Apocalyptus Nullus Carrier: The Book of the End of the Universe. As revealed by the Goddess, Our Lady of the Ethernet to The Episkipos Thomas L. Kula This Day, Boomtime, Confusion 36, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3165 Chapter One (1) And lo, it came to pass that the Queues did become clogged, and the Disks, they did become Full. (2) And the Quotas did runneth over, and the Hard Limits reached. (3) And the Network did become Clogged, and the Blinkenlight, O Holy Blinkenlight, did flash with a Wild Activity; not the Activity of the Stream and the I/O, but the Activity of Abandon. (4) And the Goddess looked upon the Machine Room, and a Stern Gaze did fall upon the Sysadmins, who shook in Fear at their Consoles. (5) And the Goddess proclaimed: "No longer is the Universe functioning Elegantly, but is full of Kludge and Cruft. For verily the Crosswiring may work, but it doth Sputter and Spark. We're out of Coffee, and someone did eat the last Jelly Doughnut." (6) And the Goddess' Glare did fill the Universe. Chapter Two (1) And the sound of a throat clearning did ring out, and the Goddess turned to her Senior Systems Analyist, who did tug upon His Suspenders, and pulled out a Pen from the Variety in His Pocket Protector, and did say: "We could upgrade. I've been thinking...." (2) And the Goddess did agree, and the plans were made, and Code was cleaned, and the Parts were Ordered and Delivered, and the Four Mail Queues of the Apocalypse were sent out, with the Message: "Scheduled System Downtime." (3) And lo, the day of Upgrade did come. Chapter Three (1) And the Voice of the Goddess rang out, and it did proclaim: "Commence system shutdown". (2) And the Sysadmins did comply, and turn to their Consoles, and administer their Shutdown Sequences. Chapter Four (1) The Disciples of Thompson and Ritchie did enter "shutdown -h now". (2) The Disciples of Jobs and Wozniak did go to the Special Menu, and did select the Holy Shut Down. (3) And the Lusers of Bill just switched their Boxes off, for they were in the State of Blue Screen anyway. (4) And the lesser Disciples did adminster their Commands. (5) And at the highest altars, the Disciples of DEC did adminster the command "@sys$system:shutdown". Chapter Five (1) And the sound of disks syncing did fall upon the Multitudes, and the broadcast messages did ring out: "System going down in 5 minutes, Please logout of cluster Universe." (2) And a Hush decended upon the Multitudes, and they did quiver at the sound of the Sysadmins. (3) And the Multitudes did listen, and log out, and, verily, their documents were saved and their processes were ended. (4) And the shutdown scripts did run, and the Queues stopped, and the Disks synced, and the CPU's halted. Chapter Six (1) And at the center, the Goddess turned to the Almighty VAX, whereupon the Console displayed: "System Shutdown Complete. Use console to halt system". (2) And the Goddess Herself did reach for the Console, and hit the Halt Switch, and the Console did say "> ?HLTD". (3) And the System did Halt. (4) And the Blinkenlight, the Holy Blinkenlight, yea, it did fall dark, as it was in the days of yore, in the Mist of the Void, when there were no Packets, verily, and when there was no Activity. (5) And the Goddess did proclaim: "It is done." (6) And Her Voice did ring out upon the calm. (7) And the Carrier, it went silent. Chapter Seven (1) And the Goddess nodded to the Sysadmins, and the Power was shut off, and the Breakers and Busses disabled, and the Universe did grow silent. (2) And the Goddess looked upon the Sysadmins, and nodded, and the Sysadmins did file out. (3) And the Goddess did look around in the Darkness, and listened to the quiet of the Universe, and it was good. For, verily, there would be upgrades Real Soon Now, and the Universe would be booted again, but this time Better. Chapter Eight (1) And the Goddess finished her Coffee, and did sit the Mug down. (2) Then the Goddess walked out, and swithced off the last light, and locked the Door. (3) But there will be more Glory in the Kingdom of the Goddess, for tomarrow there shall be better Systems, and faster Processors, and the RAM shall grow multiduously, as shall the Disks. (4) And the Universe shall grow in Better Configurations, helped, yea, by the Beer of the Month Club, and it shall be better. (5) And the Voice of the Goddess shall raise again, and lo, Activity will begin again. (6) And the Carrier will become alive again, and the Blinkenlight, O Holy Blinkenlight, it shall Blink, Blink for eternity under the guidance of the Goddess, and the System will be Good. (7) And Blessed will be the System, for it shall Run for you, and for you, and for all. For, with any luck, We'll be back Up tomarrow.