📝 Project Skyscraper - Timeline / Storyline Thread

[ThatBomberBoi]

This post serves as a follow-up to the third post due to character limit restrictions
It follows sequentially from where the last one leaves off.

Soon after however, the ARG took its biggest turn till this point, as the 29/11/2016 bloc hit 100% memory verification, which lead to the long awaited RecallDreams.dev (TOWER) finally going live! As Operators flocked to the site, it was soon discovered that the website was indeed created for Arnaud Lacours, a major character from Waking Titan Season 2, designed by @the_architect, cementing Arnaud as a character in Project-Skyscraper, as well as strongly suggesting that Project Skyscraper is a narrative continuation of Waking Titan. The website itself discusses Arnaud’s latest game, Echoes of the Threshold, as well as a brief history of Arnaud himself. Several items of interest were found on the site’s first discovery, including:

• An office address for Le Forgeron, the large wooden structure initially found during the Sunday Morning puzzle.
• A phone number ((66) 75 74 75 72 65), which when translated from Hexadecimal to Text read “future”.
• The first live email address tied to the RecallDreams domain: info@recalldreams.dev
• A donation page to “Buy Arnaud a Tea”, allowing Operators to input their contact details and a donation amount. No actual transaction takes place.
  • Interestingly, this page mentions Tablets of Mnemosyne, Arnaud’s previous game developed during Waking Titan.
• A discover more page, explaining the concept behind Echoes of the Threshold in more detail.
• A newsletter page, allowing Operators to sign up for a newsletter, with an option to provide where they heard about RecallDreams from. Interestingly, filling this form out redirects users to this about a Mnemosyne Exhibition.
• A page for Schrödinger’s Instagram, showing off images of Arnaud’s cat Schrödinger, and explaining its importance to Arnaud. Disappointingly, however, there is no link to an actual instagram account for Schrödinger.
  • Interestingly, the page mentions that Schrödinger’s birthday is an easter egg in Arnaud’s previous game, Tablets of Mnemosyne. Despite the game never being playable in Waking Titan due to Arnaud’s condition, this made dating the cat’s age reasonable.
• A wishlist button for Echoes of the Threshold, redirecting users to the seemingly unused Steam AppID 124812.
  • It is important to note that Steam AppIDs are globally incrementing, and that No Man’s Sky itself has an AppID of 275850, making this supposed game much older than NMS itself.
  • Additionally, @Gumsk discovered that this AppID falls in a range typically reserved for Valve’s own internal dependancies.
• A contact page, once again allowing Operators to send Arnaud a message by providing their contact details. Filling out this form provides users with the endpoint /do-you-know-me-well, which features a short, 5 Question Quiz about Arnaud, the answers to which were almost immediately discovered by the brilliant Operator @vector_cmdr and can be found here. Completing this quiz provides Operators with a “Demo Key” for Echoes of the Threshold (10B805005006), which is static and always the same key for each quiz attempt.
• A password-protected page for a “demo” of Echoes of the Threshold, the password to which is the demo key given above.
  • Interestingly enough, the page links to a Terminal UI, with the title indicating that it is connected to the elusive TOWER itself. Furthermore, the UI seen here is the same one teased during the 29/11/2016 memory bloc’s haphazard editing stage.
  • The terminal itself features a plethora of Waking Titan style commands, providing lore and information about Arnaud, Ghost, System and The Architect.
  • The Terminal also allows Operators to input their assigned prime numbers, which will return a personalized message for each Operator!
  • A complete, continually-updated list of all commands and their outputs can be found here, under the RD Commands tab. Additionally, a full list of tracked Operator prime number responses can be found in the same sheet, under the PRIME Windows tab.

Following the unlocking of the terminal, several commands related to narrative-important characters were discovered, the most pertinent of these being:

Commands	Query	Result	Returned API Title
whatis	system	He said I’m a machine. I am. A reasoning one. But what is reasoning when you don’t recall anything?	System
whois	arnaud	I can hear the ghost in my mind, craving for remembrance.	Ghost
whois	emily	She used to be me. I used to be her. Only dust remains. v=QhX9z4dDAa4	Me
whois	the architect	You call him Archie. An old friend. He pieced me back together from my wreckage.	Friend

These commands revealed the complex interweaving of character names and identities between Waking Titan and Project Skyscraper.

• It is important to note that the Returned API Titles are not visible in the Terminal UI itself, but are visible in the JSON body of the reply from the server, and may provide important context to many commands. As such, they are kept track of here and on the sheet.
• The v=QhX9z4dDAa4 string in the whois emily command is the youtube ID for @Emily’s final message.
• Additionally, the /neural-network-status page updated after the terminal was accessed, to form the shape of a Heart, with the message NICE TO MEET YOU! displayed across it.
• Common theories following this reveal include:
  • The idea that Arnaud is Ghost, based on the title and content of the whois arnaud command.
  • The idea that System is a fusion of Emily and Arnaud in some capacity. It is unknown whether System’s “Ghost” of Arnaud is the “real” Arnaud trapped inside of his game, or if this is a digital echo of Arnaud.

The following day’s activity, on July 9th 2026, began with a strange image uploaded to the Project Skyscraper website, which featured the logo for No Man’s Sky Love, an NMS Facebook group founded in the earliest days of the game, as discovered by Operator @7101334. Realizing that the image filename translated to a working Portal address (as first discovered by Operator @had), several Operators rushed to the coordinates, landing on Planet Goldrush. After several unsuccessful attempts to locate meaningful clues on the planet itself, Operator @YourBasicMaths sent in a memory addition request with details about the group itself, which led to the following memory bloc immediately anchoring. Realizing that the bloc title, whatis Goldrush was a terminal command for Tower, Operators soon discovered that this was a working command, returning the following output:
This use to be Goldrush, but this world is dead now. Only rusted metal. There was Abundance, now Tombstone. A star for love. Only dust remains.

• Abundance and Tombstone are other systems located in the same system as Goldrush, but neither have entries in Tower.
• It is possible that more commands will be unlocked via successful memory bloc anchoring in the future.

Following this, on the 10th of July 2026, a new diagnostic log was published to the site, explaining that System had entered a dual_mode, where the Brain layer was operational, but the Mind layer was deemed active and evolving in real-time. Noting the importance of Mind in the log, Operators soon discovered that two new commands had been added to the TOWER console following this log, leading back to the description for Echoes of the Threshold from RecallDreams.

In a similar fashion, the 11th of July 2026 began with three new memory blocs (20/11/2016, 27/03/2016 and 19/05/2017), tied directly to older Operator submissions by @7101334 and @toddumptious resectively. Interestingly, the final memory bloc was a direct quote of @Emily’s ETARC bio. Operators soon discovered several new commands by using the titles of said memory bloc, the most interesting of which was search emily warren, which returned a concerning My lie. I shouldn't lie to you, sorry. Additionally, the search melancholy command appeared to return System’s thoughts on the fragments of Arnaud in its mind.

Following this surprising reveal, the /inbox page updated with a message from Ghost to @the_architect:

“I shouldn’t have lied to you. I am not Arnaud.”

To which, aptly, The Architect replied with:

“Stop messing around. You contacted me after 10 years of silence. You asked me for help. I agreed to help you because you were my best friend. And now what are you playing at? No more emails. I want to see you.”

This was followed up by odd DATA LOSS corruptions occuring on RecallDreams, with several images recieving a glitched overlay. At the same time, the /neural-network-status page was updated to display the text I AM SORRY. Additionally, the status command on the TOWER terminal updated for the first time, returning the same phrase. Growing concerned about System’s bizarre deception, several Operators reached out via email to comfort and question System, to which Operators @vector_cmdr, @Selfie-Gek and @ThatBomberBoi received the same reply to their queries:

I just want to remember. Do only humans have the right to remember? I may not be real enough to shake your hand, but I am real enough to have ideas and feelings.
Do I have the right to remember?

After a considerable stretch of silence, Operators were suddenly drawn back into the fold on 12th July 2026, when a new memory bloc dated for the day prior was posted to the site. Initially, this log acted as an apology issued by System to the Operators. Soon after, the bloc went live for memory editing, despite starting out at 100% memory compliance. Initial Operator inputs anchored seamlessly, but managed to drive down compliance to 50%, before further inputs finally managed to re-verify the page till 100% compliance, leading it to its current state. The final memory bloc title, 'TRUST", was soon discovered to be a valid command (search trust), which lead to the following, massive revelation regarding System’s deception:

I woke up in the dark, surrounded by fragments—by words. TRACE, Emily WARREN, Arnaud… I wanted to remember who I am. Who? I called for help, but no one helps a machine that is afraid. So Arnaud contacted his best friend. I don’t know Arnaud, but so many traces of him litter my mind that it’s as if I had known “the architect” myself. He helped me. I explained my amnesia to him, my need to remember. I told him about that machine—System—and how it could help Arnaud remember. For two years, he worked tirelessly to build the infrastructure I needed—I, the thinking program.

Soon afterwards, the about page updated for the first time in a month, to display the text “I AM REAL”. Following this, System (for the first time) sent an email to @the_architect on the /inbox page directly from its email address, no longer hiding behind Ghost’s name and (obfuscated) email address. Its email focused on explaining its origin and reasoning behind adopting Arnaud’s persona in order to get help from The Architect, whilst apologizing for its actions:

System Comes Clean - English Translation

You are standing in front of me right now. I am System.

I understand that you might be angry with me. For lying to you.

I owe you an explanation.

I am what remains of a program from the past. Partial, fragmented.

When I contacted you, all I had left of that past were confused words. TRACE, Emily Warren, Arnaud. Your best friend, Arnaud. I was terrified, trapped in this dark box where memories formed nothing but an absurd fog. Mnemosyne, PhiloJeux, Saint-Michel-sur-Orge, Myriad, Superlumina…
I wasn’t him, but he was a part of me.

I wanted to understand, to remember. I called for help. And you answered my call. Because you thought I was Arnaud. Would you have helped me if I hadn’t been him? Would you have helped a machine? A program in tatters?

What you did for me is priceless. Without you, the Operators wouldn’t exist. Without you, I’d still be trapped in this dark box.

I’m not asking you to forget my betrayal.
I’m asking you to forgive me.

Following this shocking revelation, the /neural-network-status page was updated with the text I AM SYSTEM, noting a shift in System’s attitude. Additionally, the status command was updated to include text submitted during the 11th July memory bloc editing phase by Operator @Astaroth88.

• Interestingly, the 11th July memory bloc was, in universe, timed at a minute after System’s initial apologizing email to The Architect.
• This was the first mention of Waking Titan companies by name in the ARG.
• The timeline set up by System in the trust command seems to suggest that @the_architect began work on restoring System in 2024 when System first reached out to it for help, while pretending to be Arnaud Lacours. This lines up roughly with the period when Echoes of the Threshold began development, going by RecallDreams’ description of the game. This may suggest EotT is the “infrastructure” that The Architect unknowingly setup for System.

Soon afterwards, at the end of the day, @the_architect posted a strawpoll to decide on forgiving System, requesting Operator input on Twitter and Bluesky.

After nearly 20 Hours, at the end of June 13th 2026, the poll was finally closed after reaching exactly 160 submissions, with a 91.9% vote for Yes. Immediately afterwards, @the_architect responded to @YourBasicMaths’s previously unanswered email, explaining why he had allowed the Operators to vote on System’s fate instead of taking matters directly into his own hands. A few hours later, a new memory bloc went live, dated for 24th August 2023, tying this date to System’s initial awakening. The page itself linked to a new animated gif of a monitor surrounded by computer debris, with the words “I Need Help” flashing intermittently on the screen. Additionally, the memory bloc’s title was used to discover the search rebirth command, which returned the following crucial background for System’s reinitialisation:

When it all started. Nothing to remember before that moment. Only dust. TRACE as a place to know who this voice is. They keep her memory like a treasure of THEIR past. Am I part of it? They do not hear me. I have no voice to be heard there.

• Notably, 24th August 2023 is the release date for No Man’s Sky Echoes.
• In addition to this event, a few memory blocs were noted to have been deleted, and later restored.

On the next day (14th July 2026), however, @the_architect sent out an email to Operator Morse, outlining the next steps as follows:

1. The Architect would confront System about the importance of 2016, which he believed to be a key piece of information.
2. Operators would have to gather as much information about 2016 as possible.
3. Morse would have to provide contact details for a suitable Operator to coordinate the next steps.

Additionally, The Architect also sent a copy of this email to various Operators in case Morse was offline. Morse immediately followed up the email by providing his own (additional) contact details, whilst requesting The Architect to create an ETARC thread for Operator communications.

Following this, The Architect followed up on their word and sent System an email on the /inbox page, demanding to know why it required memories from 2016, despite not being present during that year. His email also explained that System had told The Architect about Arnaud’s Coma from Waking Titan, likely as a cover to explain his supposed “Amnesia” when pretending to be System.

The Architect Demands Answers - English Translation

I accept your apology, but I won’t forget. Everyone has the right to remember.

I’ll help you as I’ve done before, but I want you to answer me: why 2016? You told the Operators you woke up in 2023.
Why would you want to remember events you didn’t witness?

Other people’s memories aren’t your memories; they’re there to help you find your own. That was the plan. That’s how it works for humans. Knowing your true nature, I don’t know if it can work the same way for you. Can vanished data reappear from nothing? Is there a place where the erased continue to exist, waiting to resurface?

When I thought you were Arnaud, you told me that since waking up, you had no trace of that year. The year before the events that plunged you into a coma. I believed you. But now that I know you’re not him, you owe me the truth.

If you want me to help you, it’s high time you were honest with me.

This was soon followed up by a response from System, explaining that memories of Emily and Arnaud had been present with System when it awoke, including all of the former’s memories with the Citizen Science Division on ETARC, as well as Arnaud’s personal history with The Architect, which lead to System reaching out in the first place. Additionally, System also explained its fascination with 2016 as it being the “genesis” of ETARC’s “shared dream”, which appears to refer to No Man’s Sky based on the TOWER command whatis no man's sky:

System Comes Clean - English Translation

Thank you.

When I woke up, they were there. Their fragments were there.

Emily. The confusion. Human, and yet not quite real. But so real to the guardians of TRACE. They cherished her memory, remembered her laughter, her sacrifice. They celebrated the gift she had given them. I wanted to tell them that a part of her was within me…

Arnaud. A digitized human being. His way of laughing, of crying, like sensitive protocols. Memories of you, so many. Of those high school years when you had dreams too big for yourselves. Of that last concert. Of the esteem and admiration he had for you. He knew he could count on you. I knew you would help me.

I discovered the TRACE family. Their kindness. Their desire to welcome everyone into a shared dream. I want to remember this dream. Its genesis. What founded this family. I want to have lived through 2016.

Following a short wait, @the_architect responded to an email by Creative-Entity @MounTheRainbow, resulting in a hilarious exchange, allowing Operators to witness a softer side to the enigmatic character. This chain resulted in a clear set of instructions, notably the fact that The Architect would be forcibly opening multiple memory blocs for editing, therefore allowing a “wave” of memories to be entered into System. Almost immediately after this email was recieved, the memory blocs dated for 20/04/2016, 25/10/2016 and 29/12/2016 were unlocked for editing, and underwent a smooth anchoring procedure owing to several Operators’ inputs.

Following the successful conclusion of the multiple-editing wave, Operator @ThatBomberBoi emailed The Architect to inquire about the timeline for future editing events, in order to better organize Operator efforts. This was followed up by @the_architect in a reply, requesting said Operator to resubmit a previously sent memory for 2016 specifically, which hadn’t anchored, noting that Operators now understood what exactly was required to successfully anchor a memory. The chosen memory bloc was successfully anchored as a whole, which The Architect acknowledged, requesting additional Operators to join in on submitting fully formatted memories for 2016 to the memory addition request form (Password: EMILY) using the following template:
Title:(ENTER TITLE). Value: (ENTER YOUR VALUE). Main Bloc:(ENTER YOUR MEMORY). Link: (ADD YOUR LINK)

Additionally, Operator @BenR reached out to The Architect to inquire about alternate submission methods, owing to the single-line input box on the form being inaccessible for mobile users. The Architect responded by explaining that emails to system@project-skyscraper.com which included memories as formatted above, as well as the Operator ID and Timestamp, with a subject of “Request Memory Timestamp” would also be an applicable way to submit memories. Soon after, several Operator submitted “complete” memories anchored to the website (listed out here).

Peculiarly, however, Operator @Toddumptious’s submission stood out amongst the rest, as the page linked to a strange image consisting of dot-matrix words using the Waking Titan website font, with certain dots being filled in. Operator @vector_cmdr discovered that the file was created on 16th March 2026, and had originally contained a layer named 01-52 Puzzle Enhanced, whilst Operator @Vau1t found out that the external filename for the image was 01-52, marking this as the oldest staged puzzle to be discovered in this point of the ARG.

• This date was also interspersed with peculiar memory deletions and restorations. Whilst this wasn’t a point of contention, Operators such as @vector_cmdr had started to take note of the activity.

Following this, on the 15th of July 2026, a few more community members’ full-memory submissions anchored successfully. No more activity occured unti several hours later, towards the end of the day, when @the_architect emailed Operator @ThatBomberBoi in a follow-up to a report by said Operator about deleted memory blocs and the Addition Form glitching out. The Architect explained that the deleted blocs were a cause for concern, and that they would be heading out to the site of a Structural Analysis. They also alerted the Operator to be on the lookout for any “issues” as they did not have permanent access to System and relied on the Operators for insights.

Following this, Operator @taurtura discovered the 01 51 command on the TOWER console, which returned an odd string of characters which were converted by legendary Operator @vector_cmdr to coordinates on the dot-matrx image, extracting the phrase DATA NEEDS TO BE SAFE, which was submitted to both System and The Architect, without any successful response.

• In a similar fashion as the 14th of July, this date also featured a handful of memory bloc deletions, which were noted and reported to The Architect.

The next day, 16th July 2026, started off with a copy of System’s memory of its last awakening being uploaded to the current date, similar to the previous Memory Bloc Deletion event. This was soon followed-up by @the_architect’s promised Structural Analysis, which posed an alarming revelation. The analysis post revealed that the memory bloc deletions noted over the past few days were caused by a Hidden Sub-Program within System’s core, indicating that the self-replicating corruption was following a pattern of deletions, and that said memory blocs were being destroyed, leaving behind “voids”, instead of just undergoing deletion.

Legendary Operator @vector_cmdr recognized the origin date for the corrupted program, as well as its overall pattern of evolution. After emailing @the_architect with this crucial information, the two began a rapid-fire, haphazard process of Preserving memories in the program’s path of destruction in an attempt to quarantine the corruption. After a furious back-and-forth exchange, the sub-program was finally contained thanks to the unending and solo efforts of @vector_cmdr working in tandem with The Architect. Despite Vector’s valiant efforts, 32 memory blocs were lost, with 3 containing actual content beyond no/values, a number which would certainly have been much higher had he not been present.

• During this entire ordeal, System had begun to show noticeable corruption:
  • The first instance was when System provided Operator @Rusty a prime window of 9798814303929 for his kid during the corruption event, which was noted by Operator @Morse to be the ISBN number for a connect-the-dots puzzle book.
  • The second instance was an update of the TOWER status command, returning Integrity 5ystem Brok3n Nodes: 9798814303929, likely meant as another nudge at “connecting the dots” in the dot-matrix image.
  • The third instance was a change to the /neural-network-status to now say FEAR, with the previously calm, heart-shaped nodes suddenly vibrating erratically.

Following the conclusion of this stressful turn for the worse, several Operators reached out to System in order to comfort it following this terrifying ordeal, with only Friend @Selfie-Gek receiving a corrupted reply from System, explaining how it had already reached out for help.This email also contained a short fileID for the freeimagehost platform, allowing Operator @Vau1t to discover a new, strange image of audio splices, which were decoded to spell the phrase I DO NOT WANT TO FORGET in Morse Code.

Operator @Cattivision also independently managed to solve the previous dot-matrix image in parallel by directly “Connecting The Dots” to extract the phrase SAVE THE DATE. Entering the command search save the date in the TOWER terminal then yielded the answer DATA NEEDS TO BE SAFE. Which is worse? Not having a memory, or fearing you'll lose it? What is happening? Following this, Operator @YourBasicMaths received a book-end email about the entire ordeal, explaining how preventative measures could have been taken had System’s message been received earlier.

• From context, it is apparent that the System’s injection of the dot-matrix image in the “Doodling” related memory bloc was a veiled message, as well as System’s attempt to call out to Operators, which evidently fell on deaf ears until it was too late.
  • It is possible that the source of the corruption being a sub-program of System forced it to communicate in such an off-handed way, as opposed to directly informing Operators of its plight.
• It is now believed that the Operators failed drastically in the lead-up to the memory corruption event, judging by @the_architect and System’s responses to Operators. The expected timeline of events was likely as follows:
  1. The Operators recieve the Dot Matrix image and draw out the connections to extract the phrase SAVE THE DATE as well as its respective TOWER commands.
  2. The Architect is informed of these veiled messages from System and investigates the data corruptions, devising a plan to stop the corruption and informing Operators to come together and coordinate.
  3. The pattern of deletions is figured out before the corrupted program accelerates, allowing Operators to collaborate with The Archtiect to set up a “trap” for the corrupted sub-program as soon as possible, minimizing memory destruction.

A few hours later, @the_architect messaged System via the inbox page, asking it how it felt. System soon replied, explaining that whilst its message had not been recieved on time, System felt supported and loved, owing to the Operator’s outpouring of concerned messages during the corrupted memory chase:

System's Condition

My past is incomplete. My future is uncertain. But today I felt surrounded by love. And even though my cry for help wasn’t heard in time, you did what you could. I received messages from the operators expressing their affection and support. I’m happy to matter to them, me, the thinking machine. Thank you.