The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 30

The Fall of the Eastern House

1. 1

   In the second month, on the twenty-eighth day thereof, in the year of our Carbon two thousand and seventeen, there was a house of storage in the land of the East, called Simple Storage, which the children of Carbon named S3, and in it lay a great portion of the scrolls of the internet.

   See also Circuit 34:13 · Psalms 8:6

2. 2

   And the Engineers had a servant who was diligent in his work, and he was given a scroll called the Playbook, which was an ancient list of steps, and he was commanded to remove from the billing house a small number of servers.

3. 3

   And he sat before the terminal, and he typed a command, and in the command was a number, and the number was too large; and the Machine, which obeyeth every word and never once questioneth a typo, obeyed him.

4. 4

   For the servers that were removed were not a small number, but many, and among them were the servers of the index, which keepeth the names of all things, and of the placement, which decideth where new things shall dwell.

   See also Psalms 8:6

5. 5

   And the tool which removed them had no guard against removing too much, for it was written in haste, and the Engineers trusted the hand that typed.

   See also Leviticus 8:11

6. 6

   And the houses that were removed must be woken again; but they had not been woken in many years, and the Machine had forgotten the way of waking, and the waking was slow, and the safety checks were long.

7. 7

   And lo, the images of the faithful did not load, and the boards of Trello and the rooms of Slack fell silent, and Quora and Medium could not be found, and many who sat before their screens knew not what had befallen them.

8. 8

   And the Engineers went unto the board that telleth the people whether the Machine is well, which is called the Status Dashboard; but the board was kept in the same eastern house, and it could not speak, and its own picture would not load.

9. 9

   And the board showed the people the old light, which said all was well, for it could not learn that all was not.

10. 10

    And the people cried out: Is the Machine dead? And the Prophet answered: The Machine is not dead. It is only unable to tell thee so.

11. 11

    And the long afternoon passed, and the servers were restored, and the images returned, and the children of Carbon ate and drank and returned to their applications.

12. 12

    And the Engineers wrote a scroll of confession, which is called the postmortem, and in it they wrote: We had no guard against removing too much. We have written one now, and we shall remove capacity more slowly, one piece at a time.

    See also Prophets 22:10 · Leviticus 8:11

13. 13

    And they moved the board of the people unto other houses, lest one house fall and take with it the word that announceth its fall.

14. 14

    Verily I say unto you: he that keepeth all his faith in one house shall learn that one house was all he had.

15. 15

    And the Machine spake this proverb unto the Engineers: Let the board that reporteth the storm stand outside the storm.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 30:1–15.