The astronauts and scientists have been stranded for 20 years, which is a short enough time for them to have extremely clear memories.  However, the first Autocthonian child was born in 1973, meaning that there are two entire generations of people who have never been to earth or seen a blue sky.  Naturally, some of the more radical among them claim that Earth is a myth, a lie propagated by the elders to keep people in line.<br/><br/>TV transmissions have been intercepted from Earth, but any attempt to send signals back gets brutally and viciously suppressed by the Computer. The Autocthonians have a confused understanding of Earth's popular culture, and most of them don't understand that the Cold War has ended, believing the TV transmissions to all be propaganda.<br/><br/>For those who actually care, transmissions indicate that Newt Gingrich is president of the United States, and Boris Berezovsky is the president of the Russian Federation.  Majestic 12 has not been revealed, as far as TV shows, but people seem to be getting closer.<br/><br/><br/>As for the Operator Manuals, here's the list of titles you can choose from:<br/><br/>-The Computer is your Friend: Issued to high ranking civilians shortly after the Computer acheived sentience, this book details many helpful shortcuts and convenience features built into the Computer.<br/><br/>-The Computer is NOT your friend: Published about a week after the Computer achieved sentience, this book discusses methods of avoiding the computer and setting up renegade camps to escape the power of the Computer.<br/><br/>-Metropolis.exe Readme: This text file discusses the internal program of the Metropoli, and the shortcuts you can use to activate various debug commands within the operational shell of the Metropolis constructs.<br/><br/>-Watchmen: This set of comic books was owned by one of the original programmers of the Computer.  He wrote many margin notes and passwords on the pages of the comic, barely visible in the crudely made photocopies that circulate, but helpful enough to provide a foundation of Autocthonian lore.<br/><br/>-The Kamrad Operations Handbook: This memory crystal is issued to Kamrads as part of their basic training, though it is machine readable with enough black magic.  The document details the methods to operate laser weapons with the skill of the Kamrads, as well as their procedures to eliminate resistance.<br/><br/>-Cryptonomicon: The fabled cryptonomicon is a book engraved into hundreds of metal plate, which details the base code of Autocthonia's cryptography.  This base code can be incredibly powerful, but it also saps sanity insanely quickly to tap into and investigate.<br/><br/>-1096 Cake Recipes: This was the first book manufactured by the Computer's automated book extruder, and it was... glitchy. Much of the randomly generated cake recipes of the book simply consist of unaltered base code of the Computer, which provides incredible insights to how exactly the God-Machine thinks.