[27] L'lasons de Aether ver Beinags #9

I have created the basis for the game's worldbuilding and story, and it took just under two weeks to do so. I have reformatted the specifications in relatively informal prose, to make it easier to understand and read, though I don't know by how much I achieved that goal.

Here goes nothing:

Ein de L'Aether de Dag Ocuds, commonly referred to as just Aether, is a small, spherical universe with looping borders. That is, if you go far enough in one direction, you'll simply appear on the opposite side. This also applies to lines of sight. This means that if you had a good enough telescope, theoretically, you could see the back of your own head.

When I say "universe", I just mean that it should be thought of as a complete system made up of its own constituents, while not truly belonging to anything else.

Due to its small size and single celestial body, I'll mostly call Aether a world, rather than the universe it technically is.

While the world is cyclic, both in time and space, it had a definite start point.

Through some process unknown, an expance of nothing, with no boundries or proportion, turned into something, over a very short period of time.

So short in fact, that by creating the first of those somethings, Aether's hyperspace was pierced in every direction from a single point, giving Aether the concepts of cohesion, alignment, and stability.

When the second thing was created near the first, Aether gained the concepts of volume, positivity, and density.

Finally, when the third was created near the rest, Aether developed the concepts of will, time,

and transformation, which can't exist without time (for discrete progression of state, anyway.)

Kastryk alatan, or flat life, is the most fundamental form of what could constitute a "thing". These particles aren't necessarily weak or small individually, but they're usually both.

These first three Kastryk alatans produced the primordial attributes of harmony, extent, and change respectively.

Each of these have three sub-attributes, which is why I listed a total of nine attributes previously.

They bonded together to create Aether's first emergent property: the union and proportionality of its time and space, between every subsequent thing that is created.

Once these three strykons (flats; colloquial) formed and bonded, the world had its base rules defined, via setting a sort of precedent.

And for every new strykon that filled a once empty place, a new attribute is created, with an ever decreasing influence on the world.

Due to the shock the first strykon caused to Aether, these perforations in hyperspace created a grain that has a propensity to move objects toward the harmony strykon's creation point.

This is Aether's version of gravity more or less. It's also half-based on Jennifer Reitz's concept of linovection, which is a bit more nuanced than my implementation.

Emergence in this world's context, is a new or altered attribute, caused by the associative bond of one or more strykons, that isn't present from just the sum of its parts.

Going back to the alatan (life) part of kastryk alatan, which implies that these particles are alive: It's true, and while flat life technically has a level of awareness, they can't act on it in any meaningful way. That is, if they even have a desire to do so in the first place.

Composites of strykons are considered higher degree alatan, or higher alatan for short, and will be referred to as such. For these composites, there's a near infinite combination of

attributes that they can be given, like a higher ability to focus power, transform a transformation, perceive, integrate experience and knowledge, et cetera.

However, emergence in Aether is itself cyclic, varying in length on an alatan by alatan basis.

While not being the most accurate, the best analogy for this process I could come up with involves a tree.

For this tree analogy, a seed of alatan (not necessarily kastryk) is located in the soil that is the surrounding alatan.

This seed sprouts and feeds off of the nutrients in the soil, by associating and bonding to other alatan, becoming a sapling.

This sapling grows, becoming a higher alatan as their trunk becomes bigger and more robust, new branches form, and its leaves become more plentiful.

This tree's strength and longevity is dependant on the forces that made it's parts bond in the first place, but most importantly the forces it's exposed to during it's life.

When gravity or another force finally surpasses the leaves' desire to belong to the tree, they start falling to the ground, to be reinherited by the soil it came from.

What's left of the tree slowly weakens its bonds over time, eventually having the same fate as its leaves, after which the cycle continues.

This is an inescapable reality that everything in Aether is subject to at some point.

It is the closest thing to death that exists in Aether.

There are, however, frequent cases of a higher alatan's fragments splintering off and breaking their bonds, thus becoming a new 'seed' of sorts.

This means that progression of alatan can be nonlinear.

Physical bonds and associative bonds are two completely separate phenomenons, even though they directly affect eachother.

Interactions between alatan do not technically take place in a corporeal manner.

Rather, the physical appearance and behaviors of an alatan are simply the consequence of incorporeal goings-on.

Parts of an alatan that are lacking in physical bonds, weaken the strength of their associative bonds, but not enough to break them completely.

Furthermore, an alatan that lacks associative bonds with another alatan entirely can still physically bond with that alatan.

Going back to the tree analogy, the soil represents a pool of freely available alatan, which are devoid of much associative bonding at all.

It is of a peak chaotic state, because there is no belonging or unity between them, and

they do as they wish.

The soil is of the widest possible scope, as it includes all lower alatan.

When I say "scope", I just mean how spread out an alatan is, with their associative bonds

generally being inversely proportional to it.

Its roots represent the integration and clustering of alatan, narrowing its scope, decreasing its level of chaos as a result.

The trunk has the narrowest scope, where the most orderly and important parts of that alatan are located.

The branches are where the dilution of its associations begin, where its order and stability weaken, and where its scope increases again.

The leaves represent only the most outstanding parts which still

belong to that alatan, regardless of physical bonds.

Aether has a tendency to make emergent entities capable of higher thinking, but there is no concept of reproduction.

These higher alatans need to be constructed, whether on purpose, or by accident.

Like golems, of sorts.

I haven't had much time to fully think of any deep characters, but I made a few

sketches that should hopefully paint a picture of the kind of aesthetic I'm going for.

Sunn, named after the aspects of heat, fire and sunlight:

A character that would prefer being in a chaotic system over an orderly one,

as they despise standing out for being disorderly themself. Their line

of thinking is that lying on a bed of nails is perfectly fine, but

problems would arise if they were the only nail to lie on.

They are young, and have not developed higher senses like

physical sight. Rather they see raw attributes and values of things.

This is an ability that is lost after the development of that physical sight.

They have a hobby of collecting lower alatans with unique attributes that

can't be noticed just by physically looking at them. Many would find

these attributes to be generally inconsequential and functionally useless,

but Sunn nonetheless relishes every moment admiring their collection.

A part of Sunn wants to prevent the loss of this ability as long as

they enjoy this activity.

Tati, named after the aspects of shielding and physical protection:

They possess an inherited fear of dissociation and ignorance, and will do

everything in their power to prevent their associative bonds breaking.

They live in a tower so that even gravity has less of an influence on them.

They love knowledge, and the act of acquiring it. Acquiring it is one of

the only reasons that can persuade him to leave the tower. They are this

way in part because someone they cared about dissociated as as result

of Tati lacking experience or prior knowledge. Tati now has the

conviction that they must never be ignorant, so that nobody will

be lost due to a wrong decision.

Yolle, named after the aspects of wandering and travel:

Yolle is sometimes easily swayed by the opinions of others, though they rarely

spend much time in one place. They are content to see all of Aether that they can.

They also have a knack for construction and inventing fine machines.

They roam Aether researching ideas for new creations, and for the

resources to make them properly. Yolle is morally against trading for these

creations in higher alatan of any sort, as they hate the idea of possibly

commodifying higher life with tangible agency and desires.

An entity that has passed their peak of order in their own progression line,

is considered a deity.

Deities necessarily have differing potentials of power, because every higher alatan has a unique peak of order.

One of the oldest current deities, "Kommia" (literally "will/willpower") is a wide-scoped being whos associative connections reach far beyond what is normal, making them span most of the physical world.

Something of note, is that a deity has an honorific suffix applied to their name, "-gana" (literally "god"), making Kommia's formal name Kommiagana.

Kommiagana concentrated its resources and power over a long period of time to create you. You are tasked to carry out Kommiagana's final wish, as they've grown too old and weak to carry it out on their own.

You were originally designed as a perfect being, readily capable and willing to complete your task, but Kommiagana exausted most of their energy in the process, leaving you imperfect and incomplete.

In consequence, they were too exhausted to give you comprehensive knowledge of Aether's common language, Exprish, but they do know of places you can visit to learn this language yourself.

You can visit monuments, read manuscripts, use devices, and converse with higher alatans that know Exprish to increase your understanding of how this world operates.

This knowledge would be needed to accomplish Kommiagana's goal.

Kommiagana has seen the types of suffering higher alatan are exposed to,

and feels immense pity.

They know the primordial strykons, which define the base blueprints for every other existing alatan, has an associative bond, no different than any other, which ages and can break like any other.

They also know that by breaking this bond, and allowing Aether to lose structure, it will force Aether to reform, with different rules.

They have faith that the new system Aether would form as would have

to be better than the one that already exists.

You are simply asked to break these bonds, and by extension, euthanize the universe of its problems.

You are an imperfect being, however, and have no direct obligation to complete the task your perfect counterpart would have the desire for.

You could instead rid Aether of as many problems as you can, or go out of your way to make it worse (Including but not limited to, of course.)

Whatever path you take, something or someone will try to stop you.