Comic Archive

Heidi: I find it impossible to believe the country remained functional during the whole time its government became mummified. I know Belgium sometimes needs more than a year to set up their new government, but this is an entirely different situation…

Steve: It does not appear they killed themselves through an act of stupidity. Everything indicates they have been murdered, and the killers must have seamlessly taken over control.
Adil: Then there must be at least one truly smart person in this world.

View of OIB-A271 in the real world amidst the simulation machines.
Heidi (voice): There must be some kind of “ghost government.” OIB-A271, any indications of where it could be located?
OIB-A271: I need at least some hints to know what to look for. There is just too much data to sift through, and having to unblock it makes it worse.
Heidi (voice): OK, we'll call back if we find anything.

Steve looks suspiciously at Zhang.
Steve: I bet the Chinese government has taken over. That's what happens when we let spies into our country!
Alana: Cut it out, Steve. This is not the moment for your conspiracy theories. Let's see if we can find any hints in other rooms.

Max: Some kind of break room, with music and video. Look! A TV that is not on a skew! Nobody must have been in here since before that whole diagonal video fad took off long ago.
Adil: Yet, a lot of music albums are already from that Ultrax artist. So strange.

Heidi: What is so strange? Who is this Ultrax?
Max: Ah, you were not at the music store. This mysterious artist dominates all entertainment with atrocious music and strangely AI-like video slop, apparently for a very long time now.
Heidi: Really? Then perhaps he dominates more than merely entertainment…

Setting: back outside the governmental building.
Heidi: So, we have this “artist” who has clearly managed to keep everyone's interest for many years, even though they make the worst music and TV ever? Sounds like they can control people… maybe they are the actual government.
Max: They may have access to a pre-war data center…

Alana: Having access to generative A.I. could give one a serious advantage in a world that has regressed to a more primitive state after an extensive war.
Steve: And, having access to cowbells gives a serious advantage when it comes to making awful music…

View of OIB-A271 in the real world.
Heidi (voice): OIB-A271, does this kind of info give you something to work with?
OIB-A271: Maybe. What I conclude from all this, is that I basically should look for anything suspiciously energy-hungry that is also related to bad music and television.
Heidi (voice): And maybe also related to cowbells.

The characters are all rendered in coarse black-and-white only pixels.
Adil: What is going on? Why do we look so weird?
Zhang: We are totally pixelated.

Heidi: It looks like we're in the 256th strip. That is the full 8 bits worth of strips since the comic began.
Max: Why then are we only drawn with 1 bit color depth?

Steve: Because the comic is now running on a daily bit limit, like token limits in certain A.I. platforms. The daily limit for graphics is now set at 44280 bits, or 5535 bytes.
Max: I don't believe one bit of that explanation.