Alpha0 – Appendix II

[The Author Guy]

That is a good question.

I know how it is handled in the Abyss. It has an absolute value function built in.

Now, the Outer Planes are reflections of the Material Planes and “created by the gods”

I.e. the gods create their own little universes in the region called “the outer planes” If the god is animus based, the outer plane will be animus based. If the god is antimus based, the plane will be antimus based.

Thus you have “good gods” and “evil gods” –sort of– you really just have animus and antimus gods. They tend to stay away from each other/do their own thing and most work to stomp out the opposing polarization when it pops up in their domains.

So basically you have these gods that create their own private planes (7 Heavens, etc) and stake out space on the Material Planes to “raise” worshipers to feed them mana.

If I were an Atheist (note the cap A–this is a term that is introduced in next Alpha) I would argue that gods and their material churches are sort of like cattle ranches or gardens in which they farm mana.

So when opposing polarity animus pops up in their garden, it’s like a very deadly weed that will consume their mana supply by stealing their animus “plants”. So they stomp it out.

Now that being said. Not all of the gods see it quite this way/this framework. This is one necromancers explanation of Unlife. That does not mean it’s 100% accurate.

[The Author Guy]

Ooh…losing it on that last bit. Might want to reword so my brain gets….

In my current thinking (and I say thinking meaning understanding–remember I am not “writing” this so much as transcribing my visions, so there is some degree of interpretation going on here, this is all–real and happening–I’m just like Brian Williams reporting the news and maybe exaggerating a few parts…_

wait where was I? starting to feel like Tizzy.

In my current thinking, there is but one Abyss and anyone who ‘goes there’ is collapsed to that reality. When they leave, they remultiply and integrate with their old timeline. So in terms of ultimate worlds of maybe, if you go to the Abyss in one timeline, you have a near death experience in all the others. All of them experience the same “hell” or “heavenly” reality (assume same thing for Outer Planes).

I gotta say, I feel I have to incorporate other timelines to be complete in my “picture of reality” but am not really thrilled/on topic with dealing with them in detail. I prefer dealing with larger swaths/planes/degrees of separation. I am trying to avoid multiple timelines, but feel I have to allow for them for a complete picture. If you know what I mean.

I suspect that Tizzy has no such luxury. He can see a lot of different timeline possibilities. This is what Seers do. They see plausible timelines and try to direct the current/observable/conscious reality stream in that direction.

I need to explore your filtering idea more tomorrow. I like the theories, not sure, at this moment, I grasp the implications. Interesting though.

[Iume]

[Iume]

I wanted give some commentary on it’s description of the planes and the thoughts it gave me.

After reading I got the feeling that Abyss is older than the current multiverse. In fact, the whole bit about timelines and the concords made me wonder the following:

1. Is the Abyss the universe that existed prior to the current incarnation?
2. Was time shattered and the multiverse created as reflections of the Abyss (the first bifurcation)?
3. Was the Abyss a lush and fertile place but the forming of the multiverse scarred it and turned it into the hellscape it is today. Or perhaps all the worlds that existed today existed within the Abyss-that-was and the shattered segmented them off and changed reality so it seemed it was always that way.
4. Is Tizzy the last survivor of the old universe? I keep getting Zifnab vibes.

[The Author Guy]

Interesting thoughts.

You may note there has been much discussion of Eve and Lilith and Adam and Sammael. Whatever happened to that garden they had?

[The Author Guy]

You mean Sam and Lily, I assume?

No one. o:)

Of course the fact that the Garden of Eden looks a lot like hell, does make an interesting philosophical statement. Very Zen!

[Malacai]

Doesn’t the existence of a Garden of Eden, Sammuel, Eve, Adam, and Lilith also imply the existence of a God who created them all, and then kicked Adam and Eve out? I mean, wouldn’t Sammuel’s enemy, the Demi-Urge, who we assume to be the God of Christianity, then be their creator?

[The Author Guy]

Ahh…but that’s the trick of the Demi-Urge.

You see in gnostic traditions, the Demi-Urge is the angry god of the old testament. Not the “our father” god of Jesus. That guy is god-the-creator, the grok god, the Zen god, the alpha the omega, the living cosmos itself and all living creatures in creation are his/her children/parts of him/herself.

Shorthanding it a lot, in what we know of their traditions (the Church was very good at eradicating them and their records) they believed that the Demi-Urge was a very powerful being, a “splinter” of the creator, that believed itself to be god-the-creator, yet was not, and was quite imperfect: jealous, vindictive, you know: “eye for an eye” vs “turn the other cheek” and “sacrifice your son to me” sort of guy. And this, clearly is not the god-our-father of which Jesus spoke.

Now then in some traditions, Satan, “The Adversary” is not the adversary of god-the-creator, but rather an agent of god-the-creator sent in opposition to the Demi-Urge. And then we have questions of free will, order vs chaos.

There are many variants of course

[EyeDeKay]

In different forum post you said Adam and eve left the garden but sammael, don’t know if I spelled that right, and lilith stayed in the garden to be “immortal”
Who’s to say they left.

[The Author Guy]

[quote=Iume;4034]I wanted give some commentary on it’s description of the planes and the thoughts it gave me.

4. Is Tizzy the last survivor of the old universe? I keep getting Zifnab vibes.[/quote]

Zif…, Fiz….really can’t use any of those… :-”

Perhaps…I do believe more concretely, however, that he makes a reference at some point to his friend Nathan/a guy with a well world. However, not seeing it so it may have been in the forums.

[Iume]

Based on a re-read of books 1, 2, and 3 (specifically Appendix II: Introduction & Overview of Time, Space and the Multiverse) I have a theory as to how Orcus could have survived his “death” on Etterdam.

First, we know that if a person is on the material planes and dies (not destroyed by antimus) their animus will fade into nature. However demons (and presumably gods) whose mortal form when slain fade to their home plane.

However! We know that animus on the astral plane DOES NOT FADE and could exist indefinitely. We do know that the astral plane only contain animus and mana.

I theorize that the astral plane could be used to filter out antimus and animus from an infected being. Perhaps the antimus is shunted to a negatively charged version of the Astral Plane.

The problem is that the Abyss and the Astral Plane are described as being just one plane across of the multiverse and that parts of the mutliverse have varying ratios of antimus and animus.

This leads me a second pondering. If there is only 1 Abyss does that mean that parts of the Abyss (and the Astral plane) have varying amounts of animus and antimus as well? Or are there instead multiple multiverses and each multiverse is defined by its A+/A- ratio? This could in turn mean many Abyssal and Astral planes with there being 1 per multiverse.

[Iume]

FYI, the quick reply is bugged. It “posts” but then nothing appeared in this thread so I’m using the normal post reply function.

—

So, based on existing lore we seem to have 2 viewpoints.

Viewpoint #1 – This one is held by wizards and is taught as part of their standard curriculum per Lore & Bk1. All “Planes of Men” worlds are nothing more than alternate reality versions of Astlan as a result of divergent timelines. The more extreme the difference the farther back the divergence. This would seem to include geography and astronomy.

2 worlds = same space, alternate timeline

Viewpoint #2 – This one is held by animages, gods, and demons. All “Planes of Men” are in fact different, unique worlds within the same timeline

2 world = different space, same timeline.

From there we expand to the concept of multiverse. While wizards view the multiverse as being a collection on non-Man planes and an infinite number of alternate worlds the animages/gods/demons instead view the multiverse as being an alternate version of a universe.

Is this correct? If yes then I’ll add in the rest of my logic regarding the Abyss/Astral planes and how Law/Chaos/Animus/Antimus come into play from the animage/god/demon POV.

Edit: HOWEVER, this seems to have been modified in book 3 — compare Appendix II of book 3 to Appendix III of book 1.

So, if we modify this match book 3 we get a multiverse where a single material plane = 1 universe = 1 localverse = 1 timeline. Also, it seems the ratios of primal forces define a universe / localverse.

So, if Gormegast is outside the localverse does that mean it could have an alternate Astlan? Even if it didn’t, when Lt. Bioblast portals to Astlan from Gormegast which Astlan would he wind up in? Our Astlan or an alternate Astlan in yet a third localverse?

Edit: We can also say screw it and chalk it up to wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey “stuff”.

[The Author Guy]

I guess I need to reread some old stuff. Things actually haven’t changed.

At it’s simplest level (as the gods/demons know it)

The multiverse contains the Material Planes & their associated Etherial Planes, Elemental Planes, Demi-Elemental Planes, Outer Planes, Limbo, Purgatory, Abyss.

The “Planes of Man/Elf/Orc” aka Midgard, the Material Planes are a collection of material universes each with different laws of physics/magic/etc.

What Astlanian’s call the localverse is a single universe, same timeline. All the “planes” or “worlds” within the localverse are different planets in different (presumably) star systems (could be in the same one). Therefore the laws of magic/physics/etc are the same on all of the worlds, and while exact spells for doing stuff may differ, that’s because of history/culture, not any law of nature. Thus whatever works on one world will work on the other.

The people on individual worlds do not necessarily know this though. They do know that the spells to get there are a bit different, but not radically different from traveling to a world in a different universe.

You cannot however use world hopping spells to change your timeline from with your own universe. You would have to use a time travel sort of spell. It’s sort of a quantum frequency thing.

It is, however possible to go to other timelines in other “distant” universes. The more distant, the more timeline options are available, thus people from Astlan can get to multiple versions of Earth, as long as they are very stable/long lasting timelines. It is very hard to get get to the less stable timelines, and/or more accurately it’s not safe because if you enter an unstable timeline/alternate version and it collapses back onto its major timeline, you could get edited out. (unless you are a singular being–see below)

Ouch.

Can gods do this with relative impunity? Some can. Not all, but some.

Now Astlan and other worlds in it’s localverse are a bit perverse because they have a very strong history of interacting with beings from the Abyss and Outer Planes.

The more a universe’s main timeline interacts with “singular beings” the fewer alternate timelines there actually are. I.e. gods and demons, at least powerful ones, tend to collapse timelines.

In a sense, you could say that the arrival of singular beings within a universe acts as a “measurement” of that universe and thus the timeline becomes defined/known. All the ifs/ands/buts/might have beens get collapsed to the version the singular being goes to.

One of the things the appendices talks about a bit is how when an individual from one timeline visits say “the abyss” all versions of his/herself are temporarily collapsed to the one in the Abyss. When they leave and return to the material plane, they are reexpanded. This tends to explain near-death experiences and such in many cases.

So, when a singular being visits a plane, you tend to get the reverse effect.

[Iume]

Hm, so going back to my example of Lt. Bioblast. He is technically in a different localverse. If he travels to Astlan how do we know at which Astlan timeline he will arrive? Is it fixed, locked? How does this work in reverse? When Orcus wants to contact Bioblast how does he home in on the right timeline version of Bioblast?

Edit: I’ll be honest, this is why time travel is such a pain. The Abyss and its paradoxical nature can make things so screwy.

[The Author Guy]

Which is why I long ago swore off time travel as the “solution” to Rupert’s parentage. Nope, not going to happen.

Trig is from Gormegast, it’s a fairly mana rich technology universe and they get a fair number of dimensional hoppers, much like Astlan. Same with Visteroth.

So there are not that many “alternate timelines”

As a rule, the gods tend to be much more active on mana rich worlds where magic does function in some form or the other. Simply because it’s easier to screw with them. They have their pools, etc. But working in mana poor worlds is sort of like needing to have a mana spacesuit.

Note Sammael’s thoughts on his battle with the Demiurge.

So…long story short, the less mana rich worlds tend to have more alternate timelines as the gods show up less often.

Now, back “in the old days” Earth had fewer timelines as well. It used to have a much better mana supply (the Demiurge has been sort of hoovering it up) In those days, the Greek, Egyptian and other gods were far more active; but that basically started dying off post Ragnarok; levels started to decrease and gods sort of started losing active interest. Therefore more bifurcations happened and were able to stabilize.

That being said, it was never anywhere near as mana rich as full magic worlds, in large part due to the laws of physics for that universe. this is where the Lords of Law start coming into play. The higher tech worlds tend to be closer to “Law” where as the magical worlds are closer to “Chaos”

[Author]

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