Switchboard Physiology

With the Switchboard operating under unconventional logics with regards to the very building blocks of the universe, by extension, the beings in this universe operate under new logics as well. This document aims to address the differences in physiology - specifically that of the Third Kin - that resulted from the differences in logics of the Switchboard in relation to our own.

Chalk Physiology

In the Switchboard, all things are made of chalk. Via the weaving of chalk into various patterns do we obtain everything that exists in the Switchboard, including thinking weave and living beings. While this document focuses primarily on the Third Kin, what it describes applies to everything that lives in the Switchboard at large.

The physiology of beings in the Switchboard is thus, very different from ours. Thinking weave is so called because it possesses the Five Straits, and the Five Straits - in addition to being the seat and root of cognitive and mental processes - are also the seat of biological ones as well. Physiologically speaking, being made of chalk has eliminated and to an extent, simplified the biology of the beings that dwell in the Switchboard. The Five Straits takes over in this regard.

Primarily, the metabolic processes as we understand them are replaced by chalk analogues, this being elaborated upon further. Various biological systems as well have been changed and function in new and different ways. Additionally, many have simply been ablated, as there is no solid justification for their existence.

Thinking Weave and The Straits

Some essential clarifications are done in this section, as this section exists primarily to consolidate a litany of correlated but separated bits of knowledge, such that discrepancies arose within and between them.

Thinking weave in the Switchboard has always been the result of the Astrolabe skewing the results of hyperweave cooling. As the powerful hyperweave cools, it re-differentiates into now, complex weave and begins an evolutionary process guided by inherent self-correction factors and external skews inflicted by the mechanics of the Switchboard. Thinking weave arises when the result of this cooling hyperweave is the Five Straits; five immensely complex chalk patterns that grant chalkweave the ability to interface with other chalkweave beyond immensely elementary interactions. They facilitate interactions above the mere ‘calcic chemistry’ that governs much of the Switchboard otherwise, introducing the product of decisions made by sentient phenomena.

The Five Straits

Thinking weave in the Switchboard is defined by possessing the Five Straits; complex chalkweave that all serve a litany of functions and from these functions do the qualities of life and cognition emerge. By working together, they grant elementary weave the power to interact with the Switchboard in much the same way us as human beings interact with our universe; skewing the relationship between cause and effect with the salting of our own cognition and the resultant from it.

The Five Straits are namely;

• The intake or interface strait.
• The potential strait.
• The interpreter strait.
• The memory strait.
• The computational strait.

Functions

The functions of the straits are namely;

• The intake or interface strait serve as a means for the weave to take in chalk from the environment - and in some cases, put chalk back out. Functioning much like the semi-permeable membrane of a cell, the sensors on a machine or robot, or the input and output devices on a computer, this strait serves the purpose of perception of the environment as well as imparting change upon it. Additionally, the interface strait within the lattice crosses all other straits, and allows them to communicate with each other.

• The potential strait is a strait that serves as a reservoir for pure chalk. Unharnessed and unfolded into any pattern, this basin of chalk is a vortex of pure potential, and all the chalk needed by a living, thinking lattice for simple and complex functions is stored here.

• The interpreter strait is linked directly to the intake/interface strait and the potential strait, and bridges them. As chalk comes in through the interface strait, the interpreter checks it for what it is, seeing if it contains patterns, whether it needs to be sent to the memory strait for storage or the computational for further computation. This strait serves to detect all manners of incoming weave that would’ve otherwise been treated like ordinary unwoven chalk - such as Teks, ritual schema and more - which would’ve been unideal for the rest of the lattice.

• The memory strait serves the purpose of storing information. Their being beings of pure chalk means they lack a centralized memory organ such as a brain. This is elaborated upon more fully in The Blank-Slate Mind. Summarized, memory in a lattice is the memory strait, an immensely dense ribbon of chalk that contains everything a subject knows. Everything. Useful information acquired from the interpreter line comes here to be stored, as well as information created and used in the next line, and acquired from the line after that. This is also where known Equations are stored, a particularly relevant fact to the final purpose of the Five Strait system.

• The computational strait is the seat of thinking, and what truly sets apart living, thinking chalk from other ‘dead’ weave in the Switchboard. By the use of fold patterns and calcic equations, chalk passed to the computational line is folded from ribbon to pattern and weave. Sub-straits of the computational line handle a litany of other functions, ranging from passive bodily ones to indexing the memory strait and more. By all metrics, it is perhaps the most important of the straits.

Elementary Strait Mechanics

As the straits function physiologically, information chalk is pulled from the environment via the interface strait, where it is passed to the interpreter to check if the acquired chalk is ordered/folded or not. Folded chalk is sent to the memory or compute straits as needed, while raw chalk is sent to the potential strait to be stored to fuel the lattice’s processes.

This is described rather succinctly with a graphic.

pNarrat: Straits of the Striders, Weavers and Grounded

In the earliest drafts of Samsara, I had what would later become the denizens of the Switchboard divided into three major categories; the Striders, the Weavers and the Grounded.

The Weavers had the Weave Protocol. The Striders had the Strider and Weave Protocols, as the former can only be used with the latter. The Grounded as they were called, lacked both, being unable to weave chalk and thus unable to stride the cosmos.

The Striders differ from the Weavers physiologically via their possession of a sixth strait; the stride-dedicom, which allows them to fold chalk into ludicrous velocity. While all other beings in the Switchboard possess the Five Straits, only the Striders have a sixth, further allusion to their elevated status.

The Grounded differ from Weavers in that the Weave Protocol is a modification to the interface strait. Grounded only have an intake strait, which can take in chalk but not output pattern into the environment. Weavers - via the Weave Protocol - have had this limitation removed via the protocol elevation of the Astrolabe.

Processes and Systems

This section addresses a number of biological processes and the systems behind them.

Basic Anatomy

At base, the denizens of the Switchboard virtually identical external anatomy to us, possessing four limbs and a bipedal body plan, as well as orifices and other parts in exactly where we’d expect them to be. By all metrics, externally, they are indistinguishable from humans, and indeed in the canon of the verse, they are - simply put - humans.

The main deviations from this comes via various forms of bodily modification made available to them by virtue of being made of chalkweave. ‘The Lattice as a Canvas’ describes a philosophy that stems from this fact. In short terms, it discusses how the ramifications of the chalkweave body that the denizens of the Switchboard posses - and at large, what chalk allows - is facilitating a ‘fast and loose’ approach to the natural sciences, that opens up entire avenues of manipulating one’s shape.

The Lattice as a Canvas

Chalk and its nature of ribbons and weaving have allowed for an expansion of what it means to ‘be’ in a physical sense. Chalk allows for the realization of a more desirable, more ideal, physical form - made possible by the malleability of the chalk lattice; its ability to be reshaped by the whims of a Strider. This is the Lattice as a Canvas; the self as both the loom that spins the cloth, and the outfit it will wear.

One of the foundational principles for the Lattice as a Canvas, from a mechanical standpoint in particular, is how one of the ramifications of chalk and information tangibility is allowing for playing fast and loose with the natural sciences. By substituting the ‘hard’ sciences - in this case biology - and their complex-at-best, nigh-unknowable-at-worst mechanics - with that of chalk allows for the entire affair to be made more doable, more tactile, more malleable at the elementary level. Chalk allows for what could be described as root-level access to the core mechanics of certain phenomena, and by allowing a means for persons in the Switchboard to access the previously-locked maintenance hatches of various phenomena, it allows them for all-new kinds of manipulation and expansion upon them; the baseline put in place by old systems able to be taken to new heights by those who feel so inclined.

In the LatCanvas, this principle is applied to the body. With all beings in the Switchboard bearing bodies - lattices - of chalk, they serve as a suitable grounds for expanding upon with chalk. They become media - canvases - for all the imagination can conceive of, allowing for a highly-developed school of though regarding bodily modifications.

Link to original

Basic anatomy is already functionally established, but further reading on a sort of ‘advanced’ anatomy can be found in discussions on Shape.

The Lattice & Straits

We as humans are made up of a large amount of ‘stuff’. There’s a lot of stuff in us. We’re made of flesh and bone. Blood flows through us, through vessels made for this very purpose. Nerves run under everything. Organs pulse under layers of fat. Dozens of other tissues and structures abound within us, each serving one integral function or the other.

The denizens of the Switchboard are vastly more simple, being possessed of only two major components of their physiology; the Five Straits, and the calcic shell that houses the straits. This outer calcic shell serves to insulate the straits from the outside world, shield them from damage and give the being structure and shape. It is the entirety of the shell that we call the lattice.

The lattice serves as the flesh of the Strider, much like our own flesh, and the straits are responsible for all of the processes and functions that we understand as the qualities of something that is alive. Every metabolic and cognitive function is a result of the actions and nature of the straits.

The Straits

Also noteworthy is the fact the Five Straits are not distributed evenly throughout the lattice of a denizen of the Switchboard. Were one to draw an internal map of a human in the Switchboard, they would observe that the straits are generally relegated to certain locales of the body.

• The potential strait exists as a bundle within the abdomen, occupying the space where the stomach would traditionally be. It houses the subject’s calcic supply as a raging storm of densely packed chalk within their person. In particularly powerful Striders and when a subject has amassed a considerable amount of chalk, the potential strait exists on the brink of becoming hyperweave.

• The interpreter strait, that serves the function of checking all chalk that is taken in for what it contains lurks, above the potential strait, right at the thorax where the lungs would normally be. This positioning places it between the strait in the stomach, the potential, that feeds it the chalk that it operates upon, and the straits in the head where it passes chalk that has been checked to.

• The memory strait is mounted upon the backbone lattice of the subject, the two of them serving as the subject’s spinal cord analogue, in reference to us. The old memories and writ upon the backbone that is formed from the amalgamation of calcic material during the processes that precede birth are paired with new memories formed in the course of living, the entire ensemble being viewable as a tall, slender bookshelf in which the entirety of one’s being is stored.

• The computational strait occupies the head, wrapped around an end of the memory strait out of their reliance on each other to function. Chalk is passed from the interpreter to these straits, and the results of folding via equations is passed down from the head to a junction above the interpreter strait.

• The interface strait is distributed throughout the entire lattice, as it serves as the means by which the subject communicates with the outside world, as well as the connective lines between all other straits. Junctions structures - bundles of interface strait - are interspaced throughout the lattice and serve as connection points for the other straits to interact with each other via passing chalk. The interface strait is also particularly bundled and dense at the ends of the limbs and extremities - hands, feet, fingers and toes - as the hands are used for chalkweaving, and the feet for striding.

• Additionally, the stride-dedicom strait present exclusively in those with the Strider Protocol is distributed among both legs and feet, the back, and the waist region, this close proximity to where Striders emit the motion produced by the straits during striding being seemingly by design.

It is important to note though that these are not hard and fast rules; via various kinds of body modification or reverse unravelling techniques, it is possible to relocate the straits to different parts of the body. Many - especially denizens of the Switchboard that are frequently involved in physical conflict - choose to split and decentralize their straits to account for the fact opponents versed in anatomy will target those points.

Powerful physical strikes to the stomach can disrupt the harmony of the potential strait and prevent the usage of weaving momentarily. Choking a subject at the neck prevents the interpreter strait passing chalk to the computational, also serving to prevent the usage of weaving. And headshots function much like they do in our world, dealing damage to the memory and computational straits and often being enough to kill or greatly incapacitate a subject outrightly.

The Lattice

Serving to protect the important and delicate structures that are the slates is the lattice. The lattice makes up the shell and overall physicality of a subject in the Switchboard, and can generally be viewed as the ‘flesh’ of all living beings in the verse. Being made of chalk, the lattice behaves somewhat differently than the flesh of conventional human beings.

For one, the lattice is stratified into various layers, each bearing individual functions;

• The superficial crown is the topmost layer of the lattice, and serves as the first barrier between the rest of the lattice and the outside environment. This layer does little by way of truly critical anatomical work, and instead serves as a layer that many denizens of the Switchboard choose to adorn and decorate as they see fit. The inscrit practiced by many Striders as well as a number of other bodily modifications such as tattoos, piercings and stitching are done to this layer. Cosmegrafts of many kinds are often mounted here as well, though structural integrity needs sees them woven into the layers below.

• The apical hardshell serves the purpose of defense, and is a layer of densely packed and woven chalk. This layer is the first line of protection possessed by the lattice, and is the second to be compromised by physical attacks after the crown. Denizens of the Switchboard aiming to be more resistant to attack can perform a number of structural modifications to this layer - particularly the way it is woven and layered - though this is done at the expense of mobility.

  • Contained partially within and under this layer is the superior interface recess, a cavity within the lattice that the interface strait is woven through. A central braid of the interface strait travels perpendicular under the layers above it, but it also sends perpendicular stalks upwards, just under the crown, which serve the purpose of taking in chalk from the local environment and passing it through to the potential strait.

• Under the apical hardshell is the motive framework, a layer of intricately woven yet cavity-filled chalk that enables the subject to move. Chalk here features a number of equations that enable a calcic supply to this layer to be transformed into pure momentum, allowing denizens of the Switchboard to perform motion that is far more graceful and yet explosive than ours, as the case may be. Enhancements and modifications to this layer translates to a direct improvement in the subject’s strength, agility and dexterity. However, the capabilities of this layer are mildly constrained by the armor plates above and below it. Also defining this layer are elastic substructures facilitating the conduction and restraint of this momentum, facilitating control as well as yielding the lattice a number of properties relating to touch.

• Subjects possess a second defensive armor layer, though weaker than the first. The basal hardshell is less dense chalkweave that serves the purpose of defense as well, in particular the defense of the Five Straits below it. In key parts of the body such as the head, thorax and abdomen, the basal hardshell can match or even exceed the defense capabilities of the apical hardshell, as these parts of the body house the maximally important Five Straits. Increased thickness of this layer, however, inflicts a greater burden on the motive framework than the apical hardshell does.

  • Similarly to the apical hardshell, contained within the basal hardshell is the inferior interface recess, a second cavity for another line of interface strait. This one has perpendicular stalks going downwards to the other Five Straits, taking chalk from them and passing it to where it is needed. Additionally, this line of interface strait is responsible for detecting deep-rooted, internal damage, such as damage from inductive weave, as these usually propagate past the apical hardshell.

• While not explicitly a layer, the ender fossa is a cavity within the lattice where the Five Straits are situated; one fossa being in the head where the memory and computational straits are present, and in the chest and gut region where the interface and potential straits are. Heavily insulated from the outside world through the stack of layers above it, chalk only reaches here via the interface strait. Damage to this fossa and its contents is critical, and often fatal.

Of note is a function the memory strait serves with regards to the lattice; the memory strait indexes the physical structure of the lattice within it, such that any damage done to the lattice is regenerated back to its initial state, often via reverse unravelling. Additionally, any changes made to the lattice that stay long enough - such as grafts and bodily adornments to the superficial crown - are indexed in the memory strait as well, and as such, subjects in the Switchboard can even regenerate grafted parts and tattoos. For this reason, damage to the memory strait is particularly dire, and for this reason, many choose to isolate the sub-strait responsible for caching the makeup of the lattice, duplicating it, and distributing it throughout the entire lattice. This prevents damage to the head from being entirely fatal, and allows for rapidly healing severed limbs should the limb be reattached. This cached state of the lattice is also important for combating disease and other inductive effects, as they are computed as not part of the baseline lattice, and thus summarily expunged via restorative mechanisms.

Additionally, this indexed plan of the lattice is also stored via ledgers. For this reason, it is possible to reconstitute a Strider from sufficient enough calcic matter from their person, even if they were - say - shattered to bits.

It can be said then, that the lattice and straits working in tandem serve the function of the circulatory, skeletal, muscular and nervous systems in us.

‘Flesh’ and Calcification

The superficial crown and apical hardshell layers of the lattice constitute what could be called the ‘flesh’ of a subject within the Switchboard. This flesh - particularly the crown layer - is very analogous to our own, bearing much of the same qualities of being elastic, supple and tender; entirely identical to how one would expect flesh to be and behave. Despite being made of chalk, it is chalk woven to be so, and should one wish, they can alter the physical properties of their lattice as they see fit.

Alterations to the lattice may not entirely be voluntary, however. A conditions suffered by many in the Switchboard who actively travel its lengths and weave chalk for a litany of reasons may suffer from calcification, a condition caused by the inundation of the limbs in immensely pure chalk, causing the memory strait’s record of the lattice to become skewed over time, and resulting in the limbs become hard, wiry chalk ribbon, as though the subject were becoming a marble statue.

Weaving chalk, performing rituals, using the Strider Protocol, drinking from wellsprings, frequently taking superficial damage and healing it; over time, the extremities of the body slowly transmute to pure chalkweave, and the subject seems to be taken over by encroaching whiteness on their limbs. Besides this aesthetic change, it constitutes no threat or harm to the subject, and for many it has become a mark of age and even accomplishment.

This calcified flesh also responds differently to physical damage, elaborated upon later.

Calcifying Striders do have some complaints in the form of their original skin hues and modified ones being overwritten by the pure white of chalk, but for many, it has become a welcome canvass for even further modification; particularly the inscrit practiced by the Sil’khan.

The Senses

Being possessed of entirely the same anatomy as us at base, the denizens of the Switchboard posses entirely the same senses as well, these being sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. The senses are a product of the interface strait of the Five Straits, the strait that takes in chalk from the local environment into the lattice and subjects it to computation.

Smell and Taste

The senses of smell and taste are a product of dedicated sub-straits on the computational strait responsible for parsing the weave emitted by various patterns in the environment. Both are elevated beyond their traditional function however, as they are both primarily primed towards parsing property weave. As a result, denizens of the Switchboard are able to obtain a rough idea of something’s properties by tasting it, which proves a fairly useful sense in some regards. Should a pattern have the property of emitting odor, depending on what is emitted, information can be gleaned of it as well.

Sound and Hearing

Sound and hearing trace and track deformations in the air of local space, and one of the ways this sense is even more capable is that one with a well-refined sense of hearing can hear the distortion in space caused by information mass and the curvature of the Void. Like how a cuboid and a sphere dropped in a vat of water create differently-shaped waves, the shape of objects distorting local space can be determined by analyzing the distortions themselves, these distortions being picked up by the interface strait and manifesting as what we understand as sound.

The ability to hear distortions created by others is a means of transmitting information between denizens of the Switchboard, and it is often the case that highly perceptive individuals can pick up introductory information about someone within their perceptive radius such as their name and the manner in which they prefer to be addressed. It also serves the immensely useful purpose of alerting travelers in the Switchboard to regions where the Void is particularly close, and thus enables them to employ countermeasures against falling into the Challenger Dark.

Touch

Touch manifests as a subtle distortion of the uppermost layer of the calcic lattice. This stimuli and additional nuances inherent to it, such as the shape of the touching object and additional information such as its temperature and the like, are passed to the computational strait from the interface strait, and handled accordingly.

Sight

The denizens of the Switchboard have eyes, and can see objects in much the same way that we can - the nuances of how light functions in the Switchboard being elaborated upon here. However, seeing through the eyes is mostly a product of this once being the means by which this was done; the dedicated sub-strait of the interface strait that handled parsing color information was relegated to the eyes. Over the course of calcic evolution, it became possible to perform rudimentary and even advanced seeing through any part of the body that one saw fit. Forming proto-eyes on the body requires a fairly skilled grasp of chalkweaving however, but does present some nontrivial advantages, such as being immensely difficult to conventionally blind.

Additional Senses

Some further notes on the topic of senses.

Vestibular and Proprioception

Vestibular: this system explains the perception of our body in relation to gravity, movement and balance. The vestibular system measures acceleration, g-force, body movements and head position. Examples of the vestibular system in practice include knowing that you are moving when you are in an elevator, knowing whether you are lying down or sat up, and being able to walk along a balance beam.

Proprioception: this is the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. This sense is very important as it lets us know exactly where our body parts are, how we are positioned in space and to plan our movements. Examples of our proprioception in practice include being able to clap our hands together with our eyes closed, write with a pencil and apply with correct pressure, and navigate through a narrow space.

As the interface and computational straits handle the senses, these additional senses are a product of their working in tandem. Functioning calcically in the Switchboard allows them to be developed considerably into very refined senses, and it enables denizens of the Switchboard to move and act very dexterously.

The Weavesight

Tapping into the Weave Protocol grants weavers a litany of powers in the form of manipulating chalk ribbon and using the Five Straits. A somewhat more subtle power they are provided with however, is a special manner of ‘sight’ that is tuned specifically for use in the Switchboard and the calcic world. This is the ‘Weavesight’, and with it, Weavers can obtain information around the wider calcic world through ‘casting their perception’.

Mechanism The Weavesight functions almost in opposition to the power to ‘draw’ chalk to oneself granted by Strider’s and Weaver’s innate information affinity. In the Weavesight, a subject projects outwards ‘rays’ of chalk that strike all objects or patterns in their vicinity. By observing the ‘outline’ formed by these rays of chalk being intercepted by the patterns they strike, the subject obtains firstly a ‘wireframe’ construction of their immediate environment. This power is reliant on the Five Straits, as chalk that is fed back to the subject as the rays return from where they strike enter the potential line, and are passed to the interpreter line for useful information gleaned to be extracted and passed to the memory line.

As a note, despite being a manner of ‘sight’, Weavesight is not reliant on the physical eyes of the subject, and instead, calcic perception-rays can be fired from any part of the body. This is often employed when assessing a subject held in the hands for example.

Naturally, Weavers who grow more proficient in using the Weavesight are able to employ perception-rays that penetrate deep into struck targets, allowing the subject to glean incremental amounts of useful information the deeper the rays penetrate. Deeper Weavesight allows for ascertaining the nature of the weaves within a pattern, the nature of the equation that might have been used to fold it, how easy or difficult it would be to unfold and extract weave from. Even more information can be gleaned by subjects who know how to ‘focus’ their Weavesight, such as narrowing down a large sphere of observation into a singular, laser-like cone of deeply penetrating chalk rays. Focused Weavesight like this, however, is tantamount to blasting a subject with chalk, and occasionally this may not be something the caster may desire.

Functionally, it’s a ‘scanner’ power that is essential for those traversing the Switchboard. It possesses additional utility in combat, in allowing detection of weak points or assessing threats, and utility in calcic casting too in observation of enemy casts as well as your own. Cultivating strong Weavesight is mandatory for Weavers who wish to last long in the Switchboard.

It is common practice for chromegrafted subjects to have their memory lines interface with their Slates, so that information gleaned from Weavesight is passed instantly to their mobile computers and stored into, or cross-referenced against available databases, allowing gleaning even more information, and indexing new discoveries for the usage of others.

Because Weavesight is a calcic ability, it is subject to rules that other calcic abilities are subject too as well. It expends chalk in its casting, and if chalk casting is being suppressed, Weavesight will feed the user inaccurate data or fail altogether. Less developed forms of Weavesight can also be tricked, through clever usage of weaves meant to disguise the true nature of something. It is also possible to detect when a Strider or Weaver is in the vicinity as Weavesight results in passive emittance of chalk by subjects using it. This can be used to rig traps for example, designed to go off only when Striders or Weavers are present. Particularly skilled and malicious actors are able to encoded weave in a subject that when analyzed by the Weavesight and passed to the interpreter lines, can result in malicious weave spontaneously forming in the interpreter line, and harming the caster of the sight. This is particularly useful for creating environments where Weavesight usage is curtailed.

Patterned Displacement Everything in the Switchboard has an information mass, and information mass induces localized curvature ‘downwards’ along the fourth spatial axis, towards the Void. The Weavesight is, in fact, capable of viewing this displacement, and from this displacement, certain deductions can be made. Chief amongst them is the information mass of the targeted subject, and this information is particularly useful in ascertaining various things, such as how strong a potential combatant is, how truly complex calcically something is, and more.

However, well-trained weavesight is able to glean even more information based on the shape of the displacement in local space. Like dropping differently-shaped objects into a pool of water and observing the ripples, those particularly skilled in the weavesight, or well versed in various patterns created in local space by certain qualities, can deduce additional information from observing these distortions. Examples of this include approximations of age, last visited sectors of the Switchboard, possessed abilities and skills, and more.

In particular, information encoded on Astrolabic ledgers often define the distortion of space around a subject, and reading these distortions can be likened to reading this ledger. Particularly skilled seers can even piece together the names of those they’ve never met, making it a terribly useful power.

Interestingly enough, however, just as this power and quality of the weavesight exists, there are those who choose to ‘mask’ the reality of their existence by altering the shape of their displacement. Those not particularly versed in the weavesight can easily be deceived by such measures.

Final Notes Weavesight has virtually unlimited utility, and in particular it is used to glean information about a fellow denizen of the Switchboard. Prior to starting combat, for example, it’s common practice to attempt to ‘steal’ some information from one’s opponent. Asides from the plain tactical advantage that comes with knowing what an enemy has up their sleeve, obtaining answers on the nature of their techniques and tactics reduces their effectiveness via the praximechanics.

Naturally, some cultural quirks and more besides have arisen around the usage of Weavesight. Generally, it’s considered rude to train one’s Sight actively on a subject without cause, and in many cases, it’s even viewed as mere steps removed from hostile action. Beyond just gleaning the workings of the subject’s combat ability, the Sight can aid in gleaning more subtle information such as a subject’s emotional state or if they’re lying. As such, it’s considered an invasion of privacy, and quite frowned upon.

When a subject is under another’s Sight, it can be tangibly felt as either or both of a tingling or heating sensation on the back of the neck. This is due to the Sight targeting the subject’s backbone, the seat of their individuality and potential, and thus the carrier of the most answers to questions about the subject. The evocation of this sensation, however, is conditional upon both looker and subject. More talented subjects can perform more observation with less interaction, meaning that they can meld their Sight into the passive calcic currents of the Switchboard, and thus glean information from a subject without them knowing. Similarly, a subject trained or possessed of greater innate sensitivity to calcic activity can sense when they are being Seen even when the user of Sight is trying to either obscure themselves or the fact that they are looking.

Reproduction and Genetics - The ‘Backbone’

Much of this subject matter is handled in On Descendance. Some additional notes are to be found here.

Calcic biology lacking cells, the superstructures that are made of them, or the substructures that make them up, results in a biology that is distinctly different in fundamental operation - even if not unimaginably different in final goal - from us. In particular, this manifests in genetics, where the once immutable nuances of the affair have been done away with, replaced with calcic mechanics as is the case.

When aiming to perform reproduction either through the conventional means or the Ritual of Conjugation, the involved parties must yield an elementary backbone weave that is formulated from mostly random chalk taken from all of their Five Straits, particularly the potential, memory and computational ones, which determine their offspring’s capacity for accumulating chalk, storing pattern and weaving the former into the latter. The calcic backbone itself is an old equation written deep into the computation strait, and has been present in the Third Kin since they first arose.

In turn, the backbone weave that is yielded to progeny is in turn woven into the equation that formulates it in their lattice, and by this means, a wide array of traits are passed down generation to generation, concentrating and defining the bearers of this backbone as the Great Families or members of the more prominent branch families.

The workings of the descendance of traits is additionally ledgerial; developing offspring either through conventional means or offspring conjugates pull additionally from the calcic Current, drinking from the depths of the history of the entire Switchboard. As described in ‘On Descendance’, offspring pull chalk pattern from their local environments as well, resulting in the emergence of region-specific qualities as well.

For this reason, a number of the offspring’s final traits are determined by various phenomena, depending on strong and weak dependencies. In addition to the more concretely defined phenomena, is a final wildcard tossed in by the Astrolabe itself, stemming from its calculus working to always further perpetuate the Switchboard.

These phenomena are;

• Parental Backbone (Potential, Memory, Computational)
• Ancestral Backbone (Potential, Memory, Computational)
• The Local Switchboard
• The Current
• Astrolabic Wildcard

Physical Appearance and Physicality

• Strongly Dependent
  • Parental Backbone
  • Ancestral Backbone
• Weakly Dependent
  • The Local Switchboard
  • Astrolabic Wildcard
  • The Current

Protocols of Stride and Weave

• Strongly Dependent
  • Parental Backbone
  • Ancestral Backbone
  • Astrolabic Wildcard
• Weakly Dependent
  • The Local Switchboard
  • The Current

Teks

• Strongly Dependent
  • Parental Backbone
  • The Current
  • Astrolabic Wildcard
• Weakly Dependent
  • The Local Switchboard
  • Astrolabic Backbone

Chalkweaving Proficiency

• Strongly Dependent
  • Ancestral Backbone
  • Parental Backbone
  • Astrolabic Wildcard
• Weakly Dependent
  • The Current
  • Local Switchboard

Memories Type-A; People, Places and Things

• Strongly Dependent
  • Parental Backbone
  • Local Switchboard
  • The Current
• Weakly Dependent
  • Ancestral Backbone
  • Astrolabic Wildcard

Memories Type-B; Techniques and Powers

• Strongly Dependent
  • Parental Backbone
  • The Current
• Weakly Dependent
  • Astrolabic Wildcard
  • The Local Switchboard
  • Ancestral Backbone

Memories Type-C; Esoterics

This category contains things that it wouldn’t conventionally make sense for the offspring to know in particular, such as ritual schema or the contents of vaults. This is - narratively - the Astrolabe’s means of throwing old cards back into play; setting new generations of the Third Kin down old - but not fully pursued - trajectories.

• Strongly Dependent
  • The Current
  • Astrolabic Wildcard
• Weakly Dependent
  • Local Switchboard
  • Ancestral Backbone
  • Parental Backbone

With regards to the actual process of conception, outside of the Ritual of Conjugation outlined in Birthing and Being, the process works in a manner wholly identical to our own.

Bodily Thermals

Are the denizens of the Switchboard warm?

The source of body heat for denizens in our world is primarily cellular activity. Our bodies being large walking chemical plants exhibit the many quirks of chemistry, one of these being that many chemical processes aren’t maximally efficient and lose that efficiency as heat, and some processes simply produce heat naturally as a byproduct of the process itself. With the Switchboard having immensely different chemistry from our canon, do the denizens of the Switchboard also have warm bodies?

The answer is yes, but the reasons why are worth delving into.

The production of heat within denizens of the Switchboard is conditional upon a singular mechanical quirk of the verse; as outlined in inductive weave, when things slow in the Switchboard, they get hotter. Therein lies the entirety of why the denizens of the Switchboard are warm; by moving and then coming to rest, that motion is lost as heat, suffusing their bodies and raising their temperatures.

Downstream of this is the fact that chalkweaving itself at all conceptual layers is a very mechanical process. Ribbon chalk is being folded into weaves, and these weaves are in turn being folded into patterns that represent and are tangible, recognizable things. The ribbon-level chalkweaving that serves as the mechanical foundation of the verse happens ludicrously quickly in most cases, with ribbon transiting from rest, to furious motion as it is transformed into weave, then to rest again in pattern state, either for permanently within the frame of reference, or quickened back to further, rapid folding. By the rule of coupling ratios, the faster something once was before it was slowed, and the faster it was decelerated from the initial motive state to the final, the more chalk is converted to heat.

How does this translate to the bodily thermals of subjects in the Switchboard? Basically put, all instances of folding chalk that occur within the lattice are generating heat. All fold operations, once completed, have the ribbon come to rest and thus output amounts of thermal weft that adds up. Healing from damage via reverse unravelling is a large amount of chalkweaving being done, and results in the lattice warming considerably. Even merely observing one’s environment is compelling the computational strait to fold weft into impressions of the wider world that are stored in the memory strait, meaning that merely seeing and thinking generate heat within the lattice. Denizens of the Switchboard tend to have very warm heads.

Expectedly, the production of thermal weft scales proportionally with activity. Being in combat, for example, compels the computational straits - most of the straits really - to fire on all cylinders, folding chalk at the uppermost of their operating capacities and yield waves of heat the moment the slightest bit of downtime is available. Particularly advanced chalkweaving - such as to deploy techniques - can come with considerable thermal consequences; folding a complicated amount of weft immensely quickly can result in literally burning one’s hands. The lattice isn’t immune to heat after all, and while a subject can cultivate or artificially acquire resistance, managing the lattice’s heat production is an important consideration in certain situations.

This does mean that a denizen of the Switchboard in a perfect state of rest - not moving and with minimal cognitive function - regresses to the temperature of the ambient air around them, meaning that they can become rather cool, and even frigid in certain environments. This is largely without consequence, as heat isn’t particularly needed for optimal metabolic function, though the lack of it can cause discomfort. On the contrary, too much accumulated heat can impair the function of certain fold processes, which is a major cause for concern.

Those with the Strider Protocol are conferred with a power related to this subject; the ability to aggressively purge the inductive weaves of motion and heat from their bodies. Purging motion is done by aggressively converting it into heat, which brings the Strider rapidly to rest - such as when decelerating from a stride - but generating massive amounts of thermal weft. Fortunately, this too can be purged in the form of thermal weft or dense clouds of raw chalk, rapidly cooling the Strider as a consequence. Fine control of their bodily temperature like this comes with various utilities, particularly the ability to allow fold processes that are impaired by excess heat to resume normal function by forcefully cooling the lattice. Reverse unravelling is one of the largest generators of heat in a lattice, but also cannot function optimally when the subject is too hot. Cooling the lattice by aggressively venting thermal weft rectifies this issue.

Many Striders - in a bid to maintain constant physiological readiness - thus run considerably cooler than the rest of the denizens of the Switchboard, and for some particularly fanatic Striders, it has become a point of distinguishing themselves from other non-Striders; others, the thermally-burdened proles, versus them, sublime in impersonal coolness reminiscent of the vacuum of space.

Life Span

A discussion on the lifespan of those in the Switchboard demands mentioning of the fact that the life expectancy of a denizen of the Great Sky varies wildly. The most foremost cause of this is - curiously - the Strider Protocol, though some additional factors come into play.

While the Law Stars of the Switchboard give it life, they do so at arm’s length. Ingesting pure oxygen kills cells. Drinking too much water dilutes essential electrolytes we need to function. And straying too near the stars exposes the Strider to amounts of calcic radiance vastly exceeding the amounts felt by those on a planet or at similar distances, due to the shielding effect intrinsic to a planet’s border, the celestial brink.

Over only a few short jaunts interspaced by long periods, a Strider’s lattice could repair the damage done by starblight - a temporary accumulation of excess chalk on the Strider’s lattice that is unneeded by the lattice. Over time, the Five Straits will gradually devour the rich calcic deposit as the Strider burns previously-contained chalk in the usage of their calcic abilities. However, a frequent user of the Strider Protocol, a Strider that sees themselves making long and highly delicate strides frequently will quickly accumulate more starblight than their lattice is able to digest. While it may not lead to overwrite, it takes a toll on the Strider’s life expectancy that’s fairly prominent.

The following question then is who or what kinds of denizens of the Switchboard find themselves striding the most and least frequently?

The following section is fairly conclusive, but not entirely. Some bits are subject to change based on how I imagine they will affect narrative.

We can begin with an arbitrarily selected average life expectancy in the Switchboard of roughly one hundred processions. Dying around this time is seen as having lived - if not a fulfilled life - then a long one. With this number in hand, we may then begin skewing it on a per-family basis.

Remaining largely unchanged is the Lancastars. Lacking the power to Stride and thus the vulnerability to the star-inflicted starblight that comes with straying near stars, their life expectancy is largely dependent on more mundane factors such as the genetic lottery, lifestyle and environs. Lancastars who dwell in planets where the planetary equations fold chalk into optimal living conditions for its dwellers will find their life span expectedly lengthened. However, the nature of chalk is such that chalk - though quite pliable a fundamental building block when compared to our atoms - has far more ‘shelf life’ than atoms, and is less subject to the entropic nature of decay. As such, the upper limit of Lancaster lifespans is about 150 processions.

Also remaining fairly unchanged is the Vahnkin, though this is due to a statistical average taken from two extremes of immensely short and immensely long life expectancies. Vahnkin dwelling in the Switchboard are doubly vulnerable to starblight, and though the depthstride means they realistically will never need to go close to an armillary star, dwelling in their light - even under the protective screen of a planet - will accumulate starblight slowly but steadily. Vahnkin dwelling in Isalveh, however, can renew their vitality by drinking of the stardrip. What would normally be toxic to their white-aligned cousins is instead a source of health and strength. Granted, a considerable quantity of stardrip must be drunk over an extended period of time to produce noticeable changes in life expectancy, and its effectiveness diminishes with time. Vahnkin born and dwelling in the Sky can expect to live to about one hundred processions before succumbing to starblight-accelerated aging, this number further modified by exposure to calcic radiance from armillary stars. Vahnkin who dwell in Isalveh and make it a point to frequently drink of the stardrip can see life expectancies of about twice that of their cousins dwelling in the Dancirah, resulting in about 200 processions. Asides from the stages of child, youth, adult and beyond are distinctly denoted in Vahnkin religious scripture, apostolics of Vahn in direct service to him, as well as those considered his closest kin, are allotted another seventy processions atop their regular two hundred, making 270 processions for Vahn’s closest kin.

These boon and maluses enjoyed and suffered by the kin of the Amaranth Sultan are believed to be the result of the pact he made with the Astrolabe long

The Fel-Arcad - with their hyper-optimized living in the arcologies, constant interaction with vitality-enhancing rituals, and abstinence from various body-affecting vices - live the longest of all the families, easily enjoying lifespans into the hundreds of processions, the oldest nearing 500 processions, before their lattices finally collapse after repeated tuning and touchups. Fel-Arcad who live outside the arcologies and indulge in the manners of living that the arcologies do not allow will find their life expectancy fairly close to the average, though skewed upwards by their intrinsic vitality.

Both blessed and cursed by the Strider Protocol, the Sil’khan see the shortest lifespans of the bunch, driven mainly by the cultural significance the Strider Protocol holds to them. The Sil’khan live hard, burn bright and hot, and die soon, with many expecting to live only to about 60 or 70 processions around the Astrolabe. Sil’khan do enjoy a quirk however; repeated drinking from the wellspring cleanses their lattices of starblight and renews their strength, and similarly - but less so - to the Vahnkin, continuous drinking from the wellsprings extends their lifespans. However, old Sil’khan are rare, and even with religious devotion to drinking from the Wellsprings, it is rare still to see a Sil’khan living past 80 processions.

With a table, we can represent the various life stage as they map on to the lifespans of each Great Family.

Age Classes of the Kin

A tabular representation of the lifespans and life stages of kin in the Switchboard. The immense discrepancy of lifespans between families is often a source of contention among them.

Stage	Humans	The Fel-Arcad	The-Sil’khan	The Lancasters	The Vahnkin
Child	0-10 (10 years)	0-40 (40 years)	0-5 (5 years)	0-15 (15 years)	0-10 (10 years)
Youth	11-25 (15 years)	41-100 (60 years)	6-20 (15 years)	16-25 (10 years)	11-40 (30 years)
Adult	26-70 (45 years)	101-300 (200 years)	21-60 (40 years)	26-95 (70 years)	41-140 (100 years)
Senior	71-100 (30 years)	301-400 (100 years)	61-70 (10 years)	96-130 (35 years)	141-200 (60 years)
Elder	101-120 (20 years)	401-500 (100 years)	71-80 (10 years)	131-150 (20 years)	201-270 (70 years)

Growth

As things get older in the Switchboard, they often get bigger. How much bigger is a product of physical limits determined by the overall potential of the motive framework layer of the lattice, and the calcic limits dictated by the backbone weave and computational strait. Physically getting bigger is a product of unweaving old layers of the lattice and reweaving them as one goes along. Eventually, one reaches their relatively ‘hard-coded’ final size, and grows no further. Any further growth is a product of modifications made to either the process of folding the lattice, or the lattice itself.

Strait Injury

Sustaining injury in the Switchboard takes on novel forms, and particularly, injury that penetrates deep enough to harm the straits can result in visual phenomena that borders on the spectacular.

Damage to the memory and the potential straits in particular can result in these straits becoming severed, and their woven and unwoven contents spilling out into the outside world. Damage to the potential strait is particularly a sight to behold, as chalk suffuses outwards as either billowing clouds of chalk dust, or explodes from the injury as rapidly-forming juts of chalk crystal. The memory strait often yields woven pattern upon damage, page and pages of chalkweave spilling outwards like a newspaper tossed to the wind.

A damage interface or interpreter strait yields little by way of visual phenomena, as these are transitional straits where chalk passes through, rather than is kept.

The computational strait, however, upon damaging, can truly be a sight to behold, as depending on the incident parameters of the incoming damage, the computational strait can go berserk, resulting in spontaneously and randomly devouring the subject’s calcic supply to weave all manners of random patterns into being. A Strider that has sustained cranial damage, for this reason, becomes something truly fearsome to behold - and even to be nearby - as the unrestrained chalkweaving of the computational strait can result in firing off chalkweave techniques or worse with no care for those nearby.

Dying and Death

Things in the Switchboard die. With that declared however, it is important to elaborate on the nuances of the states of ‘dying’ and ‘death’ under calcic mechanics.

The Five Straits being what sets thinking weave apart from the ‘dead’ non-thinking weave of the Switchboard is thus what must undergo or suffer some change to bring about the state of death. This change is broadly classifiable into;

• Compromised Integrity
• Decay

Compromising the integrity of the straits isn’t instantly fatal, though this is conditional on what strait and where the damage struck. Maiming a limb, for example, is a very survivable and repairable injury that a denizen of the Switchboard can suffer, as they are likely to only have lost interface strait lines. More critical blows to the head, neck and abdomen however, can damage the more vital straits, these being the memory, potential and computational straits. Damage to these often encroaches on the territory of fatal.

Sustaining the ‘life’ of thinking weave in the Switchboard requires chalk, and this in turn is due to the fact that the interface strait is constantly passing chalk to the computational strait, the computational folding this chalk into weave, and the memory strait storing this weave as what we call ‘memories’. The cessation of this process is what the denizens of the Switchboard understand as ‘death’. Compromised straits may be unable to adequately - if at all - perform these functions.

But even with the macro-integrity of the straits preserved, they are still subject to decay, a gradual, imperceptible decay of their pattern structure over time, impossible to rectify as the straits of thinking weave are far too complex to be folded by that same being. In a sense, the fold equations to produce the Five Straits are unknown, and if they even were, they’d be too large to be stored on the memory strait, too complex to be utilized by the computational strait, and so calcically demanding as to exhaust the contents of the potential strait many, many times over.

Additionally reverse unravelling techniques prove mostly worthless in rectifying this damage, as they work primarily off of the indexed blueprint of the lattice stored in the memory strait, and lattice does not index the weft pattern of the straits beyond where they are supposed to go. Even without the equation to do so, however, over the course of a subject’s life, the computational strait will gradually fold and produce minute additional lengths of strait pattern, stored on the memory strait to be used to repair damage in dire cases. The interface strait is the ‘lightest’ strait to store replicas of, followed by the interpreter, potential, memory and computational. It can also sever portions of other straits and store them for later use in life, as is commonly the case in younger denizens of the Switchboard, who preserve their computational strait for usage later, resulting in their being mildly cognitively lacking while growing up.

Death is ultimately a product of the cessation of operation of the computational strait. Being that thinking weave is defined by thinking, losing that capability returns it back to the elementary, ‘lifeless’ weave. The chalk and pattern and weave of the lattice decays, and is returned to the Current, from where all came.

The Current describes a system by which all that once was once becomes all that is, and this in turn becomes all that will be. As things die in the Switchboard, all that they were - pattern, ribbon, memory, their power and intellect, the ritual schema they knew, the principles they held, their Teks and powers and relics - all return to the Switchboard in some capacity, to be redistributed and reemerge, reborn in new hands and at new corners, on new frontiers, in a mechanics-level insistence that the Switchboard continues to exist, and proceed in a manner. The knowledge of ages past lives on in ages now.

Link to original

Death by natural causes in the Switchboard leaves the lattice mostly entirely intact. Without the computational strait to keep the subject’s reverse unravelling active, the lattice gradually decays and crumbles. Left unattended, all that is left of cadavers in the Switchboard are piles of mildly colorful dust, which is swiftly blown away by errant wind or other disturbances. Being chalk dust, it is without smell, and thus corpses produce no foul odor in the Switchboard universe. In the absence of this is something else however; the awareness that the air is saturated with the matter of someone else, and this is viewed as equally repulsive to the third kin.

pNarrat: The Cadavers of Deified

There is an air of amorphous, mysterious divinity to the Striders of the Switchboard, and one of the things that spawns this disposition and the subsequent mythos around it are how Striders - or rather the cadavers of them - behave when they die.

Should the abdomen be breached, chalk pours outwards and forth, taking shape and saturating the local environment. As dust chalk, it fills the air and is carried on breeze, as ribbon chalk, great cascading rolls of it unfurl outwards and hang in the air as billowing flags, or cover the ground as fallen ones. Should it crystallize instead, a Strider’s final resting place may be covered in jutting, sharp prisms of chalk, creeping over the landscape in a gentle slope from the furthermost mere blips to the epicentral spire that emerges from the chest cavity. As calcic radiance, the body simply glows endlessly, suffusing all things nearby with a passive barrage of chalk.

Breaching the computational strait, however, yields far more splendorous things, as the disintegrating strait uses the last of its coherence to belch out the weft produced by every equation stored on it, weaving and bringing forth random, unpredictable phenomena; vines with flowering plants and fruit spilling forth, cracks in the ground from where chalk became raw force, a surging hyperweave storm fueled by the remains of the lattice, raging fire that yields no heat, a grove of trees, a field of crystal grass, wireframe human forms reenacting a silent scene from the life once lived, a spatial anomaly that excavates a toroid and fills the created valley with weapons. The results are as varied as they are a sight to behold.

A common phenomena seen in many cases - particular the Sil’khan and other frequent users of the Strider Protocol - are entire temples that emerge from their wake, and mark a place on the starcharts as the final resting places of grand beings.

pNarrat: Vestigial Functions

The Dawn of the Dancirah is recommended reading for this section.

The considerable deviation from conventional anatomy is followed by a similar departure from a litany of otherwise commonplace human functions, such as eating, sleeping, breathing and respiration, excretion and more. The question then is whether Striders and other denizens of the Switchboard do these things, considering the universe’s foundation of chalk.

Behold my proposal.

In the dawn of the days proceeding the First Praxis War and the eventual rise of the Third Kin - as described in The Dawn of the Dancirah - the earliest Third Kin that arose possessed very elementary straits, as well as a distinct lack of affinity for the information that is chalk. In particular, their interface straits were not very developed, being unable to take in much from the local calcic environment. Their potential straits couldn’t hold much chalk, and their interpreter straits struggled in discerning ordered weave from pure calcic. Only their memory and computational straits were particularly advanced when they arose, far ahead of the other straits.

This constituted a problem, as they needed chalk intake to function. Food and drink proved the most reliable way to do this, as while their interface straits struggled to pull latent chalk from local space, their interpreter strait was far more capable at disassembling the patterned chalk in food into usable chalk for their bodily function. For this reason, the earliest Third Kin produced food and ate it, through various forms of agriculture and animal husbandry.

But a second problem arose; the fragility of their straits. In simply functioning, the early straits in the Third Kin suffered minor damage that compounded over time. This was a great concern as it applied to the memory and computational straits as well, and by virtue of simply existing, one suffered gradually worsening damage to cognitive function. As terrible a fate that this was, many realized soon enough that - left untasked - the straits gradually repaired themselves over time via passive reverse unravelling. As this process is hampered by being conscious, the Third Kin learned to sleep between periods of activity, using this downtime of no strait activity to heal and prepare for further activity later. Sleeping proved additionally useful as a means to pass time, such as when waiting for celestial weather conditions unfavorable for striding to pass.

The need for excretion arose as a consequence of excess calcic intake. While one could perfectly calculate a meal that would yield no calcic ‘waste’, this was done without accounting for the passive intake of chalk that occurred in the background - and accelerated under certain conditions such as when striding past, or operating on locales near, an armillary star. Excreting excess chalk was a means to purge it from the body, and prevent the worrisome health condition that is overwrite.

And over the generations of Third Kin, these functions became commonplace, and eventually, accommodations for them were built into the emerging cultures at the time; from bathrooms to bedtimes. They simply became an understood part of being, and little question was given to them.

And then, the lattices of the Third Kin began to change.

While there was no definite turning point, many suspect it was either around - or even caused by - the Refrain. These changes were subtle, but meaningful, and primarily it was observed that the Third Kin became far more capable at interacting with local calcic reality. The changes in the straits that occurred enabled the denizens of the Switchboard to take in chalk from the local environment and fold it in a manner that was so efficient that it mostly - in some cases thoroughly - eliminated the need to eat and excrete. Passive reverse unravelling became so capable that it eliminated the need for downtime and the restorative opportunity it presented as well.

The denizens of the Switchboard woke up one day and realized that they could subsist mostly off of latent chalk in the ambient environment and the heightened functionality of their straits. And as time passed and generations spawned, lived, grew old and passed on, the Third Kin only seemed to evolve in this regard, until the working of a subject’s straits became so capable that the need for food, sleep and passing waste was entirely eliminated. While their bodies were still capable of these functions, performing them wasn’t a matter of survival or even optimal functioning.

There is, however, a caveat to this; the passive weaving necessary to subsist without needing food or sleep was conditional upon possession of the Weave Protocol, and enhanced by possession of the Strider Protocol. As such, those lacking in these innate powers - the Vahnkin and particularly the Lancasters - have not had these become vestigial functions, and are instead still reliant on them for optimal function.

One might expect that the Switchboard Society would reorganize around these changes but… that simply was not the case. While the need for food and sleep vanished in the sense of their usefulness for preserving life, the cultural conventions of sleeping at certain times, eating at certain times, and sleeping and eating still remained. And above all, utility was obtained from sleeping and eating beyond merely living functions; eating being a hallmark of social gatherings and generally being an enjoyable thing to do, and sleeping being a way to pass less useful hours, restore the body more slowly from deeper damage, and again, just being enjoyable to do.

And so while these functions became vestigial - a holdover from early times - they and the implications of them persisted through generation after generation of Third Kin, leading many to conclude that they sill simply never truly be done away with. And so, denizens of the Switchboard do indeed still eat, sleep and pass waste products, even if they don’t really, really need to.

One exception to this however, is a certain brand of ‘Strider fanatic’ that prides themselves on explicitly refusing to perform these functions as a sign of, or in the bid to perform, some interpretation of their superiority over those who still do. Their strange brand of ascetism is mocked as fanaticism by many, but some do still look upon them with a strange kind of awe, as beings that have truly done the work in departing from the state of ‘human’; abandoning harmless, pleasurable things in service of higher ideals.

Nutrition

Some reason does exist to eat nonetheless.

Lattices are indeed made up of weft, but studies of that weft has revealed that the lattice has many different patterns of weft it uses in different places. Much like our own bodies have different tissues, the lattice has different patterns that are employed throughout the body. Some are hard and inflexible, others soft and dynamic, some resistant or welcoming to incident weft, all with various functions.

Reverse unravelling - for the purpose of repairing damage to the lattice - must thus account for the fact damage in different places has different approaches for repair. Innate reverse unravelling must repair damage sites with the exact lattice that was there to restore maximal function, otherwise healing would not be complete, and might have adverse effects such as loss of mobility or other functions. Outside of battlefield environments, the lattice’s own reverse unravelling can fabricate the needed weft to repair damage at specific sites. But within battle, or in the case of those who have weak unravelling reversal, restoring damage in this manner is nigh impossible.

The recourse, then, is eating. Switchboard physiologists theorize that the lattices of the early Third Kin gradually began to build themselves using the various patterns of weft obtained from consuming food in the environment, such that further consuming that food served to repair damage they incurred over the course of their lifespan. This holds true in the modern Switchboard and for the modern Third Kin, that consuming food directly supplies the lattice with the weft needed to repair damage at various sites of the body.

Persons such as the Lancasters who cannot weave chalk are thus dependent on eating to repair damage and build themselves. Others such as the Vahnkin who cannot weave chalk, and the arcology-dwelling Fel-Arcad who’s powers of weft have dulled over time are similarly disposed towards eating to maintain bodily integrity. Really on the Sil’khan can subsist entirely on calcic matter alone, their bodies outfitted for immense proficiency with unravelling reversal via the stride-dedicom and being born of the Danseers. That being said, they too are inclined to eat - and perhaps even more than all other great families - as their belief in having inherited the Switchboard makes them inclined towards enjoying all that there is within it, this naturally encompassing the sensations of taste and fullness that comes with eating. While nutrition nourishes the body, flavor and texture supplies sustenance to something just as important, and thus despite not needing to eat, many in the Switchboard still insist on quality food where accessible.

Breathing and Respiration

The denizens of the Switchboard need to breathe, but within some constraints and with some caveats.

Generally, air - itself being weft - is needed for proper physiological function of the lattice for denizens of the Switchboard, particularly in the case of those who lack the Weave Protocol. Much like nutrition discussed above, the weft pattern of air is utilized in the operation of the memory and computational straits - and frequently too - such that cessation of supply of this weft, be it via inhaling or the lattice folding chalk itself to produce it is eventually fatal. Those with the Weave Protocol and sufficient enough reverse unravelling can last much longer than others without it when starved of air, but very, very few are capable of functioning entirely without external supply.

The one major exception to this are those with the Strider Protocol. As an auxiliary function, the stride-dedicom strait passively weaves the needed pattern and supplies it to the lattice and the straits, and it does so at a rate such that Striders can survive indefinitely without external air supply - something very convenient considering the stride frequently sees them operating in environments where air is lacking - such as the upper atmospheres of planets - or outrightly absent - in the case of deep space. Supplying their own air allows them to function in this environments unaided and unhindered, and some are able to supply others with air via mouth-to-mouth procedures most typically.

Depthstriders are not so lucky; lacking the stride-dedicom, they cannot breathe and thus freely operate in space. Fortunately, the depthstride involves momentarily dipping below the Challenger Horizon into the Dark, where the air is breathable. Like swimming, they have moments of breathing air, followed by moments of anaerobic function. Lancasters are in similar straits, needing air to function optimally, without exceptions.

The Theory of Damage

Within the scope of Switchboard biology and physiology is the question of how the bodies of denizens of the Switchboard respond to damage. This has important implications in the discussion of disease and injury, and much of the content of this section was in fact, previously under Weave and Warfare. The Theory of Damage, then, seeks to cover this, via formalizing the understanding of the subject.

Lattice Interaction

Consider the following;

Pattern and ‘Ribbon’ Duality

Because all things in the Switchboard are made of patterned chalk, it helps to view objects (such as a piece of fruit) as an origami of chalk ‘paper’. When folded, it takes the form the name compels us to reasonably expect. However, when unfolded, a formerly three-dimensional object now becomes flat - chalk ribbons. These chalk ribbons still contain the information of the former three-dimensional object, needing only instructions on ‘folding’ to be supplied to restore them to their original form. This is the Pattern-Ribbon Duality.

A shirt can be reduced to a chalk ribbon containing all the information of that shirt. Same thing for a house plant, or a slice of bread, or a jet engine or skyscraper. Simple things like a pencil, complex constructs such as a silicon board - all can be reduced to their ribbon form, and interacted with in their ribbon form, which is the state at which most chalk interactions take place - down at the ribbon level. This allows us to neatly move into how chalk is interacted with.

Link to original

All interactions with chalk, as established, happens at the ribbon level. Lattices are not excluded from this, and as such, any discussion on how lattices sustain damage begins with how lattices interact with external chalk. Primarily, the interface lattice interacts with the chalk of the outside environment, and is the means by which subjects take in chalk and parse the nature of it. However, based on how chalk is woven, it is often commonplace that incident chalk strikes with the intent to cause damage. Depending on the nature of incident chalk, it can inflict two major superclasses of damage;

• Structural damage; that damages lattices at the macro level.
• Unravelling damage; that damages lattices at the ribbon level.

We shall address both.

Structural Damage

A visual analogy for the lattice of subjects in the Switchboard is to imagine three cords of clay woven into a singular braid and allowed to harden in that shape, such that it becomes rigid and strong. Structural damage would be if I struck that hardened clay braid with a hammer or knife, chipping and flaking pieces of it. This damage to the lattice is done primarily to the superficial crown and apical hardshell layers of the subject’s lattice.

How this physical damage manifests physically on a lattice is primarily dependent on the state of the flesh of the lattice - whether it is conventional flesh or has been calcified. Calcified flesh behaves more like solid stone, and regular flesh behaves as one would expect. Lacking blood however, struck Switchboard denizens do not bleed.

Conventional Flesh

Flesh being weaker weave is prone to being cut, impacted, pierced and peeled. Caedometric and breach attacks do the former two respectively, and perforant attacks do the third. Physically they are fairly simple to imagine, cuts manifesting as a grooved loss of material, impact damage being visible dents, piercing wounds boasting a parting of material and reveal of what’s beneath - almost as if in sheet metal or soft clay - where the damage was inflicted. Material losses and deformation can typically span the crown and apical hardshell layers without being a cause for major concern, though the damage to the interface straits within the superior recess would manifest in the computational strait as pain.

Peeling is a different form of damage caused by unravelling, elaborated upon further.

Calcified Flesh

The flesh of calcified denizens of the Switchboard manifests a bit differently. Due to the hardness of the material that now makes up much of their body, damage sustained interacts with it as one would expect physical damage to interact with solid marble.

A common grievance shared by those with calcified lattices is how visually vulnerable they are to scratches, scuffs, nicks and chips, caused by even minor physical damage inflicted to the calcified region, giving the subject the appearance of aged sculpted stonework, weathered by age and perhaps poor handling. Passively, this damage is regenerated by the subject’s internal mechanisms, and thus isn’t too great a concern for many.

As incident physical damage increases in severity, so too does the structural damage reflected on the calcified subject; cracks and fractures. Cracks are less severe, being only minor breaks in the continuity of the lattice material. Often they form around both powerful cuts from caedometric sources, or at the sites of breach damage. Fractures are a result of one of the ways calcification has been harnessed by the many afflicted by it; the calcified, plain-chalk chalkweave that makes up the bulk of the calcified mass is very suitable ground for modification with additional weave, and many choose it to grant it additional properties through ritualism. The most common, however, is a partially or total reweaving of the mass entirely; peeling back the weave, detangling it, and then weaving it back into stronger form much like multi-corded rope, then weaving this corded rope weave back into the limb. While this does lend the lattice considerable passive strength and resistance at no cost to the subject, it does mean that sufficient enough damage can cause a total discontinuity - a fracture - in the rigid structure - as it is, in a sense, braided stone. Perforant damage is particularly capable of inflicting fractures, followed by breach damage, as both are ample deliverers of sufficient kinetic force.

Splintering is another common form of damage sustained by those who have been calcified, manifesting as the rigid calcic structure being pulled or shorn wickedly in some fashion, resulting in sharp bits of upturned, fragmented material jutting from the site. It is also not uncommon for severe breaks to occur in the calcified structure, as well as for it to shatter entirely, should it fall victim to particularly critical incident damage. Repairing this damage generally requires retrieving lost material, particularly in the case of shattering.

Sustaining damage on calcified lattice also consistently yields a measure of dust chalk, suffused into the local environment. Often, tussles between particularly skilled chalkweavers results in dust piles left behind. This dust contains the patterns of the subject that shed it, and this fact is used frequently in the Switchboard’s own brand of forensics.

Unravelling Damage

Unravelling is a far more severe form of damage sustainable in the Switchboard. If one returns to the analogy of the braided stone cord, while structure damage can begin and end at merely cracking and chipping the structure, it still maintains its state as what it is under the rules of chalk. Unravelling, however, undoes the braiding, and thus transforms what once was to something entirely different. Done to structures such as the apical hardshell, the defense it provides is nullified entirely - and done to the straits, it is decidedly calamitous; even fatal.

Unravelling is particularly worrisome in that it is a disruptive process. The functioning of the straits and other critical ribbon components suffer greatly from unravelling damage, as the functions they perform are predicated upon the pattern of chalk ribbon that makes them up. Unravelling undoes the folding that makes these patterns - and not neatly as well - resulting in scattered ribbon, like knitting work that one has yanked at various threads within with reckless abandon. Unravelling is anti-order, and a certain form and amount of order is critical for the functionality of the straits and the overall subject.

Causes

The list of causes of unravelling is vast. Ordinarily structural damage sources often cause mild to even severe unravelling upon incidence, depending on the nature of the strike. One of the most common causes of unravelling is chalkweaving itself. Weaving constructs from chalk, as well as being struck by many kinds of calcic techniques inflict varying amounts of unravelling, the former being a major concern to frequent combatants in the Switchboard as it means that there is a limit to how much chalk they can weave before the self-inflicted damage to their lattice becomes dangerous to ignore.

The cause of this phenomena in particular - especially under the high pressure environment that is combat - is that those capable of weaving chalk must frequently perform various chalkweaving actions, and often they compromise the elegance of the act in favor of speed. The result of this is a loop of drawing chalk, weaving it, and then projecting it out into the world, that is all done with an element of ‘sloppiness’, which can result in part of the caster’s own lattice being used as material for chalkweave-reliant abilities. While this is ultimately a matter of skill difference from subject to subject, those who are less skilled - or more desperate and reckless - inflict unravelling upon themselves in the process.

Considering the risk that unravelling poses, it is often necessary for combatants in battle - after sustaining considerable unravelling - to cut back on using calcic abilities. Continuing to weave chalk recklessly while under the effects of considerable unravelling can cause a combatant to ‘undo’ themselves, tugging at some essential bit of supportive scaffolding in their lattice, and then collapsing to discordant ribbon like a suspension bridge with its cords snapped.

Inductive weave in particular is a common cause of unravelling, and particularly one of the worst, as it can propagate itself deep into the lattice past the hardshell layers and do considerable damage.

Celestial phenomena such as the armillary stars radiate raw calcic force that bombards the lattice and causes pattern to come undone at the seems. Hyperweave does similar, as the churning compressed chalk can rip and tear through lattices caught near it in seconds.

Far more esoteric sources of unravelling exist, caused by other phenomena such as offensive ledgerial space techniques, certain phenomena relating to the Void, and the truly terrible glass that ‘perfects’ lattices into wholly unusable states.

Classes

It is also worth soft-classifying types of unravelling inflicted to denizens of the Switchboard;

• Type-1 Unravelling encompasses much of the self-inflicted unravelling inflicted to a subject, and generally refers to far less severe unravelling in general. Unravelling accumulated from using lesser techniques, mildly harmful atmospheric conditions, or even weaker attacks does only T1 Unravelling. Additionally, unravelling inflicted to the ‘outer edges’ of the lattice - such as the superficial crown - is generally T1 Unravelling, as this is fairly easy to repair, akin to painting over a scuff with sealant.

• Type-2 Unravelling is a far more significant form of unravelling, and is generally inflicted by considerable disruptive forces such as armillary stars, hostile environments, and various attacks and abilities. This damage is proportionately more disruptive, and sufferers of it must employ proportionately advanced measures to recover from the damage. Extensive T1 damage can graduate to T2 under circumstances.

• Type-3 or Type-V Unravelling isn’t a ‘true’ form of unravelling, and instead describes the effect inflicted on a lattice that is being perfected by Glass. This damage is immensely difficult to recover from, and is often simply fatal instead.

Damage Recovery

Also relevant to the Theory of Damage is how damage is healed. The physiology of the denizens of the Switchboard has made it such that the conventional manners of healing don’t apply, and instead new interactions must occur that account for the weave that constitutes the Switchboard’s peoples.

As established, structural and unravelling damage forms define the kinds of damage sustained by denizens of the Switchboard. While structural damage is a far easier problem to deal with, unravelling is a tougher customer. Unravelling damage is sustained by the lattice and thus affects the subject of that damage at the ribbon level. Unravelling, ultimately, is the disruption of the lattice, which exists as an orderly structure, and whose simpler and advanced functions - calcic ones in particular - are reliant on this orderliness being preserved.

In a sense then, ‘reversing unravelling’ is what counts as healing techniques in the Switchboard and for its denizens. Reversing unravelling allows for recovering from damage or extensive casting faster, allowing a combatant to stay longer in a fight, or recover quickly from the strain of one battle in anticipation of the next.

A foundational mechanic upon which reversing unravelling is built upon has been established earlier; the memory strait maintaining a sort of print of the lattice’s overall shape and constitution. This is necessary, because all unravelling damage done introduces a discrepancy between the current state of the lattice, and the stored blueprint in the memory strait, and as such, any healing done is done with the aim of eliminating this discrepancy - that is, reconciling the lattice and the blueprint of it.

Denizens of the Switchboard with the Weave Protocol are able to passively recover from damage via Information Affinity. By merely being present in a calcic environment, chalk can be accumulated and used to repair superficial or Type-1 Unravelling inflicted to a subject. Employing the active information draw to suffuse the lattice can repair the damage faster. In this case, latent chalk is passed directly from the potential strait to the interface strait, applying something of a fine dusting of chalk across the entire lattice, instead of targeting specific damaged areas.

More considerable damage, such as Type-2 and Type-3 Unravelling, require more advanced methods.

More involved repair of the lattice makes use of all Five Straits, though to varying degrees; the computational, memory and interface straits see the most use, with the interpreter and potential straits seeing fairly less. As such, the general efficiency with which these straits can function has a direct effect on how quickly a subject can repair unravelling damage under certain conditions.

The potential strait takes in chalk and passes it to the interpreter, which passes the suitable, unharnessed chalk to the computational. The computational then assesses the damage done to the lattice, computes the necessary folding that must be done to repair it using the memory strait’s lattice ledger as a guide, and then passes this folded weave to the interpreter strait, that suffuses it at the needed locations throughout the lattice. By this methodology, unravelling damage - especially Type-2 Unravelling damage - is repaired.

This, however, is the algorithm for repairing unravelling damage that has been developed over the processions of the Third Kin’s existence in the Switchboard, and they evolved these mechanisms to deal with - primarily - the bottom 99th percentile of what crosses the threshold of being counted as Type-2 damage. This repair algorithm isn’t particularly suitable in active combat, as it is simply too slow, and occupies operational cycles on the Straits that need to be kept vacant for the act of doing combat to begin with. As such, denizens developed various techniques to repair unravelling damage, these being Reverse Unravelling Techniques.

Additional Notes

Some additional notes on the topic.

Spatial and Negentropic Damage

The Void and glass inflict unique damage on lattices in the Switchboard, deserving of their own category for discussion.

Spatial The damage inflicted by raw space manipulation manifests differently based on it’s application. Used to smash and bludgeon, the layers of lattice are broken and compressed, flattened into each other such that the matter of higher strata is integrated into the matter below it. Hardshell plating infiltrating the motive layer of lattices is particularly worrisome, as it greatly curtails the ability for the lattice to move. This paralyzing effect is hard to repair without robust unravelling reversal. A far more lethal application of space manipulation, however, is using it to strip a target of their material by manipulating space within their body. While terribly difficult to do, executed even crudely it is the equivalent of detonating an explosive charge within flesh, and the rapid expansive motion is devastating to a target.

The Void-originating siphon damage, however, often peels material right off of the top-layer lattice, while leaving behind violet scarring as a testament to its effects. This scarring affects lattice flesh and calcified flesh both, with the effects more visible on calcified flesh due to it usually being white in color. Many consider it to be considerably worse a form of injury compared to unravelling, as the abject loss of material means healing requires restoration of that material and weaving it back into shape. Stardrip functions in this manner, caustically stripping lattices of material like acid, dissolving it into discordant liquefied information.

Negentropic Incidence with glass is often catastrophically fatal. Physically, glass is like liquid razor blades, ripping through lattice as it metamorphizes it into more of itself, propagating as jagged struts that explode outwards in all directions. Were this glass’ only quality, strong reverse unravelling and an ample amount of time would be sufficient for recovery, but that is not the case. In addition to spearing through the lattice, it reforms what it devours into perfected chalkweave - further glass - and it is this that makes glass so dangerous. Reverse unravelling would require undoing this glass into the weft that was spun into it, and this is nigh impossible. Without physical removal, glass will annihilate most lattices it comes in contact with, making it decidedly fatal.

Even if glass is survived, the damage it does is often permanent, especially if it reaches the straits. Damage to the straits is uniquely difficult to repair, and damage to the computational, memory and stride-dedicom manifest as greatly reduced cognitive function, akin to sustaining damage to the brain for us.

Medicine and Pharmacology

Relevant to the discussion is how the science of medicine exists and functions in the Switchboard. While one might think that the proliferation of reverse unravelling techniques might have eliminated the need for any kind of medicine as we understand it, there is a bit more nuance to the matter.

Ailments and Disease

Phenomena in the Switchboard being necessarily a product of calcic interaction means that disease and any equivalent must be a disruption occurring at the ribbon level. For this reason, disease is primarily calcic weave that enters the lattice and causes damage in one way or another. Most diseases are inductive in nature, allowing them to propagate from subject to subject, as well as propagate throughout the lattice, enabling them to spread to the parts of the lattice they attack.

In our world, the ailments we suffer are primarily a result of the natural processes of other living beings. In the Switchboard, most disease-causing weave isn’t ‘live’ in the same manner as the Third Kin are for example, instead simply being weave that destructively integrates itself into other weave.

Diagnosis

Determination of the nature of affliction levied against a subject in the Switchboard is generally done via applying the Weavesight. However, Weavesight proficiency varies from subject to subject, and as thus, various other tools and methods are employed, such as Slate-aided analysis, chalk ritualism, other senses such as touch and smell and even taste, taking internal samples, the like. Gleaned insight can be crosschecked with previously built knowledge banks, enabling swift and accurate diagnoses.

Consider this analogy; the damage done to a wool sweater by it getting caught on brambles differs visibly from the damage done to it by sharp knife, or a hand haphazardly pulling strings out of weave, or a burn left by contact with a hot pressing iron. Striders and their lattices are much like that wool sweater, and someone with experience or a guide can take a glance at the damage and reach a fairly accurate conclusion of the cause.

Natural Immunity and Pharmacology

Below, the topics of the immune system analogue and medicine/pharmacology in the Switchboard are discussed.

The Immune System

Much of the damage done to the lattice manifests as unravelling, including the damage done by various inductive effects. For this reason, combating encroaching inductive effects, as well as repairing the damage done by them, is primarily through reversing unravelling.

Outside of the far more active or consciously used Reverse Unravelling Techniques practiced by denizens of the Switchboard, the straits perform their own passive unravelling reversal to heal damage, the efficacy of this varying from subject to subject. It functions primarily by the interface strait passing information on the nature and location of the damage within the lattice to the computational strait, the computational strait referencing this ‘map’ of damage with the ‘map’ of the entire lattice cached in the memory strait, and then employing restorative mechanisms via weaving chalk, or using equations that exist to tackle the specific kind of damage in question to rectify it.

Of course, it can be the case that encroaching inductive weave is too swift or widespread to be tackled quickly enough by the passive restorative mechanism, and as such, the subject must suffer damage as well as conditions brought on by the nature of the encroaching weave.

Advanced Reverse Unravelling Techniques greatly outstrips the potential of the passive system, and are relied upon in more extreme circumstances to rectify damage, such as in combat.

Outside of combat however, and in the case of certain, more complex kinds of ailment, the necessity to take medicine may arise.

Medicine

Medicine in the Switchboard has two key aims;

• Accelerate and enhance the speed and function of a subject’s own passive unravelling reversal, particularly in the case of their not having reverse unravelling techniques.
• Attack the source and effects of an ailment directly, by employing reverse equations.

The second point is the one we shall stress in this discussion, as it has to do with one of the ramifications of the mechanics of the verse;

pNarrat: ‘Reverse’ Equations

In reality, there is no such thing. A ‘reverse’ equation is merely an equation. The ‘reverse’ prefix is merely appending a modifier to it that denotes its nature relative to something else.

Consider this hypothetical; suppose a chalk equation denoted by ‘E123’ can fold A, B and C into D, how does one get A, B and C back from D? Equation E123 only works in one direction, and there is no means to put D back into E123 to get A, B and C. What is needed is an equation that specifically does this - a hypothetical E321, for example - that can take D and fold it into A, B and C. Further complicating things, there is no way to get E321 from E123.

E321 in this example, is the reverse equation of E123. This example makes it amorphous how useful a reverse equation actually is, but to give a more complex example, if it were possible to obtain equations and reverse equations by merely studying the lattice makeup of any one thing, you could unravel just about anything into ribbon chalk, and that fold it back together into what it initially was. This could give you - for example - an entire jumpship in your back pocket, as ribbon chalk occupies considerably less space than the result of its folding.

More practically however, reverse equations would allow for the near-perfect deconstruction of material phenomena. If an incoming projectile struck armor plating imbued with a reverse equation that mirrors the equation that would have formed that projectile, on impact that projectile can be reduced to mere chalk, surrendering all of its otherwise effectiveness in an instant. Expanded outwards, the usefulness of such a thing is nearly boundless.

It is somewhat good then, that there is no real way to acquire or fabricate reverse equations. They cannot be obtained from regular equations - which are themselves already hard to find - and the calcic writ of them is so rare in emerging spontaneously and possessed of such finnicky structural soundness that even if the various slot machines that govern the on-goings of the Switchboard did indeed yield a deluge of reverse equations every other day, spread over the space of the Switchboard and the time of its tenure, they would still be incredibly difficult things to find.

That being said a break in this rule is via the usage of the rule-defying glass of the Vitric Shelf, specifically in the application of the nullscope, a device intended to - if it existed - obtain categorical, ledgerial truth from pure vacuum. The nullscope would allow for obtaining just about any reality from the depths of the Ledgerial Current, including reverse equations.

As such, searching for and cataloguing reverse equations is a major interest for many in the Switchboard, as the ability to transmute things directly from one less desirable form to a more desirable one has appeal that is clear to anyone who ponders it long enough. Many dream of finding the reverse equation that would allow them to negate the powers of some other great being in the Switchboard, and thus allow for reaping the praximechanical benefits that come from doctrinal conquest.

For the time being however, the reverse equations that have been found see usage in the creation of medicines and defensive utilities in the Switchboard.

Link to original

The relevance of this to medicine is that nearly every ailment in the Switchboard functions by using an equation to fold the lattice of a victim into some other form, causing damage to the lattice. But it follows then, that were there a way to employ a reverse equation that matches a certain equation, much like an antivenom against venom, it would be possible to swiftly and effectively reverse the damage caused by a given ailment.

pNarrat: Floral Cures

So where are these reverse equations then? As a note of narrative flavor, I have chosen to have the Switchboard’s various ailments ‘paired’ with entries in its horticultural alphabet, this alphabet being pitched and described in Switchboard Flora. For nearly every disease and the equation that allows it to do its damage, there is a flower in the horticultural alphabet that - via processing or calcic equations - yields the reverse equation for countering the equation of the ailment in question.

Additionally, knowledge of these reverse equations allows the the computational strait to fight the next onset of the disease should it ever arise again, weaving in the reverse equation into the passive reverse unravelling, this serving as the analogue to our own immune system, that can handle threats again after being exposed to them once.

There are however some caveats to the efficacy of this, as any phenomena that attacks the memory strait may cause one to lose accumulated immunities, and slight skews to the equations of diseases might make them slightly more resistant to the reverse equations of the un-skewed original (a disease equation ‘E1234’ becoming ‘E1235’, making it somewhat resistant to the reverse equation ‘E4321’ as ‘E5321’ would have been the perfect mirror).

Ailments of the Mind

It is paramount that denizens of the Switchboard work to protect their straits from all manners of errant weft that might damage them. In particular, the computation and memory straits make up the entirety of the person as it is understood, and damage or compromise to either of these manifests in a number of ways.

Mental ailments in the Switchboard are ultimately a product of the computational and/or memory straits being interfered with in manners undesirable to the subject in question. What can cause this varies, but the foremost include more overt damage from calcic phenomena such as the armillary star radiance, physical damage from accidents and combat, and direct interference by sentient entities such as the mindspun. Glass is known to have a similar effect as well - should the subject survive it - with scintillate usage even in proper ways also being notorious for causing damage to cognitive faculties. Some damage can even be inherited from parentage or from the current.

Mental ailments manifest in practice in varying ways, much like in our own canon. And similarly, rectifying them is no simple task. While various therapeutic measures have been devised, and some are remarkably effect, the ways in which the straits can break are innumerable, and not all have simple recourse. For many, their path forward is one of endless management, and the shape this takes can vary from endlessly checking one’s self, to checking out of wider Switchboard society as whole.

Invasive Medicine

On occasion, the needs of medicine may demand that a subject and their lattice be cut open, and procedures take place directly within the stuff of their matter. What may prompt this are many, but are easily summarized as a need to evacuate something in the lattice that shouldn’t be there.

Breaching the lattice requires a variety of tools, and sustaining the life of a subject while their lattice has been opened is accomplished usually via the calcic ritualism. Reverse unravelling is often sufficient for repairing the damage caused by invasive methods once the work is complete.

The primary causer of circumstances where invasive surgery is needed is glass. While there are various other methods for dealing with other invaders to the lattice, glass scorns all of them, and the only means of getting rid of glass that has gotten into a lattice is splitting a fellow down the middle and fishing it out by force.

Physiological Conditions in the Switchboard

A bank of older resources on the physiological conditions and ailments that might afflict a subject in the Switchboard. These entries are fairly old, and will be expanded upon at a later date.

• Overwrite: replacement of the useful information in a Strider’s lattice by junk/random chalk, often caused by lattice bombardment by high-intensity chalk sources such as a armillary star. Causes loss of information in the form of memories or weakened abilities.

• Depthburn: violet, burn-like scarring caused by encounters with the Challenger Dark. Prevents the normal operation of the ribbon through those areas.

• Calcification: the transmutation of flesh lattice into pure chalk. Common amongst Striders that frequently interact with pure chalk, such as using rituals and drinking from wellsprings. This isn’t necessarily a negative ailment, as under some circumstances it is more desirable to have a lattice made of pure chalk.

• Starblight: Inflicted by repeated exposure to the light of armillary stars while the subject is moving at very high velocity - such as via the Strider Protocol - manifesting as uniquely complex chalkweave on the lattice of a Strider, which is both difficult to physically remove as well and taxing for the Five Straits to assimilate. When accumulated, it wears out the regenerative cycles performed by a Strider’s Five Straits and causes a subtle but cumulatively-noteworthy reduction in life expectancy.

pNarrat: ‘Slow’

Legacy writ; subject to later revision.

Through various means, it is possible for Striders to lose the ability to Stride. This is usually by the corruption or decay of the Strider Protocol. Though it is most known for losing the ability to Stride, becoming ‘Slow’ leads to the decay of other information abilities.

Cause The most common cause of Slow is age. As Striders take in, manipulate, generate, expel and general immerse themselves in information, bits of the Strider Protocol get partially overwritten with jargon. Its effectiveness begins to decay, beginning with an increase in the launch threshold that must be exceeded to begin Striding, coupled with a reduction in information affinity. Continued use of the Strider Protocol causes further decay, until Striding is nearly impossible or too unsafe to attempt. The life span of a Strider correlates with the integrity of their Strider Protocol. Very active Striders typically live for fifty to seventy years.

Artificially induced Slow is caused mainly by corruption of the Strider Protocol. Exposure to Glass via the Instrument Six is the most common culprit, and more extreme versions of I-6 seize the ability to Stride permanently. Exposure to immense amounts of chalk (such as approaching a Star or accumulating too much Latent Chalk) can overwrite bits or all of the Strider Protocol, much like blasting the paint off a surface with high velocity abrasive powder.

Additionally, esoteric rituals exist that can break the Strider Protocol, as well as Teks and Relics.

Effects In addition to the loss of the ability to Stride, Striders swiftly lose access to other information abilities as well. Their proficiency with using Chalk deteriorates, disallowing them from using rituals effectively. Teks are usually the first to go as this deterioration takes place, followed by the ability to effectively use Relics and Strider Wayfinding equipment.

Beyond losing information powers, the corruption and decay of information and equations typically begins producing faults in the Strider’s own information, manifesting as more conventional ailments. Chronic fatigue, mental dullness, low response speeds to stimuli, and loss of motor functions are what earned it the name ‘Slow’, as those afflicted become slow in every sense of the word.

Further deterioration results in the mind reaching a fairly vegetative state. Organ failure happens in a number of cases. Avoiding death requires intensive life support, though most Striders opt for physician-assisted suicide.

Treatment None so far exist.

It is suspected that a ritual can reverse the effects of corruption, but it has not been discovered or developed.

Perception Striders as a whole dread becoming Slow.

The loss of the Strider Protocol in particular is so terrible because of Strider’s deification of speed. Speed colors all aspect of Strider life. This is best further explored in The Doctrine of Passing.

In general, the slow are regarded as people who are already dead. Other Striders gradually distance themselves from a Strider known to be close to their demise, as it becomes more and more certain that a Strider afflicted with Slow is unable to keep up and participate in activities carried out by other Striders.

Stars and Skin

Lacking melanin, what explains the differences in skin tone between inhabitants of the Switchboard? Considering that armillary stars bombard space with raw, violent, radiant chalk, what effect does this have on the kin below? This heading aims to handle both of these questions.

The first is a rather simple one; the superficial crown layer of a lattice is arguably its first line of defense from the outside world, and any weft that ultimately makes it to the interface straits in the strata below must first pass through the crown. The constant bombardment of calcic radiance introduces far more chalk than is actually needed by the lattice for its functions, and thus a defense mechanism has emerged over time to shield the lower layers from excess murderous sunshine; weaving it into color. As calcic radiance strikes the superficial crown, passes through and almost reaches the interface strait, it is captured and woven into chromatic weft which is then deposited on the superficial crown. This manifests as denizens of the Switchboard darkening with excess armillary exposure, but also reducing the risk of overwrite posed by excess free chalk in their lattices.

When given respite from armillary bombardment, this color weft tends to be broken down by the subject’s reverse unravelling, and assimilated at a much slower and safer pace, resulting in the subject returning to their ‘original’ color; the one dictated by their genetic backbone weft.

The second question has two answers tackled briefly above; overwrite and starblight. Overwrite refers to a far more general condition caused by excessive intake of chalk by the interface straits, such that it spills over and adversely affects the functionality of other straits, most commonly by ‘overwriting’ the contents of the memory and computational straits - hence the name - resulting in induced forgetting of memories, as well as the loss of compute weft such as equations needed for folding chalk in various ways. Armillary stars can cause overwrite, but it is fairly uncommon as they don’t throw out so much chalk as to be immediately dangerous, and overwrite tends to be defined by a sudden surge of the amount of chalk present in a lattice.

Starblight is more related to the topic, and it is where the armillary stars pose a much greater risk. Starblight is the result of a praximechanical interaction between armillary stars and a lattice moving with immense velocity, the result of which being a unique, worryingly complex form of weft that is deposited and accumulates within the lattice, often just below the superficial crown. The more immediate problem it poses is the fact it makes the sufferer calcically heavier, meaning that the accumulation of starblight must be factored in to jaunts made with the Strider Protocol.

Where it is truly dangerous however, is in its removal. It takes considerably more out of a subject’s straits to unwind starblight back into regular chalk and subsume it into the lattice, so much so that is over time it tangibly shortens the lifespans of frequent sufferers. It is largely believed to be the cause of the Sil’khan having the lowest life expectancy of all the Great Families, as their culturally-appropriate ‘overuse’ of the Strider Protocol relative to other families means that they are inflicted with it far more frequently. The difficulty in unwinding starblight comes from the fact it is praximechanical and thus astrolabic in nature, and thus trying to destroy it is much like opposing the very laws written in space that make the Switchboard function. That the kin can heal from it all is by all metrics a testament to the profundity of their shapes.

The most effective means to heal from starblight is unfortunately only available to the Sil’khan; drinking from the vital waters of an aged wellspring. Kin of other families have to be wary of it if they live lives that involve quite a lot of rapid travel near stars, and the Vahnkin in particular are greatly harmed by starblight accumulation in their personage.

On Fluids

The current writ of calcic physiology functions entirely without need for producing, storing, utilizing or disposing of any fluids - a non-trivial contrast to our own bodily system that makes extensive use of a litany of biological fluids for an equally long list of processes, relating to movement of nutrients and disposal of waste, protection of important body parts, insulating against the rougher edges of physics, and facilitating reproductive processes. The global permeability of calcic mechanics have - mostly - eliminated or assumed the role of these functions, but as the caveat would imply, not totally.

Much of the issue comes from a matter of narrative flavor. We bleed when we’re injured, sweat when we’re strained or nervous, cry when we’re sad, angry or joyous. Fluid plays an essential part of evoking the expected emotion that the actions tied to it are meant to in a hypothetical reader. We understand a physical blow is serious when it draws blood, because we know what it takes and what it means to draw blood. The same for shedding tears; we realize what it takes to reach a point when one’s emotion is worn so explicitly on their face.

That the current physiological model of the denizens of the Switchboard sees them unable of expressing these things is a loss on the narrative front, as it makes their eventual expression of these things seem incomplete - perhaps even alien - that the most beaten Strider never bleeds, and the most broken Strider never weeps.

That being said, there is a case to be made that this relative inhumanity of denizens of the Switchboard, particularly Striders, is a core concept around which they are built, outlined somewhat exhaustively in The Doctrine of Passing. This point is elaborated upon further.

The resolution of this issue was fairly straightforward then; the re-realization of calcic physiology as requiring fluid in some capacity.

Nettare

My proposal, as such, is the existence of a nigh-universal-function fluid known as nettare. Nettare is a fluid that saturates the lattices of the Third Kin exclusively, and is a calcic solution of the computational and interface straits as well as calcic weave that is resistant to incident shock, such as strikes and blows. The former quality facilitates various functions within the lattice, such as targeted chalkweaving, as well as moving calcic pattern around the lattice. Nettare is in particular the driver of passive reverse unravelling that is a quality of Third Kin lattices, as the nettare permeates the lattice and thus is always at the site of any injury. The latter quality, resistance to shock, is a product of microstructural weft within the solution, that respond to incident physical force and alter their structure into a more rigid one, to better defend against it. For this reason, nettare is found in large quantities in the ender fossa where the Five Straits - other than the interface strait - are stored.

Each Great Family in the Switchboard has differently-colored nettare, and it serves as a fairly useful indicator of one’s heritage. The backbone weave that shapes the many natures of one’s lattice, working in tandem with the computational strait, weaves this nettare into being, deciding its composition and color accordingly.

They also do double duty as narratively significant with regards to our interpretations of the meaning of color.

Nettare Coloration

The nuances regarding the various colors of nettare found in the denizens of the Switchboard.

• The Sil’khan - Burnished Gold
  • Born of the Danseers and thus the closest to their divinity, the Sil’khan in the Switchboard are well know for the similar power they wield, post they occupy, and for the gold nettare that drips from their cuts when wounded and eyes when anguished. For many, it is not lost on them that the nettare of the Sil’khan and the barristeel that makes up the Astrolabe share nearly identical hues.
• The Lancasters - Red
  • Perhaps the most like us in our world due to their lack of the Strider and Weave Protocols, the Lancasters shed scarlet red. Many Lancaster movements feature faces crying the rosy red, expressing their anguish at their post. They have come to practice a fierce tribalism around their nettare, reveling in their identity.
• The Fel-Arcad - Blue & Varying
  • Associated with intelligence and wisdom as well as calmness and serenity, the Fel-Arcad have exercised the former pair to large extent to achieve the latter. The Fel - with their penchant for treating their bodies as canvases - have however chosen to take different colors for their nettare as they see fit, adopting particularly floral colors such as varying shades of green, yellow, violet, red, orange and more as they see fit.
• The Vahnkin - Purple
  • The color of aristocracy and of all things amaranthine, the Vahnkin seem to have the liquid stardrip flowing through their lattices, and bleed the remnants of a night sky when struck. Their nettare is known to change shades based on their conviction in the things of the Void, and dark-nettared Vahnkin apostolics are a rare, fearful sight in the Challenger Dark.
• Intermingling - Varies

  • The spawn of mingling between members of the Great Families has the final color of the nettare determined by the most dominant of the backbone weave that mingles to produce the final descendant. Determining the ‘dominant’ of backbone lattice is a product of numerous factors, the most foremost being the purity of the backbone weave and which passed on more weft to the final descendant. A descendant born from a pure-nettared Fel-Arcad, but inherited all manners of memories, the Strider and Weave Protocols and a tek from their other parent, is far more likely to have nettare of gold. It is worth noting, however, that Lancaster backbone weft exhibits and uncanny ability to supersede the weft of other families, such that mixed progeny that have a Lancaster parent tend to always lean more Lancaster in shape.

  • That being said, the phenomenon of ‘flecking’ is fairly common, where colored flecks of the weaker color ‘stain’ the stronger. This descendant would thus have their gold flecked with the rich Fel blue.

  • Further refinement of one’s own doctrines - especially if they align with the doctrines of one parent’s family over another, can cause the color of the nettare to shift in that parent’s direction accordingly. So if our hypothetical descendant began favoring the principles of the Fel-Arcad, even their original gold nettare will over time be overrun by the Fel’s blue.

Nettare Physiological Mechanics

To fully realize nettare however, we must look at what nettare seeks to replace and thus do physiologically. Resolving this issue began with first acquiring a list of the various fluids the body produces, and categorizing them along certain lines, as follows;

Class 1 - Narratively Significant

• Blood
• Saliva
• Sweat
• Tears
• Urine

Class 2 - Reproductive

• Semen
• Vaginal secretions
• Milk
• Amniotic fluid

Class 3 - Droppable

• Bile
• Gastric juices (stomach acid)
• Synovial fluid (found in the joints)
• Cerumen (earwax)
• Mucus
• Cerebrospinal fluid

Class 1, the narratively significant fluids, are so-called due to their visual significance in narrative. Shedding blood to indicate injury, sweating from exhaustion or tension, tears from strong emotion, spitting, using the bathroom, all are fairly familiar bits of the human experience that translate over to narrative to evoke certain feelings in a reader.

Regarding their actual physiological significance though, nettare containing the computational strait makes it - nettare - capable of folding chalk under certain conditions, these conditions being the concentration of the nettare and the subject matter at hand.

• Dilute nettare - as it is commonly diluted with either water or oil - that encounters food serves a similar function to saliva, in that it begins the ‘digestive’ process, resolving food into various constituent property-weft, this giving the sense of taste. Additionally, those without sufficiently enhanced Weavesight can use their sense of taste to glean information about anything placed in the mouth, though this is a skill more commonly used by younger denizens of the Switchboard, and dulls in power as one’s weavesight grows.

  • Nettare can either be water or oil-based, that being what it uses as its suspension media. Traditionally, nettare is water-based, but as a physiological response to calcification, oil is used as it serves as a better lubricant to the now hard, stone-like, calcified flesh-analogue that makes up the analogue. In addition to this, secretions of thin oil-nettare upon the superficial crown of the lattice gives it a sheen that gives the impression of the subject being polished as though they were stonework, a look that some in more esoteric circles view as highly enrapturing.

• Sweat and tears are released primarily as a response to stimuli that can be categorized as ‘painful’. As nettare is what facilitates the internal reverse unravelling inherent to lattices, releasing it on the face and body works to begin damage repair on the outside, outermost layers of the lattice, these being the superficial crown and the apical hardshell, though to a lesser extent. It can perhaps be said that the lattice fails to differentiate between physical and emotional stresses, and as such it wouldn’t makes sense for a denizen of the Switchboard to begin sweating at the reception of bad news. However, it is more so that reverse unravelling restores the lattice back to a baseline, and this baseline is usually one of physical as well as mental healthiness. Sweated nettare often permeates back into the lattice, allowing for a totality of healing throughout a subject. Specific parts of the lattice, upon sustaining superficial damage, secrete nettare to repair that damage. Nettare shed as tears seep back into the face, and soothe the computational strait that serves as the seat of the psyche.

• Nettare functions as blood in that it permeates the entire lattice and works to move materials around. Having bits of the interface strait in the solution of it makes it capable of moving patter throughout the lattice, and it can even undergo minor, preliminary folding from the computational strait within the solution as well, before being completed upon arriving at the final destination in the lattice. Nettare also fills the cavity of the motive framework later of the lattice, giving it structure and preventing it from collapsing in on itself, while serving as an extra protective layer against incident shock, due to microscopic weft substructure within, that react in opposition to force. This additionally means that typically, a denizen of the Switchboard only begins to ‘bleed’ when an attack penetrates the apical hardshell, all other attacks that fail to do so only inflicting damage outlined in the ‘Theory of Damage’ section that follows this one in the document. This serves as a fairly useful indicator of the relative strength and thus danger presented by an attack, as if one realizes they are shedding nettare, then whatever hits them is capable of breaching the first and foremost defenses afforded their lattice.

• Urine is primarily a means of getting rid of excess accumulated nettare. Under certain conditions, the lattice can begin producing more nettare - or increasing the concentration of existing nettare in the lattice - as a response to certain phenomena. In battle, for example, nettare saturates the lattice and concentrates to accelerate reverse unravelling, while also being lost to the environment via sweating that isn’t followed by re-absorption back into the lattice. The lattice doesn’t require immensely concentrated nettare to function, as the support substructures and the straits within the nettare solution can cause tangible, physical obstruction to one’s mobility when concentrated. Urination is a swift way of disposing of excess nettare, much faster than the computation strait unravelling it back into chalk to store in the potential strait.

The Class 3 or ‘droppable’ fluids are those whose functions have been sufficiently been taken over by other facets of calcic physiology, and thus are thoroughly deprecated, not truly being re-realized as full analogues.

The Class 2 fluids, relating to reproductive processes, are replaced by nettare, functioning in a manner wholly identical to their counterparts.

pNarrat: Nectar

While called nettare here, in translation to canon it is referred to as ‘nectar’.

Where ‘blood’ would have been used, ‘nectar’ is instead. Linguistics are adjusted accordingly.

The implications of it as being something sweet and drunk by various kinds of living being immediately comes to mind, which might raise questions about this choice, especially considering that it might imply there is something that drinks the very life-blood of the Third Kin. Something that, in a sense, preys upon them.

I assure you that these implications are wholly intended.

pNarrat: The Kin-shape

The conclusion of this document didn’t initially exist, but it became mandatory to create it after the vision of this document of design was parsed in perfect clarity. So here it is.

Samsara is the culmination of many visions. I use ‘vision’ here rather loosely; less so in the sense of inspirational idealistic futures worth striving for, and more so in the sense of liking how something - usually an idea or motif or such - was or sounded, and wanting to build towards realizing that in Samsara and the world of the Switchboard. This document on physiology of denizens of the Switchboard is very much downstream of a vision had in the early iterations of Project Samsara, a vision that entailed distinct physiological divides between those who can Stride and Weave, and the rest.

The initial shape of this vision was one less constrained by the mechanical realities of the universe as they simply did not yet exist. As such, I could realize my first draft of the Chalkstriders with very little by way of limits upon the scope. You might have actually read how this vision looked already, particularly if you’ve read Family Addendums (the section being referenced was initially in The Doctrine of Passing);

And so we can then ask ourselves a final question, what is the shape of a wielder of the Strider Protocol? Ravenously hungry. Its hands and feet are alabaster-white from processions of drinking from the Wellsprings. Between its fingers, under its skin, in its hands - is terrible power and control over the world around it. It moves fast - incredibly so - in any and all contexts. Like an idol in an abandoned shrine, it is incredibly lone in its existence, even if there are many like it. It is a paragon, an emblem of some terrifying doctrine, that makes deities out of ordinary, starry-eyed, dreaming men. It is anti-human and yet terribly human in some perverted way. It burns bright and yet cold, and it dies like a distant star. And from its corpse do newborns like it arise, vocal in what their paragon represented, often violent, but always steadfast.

The first drafts of the physiology of Striders was inspired in part by the fact both the Strider and Weave Protocols inflicted passive but marked physiological changes in those that bore them, namely calcification. Merely having the powers made them slowly lose their flesh in favor of the alabaster white of chalk, and further usage of calcic powers and indulgence in calcic things - striding, weaving, drinking from wellsprings, performing rituals - would accelerate this calcification until one’s whole body - beginning with the extremities - gradually transformed into a sort of animated statue; mobile marble.

‘Animated marble’ was the core motif that drove the initial vision of Striders. Their practice of chalkweaving gradually transformed them from warm, soft, fleshy things into cold, hard stone. The Strider Protocol’s most poignant effect beyond merely the power it granted was that it placed an almost insurmountable distance between those who had it and those that didn’t, in that there is a way that Striders can move that others can not. This distance was primarily physical, but it would come to take on an emotional component as well, as the stride put distance between parties that never truly vanished even during moments where they occupied the same place. There was always the lingering sense that in an eyeblink, a beloved person could be across the cosmos, and there was no guarantee if and when they’d ever return.

The gradual calcification of those who wielded chalk as a power was another angle of this, that even when a Strider returned from their grand sojourns, it was immediately clear that it had changed them. It began with the hands and feet; the slowly encroaching calcification that immediately puts distance between a Strider and their non-Strider kin by taking away the certainty that the hands of the person-shaped form you are holding is actually a person’s at all. There is a deep desire to believe so, but you grasp cold marble where flesh once was, and you feel it suck the warmth and chafe the skin of your hands. But we tend to forgive those we care about, and so you go in instead for a hug, and relish the feeling of where flesh still is. But the calcification spreads and spreads quickly, and fingers and feet become arms and legs. Soon, there is nothing left to grasp that isn’t cold stone possessed of the eerie capacity to move as though something living lurks underneath.

It doesn’t help that the physical calcification isn’t the end of it, and a mental calcification of the breadth of expression is shaven down to a stark, one-track zealotry that sees Striders care for little else that isn’t striding and subjects tangential to it, but I digress. The calcification of those who stride existed as a contrast to those who don’t, where a gradual alienation of both groups by the other stemmed from Striders visibly becoming ‘something else’. Their shapes were simply too impersonal, too lacking in an amorphous collection of things that are hard to articulate but easy to feel. Like having been separated from a friend or relative and finding them a completely different person when reunited, it was difficult to escape the sense that what once was now is no longer so. And the distance created prior even to the total calcification - as a product of striding - was much easier to widen as all parties got the sense that the superficial differences between them in theory were more than that in practice. Some, of course, overcome this distance - hearts and minds are powerful things - but for many it proves too tasking, and so they prefer to exist in an approximation of the normal, a song and dance where all pretend that everything is fine, even while being eaten away at slowly on the inside.

To speak more on the physiology, calcification was a very involved process, such that those that calcified no longer had need for even blood, functioning instead as truly marble automata. This was changed eventually as I found myself valuing the motif of bleeding when hurt far too much, and subsequently even more entranced at the idea of a living statue that bled when struck. The approximation of life by what should absolutely be un-life - stone that spoke, moved, ate, wept and bled - had a distinct appeal, and I took it an ran. This was one of the major turning points that led to the creation of the document on physiology above; it was vitally important that I justify the shape that the Kin have come to have, first mechanically with the operation of their forms under the calcic mechanics, and then narratively, as is being done in this section, here.

Nettare is perhaps one of the greatest examples of this, and it was inspired in part by a game very dear to me Caves of Qud, a title that has inspired quite a lot else in the Samsara canon. Specifically, nettare - and perhaps the shape of the Striders at large - was inspired by the description of a class of creature in game; the Cherubs.

Gallium veins press against the underside of their crystalline skin and gleam warmly. Their body is perfect, and the whole of it is wet with amniotic slick; could they have just now peeled themself off an oil canvas? Were they cast into the material realm by a dreaming, dripping brain? Whatever the embryo, they are now the archetypal creatureType; it’s all there in impeccable simulacrum: features. Perfection is realized.

• Taken from Cherub - Official Caves of Qud Wiki. Emphasis mine.

The cherubs in Qud are - as we may interpret it, as Qud’s lore is very shrouded - artificial replicas of existing beings, realized in perfected forms by something beyond the scope of our understanding. ‘Simulacrum’ was perhaps the operative word here when it came to realizing the concept for the Third Kin; calcification didn’t eliminate the silhouette of those who underwent it. For all intents and purposes, they are very much still the kin they were before the alabaster overtook them. And yet they are not, because they have become something more. Contact with higher things, the material fabric of reality made touchable solely by power over weft, has inflicted them with a brand of perfection, shorn their initial shapes into final ones, defined by a maintenance of the familiar superficial but an exaltation of the underlying. In Qud, the cherubs are greatly implied to be nigh-deific figures, buttressed by their placement and function in the game. I imagine the Third Kin - particularly the Danseers and the Sil’khan - as very much the same. ‘Gallium veins’ was all it took to inspire nettare; liquid ran under their layers of lattice, meaning they bled if sufficiently marred. Making some bleed gold seemed to be a natural progression down the line of what I sought to realize.

The vision of calcification and the original shape of the kin was somewhat frustrated when I began fabricating more solid rules for the verse - most notably the removal of atoms in favor of a sandbox built entirely on chalk, meaning that I somewhat lost out on the initial contrast of real flesh versus alabaster-white un-flesh that defined much of the original vision of non-Striders versus Striders. But I still went on to build out this vision as closely to it as I could, while still realizing it in the mechanical constraints of the verse.

There is a theme here that you might have come to detect; the original kin-shape sought to realize Striders as deific figures. That hasn’t changed; well beyond the earliest drafts of the project, the Sil’khan and the Third Kin at large are still spoken of as being far, far higher than the rest of the Switchboard as a quirk of their ontology. They always were meant to be my vision of higher entities, which is why I built out the many things that I did with regards to the functionality of the Five Straits and all the quirks of their highly plastic lattices. Why are the Five Straits so identical to computers in how they function? Why are the kin so capable of changing their forms as though flesh were mere clay and they, the potters? Why so stark a difference between Striders and Weavers and those without those powers? Why do the Lancasters - the Great Family defined by lacking the powers of white in Striding and Weaving, and black in curvature manipulation, thereby making them the most similar to us regular humans - still bleed red? It is all a very deliberate series of choices; the shape of the Strider Kin is cold and impersonal and shaped by something wholly similar, and it is why they are what they are; some perversion of the biological and mechanical, living stone, computers emerged from dust, approximations of us, yet better in that they dent reality around them as a reflex. They needn’t even breathe air, because they are shaped for their true inheritance; all of space, their veritable domain. When struck they bleed nectar, thick and richly colored. Completely alien, shockingly so, familiar only in silhouette and no further.

Impeccable simulacrum. Exalted above the real. That is the kin-shape.

pNarrat: Apotheosis

A good grasp of Samsara’s writ in general is recommended for this section.

apotheosis /əˌpɒθɪˈəʊsɪs/ noun the elevation of someone to divine status

This section tackles three kinds of apotheosis - or becoming as gods - that exists in the Switchboard. The first is the kind undergone by the Skydancers, as outlined in The Dawn of the Dancirah. The second is the kind undergone by the First Amaranth Sultan Vahn. The third is a more mundane kind; less so a true apotheosis and more so a phenomenon of ‘becoming’, that has a number of physical and mental tells, which subsequently created a culture of documenting the steps of this becoming and attaching an amount of meaning to it beyond the actual.

The first kind of apotheosis, as was undergone by the Skydancers, is performed via harnessing the nuances of the praximechanics, specifically the clause that possessing the answers to questions asked by many manifests tangible power for the holder of that knowledge. The Skydancers are so because they alone know what happened in the Trinary Complex in the Vitric Shelf when they went to raid it in the Fourth Offensive during the Second Praxis Conflict fought between the early Third Kin and the First Thinker Minds. So pondered is this singular question even many, many processions later that the Skydancers - who are Danseers and thus should have been killed by the curse placed on their lattices by the Refrain - have been persisting on in the modern era from the sheer limitless calcic dividends reaped from knowing this one thing. That being said, they are still fairly stripped of power, thus resigning them to spend the rest of what could be eternity in the Anarhiza.

More on this subject awaits in the Pantheon.

This manner of apotheosis is anything but exclusive to the Skydancers, and in fact, should one crack one of the Switchboard’s great secrets, they too can reap praxis dividends and be elevated to almost godlike status.

The second manner of apotheosis is one that many suspect was done once and was closed off as an avenue to pursue for good. The patriarch of the Vahnkin, Brother Vahn, the one who lead his great family to pursue a future in the Dark below, took on a imposition from the Astrolabe itself. By surrendering the right to see the stars of the Dancirah and travel its expanse - a right taken by the Third Kin when they defeated the First Thinkers and inherited the Switchboard - the Sultan took on the burden of being effectively a smaller Astrolabe but solely for the Void, thereby becoming its calculus. Considering the sheer breadth of the Sultan’s power after doing so, he has somewhat earned the right to be called a god, and indeed the many Vahnkin dwelling in the Void, Vahnkin outside of it, and even non-Vahnkin swayed by his potency and creed have come to revere him as a deific figure, creating the Conclave faith that many Vahnkin profess.

Regression Evolution

The final, third form of apotheosis in the Switchboard is perhaps the most interesting, as while it doesn’t elevate a subject to nearly the heights that the Skydancers and the Sultan have attained, it is one that nearly anyone has access to, and indeed is pursued passively by simply being. Being, after all, is the precursor to becoming.

While the Arcad have on many occasions been referred to as the oldest family, in actuality all Third Kin are descendants of the original Third Kin ‘stock’ that arose from the chalk desert of Spyndl many, many processions ago. These were the Old Danseers, and the shape of their backbone - what determines the very makeup of a third kin, lattice, straits and all - was the first backbone weft realized for the Third Kin. All kin that would come after, the great families and their individual members, are all forks of this original backbone weft, contorted over time as the kin and the Switchboard skewed it in various directions, but never enough that it too greatly deviated from its original weft pattern.

It’s worth discussing if this is a good or bad thing. For one, the gradual deviation from the Old Danseer stock by generation after generation of Third Kin means that the curse of the Refrain applies to each generation to decreasing extents. This manifests as a gradual lengthening of the lifespans of the kin as the Astrolabe’s writ is trying to scrub them from the face of the Switchboard to lesser and lesser degrees.

The Curse of the Refrain’s workings are well elaborated upon outside of this document.

On the other hand, the gradual deviation from the Danseer backbone results in a gradual weakening of the kin’s baseline strength. Much of the calcic potential of an individual Third Kin is determined at birth, when their own backbone is stitched together in a shape that will remain mostly unchanged over the course of their lives. While it is very much a Samsara motif to exalt one’s shape even beyond the original bounds allotted to one, manifesting this is made far easier by having a better original shape to begin with. This original shape - the Old Danseer shape - was one of immense calcic potential, that saw the Danseers able to wage the protracted conflict that they did against the First Thinkers. Gradual deviation from this shape manifests as a subtle, but extant weakening of the Third Kin at the baseline.

This brings us to the meat of this section; reversing this trend.

The third form of apotheosis in Samsara is a gradual regression of one’s backbone lattice to that of the Old Danseer’s. This is accomplished primarily through feats. More simply put, to become as a Danseer, you must act as one, and this requires the accumulation of accolades and acquisition of merits. As one does this, it gradually fills out the Astrolabic ledger tied to the subject with higher truths, and this manifests as physiological changes.

A non-exhaustive list of feats are as follows;

• Performing complex chalkweaving
• Drinking from wellsprings
• Striding great distances
• Felling threats (‘threats’ in this context refers to EPITs, and additional credit is given for felling beings such as chimeras, revenants and shattered)
• Pilgrimages to the Astrolabe
• Triggering incidences of Weftcrash
• Devising ledgers of one’s own and concocting handsigns

It can be imagined that performing all of these feats gradually builds up an imperceptible ‘meter’ that, when reaching a break point, triggers a incidence of Danseer Metamorphosis.

Danseer Metamorphosis

The Old Danseers were a people that wore their natures like clothing. The Fel-Arcad pride themselves on the plasticity of their lattices, which facilitates the various body modifications they perform, and is the reason for the shape they currently posses - six fingers, horns and tail. However, the Old Danseers provided the original body plan of the Third Kin, and this plan was one that saw the kin first realized as winged beings with ‘crowns’ or halo-like structures that grew from their head and upper bodies. They resembled conventional portrayals of angels we see in our own world’s various religious canons.

They do differ in some key ways however. The Danseer’s wings somewhat elude conventional expectations, lacking feathers and instead resemble constructs of bone, as though a wing were stripped off all things soft and flesh, leaving only skeleton behind. Their halos are similar, being protrusions that jut from the head, shoulders and upper back, beginning as straight, stiff material before terminating in various primarily circular shapes. Both the halos and wings of the Danseers bear a vibrant gold coloration and appear to be metallic to both sight and touch, though they are known to appear in other colors and resemble other materials as perceived by the senses.

The halos, many have concluded, were mostly cosmetic, with much of their function being emergent from the Danseers themselves, elaborated upon later. The wings, however, seemed to aid the bearer in striding. Some suspect that originally, the stride-dedicom strait was in fact these very wings, and thus their immense size relative to the current positioning of the stride-dedicom in the cranium meant the Danseers could go much further, and much faster than the kin that would come after them. As deviation from the Danseer backbone continued, along with their wiping out at the hands of the Refrain, the stride-dedicom came to be seated in head. They are also believed to have passively smoothed out the curvature of the Void midflight, allowing the Strider to travel even through flux storms without fear, and they also glowed while striding, which made it somewhat easier to spot groups or lone striders journeying across space. Other speculations include their being used for navigation, combat and other things, but the literature thins at this point.

As the Old Danseers performed feats and grew, they would metamorphosize in two key ways; one is the taking of spokes upon their halos, and the other was the molting of their skeletal wings. The Danseer Metamorphosis has nine breakpoints in the evolution of a Danseer or any other subject of the Switchboard, and after the ninth the subject is considered to have attained a form of ‘adulthood’, defined by having more than fifty percent of their backbone weave now replaced with Danseer patterning. Every single breakpoint that a Danseer or denizen of the Switchboard has passed is marked with a ‘spoke’, which is a secondary protrusion that emerges perpendicular to a Danseer’s halo. In a very literal sense they signify rank, with higher ‘spoked’ Danseers being viewed as greater than those with less or none. At the first, fourth, seventh and ninth breakpoints, the wings a Danseer had crumble and fall away, and a new set is woven within the lattice of their back before peeling back the skin and sprouting, bigger and more ornate than the last.

As such, the Danseer Metamorphosis is as follows,

• 1st Breakpoint: Takes a spoke; birth wings are replaced with fresh, new ones.
• 2nd Breakpoint: Takes a spoke
• 3rd: Takes a spoke
• 4th: Takes a spoke, new wings emerge
• 5th: Takes a spoke
• 6th: Takes a spoke
• 7th: Takes a spoke, new wings emerge
• 8th: Takes a spoke
• 9th: Takes a spoke, new and final set of wings emerge

And just like the Danseers, denizens of the Switchboard - being descended from them - can also undergo this same metamorphosis, the exalting their ledgers being gradually, physically manifested as becoming as the progenitors of all kin. This is the third form of Switchboard apotheosis.

Gradual deviation from the Danseer backbone has somewhat altered the workings of the wings and halo in the modern denizens. The wings, for one, do not contain the stride-dedicom strait, and as such are mostly cosmetic. This does change after the seventh breakpoint however, where - inexplicably - the strait migrates partially from the head to the wings, filling out the structure and massively enhancing the subjects capabilities with the Strider Protocol. Since this only occurs at the seventh breakpoint however, many who bear numbers of spokes below seven tend to sever their wings as they can be somewhat unwieldy (interfering with clothes or passing through doorways, for example) and draw attention that may not be wanted. Those who are far more appreciative of what they represent, however, prefer to trim them down to smaller sizes, and instead force the less important things like clothes to accommodate their growth.

The halos change in that they can be manifested when desired. At will, a subject who has taken spokes can compel their lattice to spontaneously fold and construct their halo, and when no longer needed it can be broken off or unwound and reabsorbed back into the lattice. Wings that form below the seventh breakpoint can be summoned and dismissed in this manner as well, but after the seventh they contain the stride-dedicom strait, and as such cannot be broken off without suffering the partial loss of the strait. Should they be broken, they must be regenerated via unravelling reversal, which is a slow process and doesn’t regenerate any lost dedicom strait material. Regenerating that is achievable only through surpassing further breakpoints (should they still await) or triggering an instance of Weftcrash and using the moment of exaltation to regenerate one’s dedicom strait and wings.

As an additional note on spoke halos, Fel-Arcad who take spokes have a clause upon their backbone such that taken spokes manifest in the Fel’s horns. Their horns curve to encircle their heads, and juts fork away from the main branch to stick outwards and upwards, one for each taken spoke.

For those who feel the wings are unwieldy in later stages, it has become common practice to sever the wings and then rebuild them in the shape of an elaborate chromegraft, which allows the skeletal material to fold neatly against the back while suffering no permanent breaks in continuity. One of the most interesting ways of doing this is severing the wings, grinding them to powder, and then suspending the particulate in a complex alloy with replichrome, such that the wings can be summoned and dismissed swiftly and at will. These silver-gold ‘repliwings’ are a rare and a proportionally stunning sight in the Switchboard, and a sign of a truly prominent Strider.

The reduced actual function and the ability to summon and dismiss the halo and wings at will has resulted in the Metamorphosis taking on more social relevance than functional. Much like flashing a badge, those who bear spoked halos may summon them when their authority is challenged, or they emerge spontaneously as a byproduct of other physiological-or-not occurrences such as invoking the Stride or Flash Protocols. They have some cultural significance too, with spoked subjects manifesting their halos in ceremonies and events such as marriages, funerals, anniversaries and the like. The wings are a rarer sight, rarer still than those who actually bare them, who are inclined to only manifest them when all of local space must feel the weight of their ledger.

Expectedly, this Metamorphosis requires having both the Strider and Weave Protocols, meaning Lancasters and Vahnkin are mostly locked out of it entirely, while the Sil’khan have the easiest time going from breakpoint to breakpoint due to being the closest to the Danseers with regards to the patterns of their backbone. For this reason, the upper echelons of Strider strength in the Switchboard are populated by majorly Sil’khan and a number of Fel. Obtaining strength in this manner isn’t solely a benefit however, as the gradual regression to Danseer weft means that the curse of the Refrain becomes ever stronger against the subject, shortening their lifespan. The Astrolabe actively trying to kill them in this manner makes many question if the exaltation is even worth it, as nine-spoked striders are perhaps the rarest phenomenon in the Dancirah, believed to be so due to the stars themselves swiftly killing them off. The question is usually dismissed however, as simply existing in the Switchboard is enough to push someone down the path of Metamorphosis, and even the laziest Sil’khan is likely to take a least a singular spoke in their tenure.

The cultural relevance of all this is invented primarily by the Spyndl Academy’s brass-above-brass, the Spyndl Wheelhouse; a coalition of incredibly strong and relevant Striders of all stripes who gather to influence the path the Switchboard takes as they see fit. Necessary for joining is having taken at least two spokes; the first spoke believed to be a given and thus beneath notice.

As a further note, it is worth mentioning that the breakpoint stages can be reached at any time, and the subsequent actual metamorphosis is a very physical, very visceral process that many describe as a ‘grisly, visual spectacle’. It is no surprise to be clear, as the Danseer Metamorphosis in the kin would be akin to a reshuffling of our genetic code in us, but many are still given pause - and often more than - when forced to watch as someone who mere moments before was hale and hearty, is brought to their knees as the flesh of their back is torn, shredded and split by emerging bone-like material, spraying gold nettare in all directions and accompanied by often a non-trivial amount of guttural screeching. The spokes on halos emerge with far less fanfare, but many a subject is still brought to kneel as pattern reorganizes itself and shape is shorn into new shape. Though the emergence of wings is widely seen as the far more disconcerting process to be subject to as both sufferer and observer, many more find the emergence of spokes being accompanied by an aged, ownerless voice proclaiming “It becomes,” to be far, far more a cause for unease.

The sheer messiness of the evolutionary process - both physically and mentally - has resulted in many traumatized by the process and doing all within their power to avoid ever undergoing it again. The lucky ones who avoid this fate are those who were primed with information before hand, or - even better - had those who had experienced it before present to guide the evolving subject through the process. The vulnerability period of reshuffling shape makes the subject particularly vulnerable to ledgerial writ, and the sudden hyperawareness of the stars calling for their death leaves many shaken almost to pieces. Active guidance by someone nearby, often a mentor or experienced stranger, can ensure the evolutionary process is minimally negative, and instead a wholly positive experience, especially with regards to the psyche.

pNarrat: Danseer Incarnons

The Dawn of the Dancirah is recommended reading for this section.

Following the events of the Dawn of the Dancirah, the Refrain struck the Switchboard, bringing chaos and ruin to the stars and it their denizens. None suffered the brunt of this, however, quite like the Old Danseers. While the other Great Families lost their homes and essential bits of their culture, the Danseers lost their very lives, the curse of the Refrain being written into the ledgers of the stars and imposed on all of space as law. By all metrics, the Danseers are extinct, wiped out in a final act of their good deed in securing the Switchboard for the kin not going unpunished.

Many - most - went gently into the good night. But not all.

A Danseer Incarnon is a Danseer who - rather than being cursed with switch death, is cursed with immensely long life. Their lattices are outfitted inexplicably with innate reverse unravelling talent tailor-made for undoing the damage inflicted upon them by the stars - the manner in which the Refrain’s curse manifests. Instead, they lived, and keep on living, persevering deep into the annals of the Switchboard like a scar that refuses to fade.

However, that the continue to live does not change the fact that they are meant to die. This they feel deep in their bones, like a gravity of its own weighing upon them. For some, the stars scream at them, asserting the reality that they are to be dead, dead, dead. Most of the Incarnons that live are driven to their own exotic flavor of madness by this, and they go on to terrorize the Switchboard as dead kin walking, wreaking havoc as they seek respite from the weight of untendered annihilation upon them. Hunting down and putting these errant Danseers to rest - in much the same manner as Danseer Revenants - is a burden shouldered by the entire Switchboard, as left to roam, they bring the very disaster weighing upon them everywhere they go.

But there are Incarnons who, strangely, manage to remain sane despite the weight of the Refrain’s curse, suffering instead from varying degrees of what can be viewed as depression. These persons are generally welcomed among the Sil’khan as a living ancestor, but tend to be closely monitored by various groups of interest in anticipation of their final descent into madness. It is believed by many that the longer an Incarnon goes staying sane, the more catastrophic it is when they finally snap. This class of Incarnons are deeply worrisome to many, as they live long enough as regular persons to pick up the intricacies of chalkweaving and more that the Old Danseers didn’t have access to, due to chalkweaving only becoming a truly formalized discipline long after their demise.

An Incarnon wielding the strength of old and the skills of new - finally suffering the break that has been ordained for them so long ago - is believed to be one of the most catastrophic entities that could ever arise in the Switchboard.

pNarrat: Bodily Marks of Law

Understanding of the writ under The Astrolabe - particularly the workings of ledgers is encouraged for this section. Additionally, a grasp of Ledgerial Spaces is encouraged as well.

The workings of ledgers are such that they apply their writ upon space in a very tangible manner. The Strider Protocol, for example, functions because its writ is recorded in Astrolabic ledgers that are enforced upon space by armillary stars. Outside of the effective radius of armillary stars, the Strider Protocol and numerous other Switchboard mechanics cease to function, as their working has always been conditional upon the enforcement of their capability as true. Of note, however, is that the effects of ledgers can be tangibly observed on the lattices of the denizens of the Switchboard.

Essentially, it is the recasting of metaphor into reality. Ledgerial effects apply to mechanical workings in much the same manner as the laws of thinking beings apply on social, political and economic workings. In both cases, they can be viewed as loads to be shouldered, or cuffs on the hand; things that tax and restrict the depth of one’s capability. As such, just as the laws of thinking beings manifest upon a subject as restrictions on their mind, so too do the laws of ledgers manifest as markings on their body.

When one exists under ledgerial effects, the writ of those ledgers is gradually carved into their lattice, particularly in the regions where humanoid beings typically carry loads (the palms, atop the head, on the shoulders, across the back) or are bound to restrict their freedom (on the neck, wrists, ankles and across the eyes). Typically, reverse unravelling undoes these carvings gradually, rejecting the superficial marks on the person even if unable to reject the actual law themselves; the markings themselves are wholly aesthetic, and as such removing them does not nullify the law in effect, or provide any manner of resistance to it. When subjected to new ledgerial effects - such as ones from a deployed ledgerial space - these markings tend to linger a little longer, often long enough to be readable.

These markings being readable presents an interesting opportunity for denizens of the Switchboard convicted of both skill and hubris; the markings are 1-to-1 replicas of the ledgerial effect’s actual writ, and so one can read and copy these markings, and - across multiple instances and subjects - slowly begin to piece together sections of the ledger in effect. Ledgers tend to be terribly long and written in the esoteric tongue that is accessible only by Third Kin in the temporary exalted states that allow for scribing ledgers to begin with, but even small sections of ledgers in the hands of a skilled ritualist can be used to understand the finer workings of the ledger and even develop partial countermeasures.

Doing this is not without risk however; in the same manner as ritual schema, ledgerial writ tends to be fraught with praximechanical pitfalls that are triggered when the text is put together incorrectly or employed in unsanctioned ways, which may have deeply adverse effects on anyone trying to parse them. The sheer power of ledgerial effects however - and the subsequent power that comes from being able to curtail them - makes doing so worth trying all the same.