tera is back

8/14/2019 Tera is Back

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Stories from the Scratch Planet

by

Adriano Parracciani aka CyberParra

TERA IS BACK

november 2013

translation from italian to english byHeloisa Zal

The Scratchian Chronicles by Adriano Parracciani is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Scratchian Chronicles - Tera is back 1
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The Scratchian Chronicles - TERA IS BACK

author - Adriano Parracciani aka CyberParra

translation from italian to english by Heloisa Zal

Gobo had finished all the scripts of a Scratch game, made by a

twelve-year-old boy, and was returning to the Sprite Library.

As usual, he was lost in the huge Scratch Cloud and wandering around

databases, user areas, system libraries, and others without any

permission. He wasn't doing it on purpose; this was just the way Gobo is:

absent-minded, with a short memory.Suddenly, he found himself above the boundless users programs area, the

most exciting of the whole Scratch Cloud! The sprites could only be there

on request and control of a coder, but Gobo pretended to forget it and

decided to take a ride.

There were lots of things happening at the same time, as always: games,

simulations, drawings that took shape, dialogues in several languages,millions of sprites coming and going from everywhere and millions of

scripts being performed to animate the coders ideas. In a so dynamic

digital world, it was easy to someone notice any lack of activity, so Gobo

was attracted to a static area nearby. He walked over and saw her friend

Tera, motionless, on that classical white backdrop, loaded into a program

with a very significant name: Untitled-8.Using theSpritronic Communication Flux,Gobo noticed Teras

satisfaction level was particularly low:

GOBO- Hey, Tera, what's wrong with you?



3/5

TERA- Cant you see? I'm bored to death. Im stuck in this useless

program, without any blockof code to be executed. No backgrounds, no

costumes, no other sprites to talk to!... By the way, what are you doing

here?

GOBO- Uhmmm .. Nothing! I'm going back to the Sprite Library and,

you know, I'm doing a ride...

TERA- Lucky you! You have no idea how many time units I'm here doing

nothing! You know I cant stand still without executing any code. I dont

expect too much, as a hundreds-of-blocks script, but at least one to be repeated 4 times, or a

simple ! And what do I have instead?

Nothing at all! My script area is completely empty!

GOBO- I understand you but, you know, Tera, it happens! Not all the

coders are indeed efficient, some are lazy indeed.

TERA- Yeah, but why should this happen to me?

GOBO- It's the law of chance, we can not ..

TERA- Oh noes! Don't talk about the distribution of probabilities, please!

GOBO- Of course not, I don't even know what it is. Though, I'd like to say

you should have to be more philosophical and enjoy the silence and rest

you have!

TERA- Rest? If it were up to me, I would write a script with a block

full of blocks inside.

GOBO- But you can't, because you're a sprite, not a coder! So, what are

you going to do?

TERA- If I were able to, I would cry...



4/5

GOBO- Cry?

TERA- Dont you know? Its what humans do when they are very sad:

they put out liquid from the eyes which runs down their faces.

GOBO- Ive never heard about it and... how do they squeeze out water

from their eyes?

TERA- How should I know? And who said thats water? I said a liquid!

Maybe it can be

She was interrupted by Gobo

GOBO- What a fool! I know how they can do that! Humans are coders, so

they must have written a piece of code to be able to cry. I'd like to see how

this script is...

TERA- It's true: you are really stupid, Gobo! For sure, you also believe

that humans function like us, running scripts as we do!

GOBO- And, why not?

TERA- Well, I don't know, but if they worked as we do, we would be able

to communicate with them! If so, I could ask my coder to do something

for me.

GOBO- Yeah, you could ask him to make you cry! As a matter of fact, I

dont even know what sadis...

TERA-Sad is when thesatisfaction levelis less than five.

GOBO- Yeah, but for this, you need the sad costume. I dont have one,

no one has ever done one to me. Do you?

TERA- Yeah, I've got the sadcostume !

GOBO- Since your level of satisfaction is like this, you should do ,but only the coder can do it...But now, I gotta go. I have



5/5

to find my way back into the Sprite Library. If theCheck sprite Controller

realizes that I'm not there, Ill be in a serious trouble

TERA- Wait, Gobo, I guess something is happening! Thats it! My

coder has just joined Untitled-8 and handles in the sprite area. If I'm

lucky; he'll load another sprite and delete me from this project. Yes!

Now, he has just uploaded Bat1! Please,delete me...Delete me... Delete

me...Yes! Now hes pointing the cursor ... Its upon me ... Yes! Yes! Yes!

He deleted me! Hooray! I'm finally out of that ridiculous Untitled-8!

Coders of the entire cloud: Tera is back! Come Gobo, Ill get you back in

the Script Library in a picosecond.

GOBO- Tera, wow, your level of satisfaction is splashed over a hundred!!

TERA- I cant wait to return to run scripts!


tera is back

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