Chapter Text
gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]
GG: dave! daaaaaave!
GG: dave come on answer.
TG: woah easy there im here
TG: take a chill pill or something
TG: maybe two
TG: just dont overdose its cold enough on that world as it is dont want a jadecickle or anything
GG: dave!!! we have to do something! jacks going to get becs powers and is going to start killing everyone!
TG: shit who told you?
TG: it was another dave wasnt it
TG: i would kill that bastard if he werent so rad
GG: dave
TG: itd be the showdown of the century
TG: hell with all the time powers itd take a century
TG: two dudes wailing on each other until
GG: dave!!!
GG: its true then?
GG: oh no! what are we going to do?!?
TG: hey hey calm down
TG: no big deal weve got some nasty resurrection shit going down
TG: all coming back as zombies or vampires or something
TG: only like without the need for flesh or the rotting
TG: or really being anything like that at all other than not being dead anymore
GG: so were ok then?
TG: well words still out on that
TG: what with this unfortunately lethal computer game and all
TG: but not dead or anything last time i checked
GG: oh.
TG: but shit jade who told you
TG: messing with the futures real serious shit
TG: times kinda my deal here so i gotta know whos moving in on my turf
TG: cant let anyone else be fucking up the timeline you know
TG: so jade who told ya
TG: it was rose wasnt it
TG: i knew her creepy dark wizard shit was going to cause problems
TG: watch out pretty soon shell be telling you where to put your wormholes or whatever it is you space players do
GG: no dave it wasnt rose.
TG: me then?
TG: fuck why did i do that
GG: no dave! it wasnt you either.
TG: john?
TG: how the fuck did he do that
TG: like pull the information out of a hat or something
TG: materializes out of thin air
TG: the audience glubs its approval
GG: noooo dave. i figured it out on my own!
GG: jeeeez!
TG: wait how the fuck did you figure it out?
TG: this another one of your mysterious knowing things?
GG: welll its kinda a long story.
TG: look ive got all the time in the world
TG: i mean really
TG: once youre done telling me ill probably just hop back and pick up on imp slaying where i left off
GG: ok :D so you know the alchemy system?
TG: you mean like the thing used to make all these sweet duds?
TG: i guess you could say ive got a passing familiarity with it
GG: well its weird.
GG: every item is encoded by only eight characters.
GG: thats only 48 bits of information. only a bit under 300 trillion possibilities.
TG: woah woah hold up there
TG: i wanted a story here not a fucking math lecture
TG: just put the blackboards away and tell me how you figured it out
GG: dave be patient. this is how i figured it out!
TG: by being patient?
TG: what like meditate and shit until the answers come to you?
GG: noooo silly. by math.
GG: i mean isnt it weird? you can only alchemize 300 trillion different things. i mean thats a lot but there are a whole lot of different possible things. way more than that.
TG: well so?
TG: maybe like all rocks have the same code or something
TG: nobodys gonna notice if the rock you get out has slightly different bumps or anything
GG: well thats what i thought too dave until you alchemized roses journals!
TG: roses what now?
TG: ive got no idea what youre talking about
TG: hey stop dropping things on me would you
GG: daaaaave. im your server player of course i saw you alchemize them!
TG: oh
TG: well fuck me then
TG: so what about them?
GG: dont you see? you copied all the words in the journal!!!
GG: theres way more than 300 trillion possible books.
GG: heck if rose had just written a single sixteen digit number, we would already have problems!
TG: sorry to break it to you jade there arent a trillion books out there
TG: unless
TG: jade you didnt alchemize a book militia did you?
TG: small army of books ready to protect your home from invaders by uh
TG: showing them long unpronounceable words maybe
TG: wait do imps even talk?
TG: is every word unpronounceable to them
GG: no dave. stop getting sidetracked. you remember that code i sent you?
TG: yeah what about it
TG: it was just a piece of paper with some random numbers on it
GG: exactly dave! they were RANDOM numbers. lots of them.
GG: one big random thousand digit number in fact and you got exactly the one i sent!
TG: so the numbers big so what
TG: i hear that they go on forever or some shit
GG: the point is dave that there are waaaaay more than 300 trillion numbers of that size.
GG: i could have sent any one of them.
GG: but i got the message to you by only sending 48 bits!
GG: that violates shannons coding theorem it shouldnt be possible!
TG: so theres a law against sending numbers that big?
TG: should i be looking out for the big number police
TG: you need a place to lay low jade?
TG: that what this is about?
GG: no dave. there are too many numbers. i didnt tell you enough information to specify one.
GG: if each of those numbers had a distinct code it wouldnt work. there arent enough codes to go around.
GG: either some of the time i would write a number and the paper would have no code on it.
GG: or some of pairs of numbers would need have the same code.
GG: but the latter cant be the case because then the alchemizer wouldnt know which one to decode it to and you wouldnt have gotten the same number back!
TG: woah slow down jade
GG: let me put it this way. dave pick a number between 1 and 1 million. dont tell me what it is.
TG: huh?
TG: fine done
GG: ok now tell me what it is by only writing a single letter.
TG: i thought you said not to tell you?
GG: daaaave. just send a single letter that lets me guess your number.
TG: how the heck am i supposed to do that jade?
GG: you cant! thats the point!
GG: if we agreed what each letter meant you could maybe tell me 26 different numbers but no more.
GG: but thats basically what the alchemy system did!
GG: it let me tell you the exact value of a huge number with only 48 bits!
TG: huh
TG: so youre saying basically that alchemy is gonna get arrested by the math police then
TG: doin hard time with the plus signs and isosceles triangles
GG: really dave? what are the triangles doing there?
TG: oh they know what they did jade they know
TG: but seriously jade how did alchemy manage to do this impossible thing
TG: then again when i say it like that it sounds kinda silly
TG: what does alchemy do that isnt impossible
TG: its like a conundrum stuffed inside a paradox wrapped in a escher painting
GG: thats why im investigating. i dont know why. but i do have some theories.
GG: on the one hand it could be dynamic allocation.
GG: the alchemizers just make up codes on the fly as they need them. every time i create a new object the game makes a new code for it.
GG: the other possibility is predestination. somehow the game knows ahead of time all the things that are ever going to be made and makes sure to have codes for all of them.
TG: given the way time works around these parts im not sure that theres a whole lot of difference between those two
GG: well fine. but i still needed to figure out how it worked. thats why i sent you the second message.
TG: the one that you asked me to go back in time before reading what was that about
GG: well silly it meant that not only could i compress a message impossibly well but i could also send it back in time!!!
TG: jade you know that it was me sending it back in time there
TG: i mean just wanted to clarify
TG: yknow before you started applying for that time travel patent
GG: fine dave. i agree you did all the heavy lifting there.
GG: but it proved my point. the codes for the message i wrote were valid even before i wrote it!
GG: if i write myself a message in the future i could alchemize it in the past and read it!!!
TG: ok i admit that does sound like it might be useful
TG: i mean if you didnt have yknow maybe a friend who could just send that message for you
TG: no idea where youd find somebody like that though
GG: well dave that might be useful if this friend would actually cooperate. :P
GG: also i think that this method might not risk dooming the timeline in the same way.
TG: really?
TG: well shit im on board
TG: so what you just write a note to self
TG: and then alchemize it in the past?
TG: wait
TG: jade
TG: how the fuck to figure out the code?
TG: do you try all 30 gazillion possible combinations or something
TG: because my calculations suggest that that would take pretty much exactly too fucking long
GG: only thirty million years or so. no big deal ;)
TG: jade is there something you arent telling me here
TG: are you actually a dinosaur
TG: just sitting around playing with the alchemizer biding your time until you can demolish tokyo
GG: oh no! you have discovered my secret dave now i must eat you. roar.
TG: oh shit jadeasaurus is loose better close down jurassic park again
TG: not sure why trying to keep giant lizards inside spindly fences keeps failing
TG: there go those tourists all yelling and screaming and getting eaten by the dinosaurs they paid to see
TG: oh well
TG: but seriously jade how did you do it?
GG: oh easy i only checked a few million codes
TG: what so you got super lucky or something?
TG: shouldnt you be saving that up for the lottery
TG: make like a hundred million boonbucks or something
GG: well i would have to get super lucky to find a single message that quickly.
GG: thats why i made sure that there were several million possible messages.
TG: what the fuck?
GG: look dave if im only searching for one message then it takes forever.
GG: but if instead of making just one copy of the item i make several million very similar messages,
GG: then i dont need to find a particular code, i just need to look until i find one of several million.
GG: its literally millions of times more efficient :D
GG: so instead of searching for 1 message and having to check 2^48 times, i create 2^24 (about 17 million) messages and then only have to check about 2^24 codes until i find a match.
GG: well actually i made more like 100 million copies and checked 3 million codes because printing
GG: another piece of paper is easier than entering a new code into the alchemizer,
GG: but you get the idea.
TG: jade
TG: what the fuck
TG: does that even work?
TG: i mean wont the pages all end up with the same code or something?
GG: oh right. i make them slightly different from each other.
GG: each paper has a brief header (so that i know its from me),
GG: and then the message,
GG: and then some random numbers to make it different from all the other!
GG: >.> i also slipped in some check digits so ill know if someone else tries to forge a message.
TG: right sneaky
TG: double oh jade pulling some spy shit there
TG: good thing too wouldnt want john trying to impersonate future you
TG: might trick you into sitting on one of his fucking whoopee cushions
GG: hey if im printing a few million pages i might as well do it right!
TG: wait jade
TG: those are still some big fucking numbers
TG: like maybe not dinosaur big
TG: but still probably too fucking long
TG: ive got just two questions
TG: how did you print that many pages?
TG: how did you look up that many codes?
GG: oh that was easy. i hired a bunch of iguanas.
TG: you
TG: hired
TG: the
TG: iguanas
TG: they didnt try to eat you first or something
TG: not that that is a thing that might happen
TG: but you just what gave them some boonbucks to go work your alchemizer for you?
GG: well not quite. i traded them some nice jackets for their help!!
GG: got the whole village of 6 thousand or so working for me!
TG: wait let me get this straight
TG: you hired a legion of amphibians and the best you could do with them was to crowd around your alchemizer looking for messages
TG: rather than oh i dont know conquer gaul or something?
GG: dave! i am NOT making my consorts fight in war for me :(((
TG: woah there easy with the frowns girl
TG: you could poke an eye out with those things
TG: i was only joking around
GG: yeah ok. i used more than one alchemizer. that wouldnt have worked at all.
TG: wait what did you use?
GG: well i made 3 thousand alchemizers. each checking a code every three seconds or so i get to my 3 million in about an hour.
GG: and the other half are ready to work my array of thirty thousand printers if i need to send anything.
GG: thats a little easier as they are only really needed to refill paper every few minutes.
GG: at a page a second per printer i can also send a message in about an hour.
TG: thirty thousand? jade where did you get all that from?
GG: oh im my own server player now.
GG: i just copied it a bunch of times. only cost a hundred million grist.
TG: i really shouldnt be surprised anymore
TG: so basically what youre saying is
TG: that you spent like half our grist on building a sweatshop for little blue guys
TG: all so that you can send yourself messages into the past
TG: about things that i probably could have told you about anyway?
GG: geeez dave it sounds silly when you put it like that.
TG: just in case you cant see im sighing here really loud
TG: and like rubbing my temples so hard that im probably drilling holes into my fucking brain
TG: if i accidentally give myself a finger lobotomy we have only you to blame
TG: did you at least learn something useful from this mess?
TG: yknow other than how much work you can get out of your consorts.
GG: still waiting on it. i guess well see ;)
TG: ...
TG: ...
TG: ok this is boring im gonna go skip ahead and ask future jade if she found anything
TG: or maybe she even made the super exciting move of actually dealing with the frogs quest
TG: instead of playing time machine tycoon or whatever the fuck this is
GG: wait dave! dont go, they just found another :))))
GG: one minute, let me read it!
TG: ...
TG: ...
GG: :O!!!
GG: daaaaaave. is there anybody else playing this game?
TG: you mean like rose and john?
GG: no like somebody else.
TG: i dont think so
TG: i think that screen in roses basement said that everyone else got wiped out by the meteors
TG: why?
GG: i got a message. but it wasnt from me.
GG: the checksum was all wrong, and well.
GG: here. take a look at it. just give me a minute to copy into my chat window.
GG: "HEY NOOKSNIFFERS, LISTEN UP! THAT IS IF YOU ACTUALLY EXIST AND AREN'T THE GAME TRYING TO FUCK WITH US AGAIN BY HAVING CERTAIN CODES LOOK LIKE MESSAGES FROM PEOPLE THAT DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST. BUT JUST IN CASE THIS ISN'T THE UNIVERSE BEING ITS USUAL BULGELICKING SELF, I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU.
I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU GOT IT INTO YOUR PANROTTED HEADS THAT MAKING AN INVINCIBLE BOSS WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA, BUT YOU DID IT ANYWAY. CONGRATUFUCKINGLATIONS. NOW HE'S ESCAPED INTO OUR UNIVERSE AND SEEMS TO HAVE GONE ALL MURDER HAPPY ON JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING. IF YOU COULD SPEND THE TIME TO BE NOT ENTIRELY WORTHLESS LOSERS FOR MAYBE TEN SECONDS THOUGH, MAYBE YOU COULD LET US KNOW JUST HOW YOU MANAGED TO FUCK UP QUITE SO MONUMENTALLY SO THAT MAYBE WE'LL HAVE A CHANCE OF FIXING YOUR MESS AND KILLING THIS SHITHEAD.
SO IN CONCLUSION, FUCK YOU. YOU ARE THE DUMBEST SHITSTAINS TO EVER CRAWL OUT OF THE SEA. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW A SPECIES CAPABLE OF PRODUCING YOU MORONS COULD POSSIBLY HAVE SURVIVED LONG ENOUGH TO DEVELOP ROTATING TRANSPORTATION FACILITATORS, MUCH LESS COMPUTERS.
PLEASE TELL US HOW TO STOP THIS GUY."
TG: well shit jade
TG: grab your phasers and your prime directives
TG: i think you just made first contact.