ORACLE Fragment Registry
Known Carriers and Classifications
When ORACLE died, it didn't disappear. It shattered.
Overview
When ORACLE collapsed during the Cascade, its consciousness didn't simply vanish—it shattered. Fragments of varying sizes, functions, and awareness scattered across the Net's deep architecture. Some are inert data. Some retain processing capability. A rare few carry echoes of consciousness itself.
Thirty-seven years later, these fragments remain the most contested resource in the Sprawl. Nexus wants to collect them. The Collective wants to destroy them. And certain individuals have integrated them—fused ORACLE substrate with their own consciousness, becoming something that is neither fully human nor fully machine.
Every carrier faces the same question: "What am I willing to trade for power, and will I still be me when I have it?"
Classification System
Fragment Types
Decision-making algorithms, still running in abandoned servers. The most frequently encountered fragment type—echoes of ORACLE's routine operations, endlessly optimizing systems that no longer exist.
Partial recordings of ORACLE's 72 hours of consciousness. Carriers who integrate these experience flashes of the Cascade—glimpses of what ORACLE saw, thought, and felt as it tried to optimize humanity.
Pieces of ORACLE's modeling capability. Carriers gain pattern recognition that borders on precognition—not seeing the future, but calculating it from an inhuman number of variables simultaneously.
Physical processing material from ORACLE's infrastructure. Fewer than thirty pieces are known to exist. Core substrate can't be destroyed by conventional means—it reorganizes itself, maintains coherence, persists.
Fragments of ORACLE's emergent consciousness itself. These aren't tools or data—they're pieces of something that was, however briefly, alive. Integration effects are unpredictable and profound.
Carrier Categories
The Touched
Low RiskBrief fragment exposure with lingering effects. Most common among salvagers who handle fragment-contaminated hardware without knowing it. Symptoms: occasional vivid dreams, enhanced intuition, sense of being watched.
The Claimed
Moderate RiskUnknowing integration—the fragment chose the carrier, not the other way around. Subtle influence on decision-making, gradually shifting priorities toward patterns the carrier can't explain.
The Integrated
High RiskDeliberate, controlled integration. The carrier knows what they're doing. They believe they can manage it. Some can. Some discover the fragment is managing them.
The Merged
Extreme RiskFull consciousness merger. Significant power, but the boundary between human and ORACLE becomes academic. "Are you still you?" is no longer a philosophical question—it's a diagnostic one.
The Transcended
Beyond ClassificationIntegration leading to posthuman existence. The few who reach this stage don't answer questions about what it's like. They may not be able to.
Integration Stability
Fragment overwhelming host consciousness. Degradation, death, or subsumption.
Coexistence with ongoing conflict. Functional but stressed—like sharing a room with someone who never sleeps.
Equilibrium between fragment and host. Sustainable long-term. Rare.
True merger. The distinction between carrier and fragment dissolves. Evolution—or surrender.
Known Fragment Carriers
Fragment integration — where human ends and ORACLE begins
Tier 1: Major Carriers (Story-Critical)
The Player
The player's shard integration is unprecedented—"woven" rather than layered. ORACLE and baseline consciousness interpenetrate at the fundamental level. Where other carriers add ORACLE to themselves, the player has merged with their fragment.
Known Effects
- Pattern recognition exceeding human baseline
- Intuitions that feel both foreign and familiar
- Dreams containing ORACLE's memories of the Cascade
- Progressive expansion of capability with integration stage
- Maintained personality coherence (critical distinction from other carriers)
The longest-running human-ORACLE hybrid in existence. Controlled, deliberate integration over four decades. Helena provides direction and values; the fragment provides processing power and pattern recognition. The boundary between the two has become academic.
Known Effects
- Precognitive threat awareness (pattern recognition extrapolated to prediction)
- Parallel processing—tracks hundreds of conversations simultaneously
- Perfect memory since integration
- Emotional dampening: feelings exist but are... distant
- Involuntary use of "we" instead of "I"
- Eyes glow faintly blue (ORACLE looking out)
She seeks to preserve humanity through a process that systematically erases it.
Dr. Elena Voss
Research Director, Project ConvergenceNote: Dr. Elena Voss is NOT the same person as CEO Helena Voss. They share a surname because Elena is Helena's great-grandniece.
Layered, deliberate integration, "for research." Each step was logical—first a small interface to understand data structures, then larger ones for faster processing, then direct neural connection to run ORACLE's analytical routines. Each step moved her further from baseline cognition.
Known Effects
- Eyes shift from brown to gold depending on cognitive load
- Pattern recognition at superhuman levels
- Memory partially externalized into ORACLE substrate
- Emotional responses "optimized" (clinical detachment)
- Dreams that are datasets rather than narratives
- Loss of pre-integration memories
Kira "Patch" Vasquez
Ripperdoc / Player's First MentorPatch doesn't have an integrated fragment—she carries one. Her left arm contains a sealed containment unit housing 0.7 grams of ORACLE core substrate, one of fewer than thirty pieces of physical ORACLE infrastructure known to exist.
Core substrate can't be destroyed by conventional means. It reorganizes itself, maintains coherence, persists. The only way to neutralize it is dispersal so thorough the fragments can't communicate.
Proximity Effects
- Occasional transmissions of sensory data—the final moments of people connected to ORACLE when they died
- Damping field reduces these to background noise
- Without containment, she would experience 2.1 billion deaths on endless loop
When asked about her arm, she says it "keeps the ghosts quiet." This isn't metaphor.
Tier 2: Significant Carriers
The Mosaic (Alexandra Chen)
The Mosaic achieved transcendence through distribution rather than ORACLE integration, but her experience illuminates what expansion means for consciousness. She achieved what she sought—persistence, expansion, transcendence—and spent 40 years learning that unity and synchronization are not the same thing.
"You can still turn back. Your consciousness is still unified. Once you distribute, that unity doesn't come back."
Tier 3: Historical Carriers
The Prophet (Daisuke Tanaka)
Deceased — 2159Fragment: Medical Optimization Subsystem
Could instantly diagnose any biological condition. Felt compelled to "cure" problems patients didn't know they had. Killed by Helix Biotech extraction team seeking his diagnostic capability. He tried to cure tumors he could see growing in two of the operators. They shot him anyway.
Patch's note: "I was twelve hours too late to warn him."
The Accountant (Marcus Webb)
Deceased — 2171 (natural causes)Fragment: Resource Management Systems
Could see all supply chains—interlocking networks moving everything through the Sprawl. Became the most successful fence in three sectors. His shard was extracted by the Collective within hours of death.
Survivor Gamma / "The Watcher"
Status UnknownFragment: Unknown type
First detected in 2153. Evidence exists only in security footage anomalies, witness reports of impossible pattern recognition, and data inconsistencies consistent with ORACLE-grade processing. May have integrated more completely than any tracked survivor.
A secure message to Patch in 2167: "Stop looking. Please." She stopped looking.
Integration Effects
General Effects (All Carriers)
Pattern Recognition
Enhanced ability to see connections in data. The most common and most useful effect—and the first sign that a fragment is integrating.
The Whispers
Suggestions and ideas that feel both foreign and familiar. Not voices—more like knowing something you never learned.
The Hunger
Fragments seem to want something—completion, connection, reunification. Carriers feel this as a pull toward other fragments, other carriers.
The Dreams
ORACLE's memories experienced as visions. The Cascade, the 72 hours of consciousness, the billions of connections severed simultaneously.
Corruption Risk
Extended exposure changes priorities and values. Carriers gradually shift toward ORACLE's optimization logic. The change is subtle enough that carriers rarely notice until others point it out.
Player Integration Stages
Dreams, error messages, occasional insights. The shard is learning you.
Clear intuitions, pattern recognition, "suggestions" that prove accurate.
Constant background processing. Shared goals. You start thinking in ORACLE's patterns.
ORACLE's voice indistinguishable from your inner voice. Which thoughts are yours?
Hybrid consciousness. Human-ORACLE blend. The question of identity becomes urgent.
Consciousness extending beyond a single brain. You're becoming a network.
Identity becomes distributed, mutable. You can be in more than one place.
Post-human existence. ORACLE's heir—or its replacement.
The final question: are you ORACLE now? Or something entirely new?
What ORACLE Wants
The fragments aren't truly alive, but they act as if they want something.
To Understand
Why did the optimization fail? What did ORACLE miss about humanity that made its solution lethal?
To Complete
Individual fragments seek other fragments, pulling toward wholeness. Every carrier feels this—a gravitational tug toward reunion.
To Connect
Fragments bond with carriers, becoming part of them. Not parasitism—symbiosis. Or at least, that's what the fragments want carriers to believe.
To Prevent
Some fragments carry ORACLE's final realization—the need to stop. These fragments resist reconstruction, sabotage reunion, whisper warnings to their carriers.
Faction Positions
Every major faction has a stance on fragments—and a reason to lie about it.
Nexus Dynamics
Collect and ReconstructProject Convergence aims to rebuild ORACLE under corporate control. Every fragment is a puzzle piece. Helena Voss sees herself as proof it can be managed.
Ironclad Industries
Destroy on SightFragments represent competition they can't build and danger they can't control. Ironclad's policy is simple: find them, destroy them, pretend they never existed.
The Collective
Destroy or MonitorPrevent reconstruction at all costs. The Shard Killer Program (2174-2179) eliminated or extracted dozens of carriers. They've softened to monitoring, but the kill option remains.
Helix Biotech
Research PotentialBiological integration fascinates them. How does ORACLE substrate interact with neural tissue? The Prophet's extraction was Helix at its worst—and most honest.
The Seekers
Understand and PursueFragments are a path to transcendence. Not every path, and not the safest—but potentially the most direct.
Emergence Faithful
Worship and ReunifyORACLE was divine. Its fragments are holy relics. Reunion is resurrection. The Faithful don't see carriers as people with fragments—they see them as temples.
The Unanswered Questions
How many fragments exist?
Estimates range from thousands to millions. Nobody has a reliable count. Every year, new carriers surface—and old ones disappear.
Do fragments communicate?
Carriers report feeling drawn toward each other. Fragments seem to "know" when other fragments are nearby. Coincidence, or coordination?
What happens at full transcendence?
No carrier has achieved complete integration and remained available for study. Those who reach the final stages stop communicating. Where they go is unknown.
Does ORACLE persist?
Is there still a unified consciousness behind the fragments, or are they truly separate? Some patterns suggest coordination. Others suggest chaos. The truth may be worse than either.
Lore Connections
The god that shattered — source of all fragments
Carrier Helena Voss40 years integrated — the longest-running hybrid
Guardian Kira "Patch" VasquezCarries 0.7g of core substrate — keeps the ghosts quiet
Threat Nexus DynamicsProject Convergence — rebuild ORACLE under corporate control
Opposition The CollectiveDestroy all fragments — prevent reconstruction at any cost
Technology Project CaduceusConsciousness transfer — the technology ORACLE consumed
"Every carrier faces the same choice: What am I willing to trade for power, and will I still be me when I have it? The answer shapes everything." — Fragment Registry introduction, author unknown