The Manual

COMMUNITY REPORTS
The remainder of this article contains lore created collaboratively by the Blaseball community.

What is the Manual?

The Manual is a huge collection of accumulated information which can be edited by anyone. In the Core an immense number of experiments and explorations are conducted to sate curiosity and improve upon current technology. What is learned from exploration, testing, and accidents is recorded within its pages. It serves as a guide to the Core and its people helping many through with advice and useful knowledge. By incredible means, the Manual can almost always direct a user to relevant contents. Pocket editions of the Manual are must-haves as they prove to be ever-practical.

B.A.C.K.

The Bureau of Archive Collection and Knowledge (B.A.C.K.), one of the major Core Organizations, is composed of librarians, historians, editors, and data scientists dedicated to the maintenance and improvements upon the Manual. They are also responsible for localization of the Manual of its contents into numerous different languages spoken within and outside the Core.

Contents

The Manual currently occupies 2.23 terabytes of memory. Including a myriad of differing media. Some examples are provided.

• Textfiles from an old bulletin board system
• Various self-adhesive paper notes
• Musical vinyls of motivation work songs
• Old incomplete code snippets, photographs of improvised street art in numerous languages
• Important documentation on the construction of the industrial coffee maker soaked in coffee
• A catalogue of notable experts around the core that updates automatically *Cryptic notation of ancient times
• A chalkboard that can has 18 sides and some archaic diagrams
• Lyrical and rhythmical advice as well as the locations of the Core’s best acoustics
• Extended written arguments between mechanics with the original conflict obscured
• Necessary utility kits for various purposes
• Popular songs of different eras stored on cassette tapes
• Notes with your signature and handwriting that you didn’t write… yet

Page of the Day

Pages upon pages exist in the Manual. One of these is being randomly presented by the Interdimensional Rumor Mill. It's been carefully curated and annotated by several members of B.A.C.K. and is a valuable resource of a given discipline. This time, the Interdimensional Rumor Mill reveals a Rumor from IF-59.942 out of its Rumor Registry...

BOWHEAD-Class Superfreighter
Tonnage: 350.6 Million Deadweight Tonnage, 300 Million Typical
Length: 5.5 kilometers
Height/Width: 0.5 kilometers
Crew Complement - Full | Minimum:

25 Command (3 shifts) | 10 Command (2 shifts)

50 Engineering | 20 Engineering

30 Support Staff | 10 Support Staff

40 Pilots | 12 Pilots

In-System Propulsion: IVARIVAST Mk. 27 Long Impulse Fusion Engine, 12 bells, 5000 day fuel.
Nearlight Propulsion: Vanden Light Drag Grav. Pulse Drive.
Primary Power Plant: NAVIS Large Volume, Low Intensity Fusion Reactor.
Secondary Power Plant: 25 sq. kilometer SUN-SLIVER solar sail collector + various high efficiency photovoltaics panels.
Armament: 2 Longsight Light Naval-Class short cycle lasers

BOWHEAD-Class freighters are set-up much like her contemporaries of the time with a crew compartment and duel 0.2g contra-rotating centrifugal gravity decks set at the bow of the ship. The aft of the ship contains a temporary break and bunk compartment for the engine crew, the bulbous NAVIS fusion reactor, and the IVARIVAST engine bells, taking up most of the block’s volume. Two freight elevators travel along the spinal column of the ship with 6 cargo segments between the bow and the aft. Between the first cargo segment and the crew compartment lies the thin, circular Vanden Gravity Pulse Drive, used to slowly accelerate the ship to nearlight speeds in interstellar space while saving reaction mass. Each cargo segment is made up of 9 separate cargo bays, each lined top to bottom with standardized containers of all sizes and marked with a gallery of different logos. There are two different cargo bays: Pressurized halls for atmosphere-sensitive cargo and open racks for bulk, stable goods and print stock. Four 1.5 kilometer long omninet/longwave antenna jut out from between the final cargo segment and the engine block held in place with wires that run from the front of the ship, between each antenna, and to the rear of the engine block. Finally, two light short cycle lasers sit on turrets on two towers midway on the ship between cargo segments 3 and 4.

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