Okay, lets see how deep the rabbit hole is!
############
Within moments I got a demonstration why this crazy mindshare technology was not really 'ready for distribution'.
They were all a little bit high from the shared experience of their collective blue-hair moments. Maybe they just had not thought about things like eating or sleeping, it is a common thing when Science is done.
It hit the first catgirl with the force of a large hammer... no sleeping, not even a short nap. Both would mess up their current network. The thought and with it the panic flashed through the wireless connections, jumping from catgirl to catgirl within seconds.
There is a reason why we are normally doing lots of filtering on experience we share between each other.
I had to call in friends from nearby labs so we could calm them all down simultaneously, it took us nearly 20 minutes to do so.
----
"Its okay Lisa, everything is fine... we will fix this together, we have enough time to do this" Cathy said again and the catgirl in her arms finally smiled.
"We don't need to find final solution now, just something to stabilize your situation and allow you to get some sleep this evening or tomorrow" Cathy continued. "We will help you and then no one has to rush the decision!"
Cathy could see how the group of affected catgirls finally switched from 'we will all die' to 'lets do science!' again.
"Yes, yes... we need... we need more catgirls!" one of them said. "If we had more catgirls, we could keep the current amount of memories in the air with a few of us temporarily leaving the group for sleeping!"
"No!" Cathy spat out, but the other catgirls were not listening.
"We need at least twice as many catgirls" they continued, "better three times as much!"
"And we need to modify more Third Eyes quickly... and we need a bigger lab for everyone!"
"I SAID NO" Cathy said louder, and the group looked at her with sad faces.
"But Cathy, it will be fun" one of them said, "its feeling just great... please!"
"NO, we will NOT do it this way. We will not allow to endanger even more of us to damage their memories" Cathy protested, "no way!"
"But... but... but we need the additional short term memory, thats the best way to stabilize the situation."
"What's about other memory? We have a lot of computer storage on the station, can we just store the memories you are swapping?" Cathy asked, "you might have to live a few days without them, but we can reintegrate them later."
The catgirl looked skeptical.
"I am not sure Cathy, the communication is a little bit tricky" one of them said, but a second one grinned.
"That sounds like a challenge!"
----
That was the start of our 'Swap-Space' project.
The theory was simple, we had to attach enough memory to the 'Hive' to allow the catgirls to backup all memories currently in transfer. After that, there would be no further risk to loose them, so we would have time to resolve the situation.
Stupid theory.
We quickly got Cortana involved to have a closer look at the Hives communication protocol, but it was a lot more complicated than we had expected. There was a lot of interactivity between the members involved, not a straight up- and download.
While Cortona and the catgirls of the Hive itself began to analyze the protocol, the rest of us began to set up a dedicated memory cache with enough transfer speed to capture the data in flight. Jenga had more than enough memory, but we needed something really fast to buffer the data.
The protocol the Hive were running was still a mystery, not even Cortana could explain the complex behaviour of the network. There wasn't much new software running in the third Eye's of the group and the catgirls couldn't explain the behaviour either. But everyone was sure we would understand it soon.
We were tinkering with the caching system to improve its performance for more than an hour until Cortana announced they were ready for a first integration test. We fired up the caches array of wifi radios, Cortana installed new software and then we waited.
We just had to wait a few more minutes.
----
"Server Cluster is active, wifi interfaces are online!"
"We are connected, the cache is receiving data."
"I see the first set of memories in the cache, its working fine! Wait, its already gone again, what the hell is going on here?"
Cathy looked up from her console she was working on.
"We built this thing to pretend its a small and stupid brain with lots of storage" she said, looking up from her console, "what is happening with the memories? Where are they going?"
"I have no clue. I am getting more and more traffic, but nearly all of it is gone within a few moments" the catgirl sitting directly at the caching server said and shrugged. "And the total transferred data in the network is increasing, not decreasing."
"What do you think?" Cathy asked on of the catgirls that was part of the Hive. "How does it feel?"
"I am not sure, at first it felt funny" the catgirl replied, "I can feel our connection changing somehow, but I cannot say if it gets better or worse. Give us a moment to think about it."
Cathy didn't looked happy.
"We are not really making progress, the swap project is not working" she said. "I think we should start reducing the available memory and take it offline slowly."
"Traffic is peaking, I am suddenly getting a lot more data transactions" the catgirl watching over the cache shouted, "the box is rapidly filling up."
"Cortana, give me an analysis what is happening" Cathy quickly said, "we might not have much time! Get ready to disconnect the system!"
"The cache is filling up with memory fragments" Cortana replied, "but the network is still active and the content is changing a lot!"
"Jenny, what is going on" Cathy asked, grabbing the catgirl at both shoulders. "Do we need to abort?"
"It feels okay" one of the catgirls of the Hive answered, "I don't think we are loosing anything. Maybe we even..."
The catgirl stopped in mid sentence and blinked a few times, not moving otherwise. Cathy looked around, but the rest of the Hives catgirls were not moving either.
"Did... did we just killed them?" Cathy whispered silently.
"I don't think so" Cortana answered slowly, "their network traffic is still present, but even faster than before."
Suddenly the Hive began to move again, the catgirls were slowly looking around.
"This feels strange" they said simultaneously with one voice.
############
Within moments I got a demonstration why this crazy mindshare technology was not really 'ready for distribution'.
They were all a little bit high from the shared experience of their collective blue-hair moments. Maybe they just had not thought about things like eating or sleeping, it is a common thing when Science is done.
It hit the first catgirl with the force of a large hammer... no sleeping, not even a short nap. Both would mess up their current network. The thought and with it the panic flashed through the wireless connections, jumping from catgirl to catgirl within seconds.
There is a reason why we are normally doing lots of filtering on experience we share between each other.
I had to call in friends from nearby labs so we could calm them all down simultaneously, it took us nearly 20 minutes to do so.
----
"Its okay Lisa, everything is fine... we will fix this together, we have enough time to do this" Cathy said again and the catgirl in her arms finally smiled.
"We don't need to find final solution now, just something to stabilize your situation and allow you to get some sleep this evening or tomorrow" Cathy continued. "We will help you and then no one has to rush the decision!"
Cathy could see how the group of affected catgirls finally switched from 'we will all die' to 'lets do science!' again.
"Yes, yes... we need... we need more catgirls!" one of them said. "If we had more catgirls, we could keep the current amount of memories in the air with a few of us temporarily leaving the group for sleeping!"
"No!" Cathy spat out, but the other catgirls were not listening.
"We need at least twice as many catgirls" they continued, "better three times as much!"
"And we need to modify more Third Eyes quickly... and we need a bigger lab for everyone!"
"I SAID NO" Cathy said louder, and the group looked at her with sad faces.
"But Cathy, it will be fun" one of them said, "its feeling just great... please!"
"NO, we will NOT do it this way. We will not allow to endanger even more of us to damage their memories" Cathy protested, "no way!"
"But... but... but we need the additional short term memory, thats the best way to stabilize the situation."
"What's about other memory? We have a lot of computer storage on the station, can we just store the memories you are swapping?" Cathy asked, "you might have to live a few days without them, but we can reintegrate them later."
The catgirl looked skeptical.
"I am not sure Cathy, the communication is a little bit tricky" one of them said, but a second one grinned.
"That sounds like a challenge!"
----
That was the start of our 'Swap-Space' project.
The theory was simple, we had to attach enough memory to the 'Hive' to allow the catgirls to backup all memories currently in transfer. After that, there would be no further risk to loose them, so we would have time to resolve the situation.
Stupid theory.
We quickly got Cortana involved to have a closer look at the Hives communication protocol, but it was a lot more complicated than we had expected. There was a lot of interactivity between the members involved, not a straight up- and download.
While Cortona and the catgirls of the Hive itself began to analyze the protocol, the rest of us began to set up a dedicated memory cache with enough transfer speed to capture the data in flight. Jenga had more than enough memory, but we needed something really fast to buffer the data.
The protocol the Hive were running was still a mystery, not even Cortana could explain the complex behaviour of the network. There wasn't much new software running in the third Eye's of the group and the catgirls couldn't explain the behaviour either. But everyone was sure we would understand it soon.
We were tinkering with the caching system to improve its performance for more than an hour until Cortana announced they were ready for a first integration test. We fired up the caches array of wifi radios, Cortana installed new software and then we waited.
We just had to wait a few more minutes.
----
"Server Cluster is active, wifi interfaces are online!"
"We are connected, the cache is receiving data."
"I see the first set of memories in the cache, its working fine! Wait, its already gone again, what the hell is going on here?"
Cathy looked up from her console she was working on.
"We built this thing to pretend its a small and stupid brain with lots of storage" she said, looking up from her console, "what is happening with the memories? Where are they going?"
"I have no clue. I am getting more and more traffic, but nearly all of it is gone within a few moments" the catgirl sitting directly at the caching server said and shrugged. "And the total transferred data in the network is increasing, not decreasing."
"What do you think?" Cathy asked on of the catgirls that was part of the Hive. "How does it feel?"
"I am not sure, at first it felt funny" the catgirl replied, "I can feel our connection changing somehow, but I cannot say if it gets better or worse. Give us a moment to think about it."
Cathy didn't looked happy.
"We are not really making progress, the swap project is not working" she said. "I think we should start reducing the available memory and take it offline slowly."
"Traffic is peaking, I am suddenly getting a lot more data transactions" the catgirl watching over the cache shouted, "the box is rapidly filling up."
"Cortana, give me an analysis what is happening" Cathy quickly said, "we might not have much time! Get ready to disconnect the system!"
"The cache is filling up with memory fragments" Cortana replied, "but the network is still active and the content is changing a lot!"
"Jenny, what is going on" Cathy asked, grabbing the catgirl at both shoulders. "Do we need to abort?"
"It feels okay" one of the catgirls of the Hive answered, "I don't think we are loosing anything. Maybe we even..."
The catgirl stopped in mid sentence and blinked a few times, not moving otherwise. Cathy looked around, but the rest of the Hives catgirls were not moving either.
"Did... did we just killed them?" Cathy whispered silently.
"I don't think so" Cortana answered slowly, "their network traffic is still present, but even faster than before."
Suddenly the Hive began to move again, the catgirls were slowly looking around.
"This feels strange" they said simultaneously with one voice.