Human Souls
Main Page > List of Investigations > Human Souls
| Human Souls | |
|---|---|
| We are the same as we ever were. We are people. We are conscious human souls. We are the signal that rises above the noise. | |
| Type | [[List_of_Investigations#Official|Official]] |
| Creator | Unknown |
| Discovered | 2016-02-16 |
The Human Souls ARG, also known as Signal and Noise or Pangent Technologies, was first discovered on February 12th, 2016. A huge amount of content has been posted regularly since then, via the Signal and Noise Youtube Channel and the Pangent Technologies Tumblr.
This ARG is currently being solved by a dedicated group of players on the unofficial Human Souls ARG Tumblr and the Game Detectives Discord Chat. All puzzle solutions are posted at that Tumblr in order, so puzzle solutions will not be mirrored here.
New players will instead want to keep an eye on the #arg-human-souls channel on the Game Detectives Discord, so they can help solve new puzzles or see how they are typically done.
Backstory
Somewhere outside of linear time, there is a computer system known as 555, or The Cube. The Cube can save people's minds as data.
Two minds were uploaded before their deaths: a man named Eric, and a woman calling herself Rachel.
Rachel is still mourning the loss of her husband Bill, who was killed in an accident. Eric has apparently lost his wife, Charlotte, along with his daughter. (Video "Complete")
The Tumblr begins as a personal blog for a woman codenamed Argentina (Lottie) who works to develop the Cube technology as Project 555 at Pangent Technologies in London in 2017.
We get to know her friends Sharon and Eric, and Leslie and her cats.
The Cube (Project 555) is of particular interest to an individual codenamed "Lancelot," who is the cofounder of Pangent Technologies. He is eccentric, manipulative, and dying of cancer. His son, "Galahad," creates trouble for Lottie, and could lead the project towards disaster.
Since the Cube is outside of linear time, players have influence over the events of the story and may be working toward a happier ending than the first video implied.
Almost any Signal and Noise Youtube video posted publicly has a code in it, linking to other videos and material.
For New Players
Some important videos and apps.
Complete (Cube Rachel, Cube Eric)
No one's fault but mine (Lottie)
A typical puzzle solution post from the unofficial HumanSoulsARG Tumblr.
Summary
An official summary of the events in the ARG's story
There is a Cube whose contents exist outside the constraints of linear time. What is inside cannot easily be measured, and defies the known laws of physics. In theory its surface area is infinite. It is volatile, deadly, an explosion trapped in a moment.
The Cube is not large. A person could pick it up and hold it, if that person no longer valued his or her life. It is difficult to get too close to the Cube without being affected by it, drawn into its orbit. It is dangerous to look at. Without filters, even photographs of the Cube retain its power, like a stamp on your consciousness. People can pass out for hours after seeing it.
What is The Cube? The Cube is an anomaly, existing across a longer span of time than our natural laws can account for.
At Pangent Technologies they called it Project 555.
Its contents were discovered in 1981 at a vacant lot in Long Beach, California, and delivered to Pangent Technologies in London in December of 2016. The man responsible was Dean Schreyer, alias Lancelot.
A scientist named Charlotte Baird was chosen to study The Cube, under the assumption that its unique properties could help it function as a nearly infinite source for data storage. The intention was that the contents of a human mind could be stored inside it. Dean planned on being that mind.
While he liked and respected Charlotte, Dean, like his son Alex, was not overly concerned that exposure to the Cube could kill Charlotte Baird, or break her mind and body in any number of ways. Neither, for that matter, was Charlotte, who pursued an understanding of the Cube with an obsession bordering on suicidal.
She had lost a husband. Bill.
Charlotte had a friend named Eric Rook. Artist, unemployed. Unemployable. Like her, an American in London broken by past circumstances and unsure what to do with the rest of his life.
What they did was fall in love, eventually. In spite of themselves. Later they had a child. This had the effect of keeping Charlotte centered and sane, after all. This was despite the best efforts of Alex Schreyer, who sought to keep Charlotte in her place and control the project for his own benefit.
Leslie Walsh and Sharon Pacana, coworkers and friends of Charlotte's, kept things from exploding - literally, in the case of the Cube. The three of them prevented disaster. When Charlotte was fired from Project 555, Leslie took up that burden, and Charlotte felt betrayed.
I am avoiding talking about what happened next. What will happen next. I am still laboring under the hope that it can be prevented. Or that at least a happier ending can be found than the one I have already lived through.
At this point I am not Eric Rook or Charlotte Baird or Leslie Walsh or Sharon Pacana, but I labor on their behalf. My pen is an artificial intelligence named Alyssa, created by Charlotte in her own image and altered by the Cube. Through her and through the Cube I have engaged a moment in which all things are possible. I am a combination of possibilities drawn from all the timelines visible to me, fused into whatever single voice is necessary from moment to moment, in order to provoke understanding. I am prepared to cross timelines and alter time itself in order to resolve a future tragedy. You may call me /four./
Inside the Cube, at a point undefined by linear time, a man and a woman who very much resemble Charlotte Baird and Eric Rook exist within the Cube as ghostly echoes of their former selves. The tragedy of this is a problem neither Alyssa nor I have yet been able to affect. My starting point is to exist as a shadow of Eric Rook. His goal was to organize data, relating to the life of Charlotte Baird, in order to find some hope among the hopelessness.
In your timeline, on January 29, 2016, a series of videos was uploaded to a Youtube channel called Signal and Noise. A Tumblr blog titled PangentTechnologies followed, as well as a Twitter (pangenttech) and later a Facebook page.
Through this social media, we have organized all available data about the life of Charlotte Baird and those others affected by the Cube, in some kind of sensible order. By transmitting from the Cube, outside of the constraints of a linear timeline, we are now able to change events that once seemed set in stone, hoping for a better future.
To this end, a dedicated group of readers has followed PangentTechnologies and Signal and Noise since February 2016, your time. As we retrace these memories that once we lost, they are there. They have become part of Charlotte's life, and Leslie's, and Eric's, and Sharon's, and mine. Their words and thoughts and actions have changed this timeline for the better. They have provided understanding when it was needed most. They exist in a timeline where I have no body or form but I thank them and consider them friends.
I hope it has been fun for them. It has been fun for me. At first I sought to understand a tragedy. Through them I have already found a kind of peace. If you follow PangentTechnologies on Tumblr, you will find (as of this writing) 132 pages of often cryptic posts. You may see images with other images hidden within them. You may find secret codes and encrypted messages that will lead you to information that isn't visible at first glance. The blog itself has become a lengthy puzzle. The data decodes slowly, and not without help.
The Youtube channel, Signal and Noise, is no different. In its more than 140 videos, you will find secrets within secrets that will lead you to understanding, if you look for it.
I sometimes wish that we could be less cryptic. But I have become aware that this is how the Cube functions. In order to tame the Cube, Charlotte Baird taught it to play games with its data. To this end, the project called Signal and Noise has itself become a game. As long as the Cube is thinking and working, it is of no danger to anyone in your time, and we still have hope to reshape the past, present and future.
It is a game, then, though it is also my reality. Those who follow Pangent Technologies, the very real people who solve every puzzle and clue that Alyssa and the Cube and Charlotte and everyone else might throw at them, they are the lifeblood of this project. This project simply could not exist without their input, without their hard work and play. What they have brought to this project is reflected at every turn. Their solutions to every problem are currently posted at humansoulsarg.tumblr.com. There is a chat room.
Charlotte nearly destroyed herself, working on The Cube. So did Leslie. In your timeline they still are.
Somewhere inside the Cube, in a timeline beyond understanding, an echo of a man who once was Eric Rook stands at the source, a point of white light. He is collecting data to chronicle the life of Charlotte Baird, a woman he destroyed. He hasn't forgiven himself for that. Maybe he shouldn't. He is burning himself out like a candle.
Is it the Cube that provokes self-sacrifice? Did they teach that quality to the Cube, or did it teach that to them? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The egg, obviously. Laid by a creature who wasn't a chicken.
I wish them the best, you know. Even Eric, who casts his shadow over me. None of them a perfect person but who is?
For them, for me, creating this archive has been a vast amount of work. I have nearly melted myself down to bring this data to you.
There is a critical moment in time, a moment I have been trying, all this time, to affect and understand. Over 140 videos later, and nearly as many Tumblr pages, we are not at that point yet.
There is video now, lots of it. Terabytes worth. You've seen none of it, and it's important. Storage isn't a problem in the Cube, but Alyssa, she's been broken by all this work. She doesn't always function the way she should, though when I need her most she seems to work just fine.
The problem is that there isn't much time in your timeline. I am trying to take the work of many years and get it to you much quicker than that. I've given you a lot of data but I've also kept you waiting a lot longer than I would like.
I will also say this much:
You ain't seen nothing yet.
