Archival Science Databanks
Communications intercept. Transmission detected Wed 05th of Sep 2007 at 03:40 AM by Screenshots made by Faithlessness. Communique follows:
Agent Thorne: [Prepare for a secure broadcast]
Agent Thorne: Attention, human operatives.
Agent Thorne: The intruder Agents have evolved beyond our initial expectations.
Agent Thorne: The information gathered by our investigators indicates the RSI fragments implemented into their codes have overloaded and mutated their program.
Agent Thorne: As we have attempted to run an antivirus program to delete these anomalies, it has become apparent that these imposter Agents are continuously being re-coded by a powerful Exile.
Agent Thorne: A Shaper is the most likely Exile re-coding these Agents.
Agent Thorne: We still have no accounting of the Shaper that was taken by the intruders.
Agent Thorne: We have evidence indicating the Shaper abducted by the intruders is still in captivity, giving power to these intruders - thus spawning these false Agents.
Agent Thorne: In order for us to run the antivirus program to completely delete these anomalies, the Shaper must be recovered and brought into our custody.
Agent Thorne: Operatives, I request your help in bringing the abducted Shaper into custody.
Agent Thorne: If you should apprehend the Shaper, take the Exile to the nearest sculpture where it can be scheduled for deletion.
Agent Thorne: Once the Exile is acquired, we will run the antivirus program that will gradually decrease the number of imposter Agents, completely eliminating them within 48 hours.
Agent Thorne: At your choosing, you may continue to fight these intruder Agents, however, our antivirus program will perform this task with or without your aid.
Agent Thorne: Again, your help in finding the Shaper is only a request. No operative is required to comply.
Agent Thorne: To those operatives who accept this task, your vigilance is requested in this matter. We do not expect any threat of combat to arise in this mission.
Agent Thorne: [End of Message]
Shaper: I have taken control of this communication channel, but I do not have the strength to speak for long.
Shaper: There seems to be no guards around me, but I am injured and unable to free myself.
Shaper: I am trapped in the district of the Rising Sun...
Shaper: Somewhere within the neighborhood of the Japanese Maple.
Shaper: When they brought me here, they mentioned we were in the house of Fuki-ran.
Shaper: With the right raw material, I should be able to repair myself and break free.
Shaper: Please help me.
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Webmaster's Comments: I have very firm memories of the Linenoise version of this event. It was the first event where I became the "main character", so to speak, and it occurred shortly after I did the "Meet with Niobe" mission where Commander Lock promoted me to hovercraft captain. This all happened on April 13th, by the way.
The clues to the Shaper's location were slightly different on Linenoise. The first was still "the district of the Rising Sun" (the International District), but he then said that he was in the "neighborhood of the Red Hill" (Akasaka) and that they passed "Mount Tai" (Taishan Monument) on the way to his prison. He said he was in the basement of a bar a short distance west of the monument. And I believe he mentioned that he could hear customers in the bar above, but no one heard his cries for help.
I quickly found the bar in question and headed downstairs. On the way down I heard an odd noise, like sparking electricity, and turned the corner to find Shaper Thadius imprisoned in a field of purple lightning that was streaming down from the ceiling. His coordinates were X: 64, Y: -6, Z: -48, in case you were curious. Anyway, the Shaper told me that he needed one of each code bit to shape himself out of his prison. I didn't have any code bits, so I rushed to Sai Kung Central, loaded up my Coder abilities, bought some clothing from a vendor, and decompiled them until I had the requirements.
I went back to the Shaper. At least one other player had found him, but apparently he didn't have what the Shaper needed. I traded the eight code bits to him and soon the field disappeared. I then shook the Shaper's hand, and he told me to lead him to the subway station in Kaede. Shaking the Shaper's hand may or may not have been necessary. During the race to obtain the Shapers, you were supposed to shake a Shaper's hand to get him to follow you. I didn't know this at first, so although I found a Shaper during the race, I couldn't get him to follow me, and someone else got him. -_-
Anyway, I started to lead the Shaper to his destination. I'm not sure if there was an "Othinn of Zion has the Shaper" system message like the ones from the Shaper race, or if news spread quickly, but as I guided the Shaper, I received a huge flood of tells the likes of which I had never seen before or since. I couldn't reply to many of them, since I was busy guiding the Shaper, and I was very caught up in the moment. Some Machinists followed me (Arvec and Nunduun of the Tetragrammaton, according to my single screenshot of the event).
The Shaper thanked me via a system message, which can be seen in the transcript below this one. Arvec said "I ask that you please reconsider and come with us to the sculpture..." The Shaper responded with something like, "No, I do not want to be deleted", and vanished.
A ton of people rushed in shortly afterwards. There were lots of questions, congradulations, faction invites, and potential death threats in case what I had done came back to somehow doom us all. You know, the usual stuff. :P In the following days I received tons of recognition and faction invites, many from faction leaders who spoke with me privately. It all faded away, of course. I recall one player that I'd encounter every so often in the following weeks who would call me "hero" because of the event, but that was about it.
Since then I've only encountered one person who vaguely remembered that I had something to do with the Shapers, and I believe I encountered this person during the "Death of the Destroyer" event. ^^;;; It's a shame, really. Not only did my fifteen minutes of fame fade, but so did the knowledge that this event occurred. Every so often I still hear people say, "Hey, doesn't the General still have a Shaper?" *laughs*