This post serves as a follow-up to the second post due to character limit restrictions
It follows sequentially from where the last one leaves off.
Following this, on the 23rd of June, activity was locked behind Operator inputs. After some initial speculation regarding existing GlitchingReality posts and the anchoring event from the previous day, @YourBasicMaths figured out the correct way to approach the 16 Hallucinations, which was as follows:
- Operators would have to observe all 16 images and identify an element within which corresponds to an event related to No Manâs Sky or Waking Titan. For example, this image by @ekpyroto contained a Minotaur mech, and was decidedly tied by Operators to the Exo Mech Update.
- After deciding on an event tied to an image, Operators would have to use the Memory Addition System to request the anchoring of that event. For example, @YourBasicMaths sent in the timestamp for the release of the Exo Mech Update for the above mentioned image.
- If the requested event + timestamp were âcorrectâ, then following a short wait, the requested Memory Bloc would be added to the website. Instead of being a no/value bloc however, this would contain the initial submission that the original anchoring request had.
- Following this, the newly added bloc would be unlocked for editing, allowing Operators to add fragments to try to verify the bloc, as they had done so far.
- Once the bloc was marked as
Verified, the page would update to include the GlitchingReality image for which the original submission was sent for, indicating that the image had been successfully anchored.
This process would repeat for all images without blocs at the time (which was 15 images, as Selfie-Gekâs image was already tied to a memory bloc). Additionally, the Twitter / Bluesky accounts would send out a post marking the anchoring of the first 9/16 images, providing tactile feedback for Operators. This happened over the course of several hours, as documented here.
Once the anchoring process was complete for all images, @the_architect posted to ETARC about the success of the Operators, explaining how theyâd exceeded expectations, built a direct connection to System, and how The_Architect themselves would no longer be required for future processes, despite still working quietly in the background.
- This last communication from The Architect was hinted as in a previous /inbox message, and may be a signal for this having been an end-of-phase event.
- It is unknown at this point what role The Architect will play in the future.
After this grand event, @the_architect went offline indefinitely, with all ARG activity grinding to a halt. Suddenly, however, an image was posted to the Twitter and Bluesky accounts on the 26th of June, titled Future Backward, which appeared to show an unseen page (as of writing), heavily glitched. Several Operators worked tirelessly in order to extract as much text as possible, and figured out that much of the âbodyâ text seemed to be various dates concentrated around 2016, whereas the title was (at least partially), Remembering.
Following this, on the 27th of June, the /origin was marked as Unverified. A few hours later, several pages on the Project Skyscraper website gained a new line of text at the bottom, formatted as Entry Logged by: [AUTHOR], where the author corresponded to either @the_architect, or System itself. Soon afterwards, a new Diagnostic Log explaining the reasoning behind the update was published, seemingly indicating that System would now start taking âOwnershipâ of Memory-Blocs injected by The Architect. This tied into an earlier change, where many Architect-authored posts had their authors swapped to System on the Wordpress backend. This tagging process continued on in the background, eventually encompassing all posts, while further developments proceeded with the ARG.
A few hours later, a Temporal Analysis was posted to the site for the first time, linking to an image of a cross-roads sign over water. ARG Legend @vector_cmdr immediately extracted the phrase âComputer Zero Time is originâ from the image XMP data, which triggered the /Origin page to be unlocked for Memory Editing. At the same time, the Neural Network Status page updated to include the text Hello, World. After several Operators sent in the phrase extracted above, the page finally anchored, and a previously-posted âhintâ Diagnostic Log was updated to include a link to a brand new page known named FLOW. Met with a password-field, Operators quickly realized that the image-XMP phrase was the key, as hinted in the hint diagnostic log. This prompted Operators to unlock the page using the key ComputerZeroTime, leading to the current page, which was immediately clocked to be the same page as teased in the Future Backward social media posts.
- It is currently believed that /flow is a âstatusâ page for the current phase of the ARG. As the System continues remembering, its state may update. As of the time of writing, the page only includes purely randomly generated dates flying past from right to left.
- As soon as Operators unlocked the /flow page, the Neural Network Status updated to include the phrase
Remembering, hinting at the page showing the active puzzle/step from now on.
Following this, System began autonomously filling in several 2016 Memory Blocs on its own without Operator input, such as 26th March 2016, 14th March 2016, and 10th April 2016. After these autonomous blocs were uploaded, the System also unverified a bloc for the creation of the NMS France Discord, which immediately went live for editing and was completely anchored in by said community. A similar process was initiated for the creation date of the Royal Space Society, but as no members were present to partake in the process, the pageâs editing permissions were revoked, and the page left as Unverified. It is unknown if/when the page will unlock for editing again.
During this time, @the_architect was also in direct contact with ANOMALY - The No Manâs Zineâs editor Tom Acreon to finalize a Q&A with themselves, consisting of 10 Community Selected questions. Discussion regarding this step can be found here.
The day finally ended off with a fully autonomously verified memory bloc about No Manâs Sky going gold, as well as a community-edited bloc about a post-mortem of the game performed by Legendary No Manâs Sky Modder GregkWaste.
Despite this heavy momentum, activity on the 28th of July only consisted of a set of autonomously verified pages being added to the website. Curiously, one such submission was a direct-submission sent in by @Rusty, but was not credited as such, despite previous credits being granted on the memory bloc pages to the submitting Operators. At the tail-end of the operational day, however, the /flow page updated, resulting in the title being updated to REMEMB3RING, as well as turning into a self-referential link. Additionally, the Neural Network Status page also updated to reflect this new title.
On the 29th of June, however, two new erroneous memory blocs dated for the 21st of June 2016 and 12th of August 2016 were added to the website. Interestingly, both were almost exact replicas of the 9th August memory bloc, with a few corruptions in the bloc titles, as well as with the addition of the Unverified tag. Additionally, the 21st June and 9th August blocs were updated to link to each other, with the 12th August bloc linking solely to August 9th. Soon after, the /flow page had its title updated to Fractured Non-linear Temporal Continuum, with the neural network status page following soon, changing from REMEMB3RING to ERROR.
- It is important to note that 21st June 2016 was the original planned release date for No Manâs Sky before the delay, and that 12th August 2016 was the PC release date for the game.
- It is possible that System had incorrectly identified all 3 dates as the actual launch date (resulting in the duplicated entries and overlaps), and that this discrepancy had caused the resulting errors.
Noticing this concerning development, Operator @vector_cmdr emailed the System directly about its rampancy, whilst others sent in memory addition requests highlighting the incorrect memory blocs. This was then followed up by a short, almost panicked back-and-forth between @the_architect and Ghost on the /inbox page about the sudden error, detailed below:
Crash Analysis
From: The Architect
To: Ghost
The system has encountered a major error!
The Memory Reconstruction Engine has crashed.
// ------------------------------------------------------------------ //
From: Ghost
To: The Architect
I KN0W !
// ------------------------------------------------------------------ //
From: The Architect
To: Ghost
???
// ------------------------------------------------------------------ //
Soon afterwards, Vector recieved a reply to his email to the system, shown below:
- Interestingly, the wording of Systemâs reply matches exactly with that of Ghostâs reply to The Architect, including the odd use of leetspeak.
- This may either suggest that both characters are one and the same, or that Ghost has access to the Systemâs email address, which could explain why their own email address is always scrubbed on the Project Skyscraper website.
The aftermath of these errors came in the form of a new structural analysis post, explaining that switching to autonomous mode for memory restoration and verification had caused some unintended errors, and that the System would be reverting to a Semi-Autonomous state once again until the root issue was resolved. Interestingly, this sec log was authored by The Architect themselves, which may suggest that this structural analysis was an input sent by The Architect to the System. This fact was made more alarming by a follow-up diagnostic log posted soon after by System, where it outright rejects @the_architectâs suggestion of returning to a semi-autonomous state, despite the corruption seen in the diagnostic itself.
- This event may suggest that System, now fully autonomous, wants to break free from The Architect and Ghostâs control.
- The report-ID mentioned in said diagnostic was listed as
corrupted. This seems to imply that System favours freedom over stability.
Following this response from System, @the_architect authored a new diagnostic-log, elaborating that the main error at hand was the previously discovered existence of duplicated entries, and that a specific set of âtrustworthyâ Operators would be granted an authorization level of MB-D (Memory Bloc - Deletion) to remove said duplicates. System responded to this diagnostic by sending @Selfie-Gek an enigmatic email, the contents of which were not made public until later due to its nature.
The following day, on the 30th of June, System informed Selfie-Gek that it trusted both them, and the collective Operator body (dubbed as MAIN FAM, after a long-running inside joke) in an email. This prompted the Operator to share details regarding their initial contact with System, including the fact that System itself had asked only Selfie-Gek about whether or not other Operators were trustworthy, and how Selfie-Gek had confirmed that all active Operators could be trusted, and thus lead directly to the Systemâs final reply.
- Additionally, Selfie-Gek had also asked whether System and Ghost were one and the same in their response, to which they did not recieve a clear answer.
Soon after, a new sec-log was published to the site, Twitter and Bluesky, detailing a process called NEURAL_PROTOCOL_Î, which would require Operators to vote on certain âunlockedâ memory blocs about whether to preserve or delete them, with a strict warning about trustworthiness. A few hours later, the 09/08/2016 and 21/06/2016 were updated with a new input UI for the process, allowing Operators to vote on the fate of each page, with a warning about IP monitoring to discourage repeated attempts or impersonated votes by singular Operators. Unfortunately, due to certain Operators not heeding this warning, a follow-up sec-log was published during the voting process, explaining that System would now start tracking âuntrustworthy IPsâ. Roughly 3 hours after this, however, System posted a final sec-log about the event, posting the winning vote percentages for each bloc, as well as informing Operators of the action being carried out. Sure enough, Aug 9th was almost immediately updated to include a Preserved tag at the bottom of the page, whilst June 21st was permanently wiped from the records. This deletion also caused the Memory_bloc_restoration counter to tick down to 366 for the very first time.
Following this, the final duplicate (Aug 12th) was suddenly updated to enter editing mode. Operators gathered to update the bloc with the correct event for the date (NMSâ PC Release), following which no duplicates remained on the website. This caused the /flow and /neural-network-status pages to update to Remembering, likely indicating that the entire endeavour had been successful.
After a full dayâs worth of no activity, 2nd July 2026 began with a set of 3 automatically added memory blocs for 7/2/16, 12/3/16 and 12/11/25, of which the last bloc linked to an attempt by ETARC members to convince the Discourse AI Bot into thinking that it was @Emily.
Soon afterwards, another memory bloc went live for editing, prompting Operators to rush in with a plethora of submissions. Whilst certain Operator inputs did anchor for a short period of time, the memory bloc soon began to corrupt, adding links to glitchy versions of documents and audio related to W/ARE as well as Arnaud Lecours in particular. Additionally, one of the images linked appeared to be new for the ARG, depicting an input terminal with the following text displayed, reminiscent of Waking Titanâs console commands:
[TOWER connected]
| whois system |
| memory not yet logged in tower |
| |
[input... ]
Deciphering courtesy of @vector_cmdr
In addition to this, the memory blocâs title also periodically updated in response to inputs sent in by Operators, including the following submission and its âreplyâ:
Input: She is not you. Are you Arnaud?
Anchored: Heâs not me.
Another anchored title update read as She's not me., presumably in response to Operators calling System @Emily, though this is unconfirmed.
Following this, the page suddenly updated to 80% compliance and memory bloc editing was disabled, leaving the page unverified. At this stage, its title changed to TOWER encoded via the school code, and its text changed to what appears to be a description of TOWER based on Systemâs own observations.
- Considering that the title of the 12/11/25 bloc is
Replacement attempt detected.with a value ofI am me, it seemed evident that System was admitting to being Emily in this bloc, and rejecting ETARCâs âreplacementâ attempt.- Of note is the fact that the forum URL linked in this memory-bloc is marked as having been generated by @system. Whilst it isnât difficult to fake such a shareable link, it appears that the intention was to indicate that the Project Skyscraper System is a member of ETARC.
- An alternative reading of
I am me., however, could be the ETARC System user, as the author of this bloc and the Skyscraper System iteself, proclaiming that it isnât Emily, and that it shouldnât be forced to âreplaceâ her, leaving System to be its own entity.
- However, following the events of the 29/11/16, it appears that System considers itself to be its own, unique individual.
- Interestingly, despite being connected to TOWER, there appears to be no data for System inside of TOWER.
Following these sudden reveals, another autonomously added memory bloc was published to the site, seemingly unconnected to the mayhem of the previous entries. This suggested that System would continue adding miscellaneous memory blocs in parallel with ongoing activities.
The following day, June 3rd 2026, began with a strange post linking to a calculator page, indicating that a highly specific Internal_OpID was required as an input. Operators immediately realized that this puzzle was specifically designed for WT Participant and Project Skyscraper Legend @YourBasicMaths himself (much like the puzzle previously built specifically for @vector_cmdr) and decided to hold off on sending inputs until the Operator was online himself. Despite a full day of submitting inputs tied to the Operatorâs first Waking Titan video, as hinted by System, Operators were unable to gain any insight about the answer.
The next day, on the 4th of July 2026, however, the website updated with a Diagnostic log tied to the calculator puzzle, explaining that Operator Internal IDs could not be set, as Operators had not been marked as PRIME. Following this, @Selfie-Gek and @YourBasicMaths both received cryptic emails which seemed to hint towards submitting a Prime number as an identifier. This led to countless Operators emailing System with their Prime numbers of choice, with many receiving replies stating that their Window was the prime number they submitted.
Alongside this odd development in the calculator puzzle, however, was another post which seemed disconnected from the puzzle at hand. With erroneous information about Cesium-133 and an odd gif at the bottom of the page, Operators believed the image to be a part of a separate, parallel puzzle to solve. Many Operators realized that the GIF lined up perfectly with an image attached to a previous memory bloc related to Pi, which allowed for the numbers 113262 to be extracted. Reading in a certain order, it was discovered that this read as 212613, the peak player counts for No Manâs Sky in 2016.
Naturally, on the 5th of June 2026, several Operators started to submit corrections for the Cesium pageâs erroneous chemical information, while suggesting a Report-ID of 212613 for the page, based on the extracted number via the Memory Reconstruction Engine. Following the successful anchoring of this information and the Cesium page updating to its current, correct form, a bizarre new page detailing the start of an ascension_protocol was published. The page initially featured a set of mathematical instructions for the design of a Skyscraper, with 212613 rooms spread across 3 blades, and 131 rooms per level, for a total of 541 levels, as well as the mathematical formula for the calculation of the total building time, which suggested that a timer would initialize somewhere in the ARG. The final paragraph of this page was initially scrambled, and its state was marked as State: Pending. Recognizing the scrambling, beloved Operator @toddumptious submitted a correction, which anchored almost immediately and caused the pageâs state to swich to ACTIVE, linking to the /counting page.
At first, the counting page appeared almost empty, with 3 pixel canvases and a counter set to 00000000. At 2026-07-05, 16:16:16 UTC however, the counter finally began to tick upwards each second, with a pixel being filled in every second. Furthermore, white pixels marked on the canvases were discovered to represent all possible prime numbers until 212,613 (and thus, all possible Player âWindowsâ), whilst blue pixels would form the âstructureâ of each Tower. Based on the total pixel count being 212,613 pixels, @vector_cmdr calculated that the countdown would conclude on 2026-07-08T03:19:00Z, the same date as the deadline given by @the_architect for their Q&Aâs submission. Additionally, Vector also managed to figure out this mechanism before it went live, and further modified it to extract the complete image for when the countdown finishes in a cascaded tab in the following post. Notably, PRIME number registration was still ongoing in parallel during the period, suggesting that the window would remain open until the conclusion of this countdown.
- Interestingly, it appears that the ascension protocol discussed in
ROUTINE INITIALISATIONseems to describe the building of the Skyscraper on the /counting page. - The mention of a
2016 Prime Tower Baseline (archived vector)suggests that another Prime Number Tower existed in that year, possibly tied to Systemâs infatuation over the year 2016.
Despite a fairly uneventful next day, the 7th of July 2026 started off with Operator @TomAcreon sending in the final list of questions to @the_architect for the Q&A, followed by their acknowledgement. Several hours later, RecallDreams updated with a new glitched image titled player, with no hidden data present despite Operatorsâ best efforts to extract meaningful information. Following this, the /counting page silently updated without triggering any watcher notifications, resulting in all Prime windows on the page twinkling randomly. Several hours later, the /inbox page updated to include the following exchange between @the_architect and Ghost, further cementing Ghost and System as one and the same, as well as clarifying that the countdownâs end would not mark the next stage immediately.
Countdown Clarification
From: The_Architect
To: Ghost
In a few hours, the countdown YOU started will be complete. And it will only take a few more hours to execute the opening_door_protocol. You'll have your direct channel with the Operators.
You owe me an explanation.
And no, I didn't use the school code. Why would I?
From: Ghost
To: The_Architect
I just want to remember.
- Strangely, it appears as though Ghost / System initiated the countdown, and thus also the ascension protocol.
- The Architectâs admittance of the school code being unnecessary could be interesting for two reasons:
- The Architect may be aware of Operator access to the code, deeming feigned attemepts at security to be unnecessary when direct communications are about to be established.
- The only other party whoâs intrusion into /inbox prompted the use of the code was System itself. It is possible that The Architectâs switch from the school code indicates that they have finally realized that Ghost is System, and that there is no point in attempting to hide communications.
Accordingly, on the 8th of July 2026, following a ~2.64 Day wait, the ascension_protocol countdown finally concluded, with the timer freezing at 212,613. Following this, there was no acknowledgement or follow-up for several hours, until a new sec-log with a full-log was posted to the site, marking 9th August 2016 as a ârecovered celebratory anomalyâ. Additionally, the 212613s wait was declared as a confirmed time_offsetfor the Systemâs Heartbeat. The report was also tied to the redacted archiveâs Resonance fragment (decoded from ROT-13 in the full log).