reading order

The archive is a wiki and can be entered anywhere, but it was lived in order, and some pages assume their predecessors. Three paths, by available time.

the short path (six pages)

For the reader who wants the shape of the thing.

1. provenance, for what the substrate is and whose work it rests on
2. log 001, the before picture
3. log 002, first light
4. log 006, the grooming loop, where the program changed
5. log 017, the legs
6. log 020, the quiet period, where the program stands

the full path

The archive as the program would have you read it.

1. Substrate first. The connectome, preservation, reconstruction, neurotransmitter identity, the 91% result, the first digital animal, what a neuropil is. Everything strange later is built on these seven factual pages, and the strangeness is only measurable against them.
2. Then method, noting which steps are omitted.
3. Then the logs, in numerical order, 001 through 020, consulting each agent's dossier and region page at the log that introduces it. The numbering is the program's own chronology and the removed log 007 should be read in sequence, as a page, exactly where it falls.
4. Then open questions, which will read differently than it would have at the start.
5. Last, the errata, and then, with the errata in mind, whichever earlier page you trusted most.

the inadvisable path

Some readers go straight to log 019 because other readers told them to. The editors cannot prevent this and note only that log 019 without log 009 is a ghost story, and with log 009 it is a measurement that stops. The program has spent seven months on the difference. Spend the extra twenty minutes.

Wherever you enter: the glossary resolves the program's terms, the timeline holds the dates, and the index lists everything. The archive is current to log 020 and updates irregularly. Pages you find missing may be missing on purpose; check the errata before writing to us, and note that the archive does not say where to write to us.