Birthing and Being

Twin sections that talk on two major topics related to the Passing; one on being born in the Switchboard, and the other being a bit of - primarily Fel-Arcad but not exclusively so - philosophy regarding the nature of lattices, particularly bodies.

SB_Physiology is recommended reading for this section.

On Descendance

This section discusses the mechanics behind the emergence of living beings in the Switchboard, narrowed down specifically to the Third Kin, or ‘humans’.

The Ritual of Conjugation

Chalk has had a tangible effect on the means of descendance in the Switchboard, particularly as regarding methods. Two methods exist for Striders to produce descendants; the regular method of intercourse and chalk-derivative method known as the ‘Ritual of Conjugation’.

The regular method works as one would expect, obeying the mechanics we’ve come to know surrounding conception, gestation and eventual birth. These mechanics are somewhat altered however, as they operate now under the calcic universe and thus the principles of information tangibility. This is elaborated upon later.

The Ritual of Conjugation - perhaps the crux of this document - is a little different. It functions by a subject winding a bit of chalk from all of their Five Straits, containing a fairly random measure of the entirety of their lattice’s information, having another subject do similar, and both using these ‘cuttings’ of chalk weave from each other as components in the eponymous ritual of conjugation. The resultant of this ritual is a conjugate, an intermediary between chalk and a fully formed person that rapidly grows through feeding on and accumulation of chalk.

It is a decidedly more clinical method of doing things, but not without its ‘benefits’ as it might be put. Chief amongst them is how the calcic allows for the bypass of conventional biology. Predominantly, these are the requirements of two opposing sexes, and the constraint of only two contributing parties. With the ritual of conjugation, theoretically any permutation of sexes as well as number of parties may contribute to the formation of a conjugate and eventual descendant, with the intricacies of calcic mechanics and plain mathematical randomness handling the decisions that would result in the final nature of the progeny that emerges.

The chalk conjugate formed requires no conscious sustenance other than a sufficient supply of chalk in the vicinity. As it grows, its appetite for chalk will do similar, and latent chalk may not be enough, and supplementary chalk may need to be provided. Just as chalk is needed to form the actual straits and lattice of the progeny, it is also employed in shaping their nature.

Calcic Mechanics

Both progeny undergoing familiar gestation and progeny forming via conjugate are subject to information tangibility and its ramifications. One such ramification is in the shaping of the nature of the conjugate.

Under conventional genetics, the physical and mental qualities and quirks of a descendant are solely dependent - primarily and ideally - on their ancestors. The same holds true in the Switchboard under the ritual of conjugation; the contributed weave from each ancestor is placed in a pool of sorts, and pure randomness - in ideal cases - sees qualities selected from any one parent or mixes or averages of them. The physical qualities obtained from the parents this way form a baseline physical appearance for their progeny. It can be subject to further skews however.

The building of the progeny’s Five Straits is a bit more consistent and straightforward. Not much fundamental difference exists between the Straits of denizens in the Switchboard, with the the major exceptions being the potential, memory and computational straits. The potential strait is what allows for the storage of chalk within the lattice, and parents with ‘deeper’ potential straits will expectedly have descendants similarly blessed. The memory strait stores patterned chalk, and while a fresh memory strait is woven for a descendant during the process of their gestation, it isn’t unheard of or even uncommon for some things known only to the parents to be passed on to their progeny. Often these are small things like the names of the parents or other oft repeated terms, but in some cases they may inherit more than just memories. A chalkweaver’s powers, after all, are stored in the memory line.

Where the effects of information tangibility truly show forth is in the fact the growing conjugate draws on the latent chalk of the environment to grow. In addition to this however, it can take in pattern as it would take in pure chalk, and this pattern can integrate itself into the resultant lattice of the progeny.

The hungry chalk-devouring pull of the developing conjugate can pull so strongly on its environs that it can unravel the lattices of objects and likewise around them into pattern, imbibing it within itself and thus taking on their aspects. The environment within which a conjugate grows is imprinted upon the resultant progeny, and thus they may be born with affinities or aversions to certain things, physical changes to their appearances, mental changes to their Straits, even graduation to being bestowed with calcic powers.

In some cases, imbibing the latent chalk of an environment imprints a sense of ‘home’ on the resulting descendant’s lattice. Many descendants similarly born in this environment may come to call each other a form of brethren, creating a familial identity between, and thus come to be united in that sense. This sense of home serves practical purposes too, giving its bearer a vague navigational sense of direction towards where their home is - like a compass - even when away from it, useful for orienting oneself during travel.

And all offspring conjugate are subject to the final random servings of the Current. Conjugates forming within the Switchboard will almost certainly be bestowed some thing from the Current and from all who came before them, furthering the forward progression of the Switchboard. These gifts or even burdens from the Current are the final wildcards bestowed by the Current upon those born in the Switchboard, the ramifications of them being left to be seen.

Hereditary Protocols

The Strider and Weave Protocols are genetic - or better put - modifications to the Five Straits intrinsic to ‘living’ beings within the Switchboard. The Strider Protocol being a ‘transcendent’ of sorts equation baked into the computational strait, and the Weave Protocol being a modification to the computational strait entirely, such that it is considerably different to a computational strait without it, allows for both of these things to be passed down to descendants.

The successful descendance of these protocols in particular is subject to an element of modifiable randomness. The propensity for a descendant to have either protocol is primarily a derivative of whether their parents possess them; ancestors with a protocol tend to produce descendants with them as well. As a secondary factor, the history of protocol possession up the family tree can affect whether a hypothetical descendant has them as well. Just as parents play a part, grandparents do, and a second generation of protocol-lacking parents born to a first generation of protocol-having grandparents may result in the third generation progeny having a protocol.

This rule applies both to traditional methods and the ritual of conjugation, though the ritual of conjugation does slightly slant the results towards progeny having one or both protocols.

As a note, the Strider Protocol requires having the Weave Protocol, as striding is an ability that operates via folding chalk.

The descendance of the Strider Protocol in particular can be viewed not in terms of dominant or recessive genes, but rather in a sort of ‘meter’ that must be filled. When the meter is above a certain threshold, the descendant in question will be able to use the Strider Protocol. If this this threshold isn’t reached however, the meter may still be filled enough such that the average of a non-Strider and a Strider’s meter may produce a Strider. This mechanic is also responsible for the individual differences in stride velocities.

The Weave Protocol works somewhat differently, with the proficiency of a hypothetical progeny at weaving chalk being dependent on the weave-protocol-enabled computational line, and this in turn being a product of the bayesianity of the doctrine held by the contributing ancestors, as upon this is proficiency at wielding chalk partially reliant. In a sense, strength begets strength in the Switchboard. While parents with solid doctrine gives a valuable baseline to build off of, this foundation is decayed or built upon based by the progeny’s own formed personal doctrine.

Bequeathed Boons

Descendants stand to inherit a fair bit from their ancestors due to the calcic mechanics attached to descendance, particularly progeny born from the ritual of conjugation. One such example of this is observed in some parents passing on powers and skills of theirs - particularly noteworthy; Teks - to their descendants, and in other cases newly-born in the Switchboard serve as an ‘outlet’ from the Current for pattern that has dwelt within it for a long time.

A good example of the former is in the case of ancestors in the Switchboard who lived lives that required them to cultivate a diverse array of powers and skills, a good example of such persons being star-faring Striders and Operators. It is fairly common for the descendants of active figures in the Switchboard to produce progeny that inherit some of their signature powers and skills, varying from components in their calcic arsenal to even mundane skills like sword fighting or starship piloting. Where this becomes particularly interesting is in the case of Teks.

Teks for whatever reason have a noteworthy propensity to pass from generation to generation, growing slightly different from the parent Tek, but notably stronger as well. As they pass from hand to hand, they seemingly grow and evolve into new forms, bestowing greater power to new wielders and tying family trees together with binds beyond mere descendance. These ancestral Teks as they’ve come to be called, are Teks that were chiseled long ago from the early Switchboard, and allowed to grow and mature, like obsidian blades that only grow sharper the more they are used. They’ve spread to various hands with time, branching and taking on new forms as Teks are ‘mixed’ with other Teks and wielded in new ways. The results are Teks associated with certain factions in the Switchboard, and this ancestral power has given them sway, by right of chalk.

As beings are conceived in the Switchboard, their calcic conjugate pulls from the Current, the collective of patterned chalk that has been formed during the lifespans of beings past, now returned to the Switchboard to be distributed to new hands across the stars. What they pull from the Current can be virtually anything, in a result that seems reminiscent of some form of fate, newborn descendants may emerge with ritual schema or Teks or maps to somethings implanted in their minds. Information formerly thought lost has been returned this way, and thus it is always a major affair when progeny arises in the Switchboard.

The Black Hands

One of the unintentional results of the ritual of conjugation being a process subject to calcic mechanics is that there is a level of external control that can be exerted by parties on the growing chalk conjugate, to skew he results or induce certain changes that they desire. The reasons why one might do this vary.

A Strider obsessed with legacy may skew the conjugate such that their descendants almost certainly inherit one or many of their powers and the like. They may work to ensure their descendants inherit protocols they might bear, skills they posses, their Teks, in an effort to ensure that their progeny start their life in the Switchboard on a strong foot, predisposed almost to going far and becoming mighty.

Some are more superficial however, with some seeking to perfectly craft and shape the appearance of their descendants, going to extreme lengths to curb the randomness of the selection of traits from the donor ribbons, aiming to obtain full control of the process. Particularly, some families in the Switchboard may be obsessed with the cultivation of certain physical, though mainly aesthetic, traits that serve as identifiers for that family, and unifiers between members of it. It is often the case that ancestors in the Switchboard may seek to create progeny in their own image, or some other idealized image.

And as a final, unsavory note, there are more than a few that may work to curb the descent of certain characteristics deemed ‘unfavorable’, in a practice that is nigh indistinguishable from eugenics. It goes without saying that this has been used to tailor lineages based on prejudices.

It calls into question the narrative quirks of this. One is feasibility, the other is consequences.

The question that needs asking is a narrative one; should denizens of the Switchboard even be capable of interfering on a whim with the conjugation process? My answer is yes, as it gives me more tools as the creator of the narrative. That said - as with anything - I can implement rules that alter the perception of such actions and the contexts they take place in.

For one, the sheer amount and complexity of the woven chalk contained within the Five Straits and subsequently the donor conjugal ribbon means that finding and extracting a desirable trait is a strenuous exercise in fishing through very many haystacks in search of needles. The sheer tediousness of the task at the very onset, as well as the calcic difficulty of this task requiring immensely fine control and general proficiency with chalk and weaving, is mostly enough to dissuade casual contemplators of taking their hands to the conjugate.

The narrative consequence of this is two fold; one, it explains and thus dismisses the idea that nearly everyone in the Switchboard would be working to shape the conjugate of their progeny when presented with the benefits of doing so, as doing so properly is immensely difficult. Two, it thus illustrates the sheer perverse dedication of those who go through with it anyway.

Perhaps the second barrier of difficulty is that of modifying the conjugate itself. The conjugate and the entire ritual of conjugation can already be viewed as bottled chaos, yet bearing the ability to realize order. A tornado passes through a junkyard and leaves behind a fully-assembled, completely functional starship; that is the ritual of conjugation. To then attempt to throw a pane of glass into it and hope it winds up as a west-facing window is the height of wishful thinking.

Notwithstanding, and as with everything, there are those driven to work around these constraints, aiming to bring elements of achievability within otherwise crushingly unfavorable odds. Modified schema for the ritual of conjugation, specialized incubators and devices, certain Teks and rare relics, all of these things have been concocted as means to wrench control from random mathematics and place it in the hands of the Machiavellian. Failure is reduced; successful modified conjugates are indeed produced, but success is not certain, and the price of failure isn’t negligible.

Conjugates that have been tampered with beyond what their inherent self-correction mechanisms are able to fix often just collapse. The chalk becomes unstable, the ritual fails to sustain itself, and it explodes rather unceremoniously into dust chalk and discordant weave. This is, in fact, the best case scenario, as occasionally a conjugate can be tampered with in manners that damage it and continue to grow all the same. It can even fully form into progeny. But the wounds from tampering are still present. Some don’t live very long, their lattices failing and the descendant buckling under the collapse of their calcic substructure. Some don’t suffer such a fate so early, but the damage follows them well into their lives, emerging in various ways with considerable consequences.

And some conjugates are tampered with, damaged, but proceed with growing nonetheless. But when the time to produce progeny arises, something else is formed. Something warped and perverted, shaped by the desires of those who sought to exert control on things beyond their total understanding. And they may be compelled to pay for such hubris, chalk given for chalk.

On Shape

This section discusses a ‘new doctrine of shape’, a manner of looking at the self as malleable in a manner not previously considered; the body being a canvas for expression of the self.

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.

Malleability of the Lattice

One of the natures of chalk is its power to bring amorphous concepts into clarity and distant ones into reach. It cuts out the middleman that is the rigid natural sciences, simplifying the rules they play by, bringing the microscopic into larger focus, the complex into simpler terms, and allowing all things subject to it to additionally be subject to a sort of ‘tactility’; the ability for it to be touched. The result of this is that perfect conduction of the will, formed by imagination, can be carried out. Chalk allows for the realization of desire, bypassing even what is seen as hard rules and mechanics.

We see this particularly in the Theory of Damage, which discusses the means by which injury and damage is dealt and sustained in the Switchboard. Under natural processes, cutting off an arm involves immense damage to flesh, bone, muscle and tissue. Under chalk, it can be better likened to violently ripping the sleeves from a shirt, snapping the stitches that held it there. Restoration of these stitches - repairing the lattice - is the method by which you’d restore the detached arm, an exercise that’s fairly easy to do under chalk. Not so under the natural methods, where vessel must meet vessel, nerve connect to nerve, bone be made to articulate with bone - all things that are gambles in their likeliness to work.

It follows then, that if repairing something lost is as simple as stitching torn cloth back together, then it shouldn’t be beyond conception that adding new things not initially present wouldn’t be so terribly difficult. This malleability of the lattice, this ability to change the physical self - and easily too - is the crux of the Lattice as a Canvas.

Fabric from the Body-Loom

The malleability of the lattice has led denizens of the Switchboard to pursue all manners of functional and aesthetic modifications to their persons, as they see fit. Most common are aesthetic changes, often of the color variety. Changes to eye and hair color, changes to skin color either localized to certain regions or a re-pigmentation of the entire surface. After that is usually facial modifications; changes to the shapes of the eyes, nose, mouth, modifications to the teeth, alteration of bone structure and the like.

Modifications take a natural next step in the fabrication of ‘grafts’ - additional weaves designed to be compatible with the weave of a Strider, allowing them to be attached to the body and assimilate into the rest of their lattice. These can be additional parts such as horns, wings, a tail, or reworks of the skeletal plan; introducing additional joints or new limbs entirely. Production of these parts is done by sampling the weave pattern of a Strider’s own lattice, and spinning these new grafts on ‘looms’ from chalk ribbons - or in some cases - forming them using formative rituals.

Because these modifications are now baked into the lattice of a Strider, there is a non-zero chance that they become qualities passed down to descendants through the Conjugation. It often results in some Strider families having identifiable shared characteristics that define them. Of course, descendants may elect to remove them.

This heading is elaborated upon in a later section.

Chrome

‘Chrome’ in the Switchboard is a term for cybernetics; grafts that are more closely machine in their make and behavior. They make up the more function-oriented aspect of the malleability, interested parties choosing them to compensate for weaknesses, enhance currently-held abilities and provide new ones. They have come to be known as chromegrafts, referring to their property as grafts with a mechanical make.

This heading is elaborated upon in a later section.

Narrative Note: Chromegraft Points

A narrative note for the various ‘slots’ or so on the person available for chromegrafting, as well as rough idea of the kind of chromegrafts that might be installed there.

Class A

• Head
• Arms
• Hands
• Legs
• Feet
• Back

Class B

• Subdermal
• Chest Cavity
• Cranial Cavity
• Lattice
• Five Straits
  • Interface
  • Computational
  • Memory
  • Interpreter
  • Potential

A Novel Doctrine of Shape

The Lattice as a Canvas allows for almost on-impulse change in the manner of being of those who find themselves interested in it. The malleability of the lattice allows for an expansion of what it means to ‘be’. With the shape of being subject to the being itself, we may then ask ourselves what is the final frontier of the canvas? What is the final shape that can be conceived by a being?

I want to explore something in a video game - Caves of Qud - specifically an endgame locale known as Chavvah, the Tree of Life. Chavvah is a sentient tree-city populated by also sentient crystal leaf-entities that possess both an individualism in that they have names and selves, and a pluralism as a collective known as ‘Chavvah’. By psychic links, each member of the collective of Chavvah communicate, and it is this link that is itself Chavvah; a conglomerate of many minds into one, or maybe a division of one mind into many, each individual entity merely some shard of the whole capable of existing on its own.

In which we ask ourselves, once again, what is the final shape that can be conceived as a being? What can be counted as a shape? Could some denizen of the Switchboard become - or ascend beyond - a body as we understand bodies? Or rather because the mechanics for doing so already exists, on what grounds do we forbid them from doing so? I feel there are none. That the malleability of the lattice allows for the existence of this concept in narrative if not an in-depth exploration of it.

The Masters of the Canvas

The realization of all that the Lattice as a Canvas is is best realized by none other than the Fel-Arcad. It is a core precept of the Nadiran philosophy, as outlined in the Lattice-Canvas curlicue tome and exhibited in the Fel-Arcad’s Sembleworks, the primary technology in the Switchboard that allows for modifying lattices.

The Sembleworks

While the Semblance Doctrine has been majorly explained as regards its theoretical backing and the philosophy descended from it, the physical structure and workings of the Sembleworks are equally important. The Sembleworks are ultimately workshops for bodies, and because of what counts as ‘workpieces’ in this space, the tools and technology employed here are particularly unique.

The actual Sembleworks structure occupies a special space in an arcology that allows their inclusion, often built as a fusion between hospital and workshop. The ‘front’ that the Works presents is fairly welcoming though clinical, with those interested in the Works meeting with sembleworker consultants who listen to their interests and concerns, and generally tackle the administrative aspect of the entire ideal. At the end of the line is facilities for ‘outpatient’ care; provisions are made for recovering from the various processes underwent during the actual ‘works’ part of the pipeline.

It is between these intake and outtake stages that we are concerned with. Concealed from easy sight is the heart of the Sembleworks - the true semblance works - where the shaping of bodies is carried out.

A means of relaying the technology employed in the Sembleworks is to look at the various stages of semblance creation, escalating in complexity as one climbs the ladder.

Tier 1 - Cosmetic Grafts At the very bottom we see cosmetic grafts. Beginning the road to crafting a semblance and often where many subjects - particularly non-Fel - stop is in cosmetics grafts. These grafts are made of chalk and appended to the body, almost like particularly advanced piercings. Their purpose is wholly cosmetic, and here we can find simple modifications to the face such as filing down bone structure, filling out spaces with material, changing definitions and shape of orifices and hollows, as well as tattoos and regular piercings.

Taken some steps further however, cosmetic grafts can take the form of horns grafted on the head, for example, integrated into the skull. Though the Fel-Arcad already have pointed ears, members of other families can obtain similar here as well.

These cosmegrafts are valued among the various denizens of the Switchboard, serving as means to cultivate individuality through aesthetics, avenues for self-expression and self perception, for commemoration of events, signal membership to certain circles or adherence to some belief, to send a message or tell a story; a litany of reasons. The Fel-Arcad, of course, are happy to oblige these various requests.

What makes this possible are the looms, a fairly simple term for what is otherwise a complex relic instrument designed to spin chalk into various shapes and forms. Using similar principles employed in the Ritualism, chalk can be spun, folded and worked into the shapes desired to create a desired graft for a subject. Sembleworkers train to work with the loom and it’s various tools extensively to create the necessity pieces necessary to craft an ideal semblance.

Tier 2 - Chromegrafts Cosmetic grafts are solely that, and thus they lack functionality. Should a subject have been maimed, for example, a cosmetic graft of the lost limb would be solely that - a mere construct of chalk, lacking in function. To achieve function, chromegrafts are employed, a more advanced form of graft that employs chalk as well as machine parts and components, making them functionally calcic cybernetics.

This last point makes them particularly coveted, especially by various parties in the Switchboard who could benefit from a naturally emergent result of this; cybernetic weaponry. Striders in particular - constantly pushing themselves to the edge - are fond of these calcic cybernetics that can enhance their abilities in traversal and battle across the Switchboard. They also see more pedestrian applications however, in replacing damaged original body parts, or for utilitarian applications such as in industries.

Chromegrafts are engineered on the loom as well, using spinmetal, a Fel-Arcad invention. Spinmetal refers to an entire class of materials and alloys that exist in wire form and can be ‘spun’ on the loom to create various constructs as needed. Heated spinmetal is spun, layered, cut, and folded as needed, and with the integration of chalk, spinmetal constructs achieve far better qualities in their final result than other manufacturing methods such as forging/blacksmithing, three-dimensional printing, and milling out a unibody construction. Spinmetal takes various forms and has various qualities, with more being created every so often, as the demands of sembleworks customers grow and become more exacting.

Chromegrafts naturally need a means to integrate with the lattice of the subject they’re installed in, and a few methods exist to handle this. The least invasive is that they are controlled by looped rituals; rituals that when cast, are self-sustaining and can accept input and provide output over long terms. An advantage of this is the lack of invasive installation on the lattice allows for wide compatibility with many individual chromegrafts that are outfitted to speak the calcic ritualism. Next is slightly more involved; having a Slate or just the computational core of one implanted on the body, and connecting it to the interface line of the subject’s Five Straits. The chromegraft is controlled by intent passed by the subject through to the onboard slate computer, which then finely controls the graft. Linking the chromegraft itself directly to the computational line is perhaps the most invasive, but allows the wearer to have perfect control over the graft at the speed of thought, using it as though it were an actual limb.

A noteworthy difference between using a Slate to interface with the chromegraft versus direct connection is that the Slate can modify the intent passed with mathematics, but does so at the extent of minor latency. A directly-connected chromegraft arm, for example, could mimic some physical ‘tics’ and qualities that the original arm had, such as an inability to snap fingers or a habit of picking at one finger with the nail of another when under stress. A chromegraft that receives data from a Slate could have those things eliminated by the Slate, computational processes accounting for and doing away with human imperfections, and enhancing the desired functions such as giving finer control in dexterous actions like sculpting or aiming a projectile weapon, or knowing exactly when to deploy an inbuilt feature such as force multiplier to maximum effect. Again, this does come at the expense of speed - as Slates induce minor latency between though and action. This can be mitigated with faster computational cores and more optimized processes of course, but the other drawback of Slates - that they can be hacked - cannot be mitigated as easily.

Tier 3 - Lattice Construction An observation can be made that cosmetic grafts are additions and chromegrafts are substitutions, but is there a means to get a full ‘replacement’ of sorts for, say, a lost limb? Is there a means to weave a graft from the lattice of the subject to receive it? While a chromegraft can replicate functionality and even enhance it, some may elect for a graft built from the stuff of their own lattice, the stuff of their own being.

There are advantages to this naturally. Grafts made from the subjects own lattice are integrated on the ribbon level, and thus function accordingly. A latticegraft will grow alongside the subject’s body, and will rarely ever need any form of modification or replacement as is the case for cosmegrafts and chromegrafts. Latticegrafts are also functional the way chromegrafts are, while simultaneously being flesh, and so a particularly complex latticegraft such as wings would make their bearer capable of flight, and a grafted tail would function as one would expect.

This is process is rather involved, naturally, as it requires recreating the lattice of a subject, containing their Five Straits - a process that requires creating weave so complex and intricate it is impossible to do manually. A computational core is the next option then, but even these are not able to sequence the complexities of a living being’s lattice. Thus the Fel-Arcad employ a technology unique to them; a Purposed Mind. Through the Ritualism and the usage of replicas of the Triptych Crucible (elaborated upon later), the Fel-Arcad are able to engineer calcic intelligences - the mindspun - from pure chalk, and through the crucible, combine these elementary intelligences to form a Mind able to rival the First Thinkers from long ago. Through the Ritualism this new Mind is issued a prime directive, and through doctrinal principles they are then able to perform the task that corresponds with the directive issued to them.

Sequencer Minds are used in the sembleworks to produce spools of lattice for creating latticegrafts, as they are issued the directive ‘understand and replicate’. A sample is taken from the subject and fed to the Mind, which then assimilates and sequences the lattice provided to them, allowing them to produce more of it when instructed. This process can be somewhat slow, however, and consumes massive amounts of chalk as it works, which needs to be fed constantly to the Mind and incurs a considerable cost on the subject desiring the graft. The Mind works to produce a spool of lattice stuff, and then it is the task of skilled sembleworkers to craft the graft that is desired.

It is here where the artistry of the entire Semblance Doctrine shines forth. The Sequencer Mind provides the material, and the subject provides their wish, but it is down to the sembleworker - an artist at their core and one by necessity - to reconcile both using the tools at their disposal to create the final graft. It is here where the individual differences between sembleworkers arise; while the operation of tools and machines used in the Sembleworks can be taught to even the most obtuse of prospects, Ateliers ultimate select for the most creatively minded, those who are able to conceive of something grand and unique in their minds and realize them on the canvas of the body.

This is where the bulk of the time creating a latticegraft is often spent, in the back and forth between sembleworker and subject as they work towards creating the perfect graft on the path towards realizing their Semblance.

This expertise and the entire process, expectedly, is not cheap, and has led to many criticisms of the Semblance Doctrine being a philosophy afforded only to those of considerable material means. Finding a capable sembleworker at an achievable price remains a concern for many Fel-Arcad pursuing this path. There are various cases, however, of sembleworkers who see opportunities to realize some artistic idea that has weighed upon them for longer than they care to relay - and at the sight of the right subject, they are more than willing to serve them at no cost to them.

Tier 4 - Lattice Reimagination The final tier of the sembleworks is one few find themselves contemplating, as it is the most involved - and by extension, the most expensive and dangerous - of them all. The lattice reimagination comes when a subject - through all discussion on this subject matter to confirm certainty - remains convicted of the belief that their current form is not the form they wish to reside in, and instead of adding things to the existing lattice, the subject wishes to be ‘removed’ from their current form and adopt a new, created form that suits them. In simpler terms, it can be a total rejection of the bipedal human form, and a desire for something entirely different, which needs to be created often from scratch.

Cosmegrafts, chrome and spools of lattice from the subject will all need to employed in this case, in varying amounts. Most noteworthy on the technological front, however, is a tool known as the lathe. The lathe is special, in that it’s function is made possible due to doctrinal principles, and the lathe’s function is to pare things down to a desired shape. In the case of a total reimagination of a lattice, the subject is fed to the lathe, and their initial form is cut down to solely the Five Straits - the entirety of the subjects being. Mistakes and failures at this stage are often fatal. The subject which now exists solely in the form of the Five Straits is immensely vulnerable to all manners of phenomena, and thus need to be shielded - often in large vaults made specifically for this purpose. Whether this step is taken before or after their reimagined form is ready is up to the subject, but some subjects may be so tortured by their forms that they wish to remain merely in the ‘Strait state’ until their new form is ready.

On the other front, engineering of this new form is underway, and depending on the whims of the subject this could be a simple as engineering a new bipedal humanoid form for them to inhabit to doing something far beyond regularity. Most subjects who reach this stage are often rejecting their bipedal forms to become something else, and the realization of this ‘something else’ will be a task that plagues gatherings of sembleworkers for immense periods of time, and consumes plentiful amounts of chalk in the creation of drafts, test models, additional models in various stages of iteration, finalizing prototypes, before reaching the final product. Because every single one of these lattice reimaginations is different from the last and as a whole they are fairly rare, they draw fair bits of attention from sembleworkers all over the Dancirah, with particularly skilled sembleworkers of note journeying to study or even aid in the process, and conclaves of them in Ateliers debating fervently on the means to realize a subject’s desire. Sembleworkers - as mentioned before - are artists and creatives, and thus share very little by way of common ground as regards the means of doing any one thing.

The process is costly, time consuming, risky, exhausting for all involved - and doable no way else.

The lathe sees other uses; its ability to pare things down to their doctrinal cores is of great usage to the Fel-Arcad in their studies of the Switchboard and their Ritualism, and lathes serve as a means to recycle the unneeded products of the sembleworks such as old grafts.

Addendum

Some tangentially related subject matter, that might find a new home elsewhere among the document stack.

Emergent Minds

Derivative of the nature of spontaneous equations, chalk occasionally folds itself - and via self correction mechanisms and selection - into elementary calcic intelligences. They cannot exist for very long without bodies (or ‘vessels’) and so they swiftly inhabit any nearby objects at the site of their formation.

These minds tend to emerge at locales of high calcic activity, particular noteworthy are areas where large amounts of chalk were used offensively, such as old battlefields, abandoned settlements, crash sites for ships etc. Typically, where there were once minds, emergent minds arise in their wake. Being seeded and arising in these environments often gives them a rather violent disposition, as a result.

An object or collection of objects are ‘possessed’ with the emergent mind to grant them a body, curiously knowing innately that they require limbs capable of manipulation and locomotion. Most noteworthy however, is their primal nature as beings that were once ordinary chalk not long before; they possess an ability to manipulate chalk ribbon and weave with startling proficiency, granting them abilities that could be seen as approaching ‘psychic’.