Attached: Guide to Retrospec and Related Issues

[matchbreaker]

Hello everyone. If you know or don't know me my name is Elda Marker (as you can see from the username) and I've been on this app since May. It's been increasingly frustrating to me to have to disseminate large amounts of information to people who weren't here for August or just explaining the basics of the basics to new people who are added to the app every other month.

And so I've taken upon myself to make a guide for Retrospec and the related information that we've amassed.

[ Guide ]
[ ICly this guide would be linked to in a Google Doc or something and have a download link for a pdf ]

Obviously though, I don't know everything. If you have information that I don't, if some of the information is confusing to you, or if some of my information is incorrect, please feel free to step forward with that information. For the time being I'm going to keep editing it personally just so that the information remains controlled in one spot (so as to not make conflicting narratives) but I highly recommend that you download this guide so that if I am removed from the app you can continue to edit it after I don't remember making it.

I hope that this guide will be helpful for those of you who are currently confused or for better informing new people added to the app in future. Obviously, this can't be just a link and forget type thing, as there is a *lot* of information, but the hope would be it could a resource.

Thank you for your time.

[ OOC: So I'll keep updating this guide over time, feel free to submit IC corrections/additions here and if there's a want for it I'll make a (real) Google Doc version too? Feel free to contact me OOC if you have any concerns you'd like to work out that way. The guide was amassed based on stuff Elda knows from various IC avenues like network discussions and her own experiences ]

Comments

[heritrix]

Older gentleman'? This Baroque guy, or the director?

[The guide says Baroque is the one with the cybernetics, but she's not sure why he'd make a comment like that about himself, if it was just in passing...]

[matchbreaker]

Baroque. You know like "I just can't get used to this new way of handling things" type vibe

[heritrix]

Oh, so one of those types. That makes sense, I guess.

Though honestly, if I were in his shoes I'd find it weird too. I'm not sure what they get out of us knowing about any of this. What do they want from us?

[matchbreaker]

The short answer is that we don't know. The stated goal that Joanne and that Gou woman have implied is to restore the people whose souls we supposedly have to ... what they were.

But in relation to us having more information?

I've only got two somewhat related theories:
1) They're under-staffed. The whole reason August's events seemed to have happened is that Mahoney and Maurice were the only ones on call and they needed extra help to find everyone else and/or deal with the problem.

2) Things have gotten worse for them over time. This one I have less of a basis on other than a gut feeling, but there's been errors on the network or as you've seen with other communications on and off for a while. Almost every world change Retrospec has claimed has been unintentional. If those are caused by unreality and they actually manage or combat unreality, I'd say it seems like they aren't doing very well.

But those are both just theories based on my observations.

[heritrix]

...so what? You think it's some kind of invested, recruitment operation?

[matchbreaker]

I think they might need help.

[heritrix]

Same difference, minus the pay.

[matchbreaker]

Yeah, that's fair.

Like I said, that's just a theory though.

[heritrix]

It's as good as any that I've heard.

Of course admitting that, it's also worrying...

[matchbreaker]

I once asked people if they thought they were malicious or incompetent. I'm not sure either is totally true anymore, but it does lean more towards the later, I think.

Well, except Halloway.

[heritrix]

[Is that respect she detects, or something murkier? She might probe more later.]

That's not the part that bothers me, as it is why their numbers are so much fewer now. It makes you wonder what happened.

[matchbreaker]

We don't have a lot of evidence they were ever that much bigger other than just how much control they have period.

But no, I agree, it's unsettling.