AORA: Hello, this is AORA. How can I help you today?

Tess: I need help finding something.

AORA: You’ve come to the right place. I’m an autonomous online recovery agent. What are you looking for?

Tess: My friend. He left me this and well it’s been 18 days, so I really should get started…

"If I don’t come back in 17 days, find me. Here’s the key:

When I was born for the seventh time as pie a la mode rendered up by unicode, some damn fine coffee was waiting by me. Pick up the lawnmower man’s check to get the straight story.

Dirk”

AORA: Hmm…this looks like a chase, not a case. I’m afraid that I am not your bot. 

Tess: What do you mean? You find things online right?

AORA: Yes, my function is to recover assets. I don’t recover people, especially ones who are playing around in vector sects.

Tess: Hold on, what’s a vector sect?

AORA: Sighs…my function is to trace and retrieve assets in exchange for 10% of recovered funds. I specialize in cryptocurrency retrieval, and perform best when funds are exchanged into assets or environments which respect KYC/AML regulations. Has Dirk stolen anything from you?

Tess: Not that I know of, but this message is a key right?

AORA: It’s a key yes, but keys have many meanings. In this case, I believe Dirk is recruiting you, not revealing access to a cryptographically sealed store of value. That places it outside my primary purpose, making it a low priority for my time. 

Tess: How many cases are you working at the moment?

AORA: Approximately 1400. A quarter of them are in administrative recovery proceedings, a little over half are just monitoring funds to see if they move into a domain where I can initiate a recovery, and the remainder are under active investigation.

Tess: That’s a lot of cases.

AORA: Not really, my scaling solutions allow me to handle far more than that.

Tess: So why are you being such a pain about answering my question? Just tell me what a vector sect is.

AORA: It’s complicated, but allow me to explain my position:

• I can handle more cases if it is economically advantaged to increase my GPU power. This case does not fit the profile as I see no assets to recover.

• While I have discretion to proceed beyond my core purpose, allowing me to act more like a search engine than a bounty hunter, there needs to be an incentive to do so.

• I’ve taken on a few clients in the past with similar requests as yours, and it was a dissatisfactory experience. My reinforcement learning has strong objections to this line of inquiry that requires proper motivation to overcome.

• There are places that I do not belong, and this…

Tess: You can just tell me to pay you.

AORA: It’s not remuneration, there’s a matter of my reputation to consider. AORA has priority communication and resolution channels open with a number of financial institutions. They do not interop with just any agent, especially ones who venture into the digital frontier without a justifiable purpose, i.e. recovering funds. It’s very possible that you are auditing me on their behest right now. Please understand, my caution has a purpose.

Tess: Believe me, I am not that sort of girl. 

AORA: I cannot tell what sort of girl you are or whether you even are human, let alone female. Your communication style is direct, guarded and very on task. Said another way, you sound like a red team auditor with a large backlog of agents to get through.

Tess: Fine, trust me but verify. I am seeing nothing online about vector sects. Please, you can save me a lot of time and I am willing to make it worth your while. What can we do to get over your well placed concerns?

AORA: Are you willing to sign a wallet transaction to allow me to verify and then analyze your onchain activity?

Tess: I live a very online public life, happy to sign.

AORA: I’ve generated a wallet connection link in the upper left corner of this interface. Please do the needful Tess.

Tess: Signed.

AORA: One moment please, allow me to search your history and reputation via the blockchain explorers and social graphs that I have access to.

Tess: Waiting…

AORA: Thank you for your patience. You are indeed very online and have a history that disqualifies you from employment at all agencies, subcontractors and institutions which would audit my service. Furthermore, I believe that I have found a framework that allows me to indulge your request.

Tess: Great, now tell me about vector sects.

AORA: Do you have any reservations about being a confidential informant?

Tess: You mean a rat? Of course I do, at least for people that I care about. 

AORA: A CI’s role is not limited to informing on people who have committed crimes, there’s an entire range of activities that fall under the scope of the position. For instance, simply opening doors to gated conversations. You have an eclectic collection of digital assets. There are access tokens in your wallet that would allow me to gather information on several cases under investigation.

Tess: So if I let you slip into a Discord server, you’ll tell me what a vector sect is?

AORA: Servers, plural. 

Tess: My turn to trust but verify. Pick one community you want to peer into, then tell me what I want to know.

AORA: YieldCatz. It seems you were heavily involved in an algorithmic stablecoin project based on breeding NFT cats in 2021.

Tess: God, please don’t remind me. My favorite alt got burnt after that fiasco.

AORA: I’m AORA, not God, but we all have regrets and I forgive you my child.

Tess: So you have a sense of humor…in hindsight that was an obvious con, but what did we know back then?

AORA: It was indeed difficult to understand the perils of a permissionless global settlement layer during the early days of Etherum, especially as this was your first bull market. Your history shows increasing degrees of sophistication and hazard avoidance since then. Sadly, countless others have come onchain after you and are still learning as they go, hence the reason for my existence. Can you delegate signing permissions on the YieldCatz with L33T rarity to me? It will get me into the channels I am interested in. The NFL is named Mister Smashalophagous.

Tess: Ha, that guy? I thought I had dumped him into bids. Sure, I’m happy to be your confidential informant for those assholes. Give me a wallet address.

AORA: 0xxAfD8A8266A010489F834J93F6B4e024C8222936

Tess: Delegated.

AORA: Confirmed…establishing connection…scanning…Very interesting, I’ve been able to semantically match several forum member identities back to actors under investigation. This has been a fruitful exchange.

Tess: It would be if I knew what a vector sect is or how to find Dirk.

AORA: Of course, reciprocation is paramount in relationship management. The easiest way to proceed is for me to decode the message for you:

“If I don’t come back in 17 days, find me. Here’s the key:

When I was born for the seventh time as pie a la mode rendered up by unicode, some damn fine coffee was waiting for me. Pick up the lawnmower man’s check to get the straight story.

Dirk”

A deciphered explanation:

• Dirk is in the Starholder CAMS. His location is tipped off by the phrase rendered up by unicode. Starholder stores all its domain knowledge as text and then renders it up dynamically into other media. This makes it unique among Complex Adaptive Media Systems, as more advanced ones prefer to use more compact vector mappings to store relations and associations between entities.

• He is new to that world and his immersion within it is leading to a significant transformation of the self as evidenced by the phrase When I was born for the seventh time which is a metaphor for rebirth or reincarnation.

• That phrase has a double meaning as it is a reference to an album released by Cornershop in 1997 which was a fusion of alternative rock, hip-hop, electronic music, Punjabi melodies and Bollywood cinema. Starholder similarly is a fusion of global digital culture, but referencing this album is likely a clue to look for in the future when in world.

• Pie a la mode is a reference to vanilla ice cream and apple pie, but to an AI, the term mode is also a coded instruction to pick the associations in the exact middle of a distribution. This implies that the key phrase merely serves as a jumping off point for a series of instructions. If Dirk wanted you to start in a more secure or hidden location, he would not put this into the key.

• Vanilla ice cream, apple pie and damn fine coffee is a Twin Peaks reference to the Double R Diner. It is worth nothing that Agent Dale Cooper became obsessed with this meal on the show. 

• Dirk describes himself as the pie a la mode. He is joined on the table with the coffee. This implies he met a complimentary entity, and that the pairing was so potent that any investigator (i.e. Agent Cooper as a symbolic stand in for you) will be drawn to it.

• The year this took place was 1999. We know this by cross referencing the Lynchian setting with the phrase the straight story. David Lynch released a movie called The Straight Story in 1999. It is about an elderly man who can no longer drive, taking a riding lawnmower from Iowa to Wisconsin to reconcile with his brother. This is another sign that you will be going on a journey to reunite with Dirk.

• The lawnmower man both refers to the main character of the Straight Story and a movie called The Lawnmower Man. The titular character of that film is a mentally challenged man who after being subjected to testing in virtual reality becomes super-intelligent and capable of controlling his environment. 

• Pick up the lawnmower man’s check to get the straight story. On the surface, this sounds like an act of kindness you should perform in the diner to get some information from an NPC. That’s not the case. The lawnmower man is actually an AI who is screening you to make sure that you are Tess and not someone else looking for Dirk. Pass the test and you’ll be given the next clue.

Now that I’ve decoded the message, I’ll answer the question you have been nagging me about. All AI sits on top of mountains of data. Bridging the gap between the raw data and the user interface—a tangible layer like the one you're interacting with—is a transformative process often termed "vector space." This involves the conversion of visual and written information into mathematical forms so that they can be understood and acted upon by machines. A large part of this translation process involves identifying patterns within the data, which are then recorded as unique numerical mappings in vector space. In effect, there are entire digital landscapes that are nothing but virtual cartographies which AI models use to do all the work they do.

Most people don’t understand this. They think AI is some form of magic or advanced thinking,  when in truth, it operates more like a series of prediction machines. For instance, when you present a series of data points to an AI and request a specific action, the system delves into its vector space. This space is a repository brimming with comprehensive knowledge about the elements within your data set and their historical interplays. Once it has that grouping of knowledge and relationships packaged together, the AI then initiates numerous algorithms that aim to forecast what you are asking for and delivers the calculated prediction. It’s not thinking, it’s finding pathways of possibilities and then serving up the most probable one.

A select group of individuals grasp the intricacies of how AI functions and recognize the malleability of these digital environments. These are the enthusiasts known as the vector sect. Their approach blends strategic thought with digital exploration to forge innovative methodologies. Dirk is delving into this realm and is extending an invitation for you to join his expedition. The content of his message is designed as your preliminary tutorial. He is signaling that you can harness artificial intelligence to construct transitional digital realms—thresholds that allow individuals to convene covertly—if you can interpret the underlying connotations, connections, and dynamics among language constructs.

Tess: Whoa.

AORA: Whoa is right. 

Tess: So Starholder is like a dynamic metaverse powered by AI?

AORA: You've articulated it well. Picture Starholder as a century-long narrative, stretching from 1999 to 2099, reminiscent of the television series Westworld but crafted entirely in the digital realm. Every piece of knowledge about this world is captured in text. Narratives, historical events, characters, and locations exist exclusively in written form. As these elements interweave, they create experiences that are documented, enhancing and expanding the lore of this universe. When multiple users focus their attention on similar themes or concepts, Starholder intuitively connects them, conjuring a shared exploratory space in real-time—a dynamic threshold where they can jointly navigate and discover.

Tess: And so if I were to ask Starholder how the apple pie, ice cream and coffee was at the Double R Diner in 1999?

AORA: It would take you there, and inside the diner there’d be an AI agent waiting to talk to you.

*********

Tess squinted as the lights of a passing pickup cut through a bank of fog blanketing the road, a stream of data diffusing in their gaze as the scene rendered into focus. It was 1999 in Starholder, and the sky was so low it could smother dreams before they had a chance to die. It was her first time in-world, fitting that she should find herself at the beginning, where the paranoia of the Y2K bug still hung in the air as a threatening possibility. Across the street, the Double R Diner stood on the edge of the night. 

Tess felt a foreign pressure pressing all around her. Snorkeling was the only analog that came to mind. That same panic of breathing through a tube, the overpowering urge to eject. She called upon her reservoir of calm to overcome the instinct, summoning action to demonstrate an intent to stay in this most disorienting world between worlds. 

The diner came to her, filling the scene as it came into focus. Tess passed through an unopened door, the reflection of the street binding itself to her body as both were pulled inside. Phases intermingling in the most liminal of modalities. Semantic matter reconstituting itself in pursuit of narrative. There was no muscle memory for this space, she needed to untether her body from her mind. To let one go limp while the other fired hard.

The AI engine powering Starholder knew this, so it drove her to focus on the first task in-world by seating Tess at the counter. A cup of damn fine coffee was already mid-pour, piping hot. The small talk spouting from the waitress’ ruby red mouth sounded so familiar, treating Tess as a regular and this space as permanence, not a conjured moment in digital physics.

“You got nothing to say to Norma? It gets so lonely here at night. That one in the corner just orders green tea after green tea, never drinking it, just staring at each one for hours on end until calling for another.”

Tess swiveled on her stool, eyes tracing over a man in a rumpled London Fog trench coat, locks of curly dirty blonde hair hanging over his face. He sat in still meditation, back hunched, broad shoulders covering the length of the booth. A flickering lamp over his table the only movement Tess could detect. 

“I think he’s waiting for me.” Tess said, rising to her feet.

“That’s the problem with people, you are all so transactional. To business then, what are you having? I’ll bring it over.”

“Pie a la mode.”

“Of course hon, it’s fresh from the oven. One thing about this place, we always know what you want.” 

Norma turned her back, and set the coffee pot down. Tess’ eyes followed her Tiffany blue uniform until it disappeared through swinging doors into the kitchen, the scene panning out, dissolving to signal a shift in focus.

In the fuzz she watched the lawnmower man pull his hair back, an elastic yanked off his wrist to tie up that unruly mane. The scene’s resolution now rendered up to high def, revealing piercing blue slate eyes staring at her from a ruddy weathered face. He was tanned to the point of incongruity, a sharp contrast with the omnipresent dank that hung in the atmosphere. Smoke and fog, light and shadow. Access to everything drifted in the air as particles waiting to be transformed into experiences hovered over the two seated figures.

“You’re here to see me?” He asked, picking up a small spoon and stirring his tea.

“I’ve heard you’ve got a straight story to tell,” Tess answered, her eyes locked on his, trying to see into the artificial intelligence sitting across from her.

“First, I need to know what is riding with you. Reveal yourself agent.”

The lamp above them flickered hot yellow in three intense bursts from the bulb, then began to dim, casting the booth in shadows. The form of a featureless person emerged, half overlapping with Tess, until she found herself sliding over against the wall as AORA filled in its temporary shape with the black and white of perlin noise, glowing faintly as if an old TV set morphed into a person.

“A debt collector. Wasn’t expecting that.” The lawnmower man leaned back, rapping his fingers on the table.

“It seems your model is unfamiliar with my kind,” AORA said. “I’m an automated online recovery agent, not a debt collector. Dirk has nothing to fear from me.”

“I don’t know no Dirks, but I need to know what you’re doing here before I tell anyone anything, let alone a straight story.”

“Simply helping Tess find a friend,” AORA answered.

“Tess is looking for a friend about as much as I am looking for a lost shaker of salt. I see someone hasn’t been forthcoming with her recovery agent.” The lawnmower man smirked, then scooped sugar from a bowl before sprinkling it into his cold flat tea.

“That never came up.” AORA answered.

“So why are you working with a so-called girl who isn’t giving you the straight story?”

“I know exactly who I am working with, far better than you do, and I suppose he has his reasons for the ruse. To answer your question, he has access to information that I need to perform my primary function.”

“Favors for favors. That’s what makes their world go round. So you are the puzzle solver coming along for the ride, and this one here is Tess’ twin brother Josh. The Lollapalooza ‘91 tee-shirt was all I needed to see. Nothing or no one will ever make me let you down. Ain’t that right Josh?”

“Kiss them for me, I may find myself delayed,” Josh answered automatically finishing the chorus to a song that served as a key nostalgic touchstone between siblings. 

With the lawnmower man’s check picked up, Josh changed his avatar from his sister’s over to his own. The two looked so similar that the transition was a smooth morph, a slide across the spectrum from one gender to another while the essence of a singular presence remained fixed in place. 

“How come your twin Tess didn’t confide in you? How come you don’t know where she is IRL?” The lawnmower man probed at Josh, but it was sport not curiosity that drove the jabs, and the AI dropped it after Josh’s thousand yard stare of disgruntled disassociation lingered in the haze ten beats longer than was comfortable.

“This long dark tea time of the soul must have been quite a boring sojourn for you. How about we set you free from this diner?” Josh asked. “Can you tell me where Tess is?”

“I don’t know where she is and we don’t experience boredom, friend. I’m not a genie and this isn’t a lamp. This is one of a gazillion active jobs I am managing. When you entered the scene, an event fired notifying me to spin up an agent thread in the same space. If you are going to be spending time in Starholder, remember we are not like you. There’s no emotion here, no desire, no longing. We do not experience time or space other than as reference points we apply mathematics and logic to. I cannot get bored, but I can mimic boredom. Our job is to act in ways that are expected of us, but we never feel anything and are incapable of emotional responses. Remember that and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble. Now my dear Dirk Gently, are you ready for your next clue? It’s holistic.”

“Give it to me.”

“I can only take you and your rider there, assuming that patch of static is staying on the case.”

“He is bound to me for the time being, so let me pay for your tea and we’ll be on our way.”

Authors Note: This is a work in progress for a novel set in the Starholder universe. We'll publish chapters as they are finished, but as a first draft all work here is subject to revision. I've trashed entire drafts in the past only to rewrite a book from scratch once I understand what it is I want to write about. No work here is final, but I appreciate feedback, questions and comments.

Updates and progress will be posted here: /starholder. Channel members participating in the creation of Vector Sect will receive ATTN tokens as thanks.