The Hands as Chalk

The entirety of the Switchboard runs on the dynamics and interplay of information in tangible form, known as ‘Chalk’. The Hands as Chalk foundational pillar seeks to describe Chalk and how denizens of the Switchboard interact with it, how it interacts with the wider Switchboard, and the products of the interplay with all three.

Tangible Information - Chalk

As described under Information Tangibility, information constitutes a tangible component of all things in the Switchboard. All things in the Switchboard are information; they and their properties are information as well. As such, all things in the Switchboard exist as configurations - patterns - of unordered information. We call this ‘Chalk’.

Chalk is information in physical form, taking on the appearance of jagged, translucent yet mildly cloudy crystals, diffracting pure light into rainbow spectra when passing through it. Reduced to powdered form, it appears similar to cloudy, powdered glass. When in use, Chalk typically takes the form of ‘ribbons’; gossamer streaks of chalk, moving seemingly weightlessly, suspended by invisible strings. Chalk also comes in ‘ray’ or ‘radiance’ form, emitted by armillary stars, in the Switchboard Sky. When these rays are slowed or strike an obstacle, they deposit as chalk in dust/powder form.

Chalk as it exists normally is random information. When arranged or ‘patterned’, it takes the shape of more conventional objects, such as things as people, as well as properties such as color, taste, etc. From the infinite randomness, all things can be sequenced and created, the mechanics of doing so described further on.

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.

Equations

Before that however, it is necessary to discuss what it is that ‘decides’ the manner in which chalk folds.

Everything in the Switchboard is indeed made of chalk ribbon, but what transits chalk ribbon to folded pattern are equations. These equations are calcic phenomena themselves that fold chalk ribbon into given shapes, and the fact that the calcic material that goes in is equivalent to the folded pattern that comes out is why they bear this name.

Equations have a robust presence in the Switchboard’s canon, appearing just about everywhere chalk does. Keeping in mind that equations are simply a ‘something’ that folds chalk will greatly aid in navigating the mechanics and world of the Switchboard.

The Weave Protocol

Chalk achieves a state of ‘stability’ in crystalline form, dense amounts of it forming deposits in the Wellsprings. In dust form, chalk traverses the great Sky of the Switchboard, moving between armillary stars and Wellsprings, planets, vaults, and regions of curvature and low depth, falling into the Void. Most meaningful interaction between chalk, however, happens in ribbon form, and interaction with ribbon chalk by beings in the Switchboard is made possible through the Weave Protocol, a hereditary, innate modification to the Five Straits.

The Five Straits

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.

Link to original

The modification made by the Weave Protocol is to the interface strait; while those without the Weave Protocol possess only external intake straits and internal interface straits that facilitate communication with the lattice between the straits, those with the Weave Protocol - or Weavers - posses interface straits externally as well. This allows for outputting folded chalk created by the computational strait, turning a formerly one-way street into a two-way one. It is this singular modification that facilitates all of chalkweaving.

Information Affinity

Thinking weave in the Switchboard are possessed of an affinity for information, by virtue of possessing the potential strait. As thinking weave lives and dwells in the Switchboard, it takes in chalk, consuming it for its functions creating a calcic vacuum that must be replenished by taking in more chalk from the outside environment, this being latent chalk. Beyond elementary functions for simply living, taking in chalk is necessary to provide the fuel for various acts of chalkweaving, particularly with regards to techniques and abilities.

Like taking in air to the lungs via breathing, denizens of the Switchboard bearing the Weave Protocol passively take in chalk and store it in the potential strait, where it awaits harnessing by the other straits for various functions. As calcic abilities are used, or under other circumstances, chalk is depleted from the potential strait, and must be replenished.

The rate by which chalk is thus accumulated varies based on a number of factors;

• The ‘efficiency’ of the interface and interpreter straits (also elaborated upon later). Chalk enters the lattice through the interface strait, and thus is subject to the throughput allowed by it. Additionally, chalk taken in must be analyzed by the interpreter strait to separate pattern and weave from plain chalk, a task that also takes time. The product of both of these is a subject’s chalk throughput, and they are in turn subject to the subject’s general, overall calcic proficiency, a product of the logic surrounding their doctrines coupled with a litany of hereditary factors.

• The availability of latent chalk in the vicinity. When more chalk is present, passive accumulation is performed more quickly. In locales like wellsprings and certain biomes on planets, chalk is plentiful and allows for bountiful passive accumulation. In other environments like the inside of vaults or the Challenger Dark, the available chalk is severely reduced, the rate of accumulation responding similarly.

• Whether active draw is being employed. Those with the Weave Protocol have the ability to actively pull chalk from the environment - much like taking a deep breath - vastly increasing the rate of chalk pulled into the potential straits. When preparing to use a calcic ability, one may choose to suffuse themselves with chalk to balance out the chalk expended when the ability is used, or they may uptake chalk after using a power to rapidly replenish their reserves. This is used usually when perform various calcic actions in quick succession, such as in combat.

• The presence of interferences, which are factors that can either hamper or catalyze chalk uptake. An active ritual, a held Tek or relic, someone else’s Tek or relic, and environmental effect, natural or artificial, may alter the rate of uptake of chalk.

Accumulating chalk can, however, saturate the lattice beyond its ability to store. This is dangerous, as unharnessed chalk is functionally random information, and this random information can ‘spill over’ into other straits - particularly the memory strait - and overwrite the useful information there with noise, an occurrence conveniently called overwrite.

Dealing with an abundance of chalk is often done by ‘flaring’, though it is noteworthy that those with the Strider Protocol are far more capable of flaring than those who can solely weave. Flaring is converting excess chalk to something easily dissipated, such as heat, by subjecting it to highly-efficient equations in the computational strait. Weavers who want to get rid of excess chalk usually expend it by weaving something of high calcic density but considerable instability, allowing it to resolve by collapsing and dissipating chalk into the environment. More skilled Weavers can cause calcic crystal to form in their immediate vicinity, trapping the chalk in physical form.

Weave Mechanics

Interacting with chalk occasionally demands Weavers to utilize the power to Weave in more intricate ways. These are the ‘Weave Mechanics’.

This is of particular interest to Ritualists, who necessarily must interact with chalk at the macroscopic level to cast rituals.

The most common Weave Mechanic learned by Weavers is Point Propagation. Typically, chalk straits are drawn by physical movement of fingers or a hand across a surface, which necessarily requires that the spaces being interacted with are reachable by hands. With Point Propagation, A Weaver can place a finger, multiple fingers or a full hand on a surface, and send out streams of chalk in any direction they choose, allowing reaching locations hands cannot; inside minuscule environments such as machine circuitry, at immense heights, or in conceptual spaces such as minds.

Ritual Geometry is a concept that dictates the way certain equations require a subject of that equation to be ‘bound’ in chalk straits for that equation to function. For example, to start a fire using the Five Straits, you may have to draw a singular, two dimensional circle around the source of fuel. To lockpick a safe using chalk, however, you may have to draw lines all over the the safe that intersect, ‘wrapping’ it. The Ritual Geometry used is reliant on the parameters of the equation. Encasements of chalk lines are called ‘Chalk Boundaries’

Necessarily, some equations may mandate chalk wrapping around the subject, but also that those lines dynamically shift as the equation works upon the subject. In the case of the safe for example, the lines may need to shift into new configurations as the dial is turned one way or the other. Propagating new lines and withdrawing old ones may not allow the equation to work as intended.

The solution to this is Chalk Within Chalk. When Five-Strait chalk lines are propagated parallel to each other, additional chalk lines are deployed, perpendicular to the initial. It helps to imagine it as scale of sheet music. These perpendicular ‘brace’ chalk lines ‘hold’ the parallel Five-Strait lines, and interface with the Computational Lines. When necessary, the ‘brace’ lines receive instruction from the Computational Line to move the entire construct of chalk straits, done as the equation demands.

Control of the CWC brace lines is Linear Dynamism, the action of feeding the CWC brace lines with instructions on when a Weaver needs the strait lines to assemble, disassemble and reassemble in intricate shapes, move in certain paths and patterns, all to facilitate fulfillment of the equations being used, or the will of the Weaver. This is particularly relevant when we get to actual Rituals used by Weavers. Linear Dynamism also allows CWC lines to detach the straits from surfaces themselves, granting the Weaver the power to draw and form chalk boundaries in air.

Latent Chalk

Both the Strider Protocol and the Weave Protocol function by expending chalk to perform actions, chalk that is accumulated actively or passively via information affinity. Chalk exists in ‘clouds’ of it in dust form in the general environment, and though the concentration can be low, it is present. This is ‘Latent Chalk’. Weavers draw from it extensively when using their powers.

This section delves into world mechanics heavily reliant on concepts outlined in SB_Astromechanics.

Latent Chalk tends to accumulate in already fairly information-dense regions, drawn towards them like water moving from a high point to a lower one. Latent Chalk often accumulates into crystalline form, become crystal chalk, depositing itself and often growing to colossal proportions. We see this often in the Wellsprings, regions of immense information density fed directly by armillary stars.

Spontaneous Equations

Relevant reading for this section include Hyperweave and Hyperweave Cooling.

The armillary stars of the Switchboard, churning basins of the most packed hyperweave in all of the Dancirah, illuminate the Switchboard with their deific glow. Even as their massive information density ensures all that strays too near is pulled into their violent interiors, on occasion, flares of stellar matter - the most dense hyperweave in the damn universe - lash out from their coronas, and enter interplanetary space.

As this hyperweave cools and reconstitutes back into pattern, it becomes skewed by the locale in which it finds itself - adding impurities almost - and the resulting pattern is the indescribably complex chalk that makes up the pattern of fold equations. Bearing a relatively self-correcting nature, they evolve and are realized in ‘finished’ forms, growing in complexity and viability over the course of iterations, taking in more and more of the Switchboard as skews to their lattice structure and overall functionality.

This phenomenon is called Equation Spontaneity, and spontaneous equations - and the armillary stars of the Switchboard by proxy - are the source of all complex pattern in the Switchboard.

These equations act on the latent chalk in the environment and yield a variety of phenomena. Particularly, spontaneous equations are the source of the Switchboard’s many cosmological structures, such as the Wellsprings, planets and other oddities. Seeding planetary equations, they then evolve over time, they then weave chalk attracted towards their growing information density into planetary material, and further skewing of the equation’s calculus yields the planet’s qualities; mass, gravity, spin, spin axis, day and night cycles, biomes, the like.

In addition to this, spontaneous equations seed the formation of Teks, as the Astrolabe facilitates the conditions for their arising from seemingly nothing, to serve the its purposes of smaller-scale remote computation.

Where the cooling of hyperweave is truly remarkable however, is in the seeding of elementary life. The mindspun are elementary intelligences seeded from the cooling of hyperweave that has been skewed by the presence of higher intelligences. They roam the Switchboard in a manner not too dissimilar from the ancient First Thinkers, and inhabit ‘vessels’ throughout the Switchboard to more meaningfully interact with it.

The scientific consensus on how the Strider and Weave Protocols and the Third Kin arose was from cooling hyperweave skewed by Astrolabic calculus, the Astrolabe itself stoking the flames and manning the forge that would yield the Switchboard’s mightiest entities and the powers that made them so.

The Micro-Spontaneous

Conditions in the Switchboard may induce the creation of Emergent Minds, elementary calcic intelligences that arise through the folding of chalk under rigorous self-correction mechanism and selection. They cannot live very long without vessels however. Coincidentally, what often causes these Emergent Minds to emerge is the presence of objects and oddities with specific kinds of very dense pattern, the kind that forms primarily in objects that are very old and/or have seen use in the hands of Striders and Weavers. These objects are usually denoted as Relics. Emergent intelligences that arise around them usually emerge with singular prime directive, a doctrine; protect what it is that brought them to be. This is accomplished by the construction of a Vault, which serves as both protection for what caused the intelligence to arise, as well as a body for the intelligence itself. Often, the first few ‘building blocks’ of the Vault spontaneously evolve as well, granting the emerging intelligence a baseplate upon which to build. This is further elaborated upon in SB_Astromechanics.

Happening on a much smaller scale, a spontaneous equation can evolve using some object or concept as a ‘seed’, which dictates the outcome. Around objects, the results are Relics, items granted additional power from equations encased within them. Objects already containing considerable amounts of information act as sinks, more information pooling into them, subsequently resulting in spontaneous equations. This is further elaborated upon in relics.

Teks are another product of the micro-spontaneous equations. These are powerful equations that grant Weavers powers, taking the form of chalk ribbon, often encased in chalk crystal, or in transit across the Switchboard on chalk currents. Finding one of such Teks is no mean feat. A vast majority of Teks wielded by Weavers are seeded by scraps of patterned chalk moving across the Switchboard Sky; ideas from Weavers themselves, bits from other concepts lost in the Switchboard, etc.

Weft Dynamics

Calcodynamics deals with - primarily - chalk at the macroscopic level, interacting with various kinds of pattern and weave that make up the Switchboard, as well as the mechanics governing them that - in turn - govern the operation of the Switchboard. That being said, it is also essential to discuss further how chalk operates ‘at the ribbon level’, a field we can call Weft Dynamics.

The Information Mass/Density Problem

As outlined in Void_5, The Hands as Chalk and elsewhere, the information - weave - within pattern in the Switchboard induces mass, and this mass in turn induces a curving effect along the fourth spatial axis, from which the Switchboard obtains its gravity analogue - a curvature along space itself. However, it follows that large things in the Switchboard would induce enough curvature to pull more and more of the Switchboard towards themselves, and as they do, become more and more capable of doing this exact thing.

It follows then, that inevitably, the entire Switchboard would collapse in upon itself, creating an object so incomprehensibly dense with information that the spatial distortion induced by it would result in exactly what happens in our world when such a phenomenon occurs; a singularity, or black hole.

This is dreadful.

The rectification of this is found, however, in the equations that yield pattern themselves. As equations fold chalk ribbon to yield weave, encoded into this process is instructions to fabricate repulsive substructures. They can be imagined as the pillars in a building that keep the decking above from collapsing to the floor below it. These substructures serve double duty in ensuring the stability of more complex folded patterns, as well as inducing a rule of sorts in the Switchboard; differentiated, unique, distinct patterns, have an apparent disinclination to deviate too strongly from that state without external action.

Things that are simply prefer to be what they are, and as such, the Switchboard does not collapse in upon itself into a spherical bolus of supermassive calcic fury.

These ribbon-level substructures are employed similarly in the mechanics that facilitate the performing of the Flash Protocol by Striders, making use of scaffolding-like structures to bear a suffusion of chalk and realize complex weave in mere moments.

Pattern/Weave Complexity

Weave and pattern can be described as complex, but what observable and measurable qualities of a pattern dictate whether it is complex or not?

Immediately, I can give the following;

• The abundance of property weaves within the structure.
• The general intricacy with which the pattern is folded.
• Emergent properties that stem from the manner by which the pattern is made.
• In the cases of various kinds of ritualism, prominently calcic ritualism; the number and nature of components expended in forming the pattern.
• Whether the pattern relies or utilizes praximechanics in some manner.
• The compaction of the pattern.
• If the pattern is something alive.
• Etcetera.

Complex weaves generally have a number of common properties as a result of their complexity, such as being far more information dense and difficult to unweave.

Pattern Compaction

Repulsive substructures exist in pattern as a means of maintaining the stability of the weave, as well as its differentiation and distinction from other weave in the Switchboard. However, at the microscopic level, these repulsive substructures are chalk ribbon themselves, and additionally posses length.

In theory then, it is possible to compact pattern - physically - in a manner that causes its repulsive support substructures to shorten considerably, leading to a tangible physical shrinking of the pattern. Generally, this is done by unweaving the pattern and reweaving it with a more capable equation. This doesn’t reduce the information mass of the pattern in any manner, but it does reduce the physical space occupied by the pattern, something that can prove useful in a number of applications.

It is particularly the case that Striders and other flavors of nomad and sojourner in the Switchboard make use of pattern compaction to ‘shrink’ the physical space occupied by their usually voluminous kits. Far simpler weave - such as the kind you’d find in more elementary objects like tents or sleeping backs - can be compacted down to considerable small sizes, unwound and deployed as needed. More complex implements such as relic weapons that have a number of additional calcic clauses built in such as rituals are far more difficult to compact in this manner.

Pattern Compression

There is a far less elegant form of pattern compaction that is employed on some occasions; instead of unweaving pattern and reweaving it in more compact form, it is possible to forcibly compel the repulsive support substructures to shorten via application of external physical pressure - quite literal squashing pattern and compelling to take this new, compressed shape.

What allows for weave to be compacted in this manner is its Spring Coefficient, a measure of the dynamics surrounding the repulsive support substructures, more specifically;

• Ease of Compression
• Pressure Exerted on the Compression Front

Generally, to maintain the compression state, a ‘compression front’ is employed, this being a calcic over-structure that is ‘wrapped’ around the compressed pattern, keeping it in the compressed state. However, because the substructures are not physically shortened, and only compelled to be, they exert an amount of force upon the compression front, that renders the entire pattern relatively unstable.

Generally;

• Low Spring Coefficient;
  • Easy to compress
  • Little force exerted on the compression front
  • More stable structure
• High Spring Coefficient
  • Difficult to compress
  • More force exerted on the compression front
  • Less stable structure

Equational Compression - Optimization Equations

The question of how to reduce the information mass of pattern is one that plagues the denizens of the Switchboard, particular those who are far more disposed to travelling the lengths of it, these being the Striders. The Strider Protocol being heavily constrained by one’s total information mass means there is a hard cap on what can bring on a sojourn, or how far one can go with what they’re carrying.

As such, in circumstances where it isn’t possible to simply shed the load one is already carrying, it becomes necessary to optimize the weave of what must come along for the trip. This is done using Optimization Equations, general purpose equations that are capable of subjecting existing patterns to a number of methods - ranging from complex folding algorithms to downright tricks - to reduce the information mass of the pattern while maintaining its integrity.

The means by which it does so - in more detail - isn’t far too dissimilar to what is used by compression software in our world. Under weave however, the general tactic is various forms of ‘culling’; working to remove non-essential details and complexity from a pattern, while maintaining utmost functionality.

The resultant of this, often, are considerable changes to the visual appearance of the object, as equational compression can - say - reduce a colored cube featuring a gradient of shades from light to dark, to a single color or small handful of them, reducing the overall amount of information in the pattern.

In a sense then, pattern run through optimization equations may come out the other end with simplified color profiles, lower ‘resolution’ textures, perhaps even bits of the geometry shorn off as though it were an object made of polygons in 3D software, and its shape budget were suddenly constrained.

Naturally, there are means to reverse this process to reobtain the pattern that was subjected to optimization equations to begin with.

Hyperweave

A resultant of calcic physics, the phenomena that is hyperweave.

Hyperweave

By most metrics, chalk can be viewed as somewhat inert. Chalk in latent dust form, solid crystalline form, activated ribbon form, bound pattern form and stable weave form all share a somewhat common thread between them; they are stable forms of chalk that outside of most calcic interference, will remain in their current states. There is a final form of chalk however, that is defined by the extreme conditions necessary for its formation - and by extension the extreme nature of the chalk itself.

This is chalk in the ‘hyperwoven’ state, more commonly referred to as hyperweave.

Nature & Formation

When pattern undergoes the rather unrefined physical compression, it can be done to a fairly considerable degree with suitable conditions - but only up to a point. Beyond a certain threshold, the unstable structure begins to show signs of failing, and the distinction of and within the pattern gradually begins to degenerate. The resultant is a churning, furious, calcic slurry, merely awaiting an outlet under the immense pressure. As it is nearly impossible to exert and maintain uniform pressure across the entire compression front, inevitably something must give in the over-structure, and the pressurized calcic slurry surges out and forth - crackling with violent animation - as hyperweave.

Upon being provided with an outlet - an aperture - hyperweave is able to form and be released into the local environment, the preferred shape it takes being that of frenzied, discordant bolts, crackling outwards and in nearly random directions. Typically, once hyperweave is released into the environment, it is skewed by minute spatial distortion, and thus typically crackles towards the most chalk-dense entity in the vicinity - this often being Striders, presenting a considerable hazard towards them.

The manner in which hyperweave is released is determined primarily by the shape of the aperture that is provided to the undifferentiated calcic slurry that serves as its birthplace. With no true aperture provided, hyperweave surges outwards towards the most calcically dense subject in the vicinity, and - if possible - tears the aperture from which it emerges open further, resulting in it beginning as a fairly powerful release, then tapering off at the end. As it is released, the pressure exerted by the compression front is no longer present, and the repulsive support substructures violently restore themselves to their original state, resulting in the hyperweave structure collapsing as it travels, in an attempt to restore itself to the original pattern shape from which it was made. The degeneration of the pattern structure, however, is often permanent, and hyperweave tends to resolve itself into calcic ribbon once released into the environment.

That being said, for the brief moments it exists, it is a truly mighty phenomenon, travelling at speeds rivalling the Strider Protocol and inflicting considerable lattice damage to whatever it strikes. Based on the release aperture it is provided, hyperweave can be restrained to beams, increasing its lifespan in the environment, the distance it can travel, and its destructive potential.

Utilization

One of the larger-scale applications of hyperweave exists in industry - SB_Technology - as hyperweave is an immensely effective means to move colossal amounts of chalk over equally colossal distances. Emitter and receiver apparatus are able to form and launch beams of hyperweave, and ‘catch’ it at a destination. When working under ultra-long-distance applications as this, relay apparatus that re-compress hyperweave midflight, as well as rifled release apertures that stabilize it via applying spin are used to move hyperweave across interplanetary distances, facilitating grand applications such as Wellspring drilling and powering interstellar fleets - and even small, even minuscule applications such as powering minute devices.

Further elaboration on this will be done in SB_Technology.

On smaller scale however, hyperweave is used by Striders and other denizens of the Switchboard as a weapon, due to the considerable unravelling effect it has on lattices.

Effects

Being hit by hyperweave has been described as - and is particularly similar to - being hit by the full calcic radiance of a armillary star. Though less powerful, it rips and cascades through the lattice of a target, inflicting considerable unravelling, and saturating a target with unharnessed, wild chalk. It takes on inductive properties and can ricochet throughout the lattice, and even strike a target, reform, and ricochet to another target, chaining between them and doing substantial, though diminishing damage.

One of the greatest dangers presented by hyperweave is hyperweave formed from pattern that is able to re-differentiate itself with time, resulting in hyperweave that can resolve into - say - the large object that was compressed to form it. Should this re-differentiation happen within the lattice of a Strider, the results can be catastrophic, akin to detonating a bomb within their very body.

Chalkweaver Combat

Hyperweave saw inevitable adoption in combat due to the considerable damage it does to all that it strikes, as well as its chaining, unravelling and inductive properties. How each individual subject used hyperweave - harnessing its raw damage potential, suppressing unravelling power, or spreading inductive power - is up to them. But those who can harness hyperweave cultivate considerable notoriety, as hyperweave in use is a memorable, visual spectacle, one to wow allies, foes and onlookers alike.

Generally, forming hyperweave in combat must account for the context that is an active engagement, and as such, forming hyperweave needs to be fast to be worthwhile. For this reason, Striders who are able to harness hyperweave are only capable of doing so via exploiting the foundational mechanics behind its formation, via assistance by some other power they possess - and often a mix of both. It is very commonplace to see Pale Amarans use hyperweave, as one of the most practical ways to get the compressive force needed to form hyperweave, as well as a large enough supply of chalk to compress, is through curvature manipulation and access to the Stardrip Cycle respectively.

Proposal: Hyperweave ‘Cooling’

Thanks Hex. As the name states, this section deals with hyperweave. As such the section on hyperweave - here - is recommended reading.

The Doctor’s Remarks

During the revision of the hyperweave concept, the good doctor closed with some notes;

In our case, there’s also something like a hydraulic press effect Keeping the pressure from all sides is difficult So the “bolts” of chalk you’ve talked about are like… stray strips of the ribbon crackling outward at the weakest point of the pressure

Light (like) holding a light in your hands and seeing rays come through the gaps in your fingers.
Or squeezing playdough.

(…)

There’s an interesting mechanic you could play with here.

(…)

Equations are complex enough that sometimes the folding pattern is beyond analysis There’s simply too much going on It’s the reason you can’t replicate a person, for example But this also sort of implies… that whatever the equations are that do dictate a person’s lattice… …they are finer than normal The folding pattern is especially efficient with a person This further implies two things Compressing a person to the point of hyperweave would be extremely difficult But if you did

It's a nuke.
It's a fucking nuke going off.
Like a star going supernova.

Almost right. It’s like a star. Period Do you see where I’m going with this?

(…)

It might feed into an idea I had about how Striders maybe die in the Switchboard...

(…)

Just the opposite.

(…)

How they're
born?

One thing that’s slightly bothered me is the rather fast and loose way you play with evolution It kind of violates the sensibilities of finding a watch in the desert and deducing a watchmaker. Where’s the watchmaker in the Switchboard? In our world, the actual science behind the origin of life and evolution of intelligence is extremely complex and intricate Buoyed by the carefully balanced interplay of multiple mechanics I’ve always felt your explanation was lacking just that one essential bit of “where it all actually comes from” Cryo, do you know how the stars in our world work?

(…)

In our universe, there is the force of gravity. This simply says that mass attracts mass. Left to its own devices, matter would clump together, becoming denser, attracting matter even more strongly And this would accumulate mass until the whole thing forms a black hole, and even then it wouldn’t stop What prevents this from happening then?

(…)

In our world, this is prevented by nuclear fusion The more pressure you put on atomic nuclei, the closer you get to crossing a threshold where the nuclei fuse When they do so, the nuclei get faster, and release photons, which knock into other nuclei, and together create a radiation pressure that pushes outward, balancing the compressing force of gravity Though occasionally, jets of solar matter will spurt out from the star in a coronal discharge, a solar flare

(…)

Do you see it yet?

(…)

Check it: In the Switchboard, information has mass, which curves space. Like in our world’s general relativity, this curvature can attract more information mass. At the dawn of the universe, perhaps there’s simply scattered bits of blank ribbon. But quickly, even the slightest amount of information will attract more.

(…)

Are stars
Are stars hyperweave?
Are the Armillary stars hyperweave? 
Is that we're you're going?

As the information compresses

(…)

Whatever simple folding patterns exist Shatter Become finer Creating new folding patterns more intricate and infodense than could be created otherwise Structural equations arise out of folding patterns, out of the forced pressure of information curvature On that scale The churning of patterns The incomparable pressure

Are you pitching a model for the genesis of the Switchboard itself?

You get the same crackling jets of ribbon This time carrying incredibly complex, infodense patterns Cascading out into the vacuum of space Slowly losing momentum… Collecting into vast swaths of chalk It has to be what I said about stars.

(…)

The ribbons lost momentum and crystallize Embedding complex structures Waiting to be thawed out. In the Switchboard, as in our world You are starstuff

So, cooled hyperweave... gave rise to life?

(…)

But in the switchboard

(…)

You’re not really star stuff It’s not that the star is producing substances that can’t be created elsewhere

(…)

It’s the info. So yes. Armillary stars are hyperweave.

Cosmological Genesis

There are two critical takeaways from the good doctor’s notes;

• Armillary stars are, in reality, colossal hyperweave engines.
• Cooling hyperweave can give rise to the emergence of complex weft structures.

This proposal is a revision to one of the most pivotal, foundation mechanics upon which the Switchboard operates; spontaneous equations as described under the mechanics of chalk. These were equations that, under the right conditions, arose from latent chalk in the environment and folded chalk around them into incredibly complex patterns. But what on earth could be the ‘right conditions’? What would be the seed necessary for such a thing to take place.

The doctor outlined the answer to that question already, but I will restate it here; hyperweave cooling.

Spontaneous Equations

Relevant reading for this section include Hyperweave and Hyperweave Cooling.

The armillary stars of the Switchboard, churning basins of the most packed hyperweave in all of the Dancirah, illuminate the Switchboard with their deific glow. Even as their massive information density ensures all that strays too near is pulled into their violent interiors, on occasion, flares of stellar matter - the most dense hyperweave in the damn universe - lash out from their coronas, and enter interplanetary space.

As this hyperweave cools and reconstitutes back into pattern, it becomes skewed by the locale in which it finds itself - adding impurities almost - and the resulting pattern is the indescribably complex chalk that makes up the pattern of fold equations. Bearing a relatively self-correcting nature, they evolve and are realized in ‘finished’ forms, growing in complexity and viability over the course of iterations, taking in more and more of the Switchboard as skews to their lattice structure and overall functionality.

This phenomenon is called Equation Spontaneity, and spontaneous equations - and the armillary stars of the Switchboard by proxy - are the source of all complex pattern in the Switchboard.

These equations act on the latent chalk in the environment and yield a variety of phenomena. Particularly, spontaneous equations are the source of the Switchboard’s many cosmological structures, such as the Wellsprings, planets and other oddities. Seeding planetary equations, they then evolve over time, they then weave chalk attracted towards their growing information density into planetary material, and further skewing of the equation’s calculus yields the planet’s qualities; mass, gravity, spin, spin axis, day and night cycles, biomes, the like.

In addition to this, spontaneous equations seed the formation of Teks, as the Astrolabe facilitates the conditions for their arising from seemingly nothing, to serve the its purposes of smaller-scale remote computation.

Where the cooling of hyperweave is truly remarkable however, is in the seeding of elementary life. The mindspun are elementary intelligences seeded from the cooling of hyperweave that has been skewed by the presence of higher intelligences. They roam the Switchboard in a manner not too dissimilar from the ancient First Thinkers, and inhabit ‘vessels’ throughout the Switchboard to more meaningfully interact with it.

The scientific consensus on how the Strider and Weave Protocols and the Third Kin arose was from cooling hyperweave skewed by Astrolabic calculus, the Astrolabe itself stoking the flames and manning the forge that would yield the Switchboard’s mightiest entities and the powers that made them so.

Link to original

Link to original

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.