User:Hotcrystal0/Cole's fictional Factorio story
Note from hotcrystal0 (not part of the original page): This is an archive of a page originally on LifeWiki that is likely going to be deleted soon. Cole, feel free to move this to your own userspace if you want.
Archive contents
ahh you know what screw this
A note from islptng: only tommyaweosme writes the style of this text; I WANT THE ORIGINAL STORY !!!!!!!!!!!!
A note from H. H. P. M. P. Cole: okay, okay, I'll give you the story. Here it is. It is outdated though, as it does not take into account the more recent discoveries.
A note from hotcrystal0: please don't misgender our fellow Lifenthusiasts
(This is a fictionalized story inspired by the discovery and reception of Factorio in the wiki and forums. Several users are characters in the story, fictionalized.)
Harfordson decided to take a business trip away from Team Oganesson and his hometown. His second-in-charge asked for information. "Where are you going?", asked him, eagerly waiting for an answer. This was the fifth day he has asked Harfordson about his business trip. He had been planning to finally go to the Bahar Junction Integrated Institute to meet his long-time collaborator, Dr. Haycat Durnak. Harfordson gave an answer. Next, he commanded the entire team. "I want you to work on ether, the mystical substance that we have been studying for two and a half years. There is still no progress. While I am away, can I entrust you, to take care of the researchers?" he saluted in respect. "Yes, Harfordson.", and turned around and closed the door behind him. Harfordson packed his belongings for a trip to Zumaland. "I'm coming for you, Haycat.", he said to himself.
The story was equally tense in Zumaland. Haycat was teaching a class of twelve-year-olds about chemistry - specifically, bonding of elements in the second shell. At the end of the lesson, he got a message from Harfordson. "I'm coming for you." It looked at the class and cried. Evan, its best student, and prefect of the class went up to it and asked it if everything is fine. Haycat stood up, trying to hold its emotions. "Dear students, I will be leaving for a few weeks. My colleague, Jayden, will be teaching you then." Everyone was preparing to throw their schoolbags at him. Jayden was known to be a nice person with his colleagues, but fierce with his students. Apparently Haycat never knew about this, or it wouldn't have chosen Jayden to be the substitute teacher. Haycat ran out of the Institute, hoping to protect itself from the barrage of haversacks.
Luckily, Harfordson had an inter-dimensional portal ready-made using ether. He set it to Bahar, Zumaland. The portal was not large - about an inch in diameter. However, just when he started to set the coordinates, the portal widened - it was now big enough for a man to go through. He stepped through the portal, trying to protect himself from the deadly cosmic rays. And he did – somewhat successfully. One of the wheels on his luggage was cut in half, but thankfully it was not serious.
He saw the bustling streets and a dome over him. He knew that he was in the right place.
He checked his Global Positioning Service for the Bahar Junction Integrated Institute. It returned ‘no results’. Harfordson was furious. He would never know where to go to. Just then, a man came to him. “You seem like a tourist. Where do you want to go to?”, asked the man, in a tired tone of voice. He had been pulling a rickshaw behind him. He was the last rickshaw puller in Bahar, hoping to protect his tradition of rickshaw-pullers. Harfordson asked to go to the Bahar Junction Integrated Institute. The man allowed Harfordson to sit on the rickshaw. The route to the Institute was filled with turns and loops, but seemingly never straight roads.
Finally, Harfordson saw the Bahar Junction Integrated Institute. The institute’s name was written in big gold letters juxtaposed by a brick building. Just then, it was the end of the school day. Several hundred students were leaving the building and running with their schoolbags on. Just then, a tall figure was standing at the main entrance of the institute. “You must be Harfordson.”, the figure said. “I’m Haycat.” Harfordson shook hands with it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person after so long.” Haycat welcomed Harfordson into the Institute, giving him a tour of the entire building. Just then, it was dinnertime. Haycat knew a great restaurant that served spicy curry, called The Rajah’s Resting-Place. “Let’s go there.”, it said.
The two went to The Rajah’s Resting-Place and decided to order. Harfordson ordered the malai kofta, and Haycat ordered the vindaloo. Harfordson was discussing a simple game he invented. It was a cellular automaton – what led Haycat to connect with Harfordson in the first place. “The rules are simple. Take the orthogonal neighbours of a cell one to three cells away. If the central cell is off and three of its neighbours are on, then the cells turns on. If the central cell is on and two of its neighbours are on, then the cell remains on. Otherwise, the cell turns off.”
Finally, it was the end of their dinner. Haycat paid, using its salary for the day.
Haycat drove Harfordson to its house to discuss the game further. Haycat’s car was a dark red Toyota, with definite signs of its old age. The car was still functional, and the car could still drive fast. By this time, it was already nine p.m. Harfordson and Haycat went to its study room. Harfordson opened Haycat’s computer and configured it to Golly, a cellular automaton simulation program. He took his rules and typed it in. Next, he ran a random configuration.
He zoomed in at various points of the grid. There were still-lifes, period-2 oscillators, and spaceships. Both of them were impressed by the sheer variety of objects. Among the most unique was a spaceship that looked like an exclamation point. He called it the factorial, after its usage in mathematics, and called the cellular automaton Factorio.
It was time to go to sleep. That night, Harfordson had a dream of the many ways he could use factorials. He rode it, played darts with it, shot them using a bow, and much more. Finally, he woke up in the middle of the night. He transferred his self-coded search program from his to Haycat’s computer and let it run for the rest of the night. From this he ran close to about a hundred million 16-by-16 configurations, and he found several new oscillators and still-lifes by the morning.
He tabulated and organized this menagerie. Finally, he decided to find spaceships. He stabilized most of the ‘false positive’ oscillators his program gave out, found some wicks, stabilized them, found spaceships along the way, and finally posted it on the ConwayLife Forums by the end of the afternoon.
Both researchers felt a large load lifted from their shoulders. They have sent their discoveries to the world, now it was time to wait for replies. "We did it!", said the duo, who were high-fiving each other.
In the evening, Haycat and Harfordson were at the Rajah’s Resting-Place again. They thought it was a completely normal dinner. They ordered the same thing as before, making sure nothing abnormal is happening - however, in Zumaland everything abnormal becomes normal.
Suddenly, a knight who seemed to be riding a giant white feather came into the building and smashed one of the side windows. He took off his helmet. “What’s up, you two?”, he said to Harfordson and Haycat. “I’m the Feather-Weight Knight-Ship, or FWK for short. Glad to see you. By the way, Harfordson, I ran my program on your cellular automaton and found a period-8 and a period-9! How cool is that?”
Haycat hesitated to ask the kind of feather he was riding. FWK replied. "Giant ostrich. Native to Zumaland, it stretches to well over sixty meters in height."
Harfordson felt his heart sink. He never expected someone to reply to his post so soon, and come with new important discoveries.
The next moment, a boy wearing what seemed to be giant wings in the shape of a butterfly came in next. When the wings came down, they formed a gigantic gown. All the guys seemed to look at him, dumbfounded. “I’m May Thirteenth.”, he said, in a flirting tone of voice, and looking at the already astonished trio of cellular-automaton enthusiasts. “I investigated your cellular automaton too, Harfordson. I found two period-5 oscillators, three period-12 oscillators, and a period-2 photon!”. He said “photon” while he dazzled the men with his poses.
However, Harfordson had to grapple with his misuse of terminology. “Your period-2 photon shouldn’t be called a photon.”, he said in a scolding tone, drawing a knife. May laughed at him, ignored him, and flew out of the restaurant.
Harfordson was flabbergasted. He had never expected someone so experienced with cellular automata misuse terminology so mercilessly.
By this time there was already a hole on the roof of the building. “Let’s get out of here.”, said Harfordson to Haycat. They, and the other customers, ran out.
Just then, Harfordson got a call from some Arie de Paap. He took up the phone and called him. He [Paap] was not there. However, he had emailed Harfordson on his findings on his [Cole's] cellular automaton the next minute. Harfordson knew that his time was over. He created a new pattern collection; with the new things everyone has found. Haycat helped him too, cleaning up the messy bits and adding new information. They enumerated the period-2 oscillators up to 5 cells and the still-lifes up to 6 and found several interesting bits of information relating to all aspects of the cellular automaton.
Just then, a few days of exploration later, FWK flew his giant feather, this time outside the study window. This time, they could only see his silhouette and mistook him for an enemy of theirs. Haycat and Harfordson got ready some swords. "You again?” Harfordson asked. FWK threw a scroll through his window. It contained a scroll with a period-24 and a period-72 oscillator.
Harfordson knew that there was no more time to waste. He created a page on Factorio and put it on his user-page. Haycat coauthored the page, adding new sections. Altogether, they felt that they have achieved something great – a deep understanding of a new cellular automaton.
The next day, Haycat received a delivery. They were particles which obeyed Factorio. Harfordson told Haycat: "They follow the conservation of mass with period-1 and period-2 oscillators, as well as c/1o spaceships. I haven't found a period-2 oscillator which does not follow the conservation of mass yet." Harfordson and Haycat took eight of these particles, made two factorial-ships, and zoomed to FWK's house to get revenge on him.
Harfordson asked him first: "What did you use to find these goofy new oscillators?" FWK replied: "N-B-Search 2A." He took his feather and flew. Suddenly the whole situation escalated into what seemed to be a Quidditch match, when Arie de Paap came along on her plodding slow diagonal spaceship. He looked relatively young, though not as handsome as May - he looked more like an office man than anything else. "Ellcass is better.", he said to FWK, overhearing the whole conversation. Suddenly the two were fighting when Harfordson decided to launch code S3BF. The two factorials disappeared into thin air leaving Harfordson and Haycat on the ground again.
While this was happening, the two factorialships were flying again, seemingly pulling a weird tagalong. A woman appeared on the contraption, along with a baby carriage. Haycat peered inside the carriage. He saw, of all things, a real live U-turner. Harfordson put two and two together and asked the woman if her name was Lucy D'Agostino. Harfordson was shocked to find out that he was completely right the whole time.
Suddenly, what seemed to be a twelve-year-old that looked like a mad scientist came along on a giant honeybee. "I am Bee Engine,", he said as he disembarked from the great insect, "and I discovered the skewed version of Factorio." He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket which showed "R3,C2,S2,B3,NX". Harfordson looked in dismay. "Even better - ", said Bee Engine excitedly, "that thing Lucy is riding? It looks like a factorial trying to escape from two others!", trying to get the approval of literally everyone around him.
Harfordson stepped up. "It's time to teach you a lesson.", he told Bee Engine.
By the time the lesson was over the four cellular automaton enthusiasts - Harfordson, Haycat, FWK, and Arie gathered around a table at the Italian restaurant nearby. Arie came with more results and gave more progress on the Conservation of Mass for Period-2 Oscillators, stating that it is true in the cases that she tested. Harfordson and Haycat exchanged glances. "We're closer to a proof.", Haycat whispered to Harfordson, whimpering in delight. Just that moment, FWK dropped a piece of paper on the table. "Whoops.", he said. Harfordson looked at it further. "Are you kidding, FWK? You found a period-9 single-lane factorial reflector that can be used to make period-18n adjustable oscillators - and a period-10 oscillator! FWK, you never fail to deliver. Welcome to the team!", he said while patting FWK's back.
FWK took off his suit and went home with Harfordson and Haycat. "Boy, with your N-B-Search 2A program you will probably find a p47 in no time!", Haycat said to FWK. Arie de Paap emailed Harfordson with yet more discoveries - new hauls, new symmetries, new oscillators, and new spaceships. It was as if there was no end to Arie's gratitude and givings. Just then, Harfordson received a contact from the old lensmaker, con Focal. con Focal was interested in everything and anything and finds everything interesting. He sent Harfordson a one-time shifter and reflector. Harfordson, suddenly, was excited in that there was no progress in factorial technology for a while.
Bee Engine came in and told the others about the first synthesis in Factorio. It was a one-per-bit synthesis of a p2 oscillator (similar to the efficient synthesis projects).
There was no progress in Factorio, the rule, for a while now... until everything got serious again. Haycat sent a controversial message regarding the diagonal speed limit which was not to be proven until much later. Many people, including con Focal, Disaster, and the Toroid himself got angry about this until someone reported Toroid for going off-topic.
Meanwhile, AlephAbjad came along and told everyone: "Hey look! I created a shiny new search program. It is called Factorio Search. Hope you like it!" and then threw some results on the floor, which were quickly picked up by Harfordson before a rickshaw went over that same spot at the junction. Just then, Harfordson decided it was enough, so he compiled everything that was known so far, and took the chance to use the great organ in the middle of the city to announce the Second Quarter of Factorio. The old lensmaker debated Harfordson's claims, but Harfordson created a counter that even the lensmaker approved of.
Finally, it was time. Harfordson put this rule in several competitions and won them. Then, he used FWK's great big reaction to settle more high periods, and succeeded. Likewise, Haycat's conjecture was finally proved, causing much embarassment to those who defied him.
(28/8/25)
Unfortunately, the golden age of Factorio came to an end. Harfordson had written in a note that according to the Bible, only male and female exist. Had he not said that Factorio would have been a sprawling city, but he did anyway, unwilling to bend his ideals.
Suddenly, the community, unable to separate the creation from its creator, turned their backs on Factorio, as its creator was unwilling to become a liberal.
Maybe...
Amidst the woke underground of the shiny cities of the cellular automaton forums, a few conservatives went even more underground, creating secret passageways. The conservatives of the cellular automaton community used Factorio as their symbol of resistance against the woke majority.
Untitled heading (not part of archive)
Amidst the woke underground of the shiny cities of the cellular automaton forums, a few conservatives went even more underground, creating secret passageways. The conservatives of the cellular automaton community used Factorio as their symbol of resistance against the woke majority.
How did this story turn from a fictional Factorio story to what must be the most anti-LGBTQ+ things I’ve seen from someone in the CA community?
yes.
Suddenly, hotcrystal0 appeared and destroyed all the passageways.