I-if that's okay with everyone else." she added.
A rotund latinx fellow chimed in "I love being in the club with all of you! I think Catherine should be the club preside-" The system ticked forward...
Catherine found herself rushing through her day on campus at a rate of 3 minutes per system tick.
'Strange, I thought they said this would overload the ship's cooling units' she found herself thinking to herself.
Cathy pressed on the Shipcall button in the upper-left corner of her vision HUD but there was no response... She flailed through her evening routine, occasionally reaching up to firmly press the Emergency Recall button in her HUD but there was no acknowledgement from the holo-sim opers... Was she stuck like this?
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END PART TWO
(Edited 41 seconds later.)
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 15 minutes later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#926,401
Whoa this is cool, please continue
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 23 hours later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#926,708
@previous (B)
i thought i was the only one reading but i'm waiting for part 3 dang it
Anonymous B replied with this 7 years ago, 30 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#926,721
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 7 years ago, 46 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#926,749
I picture Cath sitting in front of the modem pressing the reset button over and over again for 45 minutes before calling for Mommy while literally shaking and sperging out. Then posting about it on minichan, before going back to pressing the button.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 7 years ago, 33 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#926,770
Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 7 years ago, 2 days later, 4 days after the original post[^][v]#927,345
Part 3:
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Catherine was presently stuck in a nightmare. Her operator had abandoned her- seemingly.. She was caught in an up-tick cycle of the holo-sim core and was experiencing simulated temporal reality at a rate far upwards of 60Kms/M. She was flying through her twenties- faster and faster, too. She noticed a couple of weeks into her predicament (days to her) that the rate of sim-speed was actually increasing the further along the core-temporal rift scaffolding she got. She was also becoming quite concerned. She had been like this for months...
Catherine knew that the ship her mind was on, that held her real body and tulpas, was in serious danger.
"I really don't think the engine cores could be pushed like this ever" Catherine thought to herself as the simulation around her pushed her 8 hours through a nightly Doctor Who viewing with her family. Just when she was ready to give up hope and try to relax a little bit, she decided to try pressing the emergency rescue interface button again. As she reached up to the corner of her HUD to press the button again, in vain- a glitch shorted through her vision- and a signal came to her...
"Cathy- Cathy- Are you getting this?!" then silence (relative silence; Catherine had been tuning out the boring dronings of her twenties whizzing by at this point).
After a pause, the voice in Cathy's head resumed- a small waveform appeared above her sightline and she glanced up at it, disoriented but with hope- this was her first contact from the outside in ages!
"We'$44r4e h#av^ng so/*/e tro~~ub~*e ex`~~tra%6^cting you from the Regi*$$6-Sim..." the signal quickly became far-off, and heavily distorted but Catherine listened on intently.
"C$$$4an you ho^^^^d on f@@@r a wh~~~le lon^^^~er??" the voice finished, seeming to be waiting for a reply.
"Fuck! Fuck fuck. I get a chance of getting out of this mess and Spectrum keeps leaking the signal!" Catherine shouted.
She quickly composed herself, looked straight into the signal waveform and said "I'm holding out hope, if you don't get me out of this soon this whole ship could blow- and... I don't even want to think about the damage to the cities. You've got to hurry, please... and these reticulated Holo-Frags are starting to wear on my last nerve, if you know what I mean, uhuhuhuhuh."
She pressed send, leaned back and focused her attention back to the resolved, defragmented simulation of her past-selfs Spectrum dilemma... looking for answers to her past's riddles even through this current kerfuffle in the system's operation. There was more at stake than just herself, than just her ship and crew or just her on-board tulpæ. There was something grim looming over humanity and great thinkers of the time were starting to question its presence and meaning-
Cathy had a hunch on exactly where to start looking for an answer.