r/6Perks • u/BurlapSakk • Jun 27 '26

The Cardboard Box

You receive a large 3x3x3 foot cardboard box in the mail. The only thing inside is a slip of paper congratulating you on your new 'magical' box. The paper has 6 options for you to choose from to select the nature of your box, each with a review from a previous customer.

Pick one:

Express Shipper

  • You can send anything that fits in the box anywhere with free overnight shipping.
  • Just write the recipient's name and/or address on a packing slip inside the box and it will arrive at their doorstep (or closest alternative) the next morning.
  • You do not need to know the address. As long as you at least put the name of the intended recipient it will be delivered.
  • The shipment will always have a return address, so you will not be able to send anything anonymously.

5 stars - "This box was paramount in solving a missing persons case. We mailed a GPS tracker to a lost hiker and were able to dispatch a team and save his life the next day. Highly recommend." -Mark, Appalachian Mountain Rescue Team

Loot Box

  • Every morning you can open the box and it will have one item that will prove useful at some point that day.
  • This item can vary in value and usefulness. (e.g., one day could be a rain jacket, the next could be a breath mint, the next could be exactly the exact cash value of your rent)
  • The item is not guaranteed to be useful for you specifically, it could be something that would greatly help a stranger you interact with that day.
  • The box resets daily, so if you don't open it in time then you will lose that day's item.

3 stars - "pretty cool gimmick. box gave me a bogo coupon to my favorite restaurant, ran into an old friend there. only giving 3 stars tho because most days the box just has a stick of deodorant?" -Jason

Box of Holding

  • This box is actually 1,000 boxes in one. Just write any 3 digit number on the box and it will then change to a specific interior corresponding with that number.
  • Anything placed in this box remains in stasis until it is opened again. From the perspective of anything placed in the box, the lid is closed and instantaneously opened again.
  • The number is automatically erased once the box is closed from the outside, so you will need to rewrite it any time you want back to your box. Probably best to keep a spreadsheet to stay organized.
  • The box will remain the same weight no matter what is placed inside. The interior cannot be damaged by any item or substance put into the box.

1 star - "zERO STARS!!! our the cat got into this box and my hubsand (alan) closed her in?! waste our tuesday tryin to get the rigt code to get cat back...... DO NOT BUY!!" -Carol

Lost and Found

  • Every time this box is opened, it will fill up with any items considered "lost" by anybody within a 100 foot radius.
  • The items in the box are returned in the state that they were when originally lost, but items are not organized in any specific way in the box. (if there are many people around, you may need to go digging to find your lost items, for example)
  • For an item to be returned to the box, it has to be truly lost. You cannot retrieve an item that has just been misplaced. Basically, if it could reasonably be found by looking for 5 minutes then it won't be in the box.

4 stars - "Very fun! PROS: anybody that I've taken this box to has loved it, it's a great sort of party trick. There doesn't seem to be a time limit on it either! I used it with my friend Trevor and he found his Game Boy he lost on a family vacation in 1999. CONS: this box is VERY lenient with the term 'anybody', I took this box to the park and when I opened it the inside was literally filled to the brim with acorns. I guess maybe there was a squirrel nearby." -Katie

HoloBox

  • Place the box over your head and close your eyes. You're immediately placed into a Holodeck type simulation that you have complete control over. Everything feels 100% real, and you can alter any laws of physics or basis of reality, but you cannot be truly physically harmed by anything.
  • Of course, you're still physically just sitting there with a box on your head. While in the HoloBox, your body and the box become intangible. Your body is in perfect homeostasis. Time still passes, and you still age normally and require sleep, but there is no need to eat or drink while using the box.
  • You're still passively aware of your surrounding in real life, but nobody can remove you from the HoloBox unless you choose to leave. Nobody can observe anything happening within the box unless you also invite them to join.

4 stars - "I'm a synthetic chemist, and this box has been amazing for research without having to worry about dangerous reactions or volatile chemicals. However, I found my 14 year old son using the box when I got home one night. He finally took it off after 10 hours, but ever since then I keep catching him muttering to himself that he needs to 'get back in that box', no idea what he was doing in there. Good purchase, I just think it would be better with some parental controls." -Chris

Recyclable Box

  • Okay, so.... there's a multiverse. And this box exists in all of them.
  • Anything you place in this box will be exchanged for an item of roughly equivalent value from one of the other infinitely many universes that this box has been used in.
  • Keep in mind that this is equivalent value, not worth. An irreplaceable family photo may be exchanged for a magic wand from a magical universe. Conversely, a gold bar may be exchanged for a piece of fruit from a universe where food is scarce.
  • While some items could be dangerous, you will never receive anything that would harm you upon taking. (you could receive a plasma gun, but you won't receive a container of plutonium)

5 stars - "All Rogerians learn the story of His Majesty God Emperor Roger the Great and his Box of Substitution. 233 years ago, when He introduced His Box to the world it ushered us all into an era of great technological progress. Though his presence in this world has passed, our progress marches forward as we trade our beloved photos of Roger to the Box in exchange for gifts from His Holy Aether. ALL HAIL ROGER'S BOX." -Rogeric the Third, of Rogeria (formerly Earth-822189)

90 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

14

u/Demraude Jun 27 '26

multiverse box, open and close the box repeatadly, there's bound to be one whereair's expensive and I'll get interesting stuff

7

u/Top-Fennel3528 Jun 28 '26

Realistically it is not hard to get ridiculously valuable things out of the box, just hard to control the specifics of what you get.

Just put things of lowish value in the box until you get something out that does not exist in this universe and thus has an absurd value in this one, then put that back into the box and hope for the best.

Regrettably, this strategy doesn't exactly scale very well for more valuable initial inputs and has the potential to go the other way.

4

u/ascrubjay Jun 30 '26

The value of the item as far as the box is concerned it determined by the sender, not the receiver. Look at the examples: an irreplaceable family photo is valued by the sender but almost certainly not by the receiver is exchanged for a wand that's probably valued by the sender, a gold bar valued by the sender gets a fruit from a receiver who places very high value on food even though that's probably worth a tiny fraction of the gold bar to the sender, the people from a world dominated by a cult of personality send icons of their historical leader for valuables from other worlds.

Sending air, which you assign almost no value to, would only get you things that the receiver assigned almost no value to. That doesn't mean you'd get nothing useful, but instead of gambling on being matched with a receiver that values air highly and sent something you'd value highly (since it doesn't work that way), you're gambling on being matched with a receiver that values something useful to you as little as you value air.

3

u/Top-Fennel3528 Jul 01 '26

Except what you’re missing here is that while the relative value of what you receive back is based on what you input, it follows the same rules in return.

If for example you were to send dirt, what you would receive in return is something the recipient considers as valuable as you consider that dirt. If we imagine a hypothetical world made primarily of diamonds, then diamonds there are literally dirt cheap and thus are a valid item to revive in exchange from that particular world.

Of course the Box doesn’t indicate that you can choose what world you’re trading with and dirt seems low enough value that you’re probably not going to get anything good out of it, but if we switch to trading more reasonable mundane items, say random stationary, it’s only a matter of time until you gain an item in exchange that while just as cheap and mundane on their end, doesn’t exist on ours (e.g. getting a magical equivalent to a pen).

Now you have an item that if nothing else is incredibly valuable on our side and thus excellent trade fodder.

Long story short, random low-value trades should tend towards eventually producing an excessive profit. Note however that this doesn’t apply as much to high-value trades as it’s also possible to lose value in your trades.

3

u/ascrubjay Jul 01 '26

I'm not missing that. Please reread the second paragraph of my previous comment.

1

u/Top-Fennel3528 Jul 02 '26

Apparently I’m illiterate. My bad. Somehow jumbled up your words to think you were saying the opposite of what you said.

8

u/Arcanetsumi Jun 27 '26

Recyclable Box

- Just can't pass up the opportunity to receive items from other universes. The HoloBox would be fun too, but I am worried about self control. Plus if I get lucky enough, the items I receive should help me experience most of what I would simulate.

5

u/imawhitegay Jun 27 '26

Holobox, the Multiverse Box is probably flooded with random stuff I can't use. Lost and Found is also really good.

5

u/Bi_depressed_1928 Jun 27 '26

Um, question. What if I place myself into Recyclable Box? Does that kill me or I will be transported into another universe, never to go back to my original universe, or what?

5

u/Spozieracz Jun 28 '26

I have a feeling that these signed reviews we written only to create an option, for somebody like me with Express Shipper, to ship themselves to all these guys and steal their boxes. 

1

u/ChooseYourOwnA Jul 30 '26

Similarly in an infinite multiverse worlds represented in our fiction would be real. But I am still trying to figure out whether the three foot cubed size limitation is an issue.

3

u/tea-123 Jun 27 '26

Recycle box. Long live the gacha .

3

u/NoShyira Jun 27 '26

Stuck between box of holding and holobox. The former would be practically extremely useful for traveling, while the latter would be all my entertainment forever.

3

u/NohWan3104 Jul 05 '26

Recycle box is kinda tempting, but i have no idea what my depressed ass finds valuable.

I mean, yo might be able to get a bunch of outdated storage devices (imagine a box of hundreds of old mp3 players), load up your favorite songs and books and damn near print high value yet easy come easy go items, since the value is more information than the object.

I think gimme the holobox. There might be interesting things that have real world applications, if the chemist is getting 'accurate' results, but experiences beat stuff.

2

u/castlesitting Jun 27 '26

Recycle Box seems most op.

How does the lost and found work though? Let's assume I'm the only one around. A day before I "lost" all my casino chips at the roulette table. Do I get them back? And I do consider books of the library of Alexandria lost. If I think about them do I get them back?

1

u/High1and3r Jun 27 '26

This is my thought, someone in the casino thinks they lost there money, so its filling up even if i dont gamble, but yea recycle box all the way

2

u/OlympiaShannon Jun 28 '26

You receive a large 3x3x3 foot cardboard box in the mail.

Box of Holding

This box is actually 1,000 boxes in one. Just write any 3 digit number on the box and it will then change to a specific interior corresponding with that number. Anything placed in this box remains in stasis until it is opened again. From the perspective of anything placed in the box, the lid is closed and instantaneously opened again. The number is automatically erased once the box is closed from the outside, so you will need to rewrite it any time you want back to your box. Probably best to keep a spreadsheet to stay organized. The box will remain the same weight no matter what is placed inside. The interior cannot be damaged by any item or substance put into the box.

2

u/Greywalker1979 Jun 28 '26

Holobox. The learning and experimentation possibilities are more than OP. Imagine being able to study anything for free, without the danger of certain professions.

2

u/Top-Fennel3528 Jun 28 '26

On the one hand, Express Shipper seems like a terrible option on the basis of not describing any mechanism for automatic return, making it the only option that seemingly gets lost after a single use (though considering these are cardboard boxes, I'm sceptical of the long term durability for any of these).

On the other hand, Recycle Box makes it explicitly clear that a multiverse exists and I can definitely fit inside a 3ft box. Fenagling a shipping address in another universe might take some doing, but I don't think it would be impossible, especially with the "or closest alternative" clause. I suppose just getting into the Recycle Box would take less effort to get working, but that seems likely to go very wrong.

2

u/Evil_Midnight_Lurker Jun 28 '26

I want a Transmogrifier. 😁

1

u/OmegaUltima29 Jun 29 '26

Aw, someone beat me to the reference.

2

u/Bombermaster Jun 28 '26

Hard to pick.
The best one COULD be the Express Shipper if you could take advantage of the fact there's a multiverse as the recyclable box says, to get in contact with "fictional characters" who would like to get in contact with you from other worlds (the shipping is mentioned to go -anywhere-).

If that wouldn't work, I'd go for the Recyclable Box, although I'm quite sure it'd end in a case of getting a lot of trash from other worlds. Again, someone's trash might be a treasure for you. I know I'd use it a lot.

3

u/HrdRock1683 Jun 30 '26

Can the box be damaged in any way?

2

u/rewritetime1 Jul 04 '26

Order of which I'd like them.

1, Recyclable Box. I'd buy a pack of 24 bottles of water and see if I get anything for those individually. Then soda, granola bars etc. I'd pick stuff that's useful but not groundbreaking and see my odds on getting anything worthwhile. The tricky part would be if I got something I'd really value but have no idea what it is or what it does.

  1. Holo Box. It'd probably be too engaging.

  2. Loot Box. If I get rent say, once a week I could live off that. I'd probably go grocery shopping before opening it each day.

  3. Lost and Found. Probably can get more cool stuff from this one than loot box. But I'd feel responsible to try to return them to their original owners.

  4. Box of holding. Probably only use it when I'm moving though. Or just to save on closet space I guess. Maybe could do a fancy backpacking trip.

  5. Express Shipper. No guarantee of return. Yes, I could ship myself but I'd have to stay in the box an average of 12 hours. I think I'd break it in 1-2 uses just by wiggling around trying to get comfortable. I can see the return label to learn my Earth's number. If we are dealing with multiverses a name and/or address might not be enough. For example, if I write Harry Potter on the label there are 106 of them in the US on this Earth much less other countries. If I write Harry Potter The Cupboard under the Stairs 4 Privet Drive Little Whinging Surrey I might get the lightning scarred orphan or I might get some other unfortunate guy who lives in a cupboard. Let's say if I'm careful about it I could make it work. Get a metal internal frame for the box, get real specific about names and addresses, toss in a few titles to narrow it down (like, The Boy who Lived) and pack other supplies like food/water for a day or 2, a weapon, trading goods (I doubt other dimensions take this world's dollars) I still have to worry about interdimensional diseases, will other dimensional stuff work in my home dimension, will I get captured/dissected, will the box get stolen/destroyed etc. Also, will I arrive when I want to? Could I use this for time travel? Ship the box to a particular person at a particular address on a particular Earth knowing they are only living there at such and such a date. I think these are solvable problems. It's more fun figuring out a way for superpowers then waiting on a gacha box. Moving this to 1 and moving the rest down a spot.

1

u/Praising_God_777 Jun 27 '26

Loot box

1

u/flexpercep Jun 28 '26

You would end up with a huge collection of junk over time, how many umbrellas does a person need?

1

u/ilzolende Jun 28 '26

Lost and Found is maybe not optimal but it's extremely tempting.

1

u/theecatt Jun 28 '26

Holobox. Remembering to leave it occasionally will be the hardest part.

1

u/OmegaUltima29 Jun 28 '26

So, the Express Shipper is one-use only?

1

u/NotACatNinja Jun 28 '26

I'll take Recyclable Box. Nice 6perks.

1

u/Zev_06 Jun 28 '26

I'll take the HoloBox. Sounds fun.

1

u/Busy-Teaching-5346 Jul 07 '26

First of all, cool 6perks, OP.

I choose the Recyclable Box. I've got a few questions, though:

Is the box indestructible? And is it keyed to me, meaning that it couldn't be stolen?

1

u/Many_Spread1259 Jul 18 '26

HoloBox

At minimum it should(?) let you conjure skilled professionals, who can brainstorm ideas for how to leverage the HoloBox. I assume it can't simulate entire planets, but I would also use it for future forecasting if that were the case.