Author's Notes : Introduction
These notes were found in the breast pocket of Dr. Cygnus Quinn, following his shocking assassination immediately prior to the induction address he was due to deliver to the new intake of apprentice Agents at the Underdown South campus.
"All things are not possible.
This simple statement is at once the most obvious and yet, as it transpires, the most profound truth of our existence. To our ancestors, living in the ages before the opening of the worlds such an assertion would have seemed trivially true. Only once we learned that there were alternatives and that the barriers were not always impenetrable, could the delicious but pernicious thought take hold that somewhere out there every possible history existed in an infinitely diluted ocean of reality. At first, the prospect seemed attractive but how dangerous it proved to be, for in an existence where anything can and must be happening, all things are without meaning. The cults of hedonism in the 34th century took inspiration from the infamous work of Tindra San which promulgated an irresponsible philosophy derived from this thinking. I do not consider it an exageration to claim that these cults might have led to the end of our civilisation.
It was not until the brilliant work of Dr. Emerald Rydene, expounded most eloquently and persuasively for a popular audience in her autobiography, that a true understanding of the nature of the parallel worlds in which we find ourselves embedded began to emerge.
All things are not possible.
As the more mathematically gifted amongst you will learn to appreciate in your studies at this centre of learning, the patterning variables that underlie the Laws of Form give rise to self cancelling waves of interference which preclude the realisation of whole infinite classes of potential solutions to their equations. Only in the symmetries of the so called "monster" group, can valid reinforcements produce independent persistent universes. What we have is not a continuum of infinite possiblities but a closed discontinuum of parallel worlds, separated (in the main) by the barriers but linked by some deep connections.
The discontinuum is vast beyond comprehension. There are possible worlds in which many, many outcomes of the Laws of Form can be explored. But because it is a finite set it can have a true meta history operating over all of them. In short, it can have global as well as local meaning.
How are we to classify these possibilties? Dr. Rydene has explained. The ones closest to our hearts are the so called "evolutions". These are places where time as we understand it flows predictably and history can emerge and can craft great wonders and the subtle consciousness of developed intellegence. The purest of these are only tenuously connected to the rest of the discontinuum and are the least affected by turbulence within it. We call these evolutions the Stable Worlds, and our own is one such. Other evolutions are more broadly connected to the discontinuum and more prone to corruption from it, and we call these the Frontier Worlds. Somewhere we recognise a shifting border. It is hard to say exactly what defines this border, partly because we keep changing our mind about it. But there are limits to the "evolutions".
Beyond the frontier are other Frontier Worlds that look in on the evolutions from the far side of the border. There are many types of these but the category we find the most important are the "realised archetypes". These both feed from and feed into their neighbouring evolutions in a complex symbiosis through the medium of collective imagination. Their Laws of Form permit strange changes which cannot happen in a true evolution. They are dangerous places to travel, but you will need to cross them in your future careers. Pray that you never find yourselves in the deeper realms far from the borders where the Dark and the Powers make their homes. But be very careful what you pray to and how. The wrong kind of prayers can result in most unfortunate outcomes...
All things are not possible.
And because all things are not possible, unimaginable horrors and villany may contend with great beauty, sanctity and harmony for a meaningful mastery over all creation. And so they do, for we live not in some imaginary continuum of infinite words but in a real Discontinuum of nearly unthinkable but finite possibilities.
The Stability Council exists to shape the course of the history of the Discontinuum, at least to the very limited extent that we can and in the places we love. We hold the evolutions to be precious. We defend them from the many Powers that seek to break through the Barriers between worlds and aim to spread their own Laws of Form like dark stains into the fabric of reality. Where we can, we seek to bring amenable archetypes into the laws of time and to let them flower in ways that they could otherwise never achieve.
You will be our Agents. You will learn about the Barriers that keep the worlds apart. You will learn about the Binding Contracts that enforce the Laws of Form. You will learn about the Tokens and the means to travel between the worlds. You will learn about the Powers, both those that profess to be our allies and those that are our implacable enemies. You will learn to trust none of them. Everywhere and always you will fight for stability and for the evolutions.
You will fight for the laws that grant us agency and meaning in a hostile Discontinuum where many forces mean us harm. You will fight against the acts of treachery and the manipulations of the Powers that play their own deep games across a thousand time streams at once.
There will be victories and there will be defeats. And sometimes your problem will be to tell the difference.
All things are not possible. Welcome to the Discontinuum."
The "Discontinuum" is my second World Anvil hub. Whilst the "Bubble", the first site I've built here, is themetically in the tradition of old school science fiction, the "Discontinuum" is a multiverse setting with a softer, somewhat more fantasy flavoured approach to story telling. You'll find a lot more art work here, the art driving my imagination before the words in some projects where the 'stories' are only fragments, but there is also plenty of longer writing, both linked to image sequences and standing alone. There is no particular need to read the remaining author's notes before exploring further but they do provide some technical and conceptual background which could be of interest at some point. Equally they don't contain any significant spoilers (perhaps some trivial ones), so can be viewed as and when you like. The glossary articles provide a little supporting detail to explain some of the ideas used in the stories, but they, too, are certainly not required to understand them. Feel free to venture in to the rest of the site wherever takes your fancy and have fun!
The "Discontinuum" is my second World Anvil hub. Whilst the "Bubble", the first site I've built here, is themetically in the tradition of old school science fiction, the "Discontinuum" is a multiverse setting with a softer, somewhat more fantasy flavoured approach to story telling. You'll find a lot more art work here, the art driving my imagination before the words in some projects where the 'stories' are only fragments, but there is also plenty of longer writing, both linked to image sequences and standing alone. There is no particular need to read the remaining author's notes before exploring further but they do provide some technical and conceptual background which could be of interest at some point. Equally they don't contain any significant spoilers (perhaps some trivial ones), so can be viewed as and when you like. The glossary articles provide a little supporting detail to explain some of the ideas used in the stories, but they, too, are certainly not required to understand them. Feel free to venture in to the rest of the site wherever takes your fancy and have fun!
Comments