Da Vidicapus - RPC Authority Sandbox

Da Vidicapus

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Introduction

Human sensation is made of six components. Visual, Auditory, Somatosensory, Gustatory, Olfactory and Vestibular data (VASGOV data) is collected by the body to form perception in the brain. The resulting subjective experience of one's VASGOV input is termed qualia. Qualia is difficult to semantically define. However, imagine: Your subjective experience of the color red might differ from that of another individual. Your specific experience of the color is a qualia.

fig. 1 "Gestalt transmission". VASGOV data is processed by the brain, and resulting subjective qualia is captured. — Schematic by Dr. Wolfgang Metzger, circa 1961.

It is currently impossible to artificially create a qualia using VASGOV data. Therefore, percepathists make use of VidiCaps. A VidiCap is a device capable of taking the qualia generated by a brain and presenting it to outside parties.

Qualia is quantified using the concept of vicariousness. Vicariousness is formally defined as qualia generated per second, denoted by the unit Psi. Different situations are more sensory and perceptually demanding, and therefore induce a higher vicariousness in the subject’s mind. An average vicariousness is 95Ψ for adult men, and 100Ψ for adult women. Pediatric vicariousness tends to average 105-110Ψ.

VidiCap specialty

VidiCaps come in varying shapes and functionalities. However, there are 2 main qualities that determine which is suitable for any given cause:

Maximum Vicariousness: A VidiCap’s maximum capacity. Attempting to record perception that exceeds the VidiCap’s maximum vicariousness will destabilize the system. Conversely, recording perception with a vicariousness less than half of the system's maximum may have similar effects. This is dubbed the stable vicariousness interval (SVI) of the system. The consequences of transgressing the SVI will be discussed in the ‘VidiCap failure’ section of this document.

Physicality: A VidiCap’s size, portability and accessibility.

The following is a list of selected VidiCap classes.

Supplementary material: VidiCap class List

VidiCap reading

VidiCaptures are extremely varied due to being entwined with subjective perception. The following is a list of selected VidiCaptures to demonstrate the diverse possibility of output one might obtain.

Supplementary material: VidiCapture demonstration

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VidiCapture subject: Male, 67 years of age, anthropologist, no mental conditions.
VidiCapture context: The 32nd decennial Research World Fair Scientific Progress Awards.
VidiCap class: LookingGlass

- It is here, in this crowd of cheering men and women I stand with my back straight and my legs knit together, awaiting my grand prize. It is not a monetary prize, that is a simple’s desire, it is a prize of recognition, for it is validation we seek. Indeed, my peers and I mingled with numbers, each and every one of us impatiently tapping our feet, awaiting a chance to utter the fame of our papers. Such is the way of science, a competition of intellect, of networking and progress, and a pedestal as the reward. Now’s pedestal is the stage, where my name will be sprayed over my colleagues like a spider’s web, a web which to me will be a rope, to grasp and pull myself out of this crowd not dissimilarly from how the prince crawls over the corpses of his kin to reach the monarch’s crown.

“And the Anthropology award goes to… Mergot Paul!”

The fellows to my side begin cheering and clapping, but I touch my chest, as such an announcement requires one to ensure the beating of their heart. Mergot is a great scientist, I am certain, yet his study on the marriage customs of Maltese hunter gatherers has far fewer citations than my report on the decreased trust in monthly periodicals within the French student demographic! Eleven less in fact! I now think of my Father’s final words, “Son, never accept a false decision.”, foolish wisdom, indeed, one must occasionally bow, but not at this moment! I trudge towards the stage, pushing my peers away with my shoulders and poor excuses -

Vicariousness of segment: 97Ψ

VidiCapture subject: Female, 32 years of age, involuntary disposable personnel, anomaly-induced psychosis.
VidiCapture context: The subject is restrained by her limbs to her bed in a CSD cell.
VidiCap class: GanzfeldScreen

- Your arms and legs would very much enjoy respite from these incessant snakes, cute as they may be, embracing the third bridges from your torso. You need to keep sharp eyes on your little snakes, for simply turning to inspect the lavishly nifty men, standing straight as bars opposite to you, prone them to immaturely bite your skin, almost like how a mother stitches her daughter’s eyes after standing a morose witness to devilish pretty boys steal a single innocently fragile look. You slap their desertly dry hug away, but they immediately get it into their squishable heads who the mother really is, and come crawling back to your fair and homely skin. Oh that Sigmund, postulated brazenly his imprudent theory (more like a failed hypo-thesis) of daughter less than or maybe more than loving her father, when the truly palpable taboo lied with the boy who holds his mothers legs in a bid of protection against handsome courtiers dressed in platonic clothing, and so deep the boy clings! Nothing, not even the greasy romance of another lady nor the lubricative glint of coin can tear him off the fair skin! -

Vicariousness of segment: 108Ψ

VidiCapture subject: Male, 29 years of age, MST Sierra-8 “Sundowners” Homicide department, no mental conditions.
VidiCapture context: Subject was to investigate the suicide of a valuable Authority informaiton brooker. The brooker’s corpse was inside his mansion in California, and was known to induce hallucinations in nearby subjects.
VidiCap class: ThirdEye.

- The egg is wearing a questionably snazzy suit, hanging by the neck from an expensive chandelier. It whispers words but doesn’t move its mouth, words too silent for your ear. The rope is sturdier than it looks, holding such a stout egg for who knows how long. You do. Three days. Egg’s phone has three missed morning alarms since the 23rd. You bring your own phone to egg’s mouth, IT magic may wizard something up. You play the audio and nothing comes from the speaker; must not be waves then. The egg isn’t rotten yet, either. The chandelier is too high up, higher than this egg can bounce. Too fancy for a farewell too. Someone floated the egg and wants you to know it's intentional. You pop the pill, some clues be playing hide and seek in other places.

Egg’s joints lose their skin. Bone, ligament, and cartilage groove for a second, before forming spheres holding the limbs together like a wooden doll, however with dead animal instead of dead plant flesh. That umbra suit becomes striped in red and yellow, and the tie a cyan streak. Cheeks are maked-up red. Rope’s still a very honest-to-goodness brown, itchy fiber though.

“HEY!”

Capable of vocalization without oral movement.

“Are you here to PARTY?!”

Egg now dances some jolly jingle while talking, then hangs like void again during the pause.

“Or are you here to make make make make glorious MOLAH?!”

Joints scrape and claw with every handwave.

“YES yes OF …course… Your you’re are!”

You reach into your back pocket.

“Let poorer, older, actually RICH uncle Penny teach YOU yes that is right YOU ‘bout how to make it GROW on TREES!”

You pull out a ball of paper that had been discarded beside the trash can. Bunch of scrambled nonsense, barely readable under a big A!Co. watermark, but between the gibberish you make out ‘HELP US teach the poor poor chiden about finacial health! Become a heelper by donating to: 0:)213:P final day: twenytee.’

“Listen with giant eavsdropper’s MEATUS ACUSTICUS EXTERNUS or you will be very poor so very very very so dirty and KILL YOUR(notme)SELF.”

Caught in the wrong type of crossfire, poor egg. -

Vicariousness of segment: 119Ψ - Note how the usage of norotropic drugs may have artificially increased the vicariousness independently of the subject(s) of perception.

VidiCapture subject: Male, 37 years of age, 2R personnel, anomaly induced delusion.
VidiCapture context: An anomalous entity resembling a rabbit with a top hat manifested in the Site-002 cafeteria. This entity was invisible, and only perceived by subjects infected by an aerosol spray occasionally emitted from the entity's mouth. Additionally, infected subjects exhibited an altered behaviour, becoming antagonistic to efforts of containing the anomaly. Active personnel managed to isolate the incident to the cafeteria and extract an infected subject to question. The decision was made to utilize a GanzfeldStream on the captured subject in order to obtain information on the entity’s position.
VidiCap class: GanzfeldStream.

- In front of me is a giant window, like that of a great and magnificent observation tower, with a theater show behind it. Reminiscent of Bridget’s little devils is a happy classy Bunny hopping on a table now a bench and kicking a dustorm of sand made of cutlery and porridge. There comes the rolling down of Sisyphus’s rock, a big clumsy gentleman, running with a walkie-talkie plastered action movie-hero. Classy Rabbit jumps on top of the third fridge standing like a king of the hill now challenged by the big gentleman in that hazmat sack. It then kicks off an excited electron over to the thank-silly-it's-not-on stove and the gentleman is right on its fluffy tail! Zombies hoard over him he guyos them away with a big hulking shove of a Jotur even the happy Rabbit stands amazed watching fireworks diva stride. Big gentleman runs his arm over the stove impending doom and stupid classy Bunny gets smacked, crushed between two walls it doesn't, which is good, happy Rabbit flies over into a black cauldron. The putrid witch, well I guess wizard, more like a warlock covers it with a pan lid and begins shaking the milkshake. I wonder what he'd think of the respectable bartender profession? Poor happy classy Rabbit probably not too happy now. Milkshaked around vigorously in that pitch black holy fuck I’m out. Thank god no don’t thank the workers, doctor disappointed meme whatever -

Vicariousness of segment: 113Ψ

VidiCapture subject: 8 individuals, average 40 years of age, 2R personnel, visual-lexical synesthesia.¹
VidiCapture context: At ██/██/20██, many 2R personnel working in various Authority sites began exhibiting varying degrees of visual-lexical synesthesia. It was decided that a large-scale perception study was necessary to isolate consistent factors between subjects.
VidiCap class: BrotherHermes

[Begin VidiCap Playback]

WALLs confine them.

All objects of sight must be objects of mind.

The mind’s binary is actually 26-fold. The code of the mind is a word. The program of the mind is a sentence. The execution of the mind is a bookletterpoemperiodicalarticlereportspeech.

All objects of sight must be objects of alphabet.

One reads and then one writes. They read and then they write. Read and write. Read - write complex. Readwrite. Rewadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwritereadwrite-

[REPEATING QUALIA-FABRIC DETECTED. PERCEPTION IS IN STEADY STATE.] -

Vicariousness of VidiCapture: 568Ψ. Average per subject is 71Ψ. Note that BrotherHermes combines the perception of its subjects in order to find general realities commonly prevalent within the collective.

Additional note: Study outcome - A systematic rebalancing of 2R personnel workload abated the phenomenon. Senior researchers are to assign more experimental work to juniors, and simultaneously delegate less documentation-related labour.

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VidiCap failure

The most common type of VidiCap failure is a transgression of a model’s stable vicariousness interval SVI. Exceeding the SVI can result in a qualia surge, destabilizing the VidiCap’s components. Undercutting the SVI can correspondingly induce a qualia shortage, inciting the system to compensate by accessing previously restricted segments of the mind. It is impossible to reliably predict the exact reaction a VidiCap may have on a qualia surge/shortage, and incidents have varied from mild gain-of-function cognitive affliction, communication with foreign entities through the VidiCap interface, to complete loss or replacement of personal identity.

View Schematic

To understand the risks of VidiCap failure, one must understand basic VidiCap make. All VidiCaps rely on a vital component termed the conscious engine. They are essentially the main processing component handling the subject’s perception. Their unpredictable behavior during qualia surges/shortages emerges from their nature as complex amalgamations of other psychotronic anomalous items. Site-070, which through its tendency to sample anomalies created the first conscious engine, and since maintained a monopoly over VidiCap development. Therefore, the exact mechanism by which a VidiCap and its conscious engine operates is unknown to anyone outside of Site-070.

Below are examples of incidents relating to VidiCap failure.

Supplementary material: Exemplary VidiCap failure-related incidents.

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INCIDENT: [God’s Brain]

MST Romero-7 “Suited Gentlemen” had on 02/01/20██ received reports of hallucinatory phenomena affecting an apartment complex in Kyoto, Japan. Descriptions included faceless humanoids dressed in local maintenance uniform prevalent throughout the building, beckoning residents to help with an ‘emergency’ in the subterranean boiler room. Instances reportedly stayed behind corners or other objects, and disappeared before residents closed the distance.

Team members equipped ThirdEye-class VidiCaps before entering the complex. Upon reaching the basement, agents discovered a mass of human nervous tissue occupying large volumes of the space. The entity had appendages exciting from its main mass and entering the humanoid instances’ bodies around the ninth thoracic vertebrae. Visual contact with the entity additionally dispelled the illusion, and the instances dressed in workers’ clothing were revealed to be a mix of ordinary individuals and Malthusian operatives.

The entity displayed aggression and attempted to seize the agents with its appendages. In the ensuing firefight, the team members began experiencing varying hallucinations and resulting qualia spikes. One agent exceeded the SVI limit, and heeding the qualia surge warning of the ThirdEye, removed the VidiCap and discarded it to the floor. After sustaining damage, the mass of nervous tissue began expanding, forcing the agents out as it engulfed the enclosure.

During the apex of its expansion, the entity inexplicably vanished, along with all traces of the boiler room's previous form, instead being replaced with a featureless white space restricted by the door. In the middle of the area is the discarded ThirdEye. Subsequent study revealed the door to behave in the manner of a nondeclarative memotic² event horizon. Entry into the area would invariably and totally strip the subject of all previous implicit memory, and hinder its reacquiring even after exit. For example: A subject who associates the concept of motherhood with emotional warmth and has forgotten it by entering the space can never reacquire the affiliation.

It is currently hypothesized that the VidiCap, after being dislodged from the agent and consumed by the expanding nervous tissue, began processing the entity’s perception. An ensuing qualia surge caused the conscious engine to collapse the informational integrity of the surrounding space due to the extreme perceptive density of the nervous tissue entity.

The implicit memotic singularity has not yet been designated a registered phenomena code.

INCIDENT: [In the Margin]

Codename “Bubble”, a member of MST Echo-12 “Charlie’s Anglers” was to record a VidiCapture of the Red Snapper Sink sinkhole³ using a GanzfeldScreen-class VidiCap. “Bubble” was sent underwater in an isolated sea pod connected to a ship on the surface. The sea pod was equipped with a control panel for basic one way communication with the ship. “Bubble” was to communicate well-being by sending a signal back to the ship every 5 minutes.

52 minutes after descent, the ship captain noticed how the last 8 signals had arrived within perfect 5 minute intervals, and ordered the pod operators to bring back the operative. “Bubble” had entered a catatonic state, simply uttering the phrase “Did you forget the shaker?” repeatedly.

The following is the entire recorded VidiCapture:

[Begin VidiCap Playback]

The diving pod is still, held in place by pressure beyond my thought. No need to calculate, I can’t. Better to not, better to follow suit and stay motionless, better to lie in the crack.
I press the button and let the buzz fill the bell for a second.

“I am the forgotten spice.”

I’d ask who that is, but I have no desire to bear nor to shun that knowledge. I press the button.

“The hole between primal and civilized nourishment, I fill.”

What a pit dug by lies. It's not a hole we can fill. I should press the button.

[APPROACHING LOWER SVI LIMIT.]

“Welcome to my home, my household of salt.”
Thanks.

“Stay forever. Stay at your leisure.”

Thanks, I will. Can you pass the salt, honey?

“Yes, here you go. Mind your blood pressure honey, natriumchloride holds water.”

Okay. I love. I love. I love. I have much affection for you.

“Poor little hollow. You have something empty, don’t you?”

Yes I do. I don’t know how to dance on nothing.

“You’re not filling it right. Take some of mine.”

Thanks, here, take my gold, I’m grateful.

“Stay as much as you want. But don’t tell your friends when you leave, let's keep it our little salt-cret!”

What a good joke! The audience goes wild!

She disappears, my maiden of salt, she is stolen by the edges.

I need more flavour. It is still too bland, too empty.

[End VidiCap Playback]

Post-op investigation revealed agent “Bubble” to have recently suffered the loss of his spouse, and kept it hidden from his colleagues. However, testimony suggests that “Bubble” may have entered a depressive state.

Upon descending into the Red Snapper Sink, an already lowered vicariousness due to the mental condition, in conjunction with the anomaly’s effect, approached the lower SVI limit. An indication supporting the assertion is how conscious engines sometimes, and in this case, begin inventing perception, commonly by repeating stimulus in the output. This additionally explains some incoherencies of the VidiCapture, when the conscious engine tried to compensate for a lack of qualia by recording fabricated reality.

Failing to compensate, the VidiCap experienced a qualia shortage. It is hypothesized that the fabricated scenario previously used to compensate for the low vicariousness became permanently implanted into “Bubble”. Therefore, the influence of the psychotronic anomaly inside the Red Snapper Sink stayed with the subject instead of being forgotten, as it did for the members of the original mission to cover the sinkhole.

INCIDENT: [Folie à deux]

Senior Researcher Robin Clyde was conducting an experiment investigating the relation between physical activity and the videric effect of leptosiderine in Site-074. CSD-1182 was performing different exercises under the influence of leptosiderine, and had any variation in vicariousness measured by a LookingGlass-class VidiCap. During the anaerobic running test, vicariousness increased to 108Ψ from the subject’s average of 89Ψ and the leptosiderine resting vicariousness of 96Ψ.

An edifisite⁴ committed a containment breach, and began occupying the research wing’s electricity grid. It specifically affected the illumination system, causing a multi-colored strobe light from afflicted lamps. CSD-1182, who suffers from photosensitive epilepsy, experienced a clonic-tonic seizure. Senior Researcher Clyde immediately approached the subject to lend assistance by cushioning the head with his lab coat, unaware of the fact that the condition had shot up CSD-1182’s vicariousness and induced a qualia surge.

The following is the VidiCapture segment shortly after the qualia surge.

- wake up on the treadmill with myself above me. Neutral and expressionless it is, trying to communicate nothing, and hide nothing. We can not read my face, it is almost like that of an animal.

Are we fucking retarded? That is not my face, that's the bastard having me sweat and ache so he can dot pretentious numbers of paper on wood, that thing, that thing that comes with the coat.

Yes it is. It collected valuable scientific data, nothing more useless than calling everything pretentious. Wait, how did we forget it's called a clipboard? Are we deficient?

Chillalxit down dude goddamn we feel broken. What the hell was that? Our head is more bent than a devil's phalange! Better crush my meds and breathe the entire good bottle.

This body has been pristinely kept spotless from disease. Something is wrong. We feel grimy, itchingly unethical. Inquire we must, how come my face is in front of our eyes?

You’re not we!

CSD-1182? Oh LORD, my heart.

Blood boils each time, that name is fucking Bon Nee and I’ll be dammned if you take that too!

We fools! Don’t you understand?

I - I do! Why, how!?

My LORD, spare me this misery, this can not be happening, the risk is miniscule, astronomically grandiose but so small!

My stomach is knotting man, what are you doing, I’m running in a fog!

This is but the sting of the huge questions, Bon Nee.

Still foggy.

We, I-I know.

And what is that then?

Why I am asking.

[APPROACHING UPPER SVI LIMIT]

The warning wails and throws a clusterfuck of a tantrum.

It must have been rehabilitated now. We rapidly disconnect the transducers, fearing a second surge might break the toy instead of mixing it.

[End VidiCap Playback]

INCIDENT: [Philosophical Outbreak]

Following Incident: [Folie à deux], which had resulted in a migration of Clyde Robin’s conscious experience into the organic system previously occupied only by Bon Ne, a CSD subject.

Researchers in Site-074 decided to perform a VidiCapture on the body which originally hosted Clyde Robin (informally referred to as P-Zobin). The researchers used a GanzfeldScreen, and urged P-Zobin to perform a variety of tasks meant to induce variable VASGOV input

Finding the vicariousness to be lower than average (around 70Ψ), the researchers proceeded to test cognitive input instead.

The following is an excerpt of the VidiCapture.

- The woman pricks the skin with a needle. The arm is pulled away to avoid further damage.

The woman says: “You felt that?”

Chords say: “I did. Does that prove it to you?”

The woman says: “We… can’t know yet.”

The woman moves towards the machine operator and whispers something unhearable in that ear. The machine operator moves his eye’s focus from the machine and looks diagonally down to the left of my position, and nods faintly.

The woman goes behind a wall and can’t be seen before coming back with a religious text famously known as the bible gripped by her right hand.

The woman says: “Alright, P-Zobin-”

Chords say: “Stop calling me that. Don’t you remember when we discovered the Clyde-Baker correlation? This is a god-forsaken disgrace.”

The woman looks toward the machine operator with eyebrows strained along the facial midline. The machine operator says: “Focus, Sydney.”

[SUFFICIENT QUALIA MISSING.]

The woman opens the book at a marked page.
The woman says: “For the lord giveth wisdom; out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.”

The woman raises her eyebrow.

[APPROACHING LOWER SVI LIMIT.]

The woman says: “So?”

[QUALIA SHORTAGE IMMINENT; DISCONNECT OR SEEK STIMULUS.]

The woman says: “You quote it all the time. At least say where.”
Chords say: Proverbs two-six.

[NO RESERVES FOUND. QUALIA SHORTAGE FILL FAILED.] -

Researchers ended the experiment after this test. They concluded that the body of Clyde Robin was fit to continue research at Site-074’s [CLEARANCE VALIDATED; REMOVING REDACTION] Videric Studies branch.

4 months after the test, concerns emerged from the Videric Studies Branch Head regarding the lack of innovation from the previously high-performing research team headed by Senior Researchers Sydney Baker, Noah Qvist and the body of Clyde Robin.

An investigation eventually resulted in the VS Branch Head conducting a perception test on the Senior Researchers, similar to the original test on the body of Clyde Robin, however using a LookingGrim-class instead of the GanzfeldScreen.

The VidiCap’s output proved to be similar to P-Zobin’s, recording VASGOV data but not cognitive stimulus. In the aftermath, the VS Branch Head formally defined humans forming this type of perception as “P-Zombies.”

Current research is exploring the possibility of using P-Zombies as a method of contact with anomalies classified as psychotronic, emotional or ideological hazards.

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