Your OTC Representative [Multiversal Capitalism]

[Sonata]

Nobody else has suggestions about what sort of supplies to put in the capsule?

 

[Evenstar]

Expanded the OTC personnel file to include a section on forks.

 

[Evenstar]

Prime, 34578/3/1, 16:23 OTC

The shadowy creature certainly seems harmless enough. Tentatively, you reach out and brush your fingers through its not-quite-hair.

"Missssssss..."

It feels pleasantly cool and soft, and entirely unlike any other substance you have ever touched. If you had to describe it, a thick pile of soft silk might be the best analogue...

Your quartz charm flickers as you archive the sensation: Blood will want to share this with your Society contacts.

You continue petting the creature as you flick through your inventory records, cataloging the best magical firepower you have available. A Ring of Nine Lives likely wouldn't go amiss, nor an Aetheroscope or an Automatic Catalog.

The capsule does do significant compression, but you have no desire to test the limits of an unknown technology right now: you settle for a four-times factor, just enough space to squeeze in a pair of Gloves of Object Reading.

You call on your Wish Time, and queue the transfer.

[[Charge will be: 0.5s.]]

[ ] Accept.
[ ] Reject.
[ ] Check your Wish Time balance.

 

[Sonata]

Considering we've already spent 10.1 seconds on this mission, 0.5 seconds is a perfectly reasonable expenditure. Still, I'd like to keep an eye on our budget.

[X] Accept.
[X] Check your Wish Time balance.

The new section on forks lists six major forks in addition to Prime, and implies that several more exist. Let's assume we're allocating 1/4 of our resources for Prime and archival/indexing operations, 1/4 for the other six agents, 1/4 for the rest of Greater Eva, and 1/4 banked against black swans. That gives 1/24, or a little over 4%, of our total budget allocated to Rider.

What's our total yearly allocation, how much of it have we already used this year, how much has Rider in particular used this year, how much of the year has elapsed, and how long does an assignment typically take?

 

[Deathbybunnies]

[X] Accept.
-[X] Check your Wish Time balance.

Time might be a factor, but I'd like to know our balance.

 

[Evenstar]

Considering we've already spent 10.1 seconds on this mission, 0.5 seconds is a perfectly reasonable expenditure. Still, I'd like to keep an eye on our budget.

[X] Accept.
[X] Check your Wish Time balance.

The new section on forks lists six major forks in addition to Prime, and implies that several more exist. Let's assume we're allocating 1/4 of our resources for Prime and archival/indexing operations, 1/4 for the other six agents, 1/4 for the rest of Greater Eva, and 1/4 banked against black swans. That gives 1/24, or a little over 4%, of our total budget allocated to Rider.

What's our total yearly allocation, how much of it have we already used this year, how much has Rider in particular used this year, how much of the year has elapsed, and how long does an assignment typically take?

Click to shrink...

Eva's yearly Wish Time allowance is listed in the dossier. (10 minutes.) The current date is listed, and the OTC calendar is derivable from information you have.

Under your assumptions, Rider's yearly budget is 25 seconds. Archival, the rest of Greater Eva, and Black Swans receive 150 seconds each. (2 minutes 30 sec.)

You know you've spent about a minute on Archival so far this year.

Most of your other questions will have to wait for Eva checking her balance.

 

[veekie]

[X] Accept.
[X] Check your Wish Time balance.

 

[Transreal Cloud]

[X] Accept.
[X] Check your Wish Time balance.

 

[Sonata]

the OTC calendar is derivable from information you have.

Click to shrink...

Oooh, puzzles!

Let's see:

• The current date is 34578/3/1.
  • The biggest number is probably the year, so there's a decent chance we're looking at year/month/day.
• We got Employee of the Month on 7/30 and 5/30, and Employee of the Year on 12/30.
  • There's 12 months in a year.
    If today is day 1 of month 3, that means we're 1/6 of the way into the year, and we can expect to spend a total of 6 minutes per year on Archival, leaving only 4 minutes (240 seconds) for everything else.
    
  • Months 5, 7, and 12 each have 30 days.
    This is not the Gregorian calendar: May, July, and December are 31-day months.
• The spreadsheet describes a picoCernnuous as "1 trillionth of a year (31.54 microseconds) of continuous godly effort".
  • This indicates that 1 pico-OTC-year ≈ 31.54 microseconds.
    1 pico-Earth-year ≈ 31.556926 microseconds. This rounds to 31.56 and truncates to 31.55; it is not a reasonable source for the given figure.
    31.54 microseconds ≈ 365.0463 picodays. This is suspiciously close to 365.
    365 picodays ≈ 31.536 microseconds. This does round to 31.54.

I believe that the OTC year is exactly 365 days long, with no leap years.


On the 1/24 assumptions earlier, Rider would have blown her entire yearly budget just getting to her world. This is (hopefully) not a normal situation, but I think we have to assume her budget is – or needs to be adjusted to be – bigger than that. If we instead divide the non-Archival budget into eight parts (7 major forks + 1 part for all the rest), then Rider's budget would be 30 seconds, but this leaves no room for surprises. Then again, Rider's situation might be exactly the sort of surprise that we'd want to bank against.

We should assume that getting her out again is going to cost another ten seconds. (Sacrificing her by leaving her there is technically an option, but – considering the costliness of getting information out – effectively means giving up on the world as well.)

Overall, I think we should be planning on spending up to 5-10 seconds sending Rider support. However, this implies that the final cost of this one mission will be at least a majority of her yearly budget, maybe even more than her entire standard yearly budget, so it'll matter a lot whether the average number of missions per fork per year is closer to 1 or 50.

 

[Evenstar]

@Sonata: Some excellent sleuthing!
You've earned a reward for your dedicated work here: along with the next update, I'll post Coordinator Isa's most recent budget and investment report for Greater Eva. (Which will tell you far more than a casual check of Prime's bank balance!)

Since that will take some time to write up, though, I'll start by confirming your guesses regarding the OTC Year.

The OTC has a 12-month, 365-day calendar. All 12 months are 30 days long, with six 5-day weeks per month. Each day is 24 hours. There is an interstitial week between the last day of the twelfth month and the first day of the first month: this week is traditionally a holiday for all OTC personnel. While this calendar inevitably drifts relative to any Earth calendar, the simple fact that the OTC is interacting with hundreds of worlds makes the question of "isn't August in summer?" a bit of a moot point.

As for the worlds OTC owns and operates outright, they are adjusted to fit the calendar, rather than the other way around.

 

[Nolrai]

What does OTC stand for?

 

[Evenstar]

What does OTC stand for?

Click to shrink...

Oifilei Trade Consortium, or Oifilei Trade Currency.
Oifilei is described by company documents as the source plane for the entire multiversal enterprise, but neither Eva nor anyone she knows has ever been there. It might be a real place under extremely tight security, or it might not exist. One of Greater Eva's longer term goals is to find out.

 

[Evenstar]

Wish Time Budget Report, 34578/3/1
Prepared by Coordinator Isa

WISHING WELL:
Initial Contribution: 120s
Current Balance: 108.57s
Well Level To Date: -11.43s

ARCHIVAL:
Budget To Date: 50s
Expenditure: 49.81s
Well Contribution: 0.19s

[JANUARY]
Budget: 30s
Expenditures: 36.65s

34 Forks: 4.38s
26 Merges: 12.72s
Thousand Stars, Yearly Maintenance: 7.23s
ᛟ: 12.32s​

Well Contribution: -6.65s

[FEBRUARY]
Budget: 20s
Expenditures: 13.16s

15 Forks: 1.53s
18 Merges: 8.39s
Thousand Stars, Monthly Maintenance: 3.24s​

Well Contribution: 6.84s

AGENTS:
Budget to Date: 30s
Expenditures: 41.62s
Well Contribution: -11.62s

THORN
Budget: 10s
Expenditures: 7.22s
Well Contribution: 2.78s

[JANUARY]
Budget: 5s
Expenditures: 4.90s

Equipment: 2.53s
Transfers: 0.34s
Analysis: 0.41s
Wishes: 1.62s​

Well Contribution: 0.10s

[FEBRUARY]
Budget: 5s
Expenditures: 2.32s

Equipment: 1.04s
Transfers: 0.24s
Analysis: 0.32s
Wishes: 0.72s​

Well Contribution: 2.68s

RIDER
Budget: 10s
Expenditures: 6.94s
Well Contribution: 3.06s

[JANUARY]
Budget: 5s
Expenditures: 3.40s

Equipment: 0.24s
Transfers: 2.34s
Analysis: 0.82s
Wishes: 0s​

Well Contribution: 1.6s

[FEBRUARY]
Budget: 5s
Expenditures: 3.54s

Equipment: 0s
Transfers: 3.12s
Analysis: 0.42s
Wishes: 0s​

Well Contribution: 1.46s

ISA
Budget: 1.7s
Expenditures: 1.7s
Well Contribution: 0s

[JANUARY]
Budget: 0.83s
Expenditures: 0.83s

Analysis: 0.83s​

Well Contribution: 0s

[FEBRUARY]
Budget: 0.83s
Expenditures: 0.83s

Analysis: 0.83s​

Well Contribution: 0s

JERA
Budget: 3.2s
Expenditures: 3.03s
Well Contribution: 0.17s

[JANUARY]
Budget: 1.6s
Expenditures: 1.72

Equipment: 0.62s
Transfers: 0.18s
Analysis: 0.23s
Wishes: 0.71s​

Well Contribution: -0.12s

[FEBRUARY]
Budget: 1.6s
Expenditures: 1.31s

Equipment: 0.38s
Transfers: 0.26s
Analysis: 0.35s
Wishes: 0.32s​

Well Contribution: 0.31s

ELHA
Budget: 3.2s
Expenditures: 2.73s
Well Contribution: 0.47s

[JANUARY]
Budget: 1.6s
Expenditures: 1.59s

Equipment: 0.56s
Transfers: 0.32s
Analysis: 0.40s
Wishes: 0.31s​

Well Contribution: 0.01s

[FEBRUARY]
Budget: 1.6s
Expenditures: 1.14s

Equipment: 0.24s
Transfers: 0.28s
Analysis: 0.37s
Wishes: 0.25s​

Well Contribution: 0.46s

OTHALA
Budget: 0.83s
Expenditures: 20s
Well Contribution: -19.17s

[JANUARY]
Budget: 0.83s
Expenditures: 20s

Equipment: 7.52s
Transfers: 1.42s
Analysis: 0.31s
Wishes: 10.75s​

Well Contribution: -19.17s

[FEBRUARY]
Budget: 0s
Expenditures: 0s

 

[Evenstar]

Prime, 34578/3/1, 16:25 OTC

You nod mentally at the dialog from the Wish Time reservoir.

[[Confirmed.]]

The capsule vanishes.

You hum to yourself lowly, and query your balance. Rider's going to be heavily in the red, of course, and the well level's already suffered some from the incident back in [January]...

Your balance flashes up in your mind.

[[Wishing Well: 105.07s]]
[[Archival: 20.0s]]
[[Rider: 0.0s]]

You wince. Almost a sixth of the Well gone, and it's only been two months. At this rate there'll be nothing left come Wish Season.

Still, you've had worse years. At least this rate of Well drain is sustainable. Silver lining, silver lining.

You let out a sigh, and turn back to your paperwork.

[ ] Read Thorn's report on a Void/Powers/Precursor TCh-Rich BU-Poor universe. She was always one of the more martial selves: you suppose the Thorn designation shoves you that way a little just by naming convention. Probably some of the more gripping reading.

[ ] Read Ash's report on a Void/None/Upload BUKT-Rich Ch-Poor universe. Apparently they have fully technological means of replicating your Archive - strictly inferior to the Thousand Stars, of course, but the ability to maintain the selftree more easily on None worlds might be worth investigating.

[ ] Read Elha's report on a Sheaf/Powers/Info-Medi BUKT-Rich Ch-Poor universe. You can hardly make out the lettering: it seems to have been soaked in salt water.

[ ] Consult the selftree for a full picture of the current activities of Greater You.

[ ] All this Well drain is making you nervous. Perhaps you should talk to Isa about budgeting the rest of the year.

[ ] Blow off the paperwork and play with your new pet.

[ ] Maybe you should give it a name? (Write-in.)​

[ ] Be another you.

[ ] ForkRiot.

 

[Sonata]

Such crunchy details! *cronch cronch* Thank you~

Thorn sounds likely to send back resources, but – since out-of-character knowledge is apparently in-character – Ash's futuretech might be more helpful considering Rider's world seems about modern tech-level, which implies (1) tech works there, and (2) a high-tech world could provide improvements. Ash's world is also BU-rich, which should synergize well with Rider's BU-poor situation.

[X] Read Ash's report on a Void/None/Upload BUKT-Rich Ch-Poor universe. Apparently they have fully technological means of replicating your Archive - strictly inferior to the Thousand Stars, of course, but the ability to maintain the selftree more easily on None worlds might be worth investigating.

I can't justify blowing off work until Rider's situation is stable, but we should have enough time to give the shadow creature a name. How about Book?

[X] Maybe you should give it a name? (Write-in.)​

 

[Evenstar]

That's not even OOC, that's right in the world codes. Ash's world is Upload Age while Rider's is Information Age.

Third option: Spin off a fork to do paperwork while you pet your pet.

 

[Sonata]

Oh right, heh heh.

Enhhh... apparently forking costs over a tenth of a second? And merging costs almost half a second? Book's not that soft and pettable. That would take, like, Dire Floof for the library of addictions.

 

[Evenstar]

Rider, 34578/3/1, 16:20 OTC

You call up your will, give the approaching magpies the evil eye, and snap your fingers.

Heatless lightning flickers out from your hand: it stops their hearts, and sends them falling to the roof in a cascade of little thuds.

Then it gathers together into a ball, turns around, and slags the rifle that you hastily throw into its path.

This... is more than a bad luck curse. But there's no time -

[ ] x1.25: Counterspell! COUNTERSPELL!
[ ] x1.00: Run away! Run away!
[ ] x0.75: Wish it gone!
[ ] x0.50: Wait, what just happened?

 

[Sonata]

I really don't think we can outrun ball lightning.
[X] x1.25: Counterspell! COUNTERSPELL!

 

[Nolrai]

[X] x1.25: Counterspell! COUNTERSPELL!

 

[Nolrai]

I've been thinking about how to get information across sophont ...paradigms for lack of a better word. (For understanding Oifilei) but.. It's hard.

I can't tell if we are closer to Earth or if earth people are just less atypical.

Also is a list of the currency abbreviations available? They seem straight forward but I'm having trouble reading them.

 

[Evenstar]

I've been thinking about how to get information across sophont ...paradigms for lack of a better word. (For understanding Oifilei) but.. It's hard.

I can't tell if we are closer to Earth or if earth people are just less atypical.

Also is a list of the currency abbreviations available? They seem straight forward but I'm having trouble reading them.

Click to shrink...

T = Takkarash = Pain
K = Ka = Life
Ch = Chron = Time
U = Udi = Dreams
B = Buddhitanka = Knowledge

Could you clarify regarding sophont paradigms?

 

[Nolrai]

T = Takkarash = Pain
K = Ka = Life
Ch = Chron = Time
U = Udi = Dreams
B = Buddhitanka = Knowledge

Could you clarify regarding sophont paradigms?

Click to shrink...

Well..like we seem to be fairly human ish? Sentient currency isn't? But I assume its not as simple as ...talking coins?

 

[Evenstar]

...I'm not sure where you got the idea that the currency was sentient?

 

[Nolrai]

...I'm not sure where you got the idea that the currency was sentient?

Click to shrink...

Isn't that where the name comes from? The world where currency is sentient?
Or am I mixing up GWB and 3ed ? Hmm. I might be.