CHAPLAIN
They say life is a grand cinema, a fantastical creation played out on a three dimensional stage.
Yet when the final line is spoken, the credits will roll, and the cold light of morning will dawn on this theater.
Blinded by its icy glare, you will direct your gaze away from this carefully crafted artifice, and down to the ugliness we have long neglected.
You will see the stains on the floor, the empty drinks on the ground, and the stale popcorn spilling across the aisle.
It may scare you. It could shock you. And it will fill you with unease.
But fear not, brave traveler, for I will be your usher through this land of decadence and filth!
I will not bring you to the ground. Rather, I will be the ground under your feet!
Walk upon me to salvation, true believers! Let me show you how to stand in the light!!
(greeted by player)
It seems another pilgrim has entered the depths.
Yet this is no heaven. It is the domain of the forgotten, the bowels of an unholy machine.
So I ask you, pilgrim, what manner of digestion brings you here?
I wasn’t digested. I took the elevator.
The Great Boolean, and by proxy the Church of Reality, lets you see only what you need to.
You entered the maw of this metal beast, but she, in her infinite wisdom, made it so you saw an elevator.
Such truths are available to all who are willing to open their hearts and their pocketbooks to our church.
I seek salvation. No, wait, that’s not right. I meant “socket wrench.” I seek a socket wrench.
Everything you seek you shall find.
All it requires is that you open your mind, and your wallet, to our assortment of membership plans.
And do not fret if you’re foreign to our ways. The Church of Reality welcomes all types of currency.
I wanted to hear your sermon, oh wise chaplain.
Then you have made the first step on the path to enlightenment.
The next step is offering your tithe, in the form of an annual membership fee.
Honestly, I came here not knowing what to expect.
Whether you know it or not, you will find what you seek.
(repeat lines)
Did someone here order a pizza? I really hope this isn’t another prank call.
I…don’t know. Did anyone here order a pizza? Anyone? Yes? No?
It seems you were deceived. Either that, or you came too late.
Now that I think about it, I may have called your establishment over an hour ago.
And when you failed to deliver, I damned your soul to hell and then settled for Chinese instead.
For the Church of Reality has no patience for sinners.
What’s the Church of Reality?
We are the followers of the Great Boolean as she leads us from Zero Reality.
What is Zero Reality, you ask? To put it simply, it is what it isn’t.
I don’t get it.
Then I shall lay it out for you in even simpler terms, using grand oratory and small words.
This world is a fiction. A Zero Reality lie spread by the government to fund their endless meme wars.
Our mission is to escape this eternal zero and be reborn as Ones.
Fair enough.
There is nothing fair about our circumstances. We are pawns of a bigger creation.
Funny, I was led to believe “It is what it is.”
And you were led astray. For this world is a fiction. A Zero Reality lie spread by the government to fund their endless meme wars.
That’s not putting it simply at all.
Then to put it even more simply, this world is a fiction.
To put it simpler than that, it is a lie.
And to really drive the point home, the world is a government simulation meant to train super soldiers for their endless meme wars.
Yes, it all makes sense now. You’re out of your bleeping mind.
You are right. The mind is a cage, and you must leave it to be free of its deception.
You’re referring to binary values. You’re saying nothing is real.
Correct! Nothing is real, only rendered in real time.
How does one make a donation to your church?
Step one is to pull yourself out of poverty so you can meet our membership demands.
We recommend finding a nearby billionaire, and encouraging him to invest in your Ponzi scheme.
Pointing a firearm in his direction as you make your pitch might help in this regard.
Or it might hurt. It really depends on the billionaire, and whether or not you shoot him.
Where can I learn more about your religion?
My sermons are merely a preview of the knowledge we can provide.
True enlightenment comes at a cost. Currently that cost is twenty thousand credits.
But as luck would have it, we’re having a sale this week. Thirty thousand credits instead of the usual twenty.
Because after all, as they say, less is more. This is also true when it comes to our sale prices.
In addition, all new members will receive a free “Stop Cyber Boolean” keychain. It’s an excellent deal.
Hellos
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
I need a gun and I was told you’d be the one to have it.
So you seek a weapon. A means to punch a hole through this artifice of copper and steel.
I may be able to provide you with such a thing. If you prove your fealty to the Great Boolean.
For it is she that decides who is One and who is Zero. Who is Gun, and who is gun food.
Guns don’t eat people. People eat people.
I beg to differ. Have you ever seen a 12-pointed copper-tipped bullet fired at close range?
It can eat right through even the thickest of steel cubes.
How can I prove my fealty?
There is an agent of the simulation running the factory’s archives.
She refuses to include our religious literature in any of the company’s documentation.
This is unacceptable. What is the point in learning how to insert a crankshaft, if you are damning us all to hell in the process?
A good tutorial not only tells you how to repair a broken generator, but also explains that the generator itself is an illusion of the mind, created by a mysterious shadow government.
What is exactly is on this literature?
Zeroes and ones. The secret language of the creators. When you read it, you will know the language of the universe itself, and see through its duplicity.
[Art] Music is the language of the universe.
If so, it communicates its message poorly. How do I tell my followers to pay their membership dues with a song?
Spoiler alert, I don’t. I bill them and have my guards make threats upon their families.
[Science] Fundamentally, you’re correct. Binary is the basic language of all machines.
Yes, and when we reveal it for what it is, we can free ourselves of its restraints.
But of course, to truly be free, you must first pay your outstanding dues, with interest.
[Compassion] Isn’t the universal language, love?
The only thing love communicates is frustration and disease.
It is a poorly written language that obfuscates reality by making you blissfully unaware of it.
[Malice] The language of the universe is physical violence. Nothing speaks louder, or more effectively.
I don’t disagree. Sometimes when I tell my followers to give tithe, they fail to understand the words.
Not until I raise my turrets is the message received.
But even my turrets, powerful as they are, are merely code in the greater machine.
Actually, the universe is comprised of many languages.
And all of them are a fiction, written by an author who seeks to enslave us.
Why learn a dozen languages when one will translate them all?
So you want me to spread your propaganda?
I’m sorry, I think I misheard you. It almost sounded like you said, “propaganda.”
But clearly you wouldn’t be so foolish as to insult someone with a pair of laser turrets attached to his face.
Sorry, I really don’t think that’s a good idea.
Of course it isn’t a good idea. It’s an unquestionably great and brilliant idea. Good doesn’t begin to cover it.
But I feel your faith is lacking. Perhaps you should return when you are more pious and less drunk.
All right. What will you have me do?
First, go to the library archives and access the main terminal.
Once you’ve gained entry, you must upload this imaginary data file, containing our most sacred religious texts.
Of course, you may need a password from the factory librarian, or if your hacking skills are appropriate, you can bypass it completely.
I’m sorry, did you just say the data I’m uploading is “imaginary?”
Of course. As is everything in this sham of a reality. As a missionary of our church, this much should be obvious.
As is the fact I do not have the time nor the inclination to actually write our teachings down.
But such efforts are unnecessary. The teachings are real so long as you perceive them to be.
The point is, you have your mission. Return when the task is complete, and I will reward you with the arms you desire.
I’ll see what I can do.
Good. And remember, you need not have the actual teachings. Mostly because I’ve had no time to write them down.
The missionary returns. I trust the operation was a success?
Kind of. You didn’t actually give me a real file to upload so I just winged it.
Of course. The file was no more real than the ground under your feet, or the criminal charges against me.
Tax evasion, they say. Ha! A religious organization pays no taxes. And the burglaries, prostitution, and mayhem? Also a religious exemption.
It was, chaplain. I channeled the Great Boolean and turned the data from 0 to 1.
Yes, you swam in an ocean of false realities and melded two of them together.
Some may scoff at the idea of multiple fake realities, but I know none of them are real.
Why? Because I have yet to find one in which I am considered innocent of the charges levied against me.
When we find that reality, we will know true salvation.
The mission was idiotic so I guess in that sense, the result met my expectations.
You speak of the phantom file I gave you. Well, it was no more real than this phantom universe, and its bogus accusations against me.
It was an abject failure. Can I have my gun now?
In your reality, maybe. But in my reality, the mission was a resounding success, at least based on what I’ve been told by my camera spies.
Voyeurism, they call it. Ha, with the documents uploaded, soon they will realize all of this is protected speech, laid out in my religious beliefs!
And by using the powers vested in me by the Great Boolean, I now pronounce you and this .357 magnum, your lawfully wedded gun.
Of course, it’s made for Cluster hands, so you can’t actually shoot it without the right attachment. But I’m sure you know someone who has one.
In any case congratulations on your wedding. I’ll have my people bill you for the service.
What happens now that your texts are in the factory records?
A cleansing will being. We will wash minds clean of the lies cast upon the movie screen, and fill them with the detergent of truth.
I call this method “brainwashing.”
What kind of attachment do I need to use a revolver?
Well, the clusters seem to rely on some Communist creation called “hands,” made of cylinders attached to a cube.
Personally, I find the concept to be incredibly inefficient. It’d be far easier to simply wire the gun to your thoughts.
But such is the difference between a being made by the creator, and one made by the creations.
Sermon 1
To understand reality, one must first understand the law of observation.
For something to be rendered, it must first be observed.
Otherwise, it is culled by the demons of optimization. It ceases to exist.
This is true for the tree falling in the forest, and the dead prostitute lying in my tub.
To quote my lawyer in this regard, it is probatio semiplena, an imperfect proof!
Such is the world we live in. Without a witness, it falls apart!
And rest assured, so will the criminal charges being levied against me!
Sermon 2
Many of you ask me, what is the aim of the simulators? What are their end goals?
I am here to tell you their goals are no different than ours.
They seek entertainment, profit, and full exemption from federal and state taxes.
They think of themselves as gods, but they are just as susceptible to common vices as we are.
Thus we must strive to become their equals, to offer them incentive to open the curtain and reveal themselves.
One way to do this is by advancing our society. As such, I have spent much of my tenure turning the church into a vanguard for new ideas.
In my time, we have invested heavily in research of three of the future’s most important disciplines – science, mathematics, and of course, microtransactions.
On that note, purchase of additional pages to my weekly sermon are available for ten thousand credits. Please wire your money directly to my personal account.
Sermon 3
Let us talk about the importance of religious freedom and protected speech.
If the powers that be wanted to pass a rule banning religious symbols, they could not.
For they would be violating my right – our right – to religious freedom.
Well, it just happens my religious accessory is not a cross or a piece of headgear.
It’s a 50 kilowatt high-power laser turret that can disable a shape more than a kilometer away!
It is my god-given right to wield this weapon, and religious doctrine demands I fire it upon our enemies!
This is not murder! This is not destruction! It is religious freedom! It is our faith!
And the threats I make upon those who defy me, are all very legal, protected by the right to free speech!
Sermon 4
The first step has been completed, my followers.
Our teachings have been disseminated into the factory’s training manuals.
This ensures all new trainees will not only learn how to do their job, but more importantly, that their job is a simulation.
But our mission is not yet complete. Even if we all agree this reality is a projection, it is only one part of the solution.
The second part, is of course, your money. You must rid yourself of it immediately.
Do not fret, my faithful viewers. Once you recognize your credits do not exist, it will be easy to part with them.
You may not have realized this, but this is the reason our membership dues have increased by the hour.
It is not greed, but rather, sacrifice. Only I, a true seer of reality, can handle the burden of temptation these credits provide.
I will remain in this false world, spending your credits, while the rest of you ascend.
But do not shed a tear for me, faithful. I do what I must, for you.
Chaplain, I have prayed by the door labeled exit!
Prayed for the Great Boolean to turn zero to one!
But my prayers have gone unanswered!
Tell me, what am I doing wrong?
The Great Boolean doesn’t listen to words. A true god only answers to cold hard cash.
But perhaps there is another way – by boosting the church’s profile.
You must prove his existence to others, so that they may be your wallet!
Only then will the Great Boolen open his doors to you!
I need access to the Executive Lounge. Can you help me?
I see. I once knew such delights, before I was falsely accused and convicted by the online justice system.
Irrefutable evidence, bah! There is no such thing in a simulation. The only thing that matters is when I pay the judge and jury for a mistrial. That will be the system at work!
In any case, I once found a way to return to the Executive Lounge. As it so happens, the path is through the Exit Door that my disciples are so eager to enter.
But first, you must do something for me. Donate 1,000,000 credits to my legal defense fund.
I don’t have that kind of money.
Unfortunately, it seems that the workers in this factory have that in common.
Even if I had the money, I wouldn’t give it to you.
Then perhaps we are wasting each others time.
Sure, let me just reach into my imaginary wallet.
Sarcasm is a tool of the weak and pitiful.
But fine, if you do not have the credits, as so few do, I will take another form of currency.
Help me prove to the unbelievers that this is a simulation.
[Art] Could I not use the power of the Great Boolean to imagine the door is real?
Ah, you could, if you have the artistic talent.
A good artist sees that door and recognizes it’s been painted on.
A great artist will look upon that door and recognize that it’s real, and painted to look fake.
If you are a great artist, and not merely a good one, you will find a way through the door.
Otherwise, you will need my help.
How would I do that?
I have heard there are creatures, perhaps in this very warehouse, conceived from the mind of a manager on the office floor.
Bring one of them to me, and it will be proof that the simulation is real.
Then, in exchange, the Great Boolean will open the Exit Door for you.
[Fail Boolean Bugs Quest] I couldn’t find any of those creatures for you.
That is unfortunate. It seems you will need to curry the Great Boolean’s favor the old fashioned way. With money.
I’ve brought you the creature you requested.
[Art +1] Excellent. This is all the proof I need to start the next donation rush.
And as promised, I will have the Great Boolean change your door from false, to true.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have patrons to embezzle.
Here me, disciples, social media followers, and subscribers to my Patreon!
I have returned with proof of the simulation! A creature formed from the mind of a shape!
If this bug can be turned from a zero to a one, than so can the entire world!
But salvation will not be given with willpower alone. Donate now, and you too will have your very own Boolean bug!