Stabby

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

Are you in a big group?

@Host

I'm a loner, rare as it may be. Got kicked out for developing an ability.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

How long do you think it will take before it gets better?

@Host

Since I was born here, I really have no clue. After all, all of what I know is just from my own experiences and observations. If I had to take a guess, I'd say it'll be a long time.

Myriad Reality

@Stabby

The mindscape just kind of developed on its own. It's a portmanteau, of course, of "mind" and "landscape". It has been developed separately hundreds of times by those skilled in mind magic--a generally easily attainable form of magic for most any Tier Four--as an interface in order to make mind manipulation easier. It is a visual representation of the mind, influenced by the spellcaster's perceptions, with physical analogues to ideas like memories and emotions. It is extremely flexible, but in general, if you can do it without the mindscape, you can do it in the mindscape.

It's important to note that most mind spells require permission of the target unless the caster has a very strong will—much stronger than that of the target.

@Balance

Thanks!

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

Is there any sustainable development, or is everyone taking what they can find until it runs out?

@Host

Aside from the raiders and bandits, the larger the group is, the more likely they are to start farming in one way or another if possible. Heck, some loners do it as well, though that's a really rare case.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

How has humanity survived here?

@Host

From what I've seen and know, we generally tend to wander from city to city in small groups, settling down for a few months to a year near a city as we scour over it in search of supplies. When it runs low, we move onto another city if need be or stay in the general area if possible. Some groups take to raiding stationary camps while others attack moving ones as bandits. There are a few large groups that have been able to settle down and start re-establishing themselves, getting basic technology up and running. Almost everyone is on the lookout for technology that's either survived or is in good enough condition to salvage and repair, since good tech is a commodity.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

Philotes: To know they exist, you have to have a society advanced far beyond detecting subatomic particles. To fully understand them, well, nobody fully understands them at this time. Some extremely advanced societies have an idea of how they work, but beyond "we know philotes do this but can't actually do anything with this information," there's not a lot out there. I have to go find the detailed explanation though.

@Source

If you could, that would be useful.

Data dump that I wrote a few years ago regarding a general overview of philotes:



The philotic systemis the layer of Existence above code that makes things like powers and abilities physically possible. It's like all matter and energy is a bundle of string-like fibers wound tightly to allow matter to stick together. However, these philotes behave differently when exposed to living creatures; whenever a relationship is built between two things (an animal that eats from a certain tree every day, for instance), there becomes a thin connection, built out of strands of philotes between the two. The more they interact, the stronger the connection. This happens to a lesser extent with objects as well, but they'd have to be moved by a living creature to develop connections, as a general rule. However, philotes change when exposed to sentient beings. Now, instead of being connections created only by interacting objects, they are now influenced by will. When two people, for instance, develop a bond, the philotes connection grows stronger and wound tighter, and if you could see philotes, it would look like a thread develops between them, and then later a thick rope that connects the two regardless of where they are. A child will have a better philotic connection to a nostalgic ball he's had all his life than one that was just bought from the store yesterday. However, when dealing with beings with powers, these philotic connections (of which every living creature has massive amounts; even if they only met someone once, they likely have a small number of philotic connections already built) become extremely strong ropes that attach them to whatever they control (if they have a power based on control). Techi, for example, would be connected to every electron around her strongly, and then the further she goes from them, the weaker the philotic thread and the less she can control them, because the information has so far to go and can get lost in the noise. Hence, why she can't manipulate an electron on the other side of Existence. But because philotes are influenced via will, when Techi wills these electrons to do something, it causes the philotic strands to change and move the electrons, almost like tugging on a rope. This is also where the general rule "the more powers you have, the less control you have over each" comes from. The System is self-correcting, so if a being has too many strong philotic connections, it becomes difficult to send signals that are strong to one power in particular and the philotes themselves are a bit "tangled" in a way, so a lot of signal gets lost in noise. Of course, because most beings don't know about this, they aren't aware of the actual process, they just know what "controlling" something is for them, kind of like how nobody thinks about motion vectors and gravitational pull when they walk outside. It "just sort of happens." So, because philotes make powers physically possible, beings can use them at their discretion.

@Host

Perfect!

Now, is there anything this detailed for the mindscape?

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

*Sets off walking*

<Snipped quote by Host>

There's a lot more to the story, of course.

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

Wait. The library never mentioned abilities.

@Balance

*Follows.*

Of course it didn't, they only started popping up after everything went to crap, likely as another side effect of whatever caused it all.
You know when I was talking to Hestia earlier, I mentioned that most of the people I've run into consider those with abilities to be evil or crazy in one way or another?

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

It's been a while then.

<Snipped quote by Balance>

Feel free to continue then.

@Host

It has.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

How long ago?

@Host

About 200 - 300 years ago, from what I've managed to dig up.

Myriad Reality

Can someone give me a somewhat detailed summery of both phylotes, the mindscape, and how technologically advanced a culture would have to be to know about and be researching this stuff? and by somewhat detailed I mean both the basics and some advanced stuff.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Stabby>

What happened to this planet?

@Host

I don't really know much beyond the basics, with those being the facts that something caused the collapse of the previous civilization here, killing a lot of people, and that the same thing is likely related to both the appearance of abilities and the mutated creatures that now wander in to lower levels of the cities, using destroyed sewers, subway tunnels, and underground corridors to move around. The rest is pretty much unknown until we check out what's left of the E-Library Soren found.