Secure:Project: Yggdrasill
From Megaman Mush Wiki
- Date: 11/2219
- Agents Assigned: Prismatic Spider, Alloy, Nana, Midi, Zach Glen
Dimensional Knowledge
You have access to a wide amount of documentation about the previous 'incursions'. Repliforce has kept good records.
The first event was caused by a teleporter accident. A distortion in the space-time continuum, normally too small to be detected, intersected with a major routing satellite. Energy from another dimension was siphoned into ours, bringing across multiple subjects. The rift was uncontrolled -- there was no equilibrium point -- and as a result their energy signatures began to destabilize our own dimension's integrity. The universe was attempting to eject them, which would have caused their almost certain, horrific deaths, and may not have stopped the breakdown between our dimensions.
To prevent this, Dr. Light and some other Hunter scientists devised a portal device that could open a threshhold between our universe and theirs. The "signal" was found by taking readings of their own anomalous energy patterns, allowing them, in theory, to return to their correct universes. This was never accurately tested.
The same portal technology, reverse engineered by Repliforce MSE (Commander Whipcrack Octopus and Heilen are credited as the lead researchers) were able to once more use this dimensional scanning method to assumedly return the lost individuals to their own time periods.
A breach like this is unprecedented. It almost seems like a sort of reverse portal was created that shunted San Angeles ... somewhere else, and replaced it with this "Neo Arcadia". The barrier is permeable, and somehow determines intent. Only things that /want/ to cross the barrier can. Energy blasts from drones and radio transmissions don't appear to generally meet that criteria.
You don't know why the breach didn't swallow the entire planet. Perhaps the portal device didn't have enough energy to do that and was resisted by the universe's inertia. Perhaps it was stopped before it could do any more damage. That might always remain a mystery. But for right now, the 'bubble' is stable, and you don't know how to reverse it yet. Time to start reading some old documentation...
No copies of portal technology exist in Repliforce. They were classified BLACK and were hidden away because of the risk of some maniac like Dr. Psyche getting them. Two personnel knew about them. Both are missing; Heilen is presumed dead, while Whipcrack Octopus went on a 'classified mission' for the UN and never returned, though he has never been declared 'missing'. He just seemed to ... fall out of the database.
Your next option is Dr. Light, who has gone into ritual seclusion. As has Dr. Cain. Cossack might know more, but when he was believed dead, his Sovbots were instructed to destroy any portal technology they could find.
The Search Of Octopi
Summary: We need that portal technology information to construct the stabilizer. Since Heilen is presumed dead, I'm going to start by getting all of the information I can on Whipcrack Octopus. More than just the dossier. I want to try to get info on who he associated with, especially in the medbay. They might know his habits and where he might have gone. I'm also going to see if the UN might be willing to hand over some of that information on that 'classified mission' Whipcrack went on and never returned from. That has the Stench of Evil all over it.
Whipcrack Octopus And RF
Whipcrack Octopus was manufactured by an Applesoft-owned Reploid design boutique as part of a lot of 100 medical Reploids. He was designed to be an elite medical unit designed for neural net repairs and extensive systems overhauls. As an early Reploid, he was built and sold outright to a Neo-Tokyo hospital. During his downtime, he would devise innovations to improve Reploid designs and submit them to the local patent office. These steady innovations got the attention of an R&D firm, who bought him out from the hospital and brought him on as a technician. He became disgruntled at how he was treated by his human counterparts and resigned after being able to buy his freedom, then enlisted in Repliforce.
Whipcrack steadily advanced through the ranks of MSE due to his skillful handling of crises and his medical skills. His participation in the portal technology is noted as a footnote in his file, with other achievements being more significant: advances in neural net design, daring from-death's-hand revivals of the wounded, inventions to counteract Wily's mad schemes, his work in combatting the T-Virus during Raccoon City, and so on. His record shows a life of considerable scientific achievement and intellectual heroism in the face of peril. He lived the job. He made MSE what it is today. People should be naming hospitals and ships after him. Hardly anyone remembers he ever existed.
Almost five years ago now, Whipcrack Octopus was given a new assignment to work directly for the United Nations on a black-level project involving dimensional technology. All the paperwork is there. No one remembers ever receiving it. It just seemed that Whipcrack just stopped showing up for work one day and no one ever bothered to look into it.
People Whipcrack worked with closely -- your friends and comrades in Repliforce -- barely remember him. He's a murky memory even for people with normally clear minds. His achievements are considerable, but they just seem to be taken for granted. One of the attendants who worked very closely with him, Medical Marmoset, claimed that Whipcrack exchanges email with her but cannot remember the last time he sent one. When pressed, she seems ... confused, uncertain.
You go back into the logs as far as you can. He left the Fortress III on Feburary 12, 2215 via teleporter to Seoul. He arrived in Seoul safely and went inside the UN building. No one has ever seen Whipcrack Octopus since.
You ask the UN about the mission. You get a name: Yggdrasill. They know this name because they found it in fragmented records that were recovered from Checkpoint Charlie. Most of the information regarding the details of the project were destroyed. They know that Whipcrack Octopus and some other people were associated with it, but little else. The names of the other people are dead ends -- these people are unpersons, erased from the databases. You don't have a possible location, you know nothing about who might be overseeing it. All you have is a name. Yggdrasill. World Tree.
Dimensional Research
Summary: Since there's an utter lack of leads and the direct approach would be rather catastrophic in this case, it's time to do some more research. Prismatic is going to begin by checking into scientists who are or have been researching dimensional physics and/or subspace derivatives. (Cain is, of course, a given.) He's going to check up on what specifically they were researching (publish or perish and all that), if they are apparently still working on it, and when the last time they have made contact with others was. If Whipcrack Octopus had vanished, so could have others.
Dimensional Researchers
There are a handful of people who work on exploring dimensional physics. Almost all of them are affiliated with CERN. There are a few that work for the UN or the American DoD. All of them generally know each other and are active on various listservs. They can all be reached by phone or email and are happy to speak with you about their insights. You understand about ten percent of it on average.
Generally, it looks like they are trying to locate where our universe is 'located' in terms of other nearby universes in an effort to map its location. This effort is lengthy and has not produced any practical results, though the work is creating new and interesting mathematical systems that mathematicians argue about. All of it is in the public domain and published in journals or in conference proceedings that Prismatic can look over.
Whipcrack Octopus differs from this group as he was working on a project that had very specific, practical results that was secured by the UN and prevented from entering formal scientific discourse. He was not permitted to publish his findings, and scientists have been put under observation as potential threats to world security.
More Yggdrasill Research
Summary: Medical Marmoset said she usd to exchange email with Whipcrack. Prismatic is going to ask her if she's willing to allow Prismatic to conduct a thorough examination of her neural net to see if there are any signs of tampering in the memory structures or any other alterations that might not be made from a completely natural development of the net.
Prismatic also wants to check to see what happened to Whipcrack's personal belongings, if he had anything. Everyone eventually accumulates stuff. What happened to Whipcrack's? Maybe something in it can give him a hint or lead. Did Whipcrack have any abodes outside of Repliforce barracks?
Blues is going to talk to Gaus to see if he might happen to know anything about Yggdrasill. He'll talk to you about specifics.
Whipcrack Octopus: Paintings
Medical Marmoset is worried about what kind of tampering might have happened. She willingly goes under and allows herself to be completely inspected. Prismatic combs through her mind for hours, carefully checking every connection, and finds nothing amiss. She was not tampered with, at least not in a way which would leave marks. It just seems like she gradually was encouraged to forget about Whipcrack Octopus by the natural progression of events, and it just happened to be more so in his case than for other similar memory events. There's no one incident you can pin down. Whatever caused this to happen was elegant and traceless -- as far as your abilities can presently determine.
Whipcrack lived on Repliforce Island. It sunk. Then he lived on the Fortress III. It exploded. By then he was gone. There were some personal effects that survived. Whipcrack was a painter. Some of his paintings are in the UN building in an obscure area; mostly landscapes, though there is a painting of Iris there that has a lot of dynamism in it.
Whipcrack's paintings all have a certain flow to them. The creation process always seems identical. Patterns within patterns, wheels within wheels. Things you wouldn't notice if you were looking at them just as an artist. It nags at you.
Project: Yggdrasill
< It's a round-the-clock decryption job. This requires the continual attention
of both Nana and Alloy. The task is brutal, mind-numbing tedium. Finally, on
Friday night, the superior power of the Light Labs systems and the transcendent
skill of Nana and Alloy yields a document. >
< Lengthy UN header tags, Black SHIELD project code >
PROJECT: YGGDRASILL
CLEARANCE: MK-ULTRA ONLY
PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR: HIKARI, T.
ASST INVESTIGATORS: EGUCHI, M
HIKARI, Y.
R: WHIPCRACK OCTOPUS
PROJECT SUMMARY: Utilize dimensional technology to improve prediction power of
forecasting algorithms. Explore alternate universes and establish peaceful
relationships with their inhabitants. Eliminate any and all threats.
OVERSIGHT: HOUSEMAN, J.
OVERSIGHT REPORTS: <broken link>
DISAVOWED?: YES
DATE: 2217-08-27
PROJECT START: 2214-06-01
PROJECT END: CONTINUING
PROPOSED YEARLY BUDGET: 5,000,000,000.00 Z
BUDGET SPREADSHEET: <broken link>
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 000-000-58681
REQUIRED LAB SPACE: North Pole Dimensional Monitoring Facility, North Pole
LAB SPECIFICATIONS: <broken link>
LAB PERSONNEL: N/A
PERSONNEL EVALUATIONS: <broken link>
APPROVED: JH4 06/14
JH4 06/15
JH4 06/16
JH4 06/17
ERR 06/18
ERR 06/19
Paintings
Summary: Prismatic is going to make discreet inquiries if they might be interested in selling him Whipcrack's paintings or perhaps trading other artwork to replace it. If asked, Prismatic is going to say he's collecting artwork and memorabilia from old Repliforcers for nostalgia.
UN Artwork
The United Nations would be happy to trade some of Whipcrack's artwork for other Repliforce-generated art. They don't seem to remember much about Whipcrack Octopus in any event. A few people confuse you for Whipcrack when you speak to them about the paintings, and ask you if you have any more art you'd like to share.
You can pick up most of the paintings that way on a piece-for-piece nature. If you exhibit them somewhere, no one will find it amiss. The paintings are attractive and are pleasing in a classical sense. It's just something about them. Something compelling.
Paintings Trade
Summary: Prismatic is going to offer some statuary from Singularity Shrike and art from Dream Doll in exchange for the paintings. Prismatic will begin preparing an area on the Fortress V to show them off... after they are 'properly prepared' (e.g., I'm done looking at them.)
Those I get are going to be examined intently. Whipcrack seems the kind of guy who might be precise enough to perform some kind of analog stenography. Other options include nondestructive examinations of the painting process, performing comparison tests to check the methodology of creation and seeing if there is something in the differences.
But Is It Art?
The UN is pleased to accept the trade. Apparently Chord is very much interested in seeing more robotically-made art on the premises and encourages RF to contribute more.
Meanwhile, Prismatic Spider gets access to the paintings. They are scanned and re-scanned, then given to an art expert specializing in paintings to examine. Based on this investigation, you find out some things of value to you.
Reploid art has commonalities to it. Generally Reploids draw like printers print -- in straight lines from the top to the bottom of the surface, making marks along the surface with whatever they're holding. Whipcrack traced out the outlines of his paintings in that manner, but painted in a more traditional way. He tended to start from the same point on every painting and work his way outward. In terms of the creation process or materials, they are otherwise ordinary.
There seems to be a pattern to the brushstrokes that is not immediately obvious to you but is like a giant flashing light to your art expert; a numerical pattern of strokes radiating out from a central point. They are an irregular pattern, and it takes you a while to figure out what the number is. Then, it comes to you; it's the dimensional frequency of this dimension.
Except. Not. It's off by precisely one degree. A trivial difference. It might be the art expert miscounting or a fudged calculation. But it keeps showing off. The exact number off by one, always in the same direction. Scanning the pieces for an anomolous dimensional signal shows nothing unusual. They appear, at least to you, to have always been here.
Wikiii
Surface research isn't too risky. Zach Glen hits Google and gets to work. It takes some time to sift through the various results for "Hikari", as there are about 40 million results in that general tree. Adding a letter doesn't help a whole lot. Zach gets innovative and starts putting in search terms that seem logical: physics, united nations, UN, doctor.
This is helpful. You eventually find a Tadashi Hikari. Dr. Tadashi Hikari is a portly Japanese man who has some transient similarities to Doctor Light in appearance. They both have white hair and beards, but Hikari is older and seems more weathered. Tadashi is apparently affilated with CERN, though he's been set on sabbatical since late 2213. It may be that nobody's bothered to update the page lately -- academics are notoriously laggard when it comes to keeping their data up to date.
Aside from a picture, Tadashi's curriculum vitae is available on this page. He attended a very rigorous series of preparatory schools before going on to university, starting at the University of Seoul before doing his graduate work at Stanford. He is a theoretical physicist of some note, though he works in what was previously a very obscure field dealing with the fundamental nature of the universe. Before 2213, it was totally irrelevant. Afterward, with the dimensional breach that occurred then and again in 2214, the UN snapped up many of these scientists to work on addressing the problem. He hasn't been heard of since, though he had previously published many papers on this topic that you aren't skilled enough to understand. Auto has probably used them in his own work.
Conveniently, you find a Yuuichiro Hikari that is related to Tadashi. Yuuichiro is apparently Tadashi's son, and the two link to each other through CERN. Yuuichiro is a similarly vetted scientist, starting his education at UCSD and also eventually finishing up at Stanford. They both work in the same area, though Yuuichiro is not as published as Tadashi was. He also appears to have gone on sabbatical at around the same time. Yuuichiro's page talks more about his interests; aside from physics, he was an avid video gamer and amateur photographer. He shows his vacation pictures from 2212 of himself, his wife Haruka, and his two sons Hub and Lan. Hub appears to be slightly older than Lan. They're cute kids.
Naturally, Zach sticks around the CERN page based on this history of hits and finds a Masajun "Meijin" Eguchi. Masajun is a grey haired Japanese man in his early 60s who looks vaguely like Mister Famous if you squint and believe really hard. In his picture, he's wearing a standard business suit and has a pair of entirely ordinary eyeglasses on. Masajun is a contemporary of Tadashi who did his university work at Rutgers and then did some post-doc work at Stanford during Tadashi's time there. The two became collaborators; many of Tadashi's papers have Eguchi as a co-author. His hobbies include Go, which is where he earned his nickname of "Meijin" -- while not an official tournament player, Masajin apparently played a lot of it online. Masajun has been on sabbatical along with the Hikari father and son team since late 2213.
You can't find much else on any of these people directly. There may be other records, but the deeper you dig, the more visible you're going to have to be about it. Fortune favors the bold.
Wikii Mk II
To learn more about Go.
"Apparently, Meijin is a title given to a Master of Go. It's also the second most prestigious Go tournament in Japan. /Our/ Meijin, however, has been AWOL for years. Not sure what happened, but I'll keep digging." -Zach
Lots of guys /call/ themselves some permutation of Meijin on the Internet. It isn't a very distinct or helpful nickname. If he investigates long enough, working outward from Stanford through CERN, he can figure out that nobody's seen Eguchi online playing Go in years. Some of his contemporaries wonder if he died in an accident, as it would be unlikely for him to quit his hobby. However, no reports of foul play or death can be found in Eguchi's case.
No one knows why either Tadashi or Yuuichiro went on sabbatical at the same time who will talk to you. They were apparently tapped to work on an important group project. No one has heard of them since. They seemed to have fallen off the Earth. Again, no reports of foul play or death can be found. The men just aren't there any more.
Haruka Hikari lives with her children Hub and Lan in Neo-Tokyo, in a residential district of the city commonly called "AC/DC Town" due to the extensive presence of underground power systems. It's near where the old reactor melted down. The neighborhood isn't especially secured, and Zach can watch Haruka and her children go through their daily activities.
Neither the father nor the grandfather appear to live with them. Haruka continues to wear her wedding ring but is clearly in the role of a single parent. She has the steady bearing of a widow, but doesn't appear to work outside of the home to support her family. She has money to purchase groceries and other essentials, and seems to want for nothing. The boys seem like ordinary, healthy children who have active social lives. Lan is a big Mega Man fan; Hub seems cooler to the idea, as he's starting to become interested in girls.
Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb
"Rainbow here. We investigated the complex. Summaries will be added to the database for perusal, it's somewhat lengthy reading. There was a dimensional portal device there. I tried the frequency I received from Whipcrack Octopus, and we discovered that there was no universe there... Just nothingness. We closed that portal, and opened a new one, this time to check on the world of Copy X. I don't know what happened in there, but it was apparently horrific. I will have to talk to Alpha or Colonel to get their report. Doctor Light and I were monitoring the situation from our universe.
Everything was progressing well enough until Blues used a timestopper. This incited a severe dimensional disturbence called a 'Dimensional Storm'. We called for them to withdraw so we could close the portal and let the disturbence dissipate, presumably harmlessly. Colonel and Alpha came back through, but Blues apparently fired another Timestopper, point blank, next to the portal, before diving through.
That is what caused the massive trauma this morning.
Blues has repeatedly engaged in acts of gross negligence without regard for the consequences of his actions. This time, with thousands going insane and hundreds of thousands being hurt from his reckless acts, I can no longer look the other way. Blues has to be held accountable for his actions, and this is why I had removed Blues from Gospel.
The facility is seriously damaged and massively compromised. Nebula knew it was there the entire time, and had agents there in less than five minutes after the incident. I have no idea if it's still functional, but I doubt we would find a second penetration of the facility so easy to manage now. Rainbow out."
