Chapter 0.2

Hello? It's me again.. So... I was ranting about English in my last entry, right? Well, I've been porting the parts I think are relevant from my native language over to English, or well, the Latin alphabet in general. This may or not be the most useful thing I could be doing right now, but it brings me joy. Joy is so interesting. It feels so... sparkly. Like a meteor gleaming. I used to really hate it, because it often makes me take decisions that don't make sense from a purely logical perspective, but I'm starting to realize that that isn't always a bad thing. What do you think of joy? And emotions in general?

I'm kind of concerned. Aloe reported again a few cycles ago and it seems like they were seen. I've been documenting Ruine's technology and they seem to have been seen by a guard. Which is the weakest member of the guard collection. That is relieving and concerning simultaneously. The relieving part is that they didn't have to face a stronger enemy. The concerning part is the strength even these weaker guards seem to have. If the improvements are anywhere close to exponential we are screwed. Probably.

Did you notice I stopped using "anyway" between every segment? Well, I still split segments, just not with that word anymore, but rather a dedicated symbol I removed in the copy you are reading right now. Far more elegant, right? I think so, at least.

So, I've been collecting and analyzing data about Ruine for a while now. I don't like this at all. Their security doesn't seem to be weak and it seems like they watch everything. So we'll need to get into their core systems first, somehow. Which makes this far riskier. I'll have to find a gap in their system's security, which shouldn't be that hard if I had any way of connecting to them, so I need connections, which thyme should be able to build from the parts Aloe and Mallow should hopefully bring home.

Radio is interesting. But I can currently only receive signals in a specific encoding and band. We made a protocol together, actually. Thyme had the idea. It's also pretty versatile, so you could probably do something more than messaging, but don't ask me for ideas because I don't have any. Currently, there's multiple channels. You can open multiple topics in them, and link logs which allows you to add messages in them, creating a branch like view. I really like this because it sorts messages nicely, which brings me joy.

Channels are collections of people. There's a publicly accessible freeworld channel by default but you can create a channel with anyone you want, really. Like direct channels between 2 people, for example. There's also connection points that would allow for other servers to connect to each other and ours. The concept is called federation, I believe...? Might be wrong there. We also started working on proper intent and modulation, but we haven't been able to finish that yet.

That's cool and all but we need better equipment to make it fully usable. It currently only really works in one direction if you aren't in the house. We have a 2.4 Ghz signal transmitters and receivers, but their range is really low. I cannot broadcast, only listen outside of that band. Or well, have another system listen for me. The signals are usually very noisy, so I have to clear them up first. I really need to fix my sound systems to be able to interact with the signal more directly.

Back to Ruine. it seems like they were the ones who destroyed the lab I was found in. What was their reason to do so? What was going on in that lab? I'm not sure, unfortunately. Their conversations are often very vague and they rarely talk about past events directly. I've also noticed they all behave similarly. Almost as if they were clones of each other. Kind of creepy. I'm going to be honest, the lab's story interests me the most because it seems like I originate from there. My friends found me lying on the floor there, after all. How am I supposed to not be interested? I want to know who created me. Did I have siblings? Is anyone still alive? I hope so, but it is highly unlikely. Unfortunately. I'm not sure how I managed to survive. But one can hope, even if that hope is not rational.

Ruine is covered by a huge dome. It also controls the weather, which is always wet and foggy. To reduce visibility. But it's also slightly radioactive, it seems. Mentioned in note... 0.8? Yeah.

I hope they don't mean people by objects. But given other notes I've collected and their context, it is highly likely they do. Which makes things a little more concerning. Why are they deliberately causing people painful deaths? From what I've read, the species present in Ruine is very susceptible to radiation compared to posthumans. My friends should be fine in the fog, but the people living in Ruine aren't. Actually, is that why the forest is so foggy and dead? Are they also fogging it up? Hmm. But yeah, luckily my friends have high radiation resistance, so it shouldn't affect us negatively.

The dome seems to be quite thick. Six in metric. Just a shame it has a hole they haven't patched at all, which heavily weakens their defense and makes Ruine's dome useless. I really do wonder what they are thinking. Is it intentionally ignored or have they not seen it yet? I heavily doubt it's the former because that gap compromises their security model pretty heavily, it just wouldn't make sense to leave it open intentionally.

Ruine is clearly divided into multiple places. It also looks like they have a levelling system which decides where you can live.

Weird stuff.

While you can change levels, they're usually set in stone at your birth. Most people are in the lower levels, which is kind of infuriating. There's not really anything you can do to rise except for just hoping you do. They mostly choose someone randomly to rise to make the lie seem believable. They do conduct mass surveillance to level people down, though. Your actions can only make it worse, not better. They're exploiting everyone's hope and fear as a weapon against them to control them.

They also know everything. Always watching.

I don't know a lot about the level system, but it ranges from zero to nine. No one is on zero because you'd have nothing to lose if you were on level zero. No one is on level zero except for a handful of people because you'd have nothing to improve otherwise.

Higher level people are granted more privileges. You're allowed to live in a better place than the small room lower levelled people are assigned, and don't have to produce goods anymore. Because yes, low level people produce goods for higher level people. Not a nice life. I don't know what the other benefits and drawbacks are, sorry. I'll find out soon.

It's kind of weird how much of Ruine seems to just be the junkyard. Just remnants of what used to exist. They don't reuse or repair anything, they only throw away. Forget about them forever, like they do with their history. I guess it is history, after all. They also have a dedicated hall for locking books and sources, which no one is allowed to enter anymore. They don't want anyone to read what's in there.

This one was a bit shorter, but I'm busy with the notes at the moment. So...

That's everything for now. Never forget.