The Virtual Sleepless Hypothesis

From doktorsleepless

The Virtual Sleepless Hypothesis basically supposes that the man in Cell 23 at the St. Thomas Institute is in fact, John Reinhardt, but that he is simultaneously broadcasting himself as Doktor Sleepless into the city of Heavenside.

This idea, so far as we currently know, was first presented on the Shriekyware discussion page by User:Grim.

Since then, more evidence to either support or disprove this concept has presented itself, thus necessitating this page.

Supportive Evidence

John Reinhardt wrote a book called Spymeworld, which references a concept called "spime." [1] Spime is essentially the idea that several emerging technologies (global-positioning, powerful 3D image rendering, and so on) can be used in conjunction to create a "virtual object." In other words, Doktor Sleepless, or at least the man he claims to be, has knowledge enough of spime to write a book dealing with the subject of virtual objects.

Of course, the Doktor would need some way of implanting this image directly into the eyes or minds of Heavenside's residents in order for them to see it. One way this may be possible is by broadcasting the image of the Virtual Sleepless into the Clatter lens' that most of its residents wear in their eyes. (Do we see anyone acting as if they cannot see Doktor Sleepless?) Since Clatter IM appears to be entirely visual, this does not account for people hearing him. Generating his image and sound in people's brains by electromagnetic induction, while conceivable, is a very sophisticated technology and out of keeping with the Spime theme.

Of course the Virtual Sleepless would need "mass" in order to be touched by Nurse Igor or to break a bathroom mirror, wouldn't he? Maybe, maybe not.

As we also know, Doktor Sleepless has claimed to be the designer of Shriekyware, the touch sense-recreating "haptic" [2] technology that allows the Shrieky Girls sub-culture to transmit feelings of touch to one another. This technology utilizes small, crude transmitters and receivers to broadcast say, the feeling of holding a boy's hand to other Shrieky Girls on the network. Possibly this is the result of an early prototype of the Virtual Sleepless. The question is, could larger, more powerful transmitters broadcast a powerful enough signal to simulate a person's physical mass with enough force to say, shatter a bathroom mirror in a crowded club?

While we're on the subject, where would such transmitters be located? Could the be hidden behind the mysterious H-Plates that are placed throughout the city? The man-god Warren Ellis said in a recent chat with Newsarama [3] that the Doktor chose Heavenside to return to, not simply because it was home, but for a specific reason. Was it because this was simply the only place he was capable of returning to, as his physical body is stuck at the Institute and he needed the H-Plates to maintain a physical presence outside of those walls? We are introduced to the H-plates in an issue greatly concerned with haptic interface technology; might they be "haptic plates"?

Previously, The Science Jesus Event, in which Sleepless revived a seemingly dead young man named Jamie with an electric touch of his fingertips, was listed under Holes because the use of neither spime nor haptic technology could be attributed to its occurrence. However, further exploration of the Doktor Sleepless site yielded a page that may already explain this. Indeed, if John Reinhardt is capable of manipulating an intricate series of spime and haptic networks from his cell, he could also be capable of administering a jolt of electricity through the Wireless Transmission Of Power, which is exactly what it sounds like. The concept of wirelessly transmitting energy through the ether from point A to B. Once again, however, the question regarding the transmission and receiving of said power comes into play, just as with the earlier mentioned technologies. Certainly, the potential to do such things is there, but how is he doing it?

The Holes

These are points that either disprove The Virtual Sleepless Hypothesis or simply need to be investigated further.

The one very major hole that currently riddles our hypothesis we shall call The Receiver Hole. Haptic technology, so far as we know, requires both a transmitter and a receiver. If this is indeed the case, what would be acting as the receiver that allows the Virtual Sleepless to reach out and touch someone, or to shatter a glass mirror. Could this be made possible through the focused broadcasting of low-frequency sound? Also, even supposing that enough voltage to revive a dead man were able to be transmitted to an exact location, what would act as the conduit for said power if Sleepless were not actually there? Further thought and/or investigation is required.

Further complicating things is The Mirror Event. Not only was the good Doktor able to smash the mirror, but bits of the mirror stuck in his body, causing him to bleed. Blood flow could be simulated in some fashion, but the matter still begins to wear away at the Virtual Sleepless Hypothesis. Whatever Doktor Sleepless is, it appears he is flesh and blood.

The question has been asked, "How was the Virtual Sleepless broadcasting over the Heaven's Pirates radio?" Obviously, were John Reinhardt capable of doing the fantastic things that we're attributing to him from Cell 23, broadcasting an audio wave on an FM signal should pose no significant problem. However, this question does present another hole. We'll call it The Audio Hole. Simply put, how would a Virtual Sleepless speak? Could John Reinhardt, while broadcasting haptic signals, video signals, and even electric signals to specific locations using an elaborate global positioning system also be simultaneously broadcasting extremely specific audio frequencies mimicking his speech to people in the vicinity of the Virtual Sleepless? If this is possible, it would also seem possible that the Virtual Sleepless, who would already have to be haptically holding a microphone using artificial mass created through no known receiver, could theoretically simply broadcast his voice into said microphone.

The Biometr tech - this has to be part of it too. It's on p1 of #2 for a reason. Part of the technology of Clatter also? (Is that how the Clatter users knew DJ Amun was dead)? Could this be another way the Virtual Sleepless reaches out to others? If, for instance the Biometr tech didn't just take the outputs of the body, but was able to give inputs?

More thought. More investigation.

Miscellaneous

Another Hypotheses on this topic, (taken from the general feel of the comic) is that doktorsleepless is an avatar similar to an online persona from a social networking site (forum) albeit more technologically advanced, for example, Joe bloggs has a user account flip_fly_honey, and John Reinhardt has his tulpa.