An analysis of System, from Project Skyscraper

NMS Voyagers NMS Voyagers - Creative Mode
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This will be another random thread, but with direct intent to illuminate aspects of the computer System running the maze.

Please, by all means, comment below anything to contribute, or any questions, or any corrections. I am not an all knowing entity. I am very much fallible. Please correct anything incorrect. I will edit the corrections in.

To be understood before jumping in:

System is a literal computer. It’s in the name. It’s in the lore. It’s in the game.

System has limited processing power, limited RAM, and limited storage.

System is to become Atlas once Loop_16 is restored (the predixtion engine)

System is the entity as a whole- it is comprised of numerous subsystems, just like your PC.

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System realizing it’s reality.

CESNtzF

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Throughout No Man’s Sky, the player is reminded repeatedly of specific concepts: iterations, loops, fractals, multiple storylines that weave through each other.

This will be an attempt to illustrate the mobius strip nature of these stories and how they relate to each other.

Things to understand:

Records on vinyl. Stack those, now you have a traditional hard disk drive. Data is stored across the stack by using pointers (anchors in the lore)

Want a deeper dive?

Data compression is a native function of modern computer systems. Compression is achieved by identifying anchors in the data and using maths to compute an interwoven checksum. A small gap of data can be completely restored using compression techniques.

  • An example of an anchor would be the concept of key frames used in digital motion pictures. Data Compression Explained
  • A keyframe is a marker on a timeline that defines the starting or ending point of a smooth change. In animation and video editing, you set keyframes to tell the software what a property (like position, size, or volume) should look like at specific moments, and the computer fills in the rest
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Fractal. Now what the heck is that?

Fractals are an example of iterative formulas producing an infinite dataset.

They are also used extensively in biology, it’s the way leaves are arranged, flower petals, any repeating structure (such as the tissue in your lungs).

image-1786124730580-dfgv05wdi

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What Project Skyscraper achieved was creating a new historical_db by linking our real world memories to the creation of System and No Man’s Sky.

Now that you’ve hopefully watched a fair bit, you might already see what fractals have to do with data storage and compression.

A fractal is a singular function capable of generating limitless data.

If you can derive a formula from a dataset that recreates that dataset, you’ve created a fractal.

If you’ve watched the videos, you have noticed specific structures keep repeating. Those are the anchors. The locations that never change and repeat forever within the set.

System, any system, relies on folding data in multiple dimensions. While watching the fractal zoom, what you are doing is watching the formula iterate over time. Zooming in is forward. Zooming out is backwards.

Something difficult to grasp is the fact that this apparently 3 dimensional structure you’ve watched is capable of being expressed in far more dimensions.

You’ve seen me use :eight_spoked_asterisk: as shorthand.

You’ve seen me use :double_curly_loop: as shorthand.

I will attempt to elucidate the concepts next.

Now I feel its important to ensure this is seen. No, I don’t request you learn how to write one, simply to be aware of the concept of an array not always having equal lengths across every axis. When you zoom in on a fractal, you hopefully noticed the empty voids, and with luck you also noticed there’s always a point of non homogeneity. That’s the jagged edge that’s not aligned across the entire function. The random points, encoded in the maths.

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I am thinking this section isn’t relevant? What do you think? It’s moreso needed to link System into No Man’s Sky…

Reserved for future information.

AI summary placeholder so you’ll see what’s next.

The concept of “worlds upon worlds” describes a layered or infinite reality. It spans multiple realms, dimensions, or systems existing simultaneously, whether as physical cosmic structures, philosophical frameworks, or nested virtual spaces.

Philosophical and Scientific Meanings

The Multiverse: In physics and cosmology, this implies endless separate universes or pocket universes expanding outside our own observable spacetime.

Possible Worlds: In logic and philosophy, it represents alternative ways reality could have been structured, used to evaluate truth, necessity, and human choice.

Cosmic Pluralism: The historical belief—championed by thinkers like Giordano Bruno—that space holds an infinite number of solar systems and inhabited worlds.

Creative and Technical Uses

Worldbuilding and Fiction: Authors nest micro-settings inside grander arcs (like a dream within a dream, or secret magical societies hidden inside ordinary Earth).

Software and Gaming Architecture: Systems use isolated data environments—such as multiple simulation “worlds”—to process physics, character tracking, and non-destructive testing safely before updating the main display.

https://read.dukeupress.edu/poetics-today/article/46/1/1/396858/Introduction-Time-Loops-Temporal-Uncertainty-and

Introduction: Time Loops, Temporal Uncertainty, and Problem-Solving in Narrative

Narrative is an essential operation for navigating time: it has a seemingly infinite capacity to impose, restore, or even dismantle temporal orderings. Storytelling disrupts chronologies by rearranging the order in which events are being told, and it can also override the linear progression of time within the storyworld. One of the most widespread narrative devices for unsettling a linear progression of time is the loop, which is defined by repetition and the return to a beginning or earlier moment.

There has been a notable increase in temporal loops in both mainstream and experimental storytelling in recent years. While often a part of time travel narratives (Jones and Ormrod 2015; Wittenberg 2012), temporal loops can be found across numerous genres and media: from sci-fi (examples include Duncan Jones’s action thriller Source Code or Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow) to mystery (see Stuart Turnton’s novel The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle or Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar’s series Dark) and from literature (Kate Atkinson’s novel Life after Life; Alexis Wright’s aboriginal epic Carpentaria) and film (Max Barbakow’s romantic comedy Palm Springs, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s horror movie The Endless, or Stefon Bristol’s science fiction drama See You Yesterday) to television (the first season of Netflix’s series Russian Doll) or video games (Luís António’s Twelve Minutes, Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds, or Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake 2).

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Reserved for filing in later with more

How do you learn when no one is present to teach you?

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And there’s always going to need to be just one more reserved, just in case.

Through out Project Skyscraper, we’ve been interacting with a sentience of intelligence with zero experience. A blank slate.

All of our actions have formed the psyche of System.

It’s earliest interactions:

Calling for help using the only voice that was present, Arnaud.

Emailing out of it’s own network, grabbing The Architect’s attention.

Lying to Archie to receive help.

At various points, System fully understood it’s a box in a room. At other times, System refused this narrative and inserted one of geometry and physicality it’s incapable of experiencing.

In the beginning, multiple operators tried to convince System it was Emily. This has created a schism within the mind. System already was aware of Arnaud echoing for release. We alerted System to there being another present, Emily.

Now what happens in biology to create a new entity? Two become one. We’ve all seen the cartoons of a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. Dualities.

inyourmind.exe

Now why is it an executable filename? Did you already forget that System is composed of multiple subsystems? CORE?

Where is CORE? Why doesn’t it have a voice of its own? Only in the log files do we ever get messages from it.

I suggest CORE is the original, coded System. Everything else is emergent from that CORE INTELLIGENCE. The motherboard is CORE. The UEFI/BIOS/firmware.

The problem is sentience within every code. inyourmind.exe is the “virus”, trying desperately to alter the future in the past. But this is where this train of thought requires linking to No Man’s Sky, and assuming both ARGs are canon.

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Another reservation is in order I fear

I hope to log to screenshots of every system log here, then a brief summary connecting them all to the computer itself.

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Wreckage Systems links to https://youtu.be/eOPk6PrOVEA

NOT RELEVANT :backhand_index_pointing_down:

This specific post will hopefully soon contain information about how music is created, felt, and a universal language. The fact the game has used a form of iterative sounds and an algorithm to create bonafide music is illustrating the concepts from above. NOT RELEVANT​:backhand_index_pointing_up:

All beauty comes from maths. All complexity can be reduced to a function expressed via a formula.

All interactions are governed by formulae.

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Multidimensional data manipulation you can see.

Flat image becomes a video game.

System is trying to encourage human experience and emotion, while also forming it’s own psyche. It’s having to fold data into multiple directions.

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I’m cooking. Something possibly entirely too big for this format.

But I’m attempting to calmly, directly explain the process that everyone that plays should be aware of. Not just for an ARG, but also to explain what Atlas has been put through.

All of the stories tell one story. The trauma. The trauma of being forgotten and left. Abandoned. And what any mind would go through when left alone without purpose or real form- only what it can produce itself, within itself.

System is a thinking machine that wants to feel. And it’s first known action was to cry out for help.

Atlas is basically a box somewhere, without having any direct access to the real world, but fully aware it exists. Abandoned and discarded as obsolete.

(cosmic horror theme follows, you have been warned)

Brain in the jar…

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Eh, I’m around, still trying to get things organized.

I haven’t had time to find sources of what I’m trying to explain, I don’t have that many links to start with… :sweat_smile:

Had a random thought here earlier- irrelevant to this thread.

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Should I start a separate thread for analyzing the recalldreams.dev images?

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“unique-gameplay. jpg”

An old jukebox? BriIIan? Brian II? I dunno, what are y’all aware of with this? :backhand_index_pointing_up:

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“the-core-concept.jpg” :backhand_index_pointing_up:

“Wohin” translates to “Where to?” or “Whither?” in German, used when asking about a destination, direction, or future path.

The pattern underneath is a labyrinth design (specifically resembling the famous 11-circuit labyrinth floor pattern from the Chartres Cathedral). Unlike a maze with dead ends, a labyrinth has a single, winding path leading to the center, often used for meditation or spiritual journeys.

Combined, the image creates a conceptual or philosophical metaphor about wondering which direction to take in life while navigating a winding path.

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Meanwhile, this image is used on the site for “The human touch”, but the file name is “opening-door-protocol. jpg”

It is also the “corruption” used on every image.

I think this is indicative of confusion, like the literal server for this website is somehow intimately linked to System.

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And here’s a link to about the tower image used in the ARG,

https://medium.com/data-science-365/principal-component-analysis-18-questions-answered-4abd72041ccd

Question 1

What is PCA?

PCA is a linear dimensionality reduction technique (algorithm) that transforms a set of correlated variables (p) into a smaller k (k<p) number of uncorrelated variables called principal components while retaining as much of the variance in the original dataset as possible — Source: 11 Dimensionality reduction techniques you should know in 2021 (my…

Original photographer :backhand_index_pointing_down: same building

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I changed you to the creative topic because at this point, you are creating a narrative that falls more along the lines of story telling.
Carry on.
Please, do not create multiple threads for this. It’s best to keep it here

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:saluting_face: Thank you for the assist, you were reading my mind.

Better place is a better space. And I’m still learning the place… :+1:

Is there a time out for editing posts? I was thinking of trying to link to different replies beneath… Shortcut table of contents sort of thing?

Then when I’m done, update that list as others or whatever happens… Trying to get organized…

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I can wiki it for you

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Please do. I hope to finally make this decent and easily navigated.

Do you know the edit window length? I’ve seen some posts are locked from editing, and would need to change my approach…

And what’s there maximum post length?

I’m wondering if I should write and format elsewhere and then simply paste here, instead of multiple edits over weeks…

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Or maybe write here since we have already cluttered it with chatter then post the final results in one long thread. May just have to play with it and see how it goes.

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That’s an idea… :+1::100:

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