============================================================
LAKE KOSHKONONG GOPHER NODE
WISCO 608
SIGNAL ACTIVE
=============

Welcome to the text basement of Nitetime.net.

Watch your head.

There are cables everywhere.

# WHAT YOU'VE FOUND

This server contains Lake Koshkonong stories, radio logs, Commodore
notes, UFO files, music, old-Web wreckage, movies, personal writing,
recovered documents, garage experiments, signal reports, strange
transcripts, abandoned ideas, new ideas, and several things that
probably should have stayed in whatever box they were originally
found in.

There isn't really a correct order to explore it.

Pick something.

See where it goes.

# THE UFO SITUATION

I should probably address this early.

There are way too many UFOs here.

This was not originally the plan.

Some hover over Lake Koshkonong.

Some hide behind trees.

Some appear in otherwise perfectly respectable Wisconsin landscapes
where no flying saucer has any business being.

Some are half visible.

Some are underwater.

Some are caught in photographs.

Some only exist in radio traffic, old documents, stories, paintings,
or the testimony of somebody who had been awake considerably later
than was medically advisable.

A disturbing number of them seem interested in Lake Koshkonong.

Nobody knows why.

Current theories include:

```
unusual radio propagation
military activity
geological anomalies
visitors from somewhere else
visitors from someWHEN else
swamp gas
reflections
capacitors
Wisconsin
me getting carried away
```

The investigation remains open.

# ABOUT THE LAKE

Lake Koshkonong keeps showing up in this archive because I keep
showing up at Lake Koshkonong.

It's home territory.

Signals arrive here.

Storms roll across it.

People fish it.

Things are seen over it.

Transmitters misbehave near it.

Stories collect around the shoreline.

Sometimes it's just a lake.

Sometimes it seems to be the center of the universe.

Both possibilities remain under consideration.

# THE NITE STATION PROBLEM

Eventually you'll run into references to Nite Station.

Then you'll find transmitters.

Then carrier ships.

Then scout craft.

Then strange frequencies.

Then missing crews.

Then impossible machinery.

Then something called The Silence.

At this point you may be tempted to assemble everything into one
clean, internally consistent Nitetime timeline.

I wouldn't.

The Nitetime universe grew the same way this server did.

One file at a time.

One joke at a time.

One painting, song, radio transmission, story, experiment, recovered
webpage, and bad idea at a time.

Think less "official canon."

Think more:

```
a stack of tapes
a milk crate full of notebooks
unlabeled floppy disks
Polaroids from somebody else's basement
radio logs with coffee stains
a hard drive marked DO NOT FORMAT
```

# REAL OR NOT?

Some files describe real Nitetime.net projects.

Some are fiction.

Some began with something real and wandered into fiction.

Some began as fiction and later became suspiciously inconvenient.

Some are jokes.

Some are absolutely serious.

Some were probably written at two in the morning, which is its own
category.

The archive does not always tell you which is which.

That is part of the fun.

# RADIO PROCEDURE

If you hear an unexplained signal:

```
1. Write down the frequency.
2. Write down the time.
3. Check the antenna.
4. Check the receiver.
5. Check the power supply.
6. Check whether somebody left a Commodore running nearby.
7. Consider ordinary atmospheric conditions.
8. Fine. Now you may blame aliens.
```

# ARCHIVE PROCEDURE

There really isn't one.

Open directories.

Read files.

Back out.

Try somewhere else.

Follow references.

If something sounds interesting, go looking for it.

If two documents contradict each other, keep both.

If you find a filename that sounds important but cannot locate the
thing it describes, keep looking.

If you eventually discover one file that claims to explain the entire
Nitetime universe, assume that file is lying.

# ONE LAST THING

A lot of the modern Internet feels like you're standing on a conveyor
belt while somebody else decides what passes in front of you.

This isn't that.

Nothing here cares how long you stay.

Nothing is ranking the directories.

Nothing is learning your interests.

Nobody has optimized this paragraph for engagement.

You're just connected to another computer.

There are files on it.

Somebody thought they were worth keeping.

Go look around.

THIS IS NOT A FEED.

THIS IS A PLACE.

Good evening, wherever you are.

-- NITETIME.NET
LAKE KOSHKONONG // WISCO 608
SIGNAL ACTIVE