Whereas OGH has fashioned ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ key.
Whereas OGH has consecrated the door ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇.
Whereas OGH has worked tirelessly to further the goals of ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇.
Whereas OGH has shown us that the true ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ was inside ourselves all along.
On this day, we confer upon OGH the highest honor, to take a seat among the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ and to experience, albeit for a moment only, the ▇▇▇▇▇▇ presence ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇.
]]>In Permutation City, technologist Paul Durham created a cellular automata system and then layered software on it until it could support simulations of human minds and even entire alien universes capable of supporting life. Somehow, even without devices specifically executing the CA, it is able to enjoy independent and continuing existence.
Plainly this is absurd, reasoned Satoshi, but it would totally work as long as the real universe was actually executing the code of this alternate universe. So he cleverly embeds it in the bitcoin network, lingering just long enough to see widespread uptake of the project. Then, his future within the simulation being certain, he quietly commits suicide without publicizing his identity. After all, as long as anyone continues to mine bitcoin (no matter how slowly), his simulated self lives on forever...
]]>Description: Alleged Black Chamber CNG contingency plan
[REDACTED] public school programs [REDACTED] self esteem, while in homeschooling programs, [REDACTED] serves to sensitize under-19s. This will enable [REDACTED] preferentially chosen as vessels by [REDACTED]. It is our opinion that [REDACTED], and HPV vaccine are effective [REDACTED]. Individual ownership of firearms [REDACTED] response protocol with 85% effectiveness before the beginning of state and federal armed response [REDACTED] conditioning embedded in Hannibal, NCIS, and Game of Thrones. While the loss of substantially all under-19s will pose a substantial and multi-decade demographic burden post-[CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN], it is preferable to the alternatives.
Status: Both Mahogany Row and the Predictive Department agree this is not an actual Black Chamber contingency plan; however, they disagree as to whether it is deliberate misinformation by the Chamber; or an attempt by another state-level occult agency to discredit the Chamber as a rogue actor for their own ends.
(note: was too lazy to go check if we know the Chamber's code word for CNG, hence the brackets there)
]]>Just how the SSW nuke gate works didn't end up coming through clearly in my submission. Let me expand on that part a bit:
The bomb sits within an inactive summoning grid. Detonation begins the process of grid activation, and also the explosion wavefront projects the grid outward on its surface.
Initially, the wavefront acts like a normal thermonuclear explosion, killing people in its path with a combination of blast force and thermal energy. The thaumic energy of these wrongly-killed souls is gathered into the summoning grid.
When a particular ratio of physical energy to thaumic energy is attained within the grid, it fires and opens an ellipsoidal gate centered on the origin of the explosion. Thus the placement of the bomb at a city center is required for two reasons: first, because this determines the gate placement; and second so that the number of ground zero casualties can be large enough within a small radius to open an appropriately-sized gate.
Opening the gate consumes substantially all initial energy from the explosion, leaving mostly residual radiation (fallout).
So when used as directed, the blast only outright destroys a few unlucky city blocks, and then drops a plume of radioactive fallout whichever way the wind was blowing. But that's all good, because now the city is out of the path of CNG and on a scale of 1 to 14 million hardly anybody died.
When not used as directed, well, yeah, absolutely an opportunity for mass casualties.
]]>Name: SURPRISE SYMBOL WELCOME Classification: Proposed CNG response strategy
Discussion: While many CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN response strategies have focused on reactive defense (c.f. SCORPION STARE, EMOCUM, WALL PHASE PURPLE), SURPRISE SYMBOL WELCOME (like NO CHILD LEFT according to the leaked Black Chamber document) emphasizes removing the bulk civilian population from the area of conflict. Unlike NO CHILD LEFT, net civilian casualties in urban areas are estimated at under 1%.
In the aftermath of OGRE REALITY, Laundry estimates of the amount of power needed to open a Class 6 interdimensional gate were decreased by 5 orders of magnitude. This was later confirmed when satellite photos taken after the "failed" 2009 North Korean nuclear test indicated that a 25km2 area was cleared to a depth of over 100m (more at JUCHE BEACHHEAD).
SURPRISE SYMBOL consists of three phases: First, small advance parties passing through Class 3 gates scout accessible dimensions to locate survivable ones with no sapient inhabitants and abundant local edibles. Concurrently, thermonuclear devices in the 50kT range are pre-installed in all major city centers. Finally, at the onset of NIGHTMARE DAWN the devices are detonated. The physical energy of the explosion, plus the thaumic energy of those killed at ground zero, are expected to open a gate large enough to transport an entire metropolitan area through to the selected dimension. Since the majority of the yielded energy actually serves to open the gate, the local aftermath beyond ground zero is more like a radiological dirty bomb than a nuclear strike.
Each city transported in this manner will now lie in its own low-sapience region; even the approximate 14 million inhabitants of London's metropolitan area are too small to attract the worst of the horrors, which will prefer alternate earths where the full complement of 3-14 billion sophonts.
Depending on the the habitability of the primary Earth in the aftermath of CNG, city leaders are be directed to follow PROTOCOL NO SUNSET or PROTOCOL ONE-NIL.
Status: Implementation phase. Current coverage: 85% by population.
]]>Name: Exo-Pen Classification: Anti-exonome autoinjector
Deployment: This single-use injector, physically similar to the commercial EpiPen™, can be used by trained and untrained individuals in the event of exonome (demonic) possession. If used within the first 5 minutes after exposure, the survival rate is over 90% for possession by entities level 2 or lower, and over 75% for level 3 entities.
The Exo-Pen payload consists of artificial blood platelets inscribed with nanoscale banishment circuits, plus epinephrine to reduce the incidence of fatal cardiac arrest caused by the departing demon.
Special note: Pursuant to PROTOCOL NIGHTMARE GREEN, the Exo-Pen shall be an element of the standard gear ("every day carry") for all Laundry staff regardless of official field clearance status during the continuing emergency. Use of banishment rounds to the hand or foot as a first response to apparent possession is now grounds for disciplinary action.
]]>NAME: CAFFEINATED BOOKWORM CLASSIFICATION: ACCELERATED LEARNING REFRESHMENT DEVICE
DESCRIPTION: This device consists of a sheet-fed scanner connected to a standard commercial-grade espresso machine. A dedicated neural network ASIC processes the scanned materials and heats the steam. This process produces a beverage which in turn creates a Billington-type geas, causing the person who consumes the drink to conform to the archetype presented in the scanned materials. The geas drops in strength as the caffeine in the beverage is metabolized, with a half-life of about 5.7 hours in healthy adult humans.
For instructive materials, the result is initial intense interest in the subject; if this impulse is not resisted, one day of self-instruction with 3 to 5 shots of espresso can give long-lasting proficiency equivalent to a semester of classroom instruction or 80 hours of practical experience.
Use with fictional materials is forbidden by Laundry policy. Further discussion of the consequences of such use are coded CHEKHOVS CUPPA.
DISCUSSION: Subject I— was a barista and doctorate candidate in english literature who exhibited an unconscious sigma-3 superpower that caused coffee shop patrons to spontaneously act out scenes from whatever book Subject I— had most recently been reading. Laundry agents detected and neutralized him, but not before several civilians, each believing themselves to be Ophelia, suffocated with lungs inexplicably full of water. (The Hamlets, Laerteses, and so forth were saved from their fate by the Laundry's timely intervention. Curiously, no Poloniouses had lost detectable amounts of blood) The neural network structure of CAFFEINATED BOOKWORM was reverse engineered based on cellular-level scans of Subject I—'s cerebral cortex, and use with instructional materials was found to be safe.
]]>NAME Structure and Interpretation of Esoteric Programs
SUMMARY Introductory textbook for computational sorcery (Black Chamber)
BACKGROUND Based on the well-known "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (SIEP), this introductory textbook is used by the Black Chamber for initial training of inductees into their Esoteric Software development group. Aside from the distinctive cover, it can easily be recognized by its cold and clammy cover and pages, no matter the ambient conditions.
More accessible than the suppressed Art of Computer Programming (volume 5), it generally begins by drawing parallels between the lambda calculus, generative L-systems, and dho-na curves. Subsequent chapters illustrate topics such as algorithmic summoning; the impossibility of dho-na software with immutable state; 3D-printing of esoteric artifacts; and (befitting the Black Chamber's origins) efficient integer factoring algorithms.
Higher order software of the kind described in SIEP is always executing, even when apparently fixed as data in a tangible medium like a book. This has several interesting consequences: the "cold and clammy" feeling when the book is handled, the fact that each individual book is slightly different in content, organization and layout (except, apparently, for the wizard on the cover and the integer factoring algorithm), and the actual impossibility of an e-book version (in that medium, its content rapidly evolves into a second fixed form, a self-published science fiction novel). This last factor, luckily, has limited the availability of the book; we believe that fewer than 25 copies presently exist, most of them in the Chamber's Nevada training and containment facility.
While no one can deny the effectiveness of the Black Chamber's software development program, and the comparatively long productive life of its programmers, the programming style taught in SIEP is correlated with an early-onset variant Krantzberg Syndrome characterized by retreat from normal social interactions, casual misogyny, and a preference for idealized fantasy worlds.
DEPLOYMENT: FORBIDDEN While the Chamber may tolerate this fate of its programmers (in the intial statges, this K-syndrome variant appears to actually increase their productivity), The Laundry does not. Any agent coming in contact with SIEP is instructed not to read it; or if she has read it to report the incident and refrain from using any methods learned from it. In either case, the volume shall be turned in to your operations officer for secure destruction or as leverage in negotiations with the Black Chamber.
(besides which, the integer factoring algorithm is so vigoriously endothermic that executing it on a 40-digit number in a populated area would lead to mass casualties)
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