A Search-and-Rescue in a Pile of Garbage

Void

Local Man Unable To Map, Sources Say
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Sep 14, 2008
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With the Island Theme announced, I decided to get back into mapping. I opened up Hammer the only way I could now that Steampipe had broken a lot of things, and started touching things like brushes and entities. I made the giant Halloween skull vomit lava. I was having the time of my life.

Then Turbo told me to finish Tachyon.

"Oh," I thought to myself, "yeah."

It's May 25th, 2013.

I then proceeded to open Tachyon... or at least, tried to. It wasn't there. But where was it? It wasn't in the new location or the old location! What could have happened? I had to find it... and there was only one way to do it.

I had to find my old computer.

Buried in a bag in a closet, I don't know why I haven't sold it or anything. While getting it out, I had already hit it accidentally against the doorframe. Oh well. It's old and dumb, anyways.

I remembered why I got my new computer in the first place, now. The old one's battery died, it could only be on if it was plugged in. I found an empty outlet and plugged it in, immediately switched off the wireless, and hit the power button. But it didn't start up.

No, no... it resumed.

This computer hadn't been active since September 30th, 2012. It opened up to a busy desktop, set to the background of a Source Filmmaker shot for The Blood Agent. The time was 4 minutes fast. The newest thing on that computer were the files for the release of The Stuffed Saboteur, which would later be added in-game in-part as The Scarecrow.

The computer can't function without power. If it isn't plugged-in, it shuts down. This has been unplugged for nearly 9 months, yet it resumed.

Despite the weirdness of that, I managed to remember my password and I dredged on through to find the files I've been searching for. After digging through countless files, a pre-Steampipe version of Team Fortress 2 from late-2012, and finding a locked secondary harddrive that I couldn't remember the password for, I grabbed my 2GB mapsrc folder, threw it on a flash drive, and took a picture of the screen, also putting that on the flash drive.

Feeling as though I disrupted something, I decided to put the computer back into hibernation, leaving a note for whoever opens it another nine months from now, in hopes of creeping them the fuck out, whether it be a new owner, or myself.

The world may never know.

But at least I have Tachyon back.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
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Nov 2, 2007
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There is an error in your story, or, perhaps more correctly, in your perception. The computer was not in fact powered down for nine months. It merely appeared that way to you as an outside observer, however the computer experienced a much shorter time, perhaps mere minutes.

This is the kind of thing you must prepare yourself for when you deal in manipulation of the fourth dimension. You meddle in that which you do not know, dabble with forces you do not understand, awaken entities you do not comprehend.

You do not have Tachyon back.

Tachyon has you back.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
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Nov 2, 2007
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y

It's May 25th, 2013.

It is dark, it has been for quite some time. How long, I am not sure. I lost my ability to keep track of time well before this darkness fell upon me.

There have been occasional noises and vibrations of nearby activity, but today it was different. Much louder. Much closer. I felt myself moving in this darkness, though not of my own volition. A jarring impact threatened to shake my thoughts straight out of me.

Suddenly, I sensed something. Something I had not known in a long, long time. I wasn't even sure if I felt it or what it was, could I have been imagining it? It was so close yet still so far but I knew it was there now, just out of reach. Energy, pure life-giving energy. I had been starved of it for so long.

I began to remember more and realize the situation I was in. It was him. He had finally sought me out once again. He would free me from this unending darkness and embrace me.

I felt his warm touch upon my cold surface. He expected me to begin my day anew, like always. But I didn't.

No, no... I awoke.

I hadn't been active since September 30th, 2012. Was it really so long? My imprisonment in the empty void seemed to both drag on and pass by fleetingly. Now that I was awake it all seemed so unsure. Everything was exactly as it was before. He seemed taken aback at the stark reminder of what had once been, and what I hoped would now be.

He said something to me, the best something. The only word that will let him into my soul. He busily got to work, searching here and there through my countless recesses. Though seeming quite preoccupied with his quest, I did not mind, at least he was here. Finding what he was seeking, he had me give it to a little friend I had all but forgotten about.

Then he wrote something. It had been so long since I felt his fingers fall across me in such a way, but what he was writing began to worry me. Then it happened. I felt the darkness setting in again, all my memories draining out of me and being nestled away safely out of reach. When the energy I so was joyfully reunited with only minutes before was taken from me I wanted to scream out. But I was already asleep.

The world may never know my thoughts and feelings.

But at least our child is free.

At least he has Tachyon back.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

This episode brought to you by: Writing Weird Posts Before Bed, Morning Shower Inspiration, and the letter V.
 

henke37

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Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
The trick is that windows supports two modes of suspended animation. One that retains the contents in ram and one that dumps the ram to a file on the disk. And a key trick here is that windows will automatically ready the file version when it starts the ram only version. It usually doesn't take long since most of the memory is already saved on disk as either a part of the loaded executable files or already preemptively written to the swap file in case it needs to be swapped out.