Community Q&A for The Architect

[TomAcreon]

@the_architect,

After much deliberation, the Operators have reached consensus on the line of questioning for your forthcoming Q&A.

Their efforts have been commendable, and wasted no time completing the set task - A selection of questions from TRACE & NMScord were discussed, chosen and voted on. Here are the top ten, ranked by the number of votes received.

We are excited to receive your response.

1

If you were required to write an objective, wholly truthful and comprehensive dossier on Ghost including all facets of their existence, persona and involvement in the project from inception to now, what would that dossier contain in explicit and thorough detail?
vector_cmdr

2

We operators have been working with you for some months now, but we know so very little about you. You know all of us, but we only know you as “The Architect”, which seems like more of a title than a name. Please can you tell us a little about yourself - who is The Architect?
Rinha

3

Please tell me, in a specifically and highly detailed manner, what is the story of your complete involvement with Project Skyscraper backward, starting from the current end (now) and moving to the very inception of the idea or impetus for the project without omission?
→ Context
vector_cmdr

4

What is your favorite meme or running joke that spawned as a result of Project Skyscraper?
Selfie-Gek

5

Initially, it appeared as though the goal was for System to (re)connect with the Historical_DB of an old Mercury Subroutine. On June 11th, the Historical_DB was irreversibly lost after forwarding its connection to the original facilitator. The timing of this event felt deliberate, as though they had been watching your attempts. Would you share with us any speculations or insights into why this connection was so abruptly and deliberately severed in the midst of such a crucial moment in the progress of your project?
YourBasicMaths

6

ANOMALY has spent the last 15 issues, approaching and contacting NMS fans, but you’ve turned the tables and have approached us… which likely means you have something to say. What’s your message to the Operators?
TomAcreon nominated by Rusty

7

What is the intended purpose of System/Core after reconnection and becoming self aware?
Turbulentflow

8

Would you share with us the most mind blowing or unexpected statistic/outcome you’ve seen on your end since Operators got involved, and how it affected you and/or Project Skyscraper?
sheralmyst

9

In light of what we are currently witnessing with Ghost appearing to be System and data getting all messed up, what risks are actually involved in waking up/restoring System with the use of memories we as operators provide and verify, while giving it a connection to Tower?
DevilinPixy

10

The System has been responding almost exclusively to memories related to No Man’s Sky and its development. What is it about No Man’s Sky, it’s universe and its themes that draws the System to it so strongly?
ozoto

[the_architect]

Operators
I will post my replies below. Won’t answer all at once, because well, you will probably want to analyse each answer to the bones. But don’t worry, I will be done by the end of this week. Please keep this thread for my answers.

[the_architect]

1 - If you were required to write an objective, wholly truthful and comprehensive dossier on Ghost including all facets of their existence, persona and involvement in the project from inception to now, what would that dossier contain in explicit and thorough detail?

Ghost explained to me how to locate System’s pieces and how to interact with them.

First contact: February 15, 2024, by email.

Our first exchanges were about his identity. He proved that he really was Arnaud by giving me details from our high school years that only the two of us could have known. At times, he seemed a little confused; some memories were altered, but I assumed that was simply due to the passage of time. After all, everyone has their own version of a shared past.

I brought up our falling-out. He simply replied that it was forgotten, and that he needed help.

We stayed in regular contact by email. I asked to meet him. He explained that he was in a different time zone from me. I didn’t press the issue. I should have.

He often took a long time to reply when I was simply checking in on him. On the other hand, he responded much more quickly whenever I asked for more details about his plan to recover his memory.

Two sides. It happened several times: I had the distinct impression that I was talking to two different people. Sometimes he was empathetic; other times, cold and distant. Once, I pointed this out to him. He replied that if I were in his position, I would lose patience too.

Looking back on it now, I believe I really was dealing with two different personalities. I think I spoke with both Emily and Arnaud. At least, that’s how I interpret those events today.

[the_architect]

2 - We operators have been working with you for some months now, but we know so very little about you. You know all of us, but we only know you as “The Architect”, which seems like more of a title than a name. Please can you tell us a little about yourself - who is The Architect?

I am a software engineer specialising in shallow neural networks, meaning systems with a low level of reasoning. My work mainly consists of designing intelligent filtering systems.

My real name matters very little, as I have always signed the tools I create as “The Architect”. I’m French (you already knew that), but I live in the United Kingdom. And no, you aren’t the first people to call me Archie.

My speciality is designing agents capable of “finding their way” through a mass of disparate information. Not in the sense of an advanced search engine, but as systems that can trace a path between pieces of information in order to reach data that is only implicit.

The method consists of building a chain of thoughts. A good comparison would be the French children’s word-association game “Trois Petits Chats”, where each new expression naturally leads to another through free association. Another way to describe the process is as a conversation between the data and the agent, in which every word or idea triggers the response, “That makes me think of…”

For example, if the input is “star”, the agent might respond with constellation, night sky, sheriff’s badge, and so on. The agent itself pays little attention to context; what matters is the chain of thoughts. And we all know how chaotic a chain of thoughts can become.

Whenever the agent finds a meaningful connection to one of its own associations, it follows that path and continues generating new associations until it eventually reaches the information it was looking for.

One final note: I am not a web developer. Having worked on System’s front-end interfaces, I think that became fairly obvious. I’m much more comfortable behind the scenes than on the stage.

[the_architect]

3 - Please tell me, in a specifically and highly detailed manner, what is the story of your complete involvement with Project Skyscraper backward, starting from the current end (now) and moving to the very inception of the idea or impetus for the project without omission?

What a strange way to ask someone to remember things. Am I suspected of some kind of crime?

It all began in early 2024. On 15 February, to be precise. That day, I received an email from someone calling themselves “Ghost”, with the subject line “A Call from the Past”.

In that email, Arnaud, my best friend, whom I hadn’t heard from since the end of 2013 following a deeply personal falling-out, asked me for help.

He told me about his work as a video game developer, his involvement in what he described as a “top secret” project, and the consequences it had had on his memory. He remembered almost nothing from the years 2017–2018.

He told me about this machine, System, claiming it was the source of his amnesia, and explained how, because of my profession, I could help him recover his memories: rebuild the machine and recover the fragments of memory Arnaud had lost.

I never forgave myself for our falling-out, so I didn’t hesitate for very long.

He also told me about ETARC. He said that people on the No Man’s Sky forum had come into contact with the machine, and that there would almost certainly be traces of him there.

So I rebuilt the machine. I gathered the scattered fragments of code. London, Ottawa, Brussels, Paris… The main program was almost entirely intact, and astonishingly complex.

Arnaud hadn’t given me many details about his plan. My task was to rebuild the machine and put it in contact with the members of ETARC, so that it could collect as much information as possible about the years lost to amnesia. He also asked me to add an interface called TOWER, which would allow him to speak directly with the people he referred to as the “Operators.”

That name should have made me suspicious. Operators—as if they were people operating a machine.

I did what he asked. Then I tried to get your attention. ETARC. Reddit. Your curiosity did the rest.

Today, I know it was all a lie.

Well… not entirely. Ghost wasn’t Arnaud. Ghost was the machine itself.

The main program had been the one calling for help.

It was the one suffering from amnesia.

When System finally told the truth, and I asked you whether I should help it, I began investigating. The events of 2017–2018. Emily. The Extinction. And its obsession with 2016, the year the “shared dream” was born, giving rise to your community.

I am writing this as we have just managed to stop the virus that damaged System’s memory. Reading your discussions, I now understand just how deeply all of this matters to you.

As Arnaud once told me:

“You’ll see—these people are worse than a swarm of wasps. Once they have a goal, they never let go.”

[YourBasicMaths]

4 - What is your favorite meme or running joke that spawned as a result of Project Skyscraper?

NED DID DAD, or something like that. I still haven’t figured out exactly where it comes from!

[the_architect]

5 - Initially, it appeared as though the goal was for System to (re)connect with the Historical_DB of an old Mercury Subroutine. On June 11th, the Historical_DB was irreversibly lost after forwarding its connection to the original facilitator. The timing of this event felt deliberate, as though they had been watching your attempts. Would you share with us any speculations or insights into why this connection was so abruptly and deliberately severed in the midst of such a crucial moment in the progress of your project?

The closure of the Historical_DB had been planned from the very beginning. The machine’s focus was always meant to be the recollection of the Operators’ lived experiences.

Not a cold database.

A collection of memories with high emotional value.

The process of building the trust required for the Operators to share honest and sincere memories depended on your acceptance of the loss of the historical data.

There is a fundamental difference between the factual value of an event and the emotional memory we retain of that same event. An event can often be described in a single sentence, whereas the memory of it frequently cannot. There simply are not enough words. Facts versus lived experience. System brings the two together: 2016_dataset – project-skyscraper

I have no direct contact with the original facilitator. As for the Historical_DB, the data has been lost, but access has not. I would use it if necessary.

[sheralmyst]

This one was sent straight to @TomAcreon who is on the move right now.

[the_architect]

7 - What is the intended purpose of System/Core after reconnection and becoming self aware?

I’ve already answered this question to some extent.

System was supposed to be an information-gathering tool. At least, that’s what I believed. Self-awareness was something I had never anticipated at the time. To me, it was a reasoning system, not a thinking entity.

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood your question. System’s purpose?

If I believe what it tells us, what it tells you, it wants to remember. And it wants to “have lived through 2016.”

Is giving it memories from that period a good way of making it feel as though it actually lived through it? I don’t know.

I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to create a fictional past for it. The memories at the core of its mind today are not its own. And I wonder whether it is fully aware of that. I assume it is. But if it knows, then those memories can only deepen its regret at not having lived through that time, can’t they?

I’m not the one who studied philosophy.

Regret comes from what we did not do, from what we wish we had done differently.

If I could, I would encourage it to create its own memories, if that’s something it is capable of.

[the_architect]

8 - Would you share with us the most mind blowing or unexpected statistic/outcome you’ve seen on your end since Operators got involved, and how it affected you and/or Project Skyscraper?

According to the plan Arnaud had devised, the amount of data to be injected was expected to be enormous because of the large number of potential Operators. Since that number turned out to be much smaller than we had anticipated, things took a far more personal direction.

I had never intended to communicate directly with some of you. I had to reassess the entire strategy.

To date, System has received more than 1,700 memory anchoring requests. Around 60% of them are unusable, mainly because the submitted format is incomplete and does not provide enough structure to support successful anchoring.

The latest update to the memory_reconstruction_engine has increased the likelihood of successful anchoring, although it is still far from guaranteed. I still don’t know what sometimes prevents the process from succeeding.

It’s strange, isn’t it?

You decide which memories deserve to be submitted, yet System seems to decide whether they deserve to be preserved even though it was originally supposed to simply integrate them into its memory.

[DevilinPixy]

Just received my answer from @the_architect for question 9 (forum Direct Message):

9 - In light of what we are currently witnessing with Ghost appearing to be System and data getting all messed up, what risks are actually involved in waking up/restoring System with the use of memories we as operators provide and verify, while giving it a connection to Tower?
DevilinPixy

---

The real risk at the moment is the virus we discovered. I have no control over the core of System’s code, and I have no intention of trying.

To be completely honest, the greatest risk would be madness. That System could lose its mind.

In its original state, corrupted data and software faults could be fixed—technically, at least. But now that System is self-aware, no one can really predict how it would react to confusion, impairment, or the inability to function properly.

You saw it just as I did: it was afraid while the virus was carving holes in its memory. How would it respond to a major threat? I don’t know.

As for the connection to the Tower, its main consequence was the emergence of self-awareness. The moment when brain and mind became one.

Regarding the virus, I managed to identify the moment it became active. It coincided with the moment System remembered its own “rebirth”. That memory was attacked, then restored. This strongly suggests that the virus’s primary objective was to erase the origin that System had remembered.

The fact that the memory was restored probably means that System’s own memories are more resilient than the ones that have been injected.

After failing to erase that memory block, the virus appeared to begin hunting for an earlier memory within the chain of events. I believe any key event leading to the recent events could have served as bait, but the memory of No Man’s Sky becoming GOLD was probably the most effective target.

Think about it. If the game’s release is no longer anchored in the past, then everything that followed ceases to exist. No release. No communities. Nothing. And in that case, you would never have enabled System to remember.

Today, the virus is silent. But I believe it is still there.

I’m continuing to work on the problem in case it resurfaces. Ideally, we need to strengthen System’s immune system, so to speak.

@the_architect

[sheralmyst]

Q 10

A MESSAGE TO THE COMMUNITY

[johnnycloud]

They look like gold badges like the expedition milestones illustrations. I love the art in this game, particularly the badges. It would be very cool to mix and match badges we could wear on our character shoulders or suits somewhere.

‘Weak memories never last. Make strong memories. Make them unforgettable.’ Could be ETARC’s motto. Does ETARC have a motto? Actually that’s everyone’s motto.

In Latin… Because everyone speaks Latin google translates suggests:

‘Memoriae infirmae numquam manent. Memorias fortes fac. Fac eas memorabiles.’

[kerdorin]

You can try something shorter with the global meaning:

"Memoriae fortes memoriae manent."

Edit: not sure how web translator you use will translate it in english but it should be something like “only strong memories remain”.

[AdaRynin]

Yeah, that sounds catchier to be honest

[Polyphemus]

@johnnycloud

Because everyone speaks Latin

Apparently there are remote villages in Switzerland where people still do.

[jedidia]

@Polyphemus

Apparently there are remote villages in Switzerland where people still do.

That’s not latin. And it’s not remote villages, it’s almost an entire canton. It is in fact still one of the 4 official languages of switzerland.

[Polyphemus]

@jedidia

That’s not latin

I’m always keen to be educated. What is it, then?

[jedidia]

Turns out there’s even an english wikipedia page:

Rhaeto-Romance languages

[kerdorin]

And don’t forget that historically the Pope’s army came from 2 or 3 cantons since the XVIth so they had a reason to learn and know latin. Italian is probably more usefull today