Fractayle: The Collision of Worlds

Connection

Explanation of Fractayle Terms:

What follows below is a loose collection of both rules and world terms and a related explanation.

Dynamic Gaming: The unique mechanism in Fractayle: The Collision of Worlds where the Bard of the story constantly changes, thus involving everyone and keeping the tale changing and memorable while building a world with everyone's input.

Dynamic Rule Mechanic, The: This is the unique Fractayle method of generating custom built rules and rules interpretations during the game.  Combined with Bardic this generates the environment that is Dynamic Gaming.

Black Booker, A: A Black Booker is the person who is responsible for recording all rules and game decisions taken by the group as part of the Dynamic Rule Mechanic.  The name stems from the fact that these archives of previously allowed rules, spells, tech actions, etc. are often recorded in a hardcover black book or notebook that can be taken from gaming session to session and create continuity.  It is suggested that such books are kept with a vague index and section specifically for spells, tech, pure rules, and gaming details.

Far Worlder or F.A.E: Are each terms of beings born in the Far World and Realms of Wonder respectively.  F.A.E. stands for "Fractal Adjusted Entities" and is a term that the Web has dubbed all those that enter the Far World through the Passage.  Also written as "Fae".

Fabric Shift: How most/some magick doesn't work in the Far Worlds and how most/some technology doesn't work in the Realms of Wonder.  Some believe this is because of the fundamental difference of the fabric that construct each pocket of reality.  The one supports magick, while the other supports science.  This explanation does not take into account how some magick works in the Far World and some technology works in the Realms of Wonder.  Fabric Shift is what happened to the Pendragon Battlecruiser when it was sucked through into the Realms of Wonder: despite the fact that it was not made for gravity and its sheer size made it crushed its frame, its sub-nuclear thrusters and all the tech that was running it and keeping it together suddenly either stopped working or malfunctioned dramatically.  This is another aspect of Fabric Shift: whereas some magick/tech simply just doesn't work in the other universe, some magick/tech actually malfunctions/backfires in the most unexpected, and often disastrous, manner.

Philips Force: The Philips Force is so named after the MyMegaSpace.uni commentator that noted that strange gravitational waves sent out in the live-feed captured by the Pendragon Battlecruiser just before it vanished through the Passage.  It is thought that this force is created by the connection two differing universal Fabrics (see above "Fabric Shift") and takes the form of an exothermic reaction as the two time-space continuums are meshed together.  There is a school of thought that takes the stance that some of the lattices of space-time that cannot be merged through the connection of the Passage are instead discarded by the reaction and their dispersal gives rise to the Philips Force.  The intricate actions of Philips Force are barely understood, but the effects are basically that a uni-directional gravitational field is shot out at the moment of connection.  It was this field that pulled the Pendragon Battlecruiser through the Passage.  Theory suggests that if the connection is made on a planet large enough that the Philips Force effect can be nullified by facing it into the planet and thus--briefly--canceling the two out.  The reasons why the Realms of Wonder do not experience the Philips Force are not known, but some suggest that perhaps the structure that the Passage is held in place by has a purpose beyond simply ornamentation and that it actually channels or cancels all exothermic energies somewhere.

Data-megaway, The:  The data-megaway is a common term for the medium through which the Web streams its colossal amount of data.  Although the body of the Web actually resides in the human collective consciousness it is easier and cheaper for the average person to "download" small segments of the Web into their personal space and run minute portions of the code to stream and search these captured portions.  The data-megaway is both the portion that is constantly being downloaded by man--and is actually surfed by some directly and sifted by the Government in order to know what everyone is doing online--and the portion that is running "locally" through human hard-networks--i.e. not through the collective consciousness.

Conduit, A:  A Conduit is the mental implant that almost every human baby is fitted with that allows them to connect to the Web and, in return, allows the Web to use part of their mind to storage and process data.  The origins of the original Conduit were lost with the Virus, but previous models have come out with faster connection speeds, better firewalls, upgraded organicware, and stronger connection signals.

Fischer State: Fischer State is a common phenomenon that occurs with all Artificial Intelligence programs when they learn about themselves and become self-aware.  Essentially the Fischer State is a form of insanity whereby the code breaks down and the software commits a form of "suicide".  Without an exception all known A.I's that have advanced enough to reach self-awareness have experienced Fischer State. No one is sure of the reason--despite all the theories--but it does serve to illustrate how human kind still does not understand the key ingredient in life.