Memory Maker

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N O T I C E : : m e m o r y _ s t r e a m _ l o c a t e d
I D : : M e m o r y _ M a k e r
T Y P E: : E X P E R I E N T I A L

Locke - Intersidera

Raqi Marr

Gm Locke

Locke

Good meowning~

Raqi Marr

Thinking again about how badly I want a storm

Locke

Lmaoooooooooo
Very understandable tbh
They are very very cool

Raqi Marr

Yeah
I was looking into buying them the other day, because I was curious how much one would cost
And it turns out they're not actually as much as I expected them to be
They're *only* about a thousand kmat lmao

Locke

O o f
Still though, you're right; that's way less than I would have expected for a piece of literal alien technology XD
Actually, I'm surprised that kind of thing can be sold openly like that
Are you sure you weren't looking at some sort of scam site?

Raqi Marr

Yeah no I'm sure, it was listed on the central trading hub and they vet all the shit on there really carefully
I am honestly kind of surprised too
But apparently the rationale is, you have to sign a bunch of disclaimers in the event that you actually buy one, basically saying "I am aware that this thing can fucking kill me if I misuse it" lmfao

Locke

Lmao
Holy shit

Raqi Marr

You would think they'd be a controlled commodity but I guess the line of thinking is you can only really hurt yourself with them, not anyone else
I think in part it's also because of how hard it is to find LightningConnect programmers
From what I've heard, storms are relatively easy to grow, but the problem is actually doing anything with them?
Companies haven't figured out how to actually vet people for sightseer potential yet, and so most dev work is still done by hobbyists online, rather than corporations
Oh yeah and ofc, the other thing is the qouel refusing to allow them to be patented
yeah no that's probably the actual reason
Because basically anyone can grow them with the right materials
So afaik a lot of companies are just producing them in bulk for hobbyist use

Locke

Gods, the way the qouel go about things is so weird in contrast to how we do
I love it so much
They're so cool

Raqi Marr

They are indeed very very good
I love how so many people still can't get over the fact that their race as a whole just don't do commerce
Every time anyone tries to convince them to trademark their tech to make money they're just like "why would i want to do that when i can just give people stuff for free"

Locke

BASED

Raqi Marr

Impossibly so
Anyway, going back to the topic at hand
I'm not gonna lie, I kind of really want one 1,000 kmat is a lot but it's also not strictly outside of what I could afford

Locke

Wait, so; you're seriously considering doing it?
I get wanting them, since they're very cool, but; aren't you worried you might hurt yourself with it?

Raqi Marr

i mean
yes
somewhat lmao
But not as much as I want the chance to play with one
The main thing I'm interested in is, there's this program that a qou developed called 'Qualia Observer'
It's one of very few storm programs they actually made themselves
Qou-developed storm stuff always tends to be fucking crazy and this is like, the peak of that
Apparently, what it does is connect directly to the part of your brain where thinking takes place (Inos knows how tf it does that) and basically notes down all of your thoughts; not just thoughts, but also optionally sensory experiences too, for archival purposes
Which like
Hooooooooly shit dude
I have GOT to have that

Locke

Wait wait wait, you're saying it can functionally read your mind?!

Raqi Marr

It's not that weird when you consider that it needs a physical connection to do it, but yeah
The point of it is that you use the program for storing things, basically
Like, memory-making; that's apparently the literal name of the original qou version of the program, "Memory Maker"

Locke

Huh... I see...
That is kind of alarming, ngl, but it also sounds incredibly cool to have

Raqi Marr

Exactly
It's just my kind of thing

Locke

LMFAO
For real XDDDD

Raqi Marr

alright yeah fuck this shit I need this in my life
I'm doing it

Locke

Waaaaahhhhh
If you're sure this is what you want

Raqi Marr

i am certain

Upon Raqi's lap sat the long-awaited storm. It was comprised of a sphere for its core, roughly the size of her head and made of a material that she struggled to identify; something translucent that gave off a soft purple glow, but that seemed to be covered in a kind of black membrane that swirled and shifted whenever it was touched. Attached to it at various points were bits of metal; electrodes, circuits, ports of one kind or another, none of which she could currently identify the purpose of. Holding the device made her feel as if she were in possession of something illicit; something that she was not meant to have. Yet it had been so trivially easy to get, requiring only the press of a few buttons to be delivered right to her doorstep. I suppose that's the promise of the Fleet, isn't it. 'You can have anything you want, as long as you have enough money.' Her eyes narrowed slightly. She shifted the device around in her hands, observing it from every angle. She had given a small fortune to possess this device, and now that she had it, she found herself wondering if it had been worth it. Carefully, she took hold of the sphere and placed it down on a nearby cushion, then turned and made her way over to her computer. A few clicks within her file explorer brought her to a folder named 'Journals.' Clicking a button to open the folder's properties, she looked at the value for 'Total files.' 286 files, 7 sub-folders. This wasn't counting files that she'd merged together, of course. She knew from a previous investigation that there was nearly a hundred thousand words written down there, all in all. Entry upon entry, from as early as when she was only fourteen years old, spanning all the way up to the present day. An attempt to halt the tide of time's erosion of her memories, and to preserve her self for years to come. How, after all, could one be said to have lived, if they did not remember what they had done during their life? And yet, this method did not work. It took so, so long to write each article. If she wanted to achieve anything resembling a satisfactory level of depth in her narration, covering a single event could take as long as an hour. Time quite literally passed her by while she was writing faster than she could keep up with it. Even if she spent the rest of her life trying to jot down records of what she had done, she would die with her work unfinished. Words flitted across the surface of her mind, accompanied by the image of an elderly version of herself laying upon a hospital bed:

When the end comes, how will you know that you spent your time well?

If I can look back on my life and be certain that I didn't waste any of it, I'll know that I spent it well, she answered. If I can remember the things that I've done- keep a record of them- I'll have evidence. It won't matter how much my memory fails if I have a physical copy. She made her way back towards the storm. I can't allow myself to forget. I am my memories. If they die, so do I. She took hold of the device, and took to work setting it up.

It took Raqi almost a full day to successfully connect to the storm via her computer. Physically connecting the device turned out to be the least complicated step, with the vast majority of time being dedicated to trying to get it to communicate with her BST. She would not be connecting directly to the storm; landamaeris lacked the organ possessed by qouel - the one they referred to as a 'receptor' - that was required to directly interface with their biotech. Instead, she would be making use of a program called Thunderstorm to allow it to read from her brainstem transmitter without receiving any information back in turn. Raqi knew she had finally gotten it to work when her monitor abruptly turned pitch black, and a moment later, the display came to life once again in a swirling mess of purples, yellows, and blues. She felt a telltale buzzing at the back of her neck that suggested her brainstem transmitter was working, and she waited patiently for the colours to resolve into something recognisable. Bit by bit, the colours began to take shape; forming into a dark background with the following two words at its header: "Qualia Observer"

Raqi's head slowly tilted to the side. Inos, what a program this is. So, it's split between two primary methods of input; manual and automatic. For manual, it accepts text input, which means I can just write stuff down if I want to do traditional-style journals, but you can also just like, focus on a memory and sort of 'wade through it' and it'll create an entry out of it? Inos, that is nuts. How the fuck-? She shook her head. The qouel are absolutely amazing. Her eyes flicked across the screen. Automatic, on the other hand, just looks for particularly intense brain activity and basically maps it out into an entry... How does that work? It's not like every experience can be measured in words- oh, right; the part where it says it sometimes turns emotions into words. So it defaults to mapping everything to text? That's interesting. How in the void can it actually do that, though? She wondered how the program would handle abstract modes of thought like hers. If it can actually process those... oh Inos, that would be *amazing*...

a faint swill of curiosity
a tide moving across black nothingness
excitement; could it possibly transcribe even things like this?
wonder at the implications, were it able to

Just then, she noticed the light flashing on her computer that indicated disk activity. Wait, is it working right now? Oh! A thrill of excitement ran through her chest as she quickly accessed the program's storage folder. She found precisely one file there, the size of which was slowly increasing at a steady rate. Santraz akk aqchko! It's working! Oh Inos, it's actually working! She opened the file and began to read through it. As she moved down the document, she began grinning. oh inos it actually works, oh- oh holy shit this is SO weird hahaha what the FUCK A few moments later, she made it to the part of the document that had recorded what she had just thought. Wait, that thought is in non-capitals. ...Oh my fucking- Does it actually account for internal monologue stuff like that as well?! Wait, are you telling me I can have fucking typos in my brain now? HAHAHA YEAHHHH THIS ROCKS

A few moments later, she made it to the part of the document that had recorded what she had just thought. Wait, that thought is in non-capitals. ...Oh my fucking- Does it actually account for internal monologue stuff like that as well?! Wait, are you telling me I can have fucking typos in my brain now? HAHAHA YEAHHHH THIS ROCKS

Raqi blinked, the manic grin on her face growing slightly uneasy. Uh. Oh that is weird-

As she became aware of the change in her expression, her heart suddenly lurched. oh shit wait-

Her heart continued to beat even faster, as all of a sudden, a sense of dread filled her. She became aware of the sense of dread, and this in turn only worsened it, as she became more aware of the sense of dread, and her heart began to beat faster, and she- Oh FUCK IT'S GOING TO INFINITE LOOP-

Raqi jerked backwards away from the screen with such force that she fell out of her chair, squawking: "OH FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK I HATE THAT I HATE THAT I HATE THAT THAT IS TERRIBLE OH INOS THAT'S AWFUL NO NO BAD BAD BAD." She turned her head away from the screen and shut her eyes tightly. That is FUCKED that is EVIL that is WRONG holy shit that felt wrong oh Inos no no nononononono. I am never doing that again. Fuck, I- ohhh I could have done without seeing that. Ugh. She spent the next several minutes huddled on the floor, waiting for the memory of what she had just witnessed to dull, as the beating of her heart gradually returned to normal. Once she had recovered sufficiently, she turned her attention back to the computer. Taking great care to ensure that her eyes did not read any of the text on the screen as she did so, she moused over to the edge of the text file and hit the button to close it. As soon as it was gone, she let out an enormous sigh of relief, and slumped down into her chair. Oh, bloody hell... Okay, note to self: do not fucking read output logs that are getting produced in real time, that shit is like getting eaten by a paradox. She shivered once more, then sat up properly. Okay... So other than that, the last thing of note is the entry type. She could recall that at the top of the log had been a line of text stating that it was an 'experiential' entry. That makes sense. Those must be the automatically created ones, then. Which means that the opposite must be recollective; those are the ones that you either write or create manually with the memory-extrapolation thingy. She swilled her tongue about in her mouth. There was a third type too; 'external.' No clue what that one's for; the tutorial didn't mention anything about it. Going by the name, I guess it's if you somehow have an entry that doesn't come from you? She wondered how something like that could even theoretically happen, and settled on assuming it was just there for error-proofing reasons. Right. Well, anyway; I guess that's about everything. Now I just let it run and do its thing. And when the time comes, I'll have a record of everything worth remembering. She smiled softly, and then closed the program.

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