The Astrolabe

Outlined most succinctly in the account of the Switchboard’s origin;

The Astrolabe

In the beginning was the Switchboard, and the Astrolabe kept its time. It existed as a colossal cosmological super-construct of incalculable, inconceivable complexity, understood only visually as an amalgamation of wheels, rings, pointers and measures. It operated by virtue of its calculus, an endless stream of mathematics whose resultants shaped the Switchboard and whose variables and parameters were the Switchboard it shaped. Built of a material dubbed ‘counterwoven barristeel’, it carried out its calculation through inducing great currents of chalk, pulling almost ‘scans’ of all that existed in the Switchboard, indexing all it gleaned from these scans in its ledgers, and then feeding these ledgers into its grand equations. By the Astrolabe, all that exists on the ontological and phenomological ledgers came to be.

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At the center of the Switchboard lies the Astrolabe, a colossal construct that stood at the beginning of the Switchboard before it even bore that name, Manifesting physically as a star-sized analogue computer-like construct of incomprehensible complexity, the workings of its grand calculus serves to dictate the very nature of the Switchboard, all the way down to the most elementary calcic mechanics. It is this significance that has earned the Astrolabe equal parts curiosity, reverence and often fear. Nonetheless, the mechanics of the Switchboard are - in a sense - the mechanics of the Astrolabe, plus making it necessary that there be a document to outline the many workings of the super-construct.

The Origin of the Astrolabe.

For now, there is no conclusive answer to this question.

The Grand Calculus

The Astrolabe functions via its calculus. This calculus describes the seemingly pondering - the calculations - performed by the incomprehensible clockwork mechanisms that make up the entire astrolabic structure, as well as the result of those calculations as they are distributed throughout the entire Switchboard. The Astrolabe is - most simply - a colossal computer, whose input and and output have attained a universe’s scale in size and complexity, and as such, the processing step in-between must exist similarly.

Perpetuation

Scholars of the Astrolabe have set about studying the physical structure of the Astrolabe as well as the effects it yields in a bid to find out as much as they can about it, working to develop theories about its manner of operation. Chief amongst them, is that of the Astrolabic Perpetuation, a theory that the whether by pure coincidence, the product of a level of deep mathematics none can grasp, or by being guided by some external unknown force, the Astrolabe seems ardent about perpetuating the Switchboard.

In a sense, the Astrolabe’s mathematics yields results that always bring about ‘more Switchboard’. Should there be a hypothetical ‘end state’ of the Switchboard, a state in which all that there is comes to a standstill, the Astrolabe’s calculus selects for outcomes that avoid this end state.

This has led many to question if the Astrolabe, in a sense, selects for entropic outcomes, and for the conditions necessary for further increased entropy. That perhaps, the Astrolabe’s calculus tends the entire Switchboard towards grander states of disorder, for reasons still unknown.

The Calculation Process

At the crux of the Astrolabe’s Calculus is working towards a resolution. This is a change made to the Switchboard that is exerted over its entirety generally, or to localized spaces otherwise. Astrolabic Resolutions are the source of much study and ire in the Switchboard, as at their core, they are the very Switchboard gradually growing and changing in manners that may or may not be conducive to its denizens.

To begin the process, the Astrolabe first executes one of the many subroutines under its Core Operational Protocols, this particular one known as the Reflexive. The Reflexive is a time-bound subroutine that the Astrolabe calls upon to evaluate itself, triggered either through specific circumstances or after an amount of time on an internal clock has passed. The Reflexive takes a litany of measurements relating to the Astrolabe’s function, but in particular it measures the entropy generated within the Switchboard since the last resolution cycle. Should a dynamically-selected threshold be surpassed, the Reflexive passes control over to perhaps the most senior of the subroutines, the Resolver.

The task of the Resolver is to parse all changes to the Switchboard made since the last resolution cycle and yield a new resolution or set of resolutions that fulfill criteria outlined by the Astrolabe, primarily that of the Perpetuation. The Resolver executes a number of sub-functions that serve towards fulfilling this end, with the Index Subroutine - the subroutine responsible for populating the Astrolabe’s ledgers with information from the entirety of the Switchboard - being one of the most noteworthy.

When resolutions are reached, they are inscribed into the Astrolabe’s ledgers, and exerted upon the entire Switchboard via the Armillary Stars, in a manner elaborated upon later.

Protocols

On occasion, the Resolver will have need to facilitate the ability to do something that is traditionally not possible with the current state of the Astrolabe’s clockwork mechanisms, and as such, the only means forward is for the Astrolabe to engineer additional mechanisms of counterwoven barristeel, incomprehensibly complex gearworks that dictate and define the means of doing a thing into being. These are the Protocols.

When the Resolver decides that something needs to be possible, a protocol is realized into being to make it happen. These protocols can be thought of as vastly elevated calcic equations that fold chalk in a manner that cannot be grasped, to facilitate changes in the Switchboard that permeate the entirety of its space, redefining the ledgers and the compute performed using them. Often, protocols can be ‘tapped in to’ or even outrightly wielded by denizens of the Switchboard towards their own ends, as protocols serve a double-duty of being long-term, massive entropy generators.

On occasion, existing concepts or functions in the Switchboard are elevated to protocol-level status, to take on an astrolabic component in their nature. This allows their function to evolve beyond its initial make, and thus interact with the Switchboard in a manner similar to the Astrolabe’s calculus.

Protocol Master List

A list of the currently existing protocols, subroutines and functions in the canon.

1. Core Operations Protocol
   • Reflexive Subroutine
   • Resolver Subroutine
2. Ledger Protocol
   • Index Function
   • (Tentative) Cast Addendum Function
   • (Tentative) Vow Addendum Function
3. The Strider Protocol 4. The Flash Protocol 5. Collapse Protocol (though this is more of an imperfect protocol)
4. The Weave Protocol
5. The Drift Protocol
6. The Praxis Protocol
7. The Breach Protocol

Computational Apparatus

Over the many processions counted by the Astrolabe and borne by the Switchboard, the Astrolabe has utilized various physical apparatus in the resolution of its calculus. Much like distributing a computational program across various machines to lighten the computational load on each individual machine, as well as hasten the overall completion of the task, the Astrolabe has similarly, across the ages, utilize other entities structures as computational apparatus, towards its end of computing the entirety of the Switchboard.

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

In the earliest before-times, the overall complexity of the Switchboard was low enough such that the Astrolabe alone was able to compute its entirety with minimal difficulty. The Switchboard and the Astrolabe existed in this manner for many, many processions, until the interactions of the various simple components of the Switchboard of then, accelerated by the radiance of elementary stars, proved sufficient to cause the resolution of calculus that caused the first thinking weave - the First Thinkers - to arise in the Switchboard. Guided by a prime directive to serve the Astrolabe, the collective swarm of the First Thinker entities served as the Astrolabe’s first true computational apparatus.

They patrolled the early Switchboard, guided by a prime directive to serve the Astrolabe. They did by aiding it in its calculations as ‘monitors’, scouring the resultants of the Astrolabe’s latest calculations and feeding that information to it to inform the next. This relationship of sorts fed the First Thinker’s prime directives, which served as their sustenance and allowed them to grow - a phenomena that academics much later would conclude could very well have been the birth of doctrine. As they fed the Astrolabe information on the Great Sky, its calculations served in turn to shape it further, its mathematics causing armillary stars to birth in calculated regions, Wellsprings to take root in the interplanetary space and begin their growth and glow, and fragments to break off of those Wellsprings to form planetary equations, from which the calculated folding of chalk gave rise to the planets. These formed the first Cradles. The monitoring First Thinkers would observe all of this, and feed it back to the Astrolabe.

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Because of this, the Astrolabe stopped using its own power to ‘draw’ information from the entire Switchboard to inform its calculations, as this was slower, less accurate, and the currents of chalk it induced to pass information to it was itself causing inaccuracies and damage to the information and the Switchboard as a whole. Thus, it came to rely on the First Thinkers feeding it information on the Switchboard.

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The Astrolabe’s original Index Subroutine presented the problem of how merely observing how the Switchboard had changed, and relaying this information back to the Astrolabe, caused further colossal changes to the Switchboard in and off itself, resulting in the need for earlier resolutions of the calculus, as well as never allowing any resolution to truly ‘resolve’ the changes made to the Switchboard, as any changes implemented to the Switchboard were made outdated by the process of even concocting them. For this reason, Astrolabic calculus was stricken with endless inaccuracies and deficiencies - which the rise of the First Thinkers served to solve.

Many events spanned and defined the Dawn of the Dancirah, but in particular - and relevant to this subject matter - was the conclusion of the First Praxis War between the First and Second thinkers, the Vermeil. The scale of the catastrophe exceeded anything that had ever occurred in the Switchboard before, and the Astrolabe was forced to respond in kind, swinging the pendulum back in a colossal resolution that gave rise to its greatest creations yet;

Never had the Switchboard known or seen such chaos and catastrophe, nor had the Astrolabe ever had to compute all of it to a point of resolution. Its barristeel stretched to the limit, its primordial mechanica strained beyond any thinker’s ability to comprehend. Its calculus seemed irreparably broken, but through stress and strain, its systems resolved with its most radical creations yet; the nine astrolabic spheres, the Strider and Weave Protocols, and the third generation of thinking weave.

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Our focus are the nine astrolabic spheres;

The nine astrolabic spheres formed by the Astrolabe began their stately halo dance around it, in a cycle that would come to be recognized as a functional calendar. These spheres served primarily as secondary calculators for the Astrolabe, serving to mitigate the sheer computational load offloaded upon it. On these spheres however, did the third generation of Thinkers arise, inhabiting recognizable bipedal human forms that are familiar to us today. They arose defined by protocols of Weave and Stride, granting them the power to interact with the Switchboard on the ‘microscopic’ or rather ribbon level, as well as the innate power to cross huge spans of it in mere seconds.

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The nine astrolabic spheres formed served as a means to compute the now immensely chaotic Switchboard, and one astrolabic sphere alone was powerful enough as a computer to vastly outstrip the compute power of colossal swarms of the First Thinkers. As a response to the defection of their duty by the First Thinkers in part, and the fact the Second Thinkers the Astrolabe realized as their stand-ins didn’t serve the purpose of acting as an alternative to the Index Subroutine, the resolution calculus resulted in something more purposeful and permanent; entire planets that would serve as secondary computers.

It is perhaps for the best that the astrolabic spheres arose when they did, as the rise of the Third Kin would herald in the most frenetic state of the Switchboard in all of its tenure. The build-up to the Second Praxis War and the war itself suffused bounteous quantities of pure chaos into the Astrolabe’s compute queues, and without nine planet-sized assistants, it likely would’ve buckled under the compute load far earlier, and brought about the Refrain earlier than when it did.

But it didn’t, and instead the Astrolabe lasted, the Reflexive running its circuit and seeing no need to call for the intervention of the Resolver.

But it was only a matter of time, and eventually all the loans taken by the Switchboard of then would have to be repaid, done so in a cataclysmic resolution that would be called ‘The Refrain’.

The time came for the Astrolabe to begin another grand resolution of its calculus, and without the Overseer Collective or Adamant to feed it its needed data with which to carry out the resolution, it carried out its Index Subroutine, inciting mighty currents of chalk to flow from all corners of the Switchboard towards it, bringing with it swathes of information ripped from armillary star, every Wellspring, every planet, every Vault and shattered Nexus. From the geysers of chalk from the Challenger Dark, at the lips of jaws feeding into the Vitric Shelf, from every Third Kin and other thinking entities that still persisted, resulting in a storm of chalk that surged and scorched the Dancirah, the Great Sky descending into thrashing calcic chaos the likes of which had never been seen or conceived off in the minds of thinkers.

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Bearing the brunt of it in particular were the astrolabic spheres, home to a majority of the Third Kin. They were drowned and pounded by storms of chalk beyond compare, as the information of every event since their rising from the chalk deserts was drawn to the Astrolabe to resolve its calculus, in the grandest calculation carried since possibly the first equations that birthed the Switchboard in its entirety.

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And when the Astrolabe resolved its calculus at last, and the storm subsided, its decision was fatal. Reaching out with unseen hands, the Astrolabe shattered the nine astrolabic spheres, resolving its calculus and bringing the Switchboard to a state of rest it hadn’t known since the dawn of the First Thinkers.

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While the Astrolabe could compute the entirety of the Switchboard using the astrolabic spheres, it did not have any means for conveying imprints of the nature of the Switchboard back to itself as the First Thinkers had once done. For this reason, it had to utilize its Index Subroutine once again, on the largest scale it ever had, resulting in Switchboard-wide cataclysms that reshaped its landscape permanently. This was the Refrain.

What confused many, however, was that it was not entirely apparent what change or resolution the Refrain brought about. Not immediately anyway. Scholars of the subject would soon come to realize that the Astrolabe had rebuilt its own toolbox of how it performed the task of pulling information from the Switchboard and resolving it; by deploying an equation across the entirety of the Switchboard that transformed all of its stars into novel entities - the Armillary Stars, that obtained the power to take in imprints of the Switchboard for computation, and compute those inputs in line with astrolabic calculus, greatly reducing the compute load on the Astrolabe like never before, as well as ensuring the Reflexive won’t call on the Resolver for a while, this change in particular bringing about the ‘divine calm’ that followed the Refrain, and assured the Third Thinkers that the world was stable enough for them to build upon permanently;

But as said before, with this final resolution, the Astrolabe settled to an almost divine calm, and the Academy’s researchers concluded that it had at last resolved its processions-long pent-up calculus, having seemingly been waiting for an opportunity to do so, through the various offensives and the Second Praxis War. They concluded that, should nothing so grand as the Thinker Conflicts ever occur again, the Astrolabe would remain fairly calm for processions to come, assuring the rattled Third Kin that they could at last, begin to explore, build and inhabit - permanently.

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In addition to the Armillary Stars, the Astrolabe began utilizing greatly empowered equations - Teks, as they are more commonly known in-verse - to perform smaller scale computation in more targeted contexts. Teks further aided in the postponement of the Resolver-call by the Reflexive, as Teks further reduced the burden on the Armillary Stars. Astrolabic mechanics working alongside the mechanics of spontaneous equations give rise to Teks exactly where they are needed, further facilitating the Astrolabe’s computation. Much of difference between what prompts the Astrolabe to seed the formation of a star or a Tek is a matter of focus and ‘reach’; generally, the scope of the computation that needs doing informs the apparatus deployed to do it. Teks work excellently in reconciling local mathematics, focusing to resolve specific calculus, while stars serve the function of exerting the Astrolabe’s influence over the entire Switchboard.

What is meant by ‘reach’ and ‘exerting influence’ requires us to dive into the mechanics of ledgers.

Ledgers

The Astrolabe’s calculus is performed upon imprints taken of the Switchboard, immensely complex calcic ‘mirrors’ of the slice of the Switchboard from which they are taken. The Astrolabe, however, cannot perform computation on the imprints as-is, and instead their contents need to be separated and sorted into distinct categories. These categories take the shape and form of the Astrolabic Ledgers, constructs of chalkweave that record the ontology of the Switchboard.

The ledgers of the Switchboard are faultless records of all that is and occurs in the Switchboard. For every thing, entity, concept, phenomena, person, idea, space, power - everything - there is an associated ledger that records all that there is to do with it; its nature, all that it does and is done to it - everything. The result of this rigorous recordkeeping is the raw material the Astrolabe’s Resolver Subroutine utilizes in its calculus to produce resolutions.

The creation and inscription of ledgers is handled by a protocol-level function; the Ledger Protocol, a function made manifest in the Astrolabe’s cosmic brass-works that take in, digest, index and store colossal imprints of the entire Switchboard in the form of the largest calcic library that has existed alongside - and perhaps even is - time itself; the Current. The Calcic Current as it is most commonly known, is a sea of ledgers, connecting the Astrolabe, the Armillary Stars, and every and all things that have and currently dwell within the Switchboard.

Ledgerial Mechanics

Outlined in the following are the various mechanics related to the Switchboard’s Ledgers.

Indev: Ledger Classes

Based on the calcic information inscribed within, there are two major classes of ledger;

• Indexer Ledgers; that store what is recorded to them.
• Astrolabic Ledgers; ledgers that store what is recorded to them, but the information recorded to them has been done such that it can be exerted.

Writing to Ledgers

There are number of actions and phenomena that prompt the Ledger Protocol’s Inscription Subroutine. Generally, any action performed within a Ledgerial Space will trigger the inscription subroutine to encode it in the appropriate ledger. Occurrences in ledgerial spaces generally write to Indexer ledgers, as these are primarily records of things that are, and happen.

Far more complex means of interacting with calcic reality that occur in ledgerial spaces, however, may prompt the inscription subroutine to write to an Astrolabic ledger. Of note, the most common prompters of astrolabe-level inscriptions are;

• Ledgerial Casts
• Praxis Impositions

Applying Ledgers

The way ledgers can be harnessed and used.

Ledgerial Spaces

The Switchboard operates under a considerable number of mechanics that have been outlined to varying degrees in this and other documents. Some of these mechanics - particularly foundational ones relating to the nature of chalkweave - exist and function as a matter of course, being mechanics that precede the Astrolabe itself. Others, however, are products of the Astrolabe and thus not inherent to the ontology of the verse. The means by which mechanics devised by the Astrolabe are appended to the foundational mechanics of the verse is necessarily via chalk, and as such, any effect the Astrolabe has on calcic reality is by weaving those effects into calcic reality.

To do this of course, requires something capable of exuding effects, or rather, something capable of emanating the resolutions of the Astrolabe as Inductive Weave upon calcic reality nearby, such that all calcic interactions occurring within a context are summarily skewed by top-level calculus facilitating or constraining what can be done, this particular bit made possible by the praximechanics of the Astrolabe in espousing a doctrine of perpetuation, allowing it to supersede most other doctrines it acts upon.

Weave being material, however, means that there is a tangible limit to how far inductive weave can travel before losing its integrity, and the far simpler fact that the ability for weave to travel in the Switchboard is passively curtailed by the existence of the Void. As a result, anything capable of emanating inductive weave can only do so over a given area.

What is emanated - Astrolabic Resolutions - are encoded in the Astrolabic Ledgers, and the apparatus necessary for exerting the contents of the Astrolabic Ledgers have these ledgers fed to them through the Current. The region of the Switchboard that these emanating apparatus operate upon is thus called a Ledgerial Space. The Astrolabic mechanics of the Switchboard only function within the ledgerial spaces of the Astrolabe.

Further Notes

In the before-times, the Switchboard was simple enough that the Astrolabe alone was more than capable of exerting its ledgerial influence over its entirety. The effective range of a constructs ledgerial influence is determined by some major factors;

• The raw calcic output of the construct
• The calcic density of the given area upon which it aims to exert ledgerial influence

With more chalk present in the environment, the more raw calcic output a construct that means to exert ledgerial influence over that environment must posses - and the smaller the ledgerial space it can create should it be unable to meet this output demand.

As the Switchboard gradually grew more complex, and generally filled with more stuff, the Astrolabe became increasingly less capable of exerting its ledgerial influence over its entirety, thus resulting in a gradual weakening and breakdown of Astrolabic mechanics. It rectified this by elevating certain cosmological constructs such as the First Thinkers Mind Nexuses, and later on, the Armillary Stars to being capable of exerting the Astrolabe’s ledgerial influence on its behalf, the Astrolabic ledgers necessary for this task conducted to these constructs via the Calcic Current.

This means that in the modern Switchboard, much of the Astrolabe-fabricated laws only function within the ledgerial space exerted by the Armillary Stars. Fortunately, the Switchboard is filled with stars, and the Astrolabe’s Resolution cycles create more as the case may be. This does mean, however, that should one find themselves in a region on the outer fringes of the stars of the Switchboard - or worse, gone beyond the sight of the stars entirely, then they will be subject to increasing degradation of the stringent reinforcement of the Astrolabe’s laws, to the extent that they eventually stop working entirely.

Further writ on this particular point is discussed in the Edge of the Switchboard.

The imperfect distribution of stars throughout the Switchboard has created pockets and cavities where the ledgerial space of one star thins or ends and another star isn’t there to cover for it. These Starless Sectors where stars do not reach thus suffer from mildly or greatly diminished compliance with Astrolabic laws, and in this vacuum, new phenomena emerge as a result, as well as old concepts behaving in new, lopsided manners.

The Vault-Minds

Vaults as Ledgerial Spaces

An addendum following the development of The Astrolabe.

The many powers possessed by a Vault Mind and the oddities and quirks inherent to it are, in fact, a product of the Vault being immersed in a ledgerial space. The shield that a vault possesses serves to cordon off the vault from the rest of the Switchboard, and declaring the space within the shield a boundary. Within this boundary, the Vault Mind imposes the ledgers it has written, made possible by being a creation identical to the earliest calcic intelligences, and being a creature of instinct powered by raw doctrine.

Within the ledgerial space of the vault, attacking kache krash teams must contend with the many offensive and defensive measures employed by the Vault Mind, including its ability to warp space itself, further complicating the task of traversing a vault.

Failing to default a Vault Mind triggers ledgerial writ that purges the attacking force from the limits of the boundary. But chief among the powers granted to a vault by virtue of it being a ledgerial space is the target-specific unravelling weapon. As a being - such as a member of an attacking team - dwells within the confines of a vault, the nature and construction of its lattice is gradually written to a ledger. Should the subject attempt to infiltrate the vault again, the ledger is weaponized and used to concoct a weapon, which targets the subject and destroys their lattice utterly - a near-guaranteed instant-kill maneuver.

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Starless Ritualism

Starless Ritualism

The gap in ledgerial spaces exerted by the Switchboard’s Armillary Stars are environments where Astrolabic laws - common enough as to be assumed present as a matter of course - are suspended to varying degrees. The result of this is many-fold, but primarily it manifests as a breakdown of the functionality of Astrolabe-devised mechanics, such as the Strider Protocol. These between-state environments however, do introduce a very interesting opportunity to calcic ritualists; the fact that actions taken in these ‘starless sectors’ often go un-recorded by the Ledger Protocol.

Like going incognito in a browser, rituals performed in a Dark Sector fly under the radar of the Ledger Protocol’s passive monitoring and indexing, meaning that it is possible to carry out rituals for which no record exists, and thus not be factored in to the Astrolabe’s calculus. This vacuum in the Indexer ledgers isn’t a major problem for the Astrolabe, that proceeds onwards with its calculus mostly unhindered, but the practitioners of the Starless Ritualism envision reaping considerable boons from this school of ritualism.

The true extents of the Starless Ritualism remain to be seen.

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Erecting Ledgerial Spaces

The most common form of ledgerial space is one where a central emitting structure exerts ledgerial influence over a locale. This is the mode of the Astrolabe and the armillary stars, the foremost constructors of ledgerial spaces in the Switchboard.

However, there is another form of ledgerial space that makes use of erected boundaries;

Ledgerial Space Formation

By erecting a bounded space through various means, writing a ledger, and exerting the writ of that ledger throughout the bounded space, it is possible to make another kind of ledgerial space in the Switchboard. This second type of space takes various names, based primarily on the erector of the space, such as hollow, territory, space, bounded-space, domain, the like.

The hard part of this is primarily writing ledgers. Much like the ritual schema under the chalk ritualism, the writ of a ledger must be painstakingly defined in chalk, and then the writ of that ledger exerted upon ever single coherent calcic entity within the confines of the boundary. It is an immensely taxing feat to pull off, and is often constrained to the most powerful beings in the Switchboard.

Ledgers being writable via the Weave Protocol means that chalkweavers are able to write ledgers, but the task of doing so as is immensely difficult. When coupled with erecting a barrier, weaving the writ of the ledger into that barrier, exerting the writ of the ledger over everything in the space, and then supplying the chalk needed for the entire construct to run, constructing a ledgerial space remains the domain of the strongest and most skilled chalkstriders. The fact most chalkweavers and Striders can’t make particularly powerful ledgers mean their ledgerial spaces have to be used in other means, such as physically restraining a target, or having a concretely mathematically-defined space for the pinpoint deployment of techniques.

Depthstriders can’t write ledgers at all due to being unable to weave chalk. Depthstriders who hope to construct a ledgerial space must make use of other avenues of obtaining written ledgers, this primarily being through impositions made with the first Amaranth Sultan. Depthstriders erect a boundary via cordoning off a region of space via curvature manipulation, and then the Amaranth Sultan - a legendary chalkweaver in his own right - writes and deploys the ledgers throughout the space as requested by the depthstrider. This is the primary operating principle of the Deep Hollow technique used by depthstriders and Vahnic faithful.

The Depthstrider Deep and Crescent Hollow techniques are the most formalized application of this discipline.

As a note, chalkweavers can write decent ledgers due to having the Weave Protocol, but erect poor boundaries. Depthstriders can erect solid boundaries via their powerful curvature manipulation, but cannot write ledgers themselves, and rely on pacts made with the Amaranth Sultan to do so.

The Pale Amaran, however, being able to both weave chalk and manipulate the depths, is thus uniquely outfitted for the erection of the most solid class of barriers, as well as the writing and deployment of ledgers within them, making them the absolute most capable at constructing ledgerial spaces. However, this is still constrained to the upper echelons of Pale Amaran practitioners, but it does mean that a truly skilled Pale Amaran space-builder is capable of erecting spaces with none of the conventional weaknesses that come with leaning exclusively towards either white or black.

Space Clashing

What happens when ledgerial spaces intersect? There are two kinds of ledgerial space interaction in this regard;

• When the barriers of two ledgerial spaces crash into each other while they are being formed.
• When a ledgerial space is expanded within another ledgerial space, resulting in one barrier enveloping another.
• When two sets of ledgerial space rules occupy the same barrier.

In the first instance, it comes down to the nature of the barriers at play. Refer to the table below for the interactions between clashing barriers;

	Weave Barrier	Spatial Barrier
Weave Barrier	Barrier clash; the barrier with superior construction wins.	Spatial barriers ignore weave and subsume it into themselves, annihilating it.
Spatial Barrier	Spatial barriers ignore weave and subsume it into themselves, annihilating it.	The spatial distortion caused by both cancel each other out, and the barrier collapses.

In the second instance, the phenomena of ledgerial suspension takes place, where the writ of the enveloping barrier’s ledgers are suspended within the space of the enveloped barrier. This is an effective tactic for shielding against certain dangerous ledgerial space attacks, such as a depthstrider’s Hollow technique, as expanding even a simple weft barrier would cancel the depthstrider’s sultanic strike techniques against anyone within the boundary.

However, the walls of the enveloped boundary are still at the mercy of the enveloping boundary, and the writ of the enveloping boundary’s ledgers still applies to the enveloped boundary within it. As such, the master of the outermost boundary is tasked with dismantling the walls of the inner one, such that they can once again impose their ledgerial writ throughout the entire space. Weft barriers caught within spatial ones are particularly susceptible to this, as the chalk-draining power of even the weakest depthstrider Hollows means the walls of a weft boundary will be passively ‘melted’ even without the depthstrider within doing anything.

The third instance is incredibly rare, but still happens; the rare occasion where the structural parameters of two barriers are perfectly or even nearly identical - such as in an instance where a combatant expands a boundary as a response to another, while ‘dubbing’ their structural metrics - causing two sets of ledgerial writ to occupy the same space. Ledgerial suspension occurs in this instance as with the second instance above, but in a mildly different manner; bits and pieces of the ledgerial writ in action are canceled out by each other, resulting in a mix of rules being imposed in the space, and resulting - usually - in utter chaos.

In some instances, the instability of super-imposed barriers and conflicting ledgerial writ is enough to collapse both boundaries, and among those who frequently battle with ledgerial spaces, this is referred to as ‘parrying a boundary’. It goes without saying that executing this maneuver is immensely difficult, requiring pinnacle control of barrier techniques and knowledge of how ledgers function.

A final note, many ledgerial spaces are subject to ledger inheritance, where a boundary within another boundary inherits the ledgers in effect in the boundary above it. For this reason, the writ in astrolabic ledgers - such as the Strider Protocol - still function in sub-ledgerial spaces more often than not.

Ledger Acquisition

Ledgers when applied in battle are among the highest techniques in the verse with regards to their ceiling for potency. For this reason, they are incredibly difficult to acquire normally, and typically must be sourced from external means. While it is indeed possible for chalkweavers to concoct ledgers via pure feat of chalk folding, this requires a level of potency and proficiency that vastly exceeds what is narratively justifiable in the verse. Beings such as this are either personifications of ultimate conflict, or ultimate conflict mitigation, and thus cannot meaningfully exist in a story in most cases - not without adverse effects on everything else.

Ledgers can be viewed as ‘slots’. When a ledger is acquired, it is blank, and must be filled with calcic writ. The sources of ledgerial slots are as follows;

Conventional

• Depthstriders via their Hollow techniques
• Chalkweavers via rare teks
• Chalkweavers after hitting Weftcrash

Esoteric

• Immensely complex praxis impositions

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pNarrat: The Astrolabic Superstructure

SB_Astromechanics is recommended reading for this section.

Resting at the center of the Switchboard, quiet but always working, is the Astrolabe. Built primarily of barristeel and its alloys, from near and far the Astrolabe dominates the Great Sky as a burnished gold instrument defying all preconceived notions about the sizes of things allowed to or even capable of existing in the Dancirah. So large is it, that parts of its clockwork infrastructure has been made habitable by the denizens of the Dancirah, particularly for those who have tasked themselves with studying and defending the Astrolabe, as well as serving as the staging grounds for incursions into the Astrolabe itself.

The Astrolabic Cradle

As of the modern Switchboard times, the Astrolabic Cradle consists of the Astrolabe, the debris-belt formed by the annihilation of the nine astrolabic spheres during the Refrain, and a series of other planets, wellsprings and exoplanetary structures such as DevitNet infrastructure, free-standing space ports and fleets of starships. The Brass Monastery in particular maintains a marked presence in this space, with fleets, defensive installations and barriers installed to maintain total control of what is allowed to reach the Astrolabe.

Some distance beyond the final celestial bodies that make up the Astrolabic Cradle, the Near Armillary Rim begins. This is where the Switchboard’s armillary stars begin, and extend outwards encompassing the vast majority of Switchboard space.

Outside of the boundary of the Astrolabic Cradle, the Sil’khan maintain a considerable fleet presence. In their canon, the Astrolabe, astrolabic spheres, the Old Danseers and the Skydancers, and them are all connected, and as such they treat the Astrolabe and its environs as a hallowed place, and many Sil’khan from near and far come to visit the locale that birthed their ancestor-kin.

The Astrolabe Structure

The Astrolabe is a stratified structure defined by hollows and barriers. Hollows can - under circumstances - be traversed within by the denizens of the Switchboard. Barriers must be breached by some means to gain access to the layers below, either through physical means or calcic ones.

The Outer Astrolabe

On the outer reaches of the Astrolabe’s structure are the Orrery Rings, and the first barrier, the Wisher’s Grave.

The Orrery Rings Surrounding the spherical behemoth of the Astrolabe are three titanic barristeel rings that rotate along their planes and spin on an axis, large enough to berth large spacecraft and even build small settlements. Unaware of their true purpose - if any at all - many believe they serve as apparatus used in the Astrolabe’s grand calculus. Many still however, particularly the Sil’khan, believe that the Astrolabe anticipated denizens of the Switchboard coming to pay homage to it in religious fervor, and thus lay out prayer mats for them to be received.

The sheer calcic density and radiance from the orrery rings and the Astrolabe in general has made dwelling there for too long fairly inadvisable, and while many have chipped bits of barristeel from the rings in hope of using it for whatever purpose it might have, such as in ritualism, they find to their dismay that the barristeel reverts to a ‘dormant’ or even ore state that has been dubbed barristone, and serves little use beyond already existing, more traditional materials, or as a keepsake or souvenir.

The Wisher’s Grave The first of the Astrolabe’s structural barriers, the Wisher’s Grave, so called as many imagine that the wishes of the many denizens of the Switchboard collide with this barrier and go no further, having little effect on the calculus that takes place deeper into the Astrolabe. This barristeel alloy barrier is penetrable by physical material breaching apparatus, and this is the means of gaining entry to the layers below.

The barristeel barrier itself - perhaps as a result of the wishes tossed at it - has accumulated all manners of flourish to its face. Much like the inscrit practiced by the Sil’khan, the Wisher’s Grave has been covered with square kilometers of relief carvings, abstractly depicting what is assumed to be every wish ever tendered by those who dwell in the Switchboard. For many, the existence of the Wisher’s Grave has convinced them that there is no real way to skew the Astrolabe’s calculus, and while some have derived some manner of comfort from this fact, others have moved to much darker dispositions, ranging from depressive slumps, to irate anger, to existential terror.

The Inner Astrolabe

Passing the Wisher’s Grave grants one entry into the Astrolabe proper. The heaviness of ledgerial weight upon one’s shoulder makes impossible any deviation from the proper function of calcic mechanics, and many who’ve walked the halls of what lie below report feeling the shape of something unfamiliar - or not native - to the Dancirah. This section is made up of the first hollow, the Hollow of the Ministrations and the second barrier, the Canticle Summit.

The Hollow of Ministrations Descending from the Wisher’s Grave, one will descend through a region in space where the physics has been skewed by factors unknown. The air here behaves more like water, with strange gravity in effect, resulting in the ability of those who enter this hollow to effectively ‘swim’ through space.

Dominating the architecture of the Hollow is an endless sea of machinery and engine components. Gears and cogwheels meshed together, shafts and axles the size of marble columns, pulleys and belts stretching for miles, bearings for smoothing rotation, couplings for transferring it, clutches for deciding when, flywheels for storing it. With no apparent rhyme or reason to this space, one is free to swim through this sea of machine parts, each vastly larger than a person. And on occasion, without explanation, parts will suddenly assemble into something of a cohesive whole, and become a raging flurry of motion. As with very much else, it is assumed to be the result of astrolabic calculus.

The Canticle Summit The second barrier, one that manifests as a colossal - perhaps even infinite - library. It is believe by many that the Calcic Current originates from here, spun into quasi-existence by incomprehensible apparatus that sit atop the exalted mountain peaks of barristeel and alloy that define this strata.

Filling the valleys are shelves and shelves of the canticles of every being and phenomena to have ever lived and occurred in the Switchboard; the ontological ledgers that record and define into being all that is. Without explanation, none of these ledgers can be opened or tampered with in anyway, not even with powerful calcic ritualism, with no explanation for why forthcoming, much to the frustration of Astrolabe scholars.

Therein lies an exception however; should one find their own ledger, they still cannot open it or tamper with it, but with it, they are able to pass the Canticle Summit barrier and proceed to the levels below.

Many report the Canticle Summit to be filled with speech and song, but with no speakers or singing. It is suspected that it is the tomes - the ledgers - themselves are responsible for this.

The Final Frontier

The criteria for reaching the final frontier of the Astrolabe’s strata being searching what is effectively an infinite library for a single book has made it such that precious few have actually gone this far.

The Barristeel Strut-lands Upon entering this layer, one is immediately struck by the immense gravity and heat characteristic to it, a major problem as entrants are flung immediately to the surface, a surface dominated by an expanse of molten barristeel, and branching tree-like struts of barristeel emerging from the molten slurry. Finding a safe place to land here is nearly impossible, and spending much time here at all is greatly inadvisable, due to the crushing gravity, sweltering heat and the sheer quantity of calcic radiance being output from all directions.

A veritable forest, there is not much to see in the strut-lands, it never deviating too greatly from its default state of a river of golden fire, spindly metal fingers like a man’s hand reaching out from the deep. Cutting the struts themselves yields more molten matter, and those who stayed long enough to do anything by way of science observed that the struts appeared to be growing.

Of interest to many however, are the boluses of light that seemed to grow on some of the branches of the barristeel struts. Emanators of pure calcic radiance, even approaching them from afar resulted in a lattice scrubbed of all that differentiated it from the rest of the Switchboard. On a singular occasion, however, it was observed that these spheres of light occasionally detached from the struts, and took flight, travelling above the strut-lands and past the barrier above, leading many to conclude that the strut-lands were, in fact, a garden - or an orchard more precisely - and that the barristeel trees within it produced young stars as fruit.

The Valley of Dry Tomes The final barrier-strata of the Astrolabe, and among the simplest. Past and under the molten metal seas of the layer above, the Valley of Dry Tomes proffers those who reach it only a flat expanse of books with no pages, all having been ripped out by… none can say. This field of book spines is only as inexplicable as what lies beyond it, as none have figured out a means to pass the Valley of Dry Tomes.

The Switchboard’s denizens - for the most part - have accepted that there is a limit to where even the most adventurous nomads and star-roamers of the Dancirah can go.

The Star Corridor

Beyond the Valley of Dry Tomes barrier is the Star Corridor. Where the name for this place originated is unknown, but without explanation, all know that at the center of the Astrolabe lies the construct known as the Star Corridor.

As the Valley of Dry Tomes cannot be breached, there is nothing known about the Star Corridor. Theories abound, but nothing conclusive.

It is the final mystery of the Switchboard.

pNarrat: Resolution Classes

Consider this following writ;

The Radiance Cycle

Addendum from the revisions carried out in The Astrolabe.

The Radiance Cycle is a result of fixed, periodic grand resolutions carried out by the Astrolabe at the end of the yearly procession.

When the armillary stars amass ledgerial information from recording the on-goings within their ledgerial spaces, they grow even more chalk-dense and unstable than they already are. As a result, over the course of a procession, they glow even more brightly, and spit out greater quantities of calcic radiance and hyperweave flares, each ascension in ferocity marking the passing of the seasons - from lumies, to encendyr, to the final conflara, where the stars burn with biblical wrath.

Once the end of procession is reached however, the Astrolabe draws, and the armillary stars dump the entirety of their ledgerial load into the Current, which is then fed to the Astrolabe for it to begin its grand calculus, and enact the subsequent resolutions.

The lulls and surges in radiance ferocity over the course of a procession are the result of minor draws executed when sending urgent ledgers to the Astrolabe, or when a star - for whatever reason - accumulates more ledgerial data than is normal, or is unable to dump accumulated date into the current. When a surging star begins dumping its ledgerial data, a week of surge is followed by a week of standard stellar activity, and then a week of lull, where the stars are calmer. These activities also lead to changes in stellar mass and apparent size, which is an informal measure used by many to make guesses and estimations on when the next surge or lull will take place.

Link to original

It would help to elaborate on the concept of Astrolabic Resolutions by establishing that the Astrolabe is in fact, constantly resolving the calculus of the Switchboard at any given time. Where resolutions differ is in measures of scale.

The highest tier of resolutions are Grand Resolutions, resolutions that encompass the entire Switchboard. These have happened on three occasions;

• The rise of the First Thinkers
• The rise of the Second Thinkers
• The rise of the Third Thinkers, following the First Praxis War
• The Refrain, following the Second Praxis War

These resolutions are the product of the Astrolabe’s calculus, and bring about immense changes in a manner enveloping the entire Switchboard. Considering what they have brought about when they occur - both the rise of civilizations and their near collapse - many have come to fear them happening again. Fortunately, they are the product of the Astrolabe being unable to resolve its calculus in a more muted fashion for whatever reason, and following the relative stability in the cosmos that followed the curtains rising on the era of the Third Kin, observers of the barristeel construct have detected everything but building chaos from it.

All the same, many fear that they are long-overdue for a second Refrain, a resolution that will swing back the pendulum swung by the Third Kin civilization. They have expectedly come to attach all manners of significance to this idea, and have used it for the basis of actions good an bad.

Following the Grand Resolutions in scale, however, are the resolutions that are a resultant of the Radiance Cycle described above. As stars fill with ledgerial matter, they surge more and more powerfully until they reach a threshold, at which they dump ledgerial data into the Current to be fed to the Astrolabe. Following dumping data, the stars lose tangible calcic ferocity and still somewhat. However, they never dump all matter they have, and as such, over the course of a procession, stars build in ferocity until the turn of a new procession, when a massive draw is executed and stars dump the bulk of their matter into the Current to be passed to the Astrolabe for processing.

At different times during the Radiance Cycle, the Astrolabe performs smaller-scale resolutions with dumped stellar matter. The Seasonal Resolutions happen at the turn of the Radiance Cycle’s seasons, marking the transition between lumies, encendyr and conflara. A week of lull in stellar ferocity follows each seasonal resolution, followed by a gradual escalation of stellar ferocity to a level expected for the current season.

The Processional Resolution occurs at the beginning of every Switchboard year, after the stars have massively dumped their calcic matter. This resolution is far grander, particularly because it triggers a total refresh of the current state of praximechanics, elaborated upon further.

Descending from the Seasonal Resolutions in scale are the much smaller Local Resolutions, which are often domiciled to a single star or cluster of them, rarely going above a few regions with regards to cosmological architecture. Occasionally Astrolabic calculus can induce a local, more target resolution, perhaps to reconcile older ledgerial writ with the current state of the Switchboard.

pNarrat: Praxis Power-Shuffle

The document above, The Doctrine of Passing, The Blank-Slate Mind, SB_Astromechanics and Praxis Impositions are recommended reading before this section.

Perhaps one of the simplest means of interpreting praximechanics - though arguably somewhat reductive - is to imagine doctrines in the Switchboard as factions, and each faction existing in a sort of conflict with others, represented by measures of the weight of one faction against another. This ‘weight’ is obtained primarily by the summation of the weight of personal doctrines of all living beings that align themselves with that faction, as well as the metrics of the doctrine’s own bayesianity.

To simplify things even further, the doctrinal conflict is a measure of worldviews relative to the actual state of the world, and of answers to questions about that world. The holders of worldviews more aligned to reality are more powerful, and the holders of accurate answers to widely-posited questions similarly so.

As a very simple example, much of the Spyndl Academy’s might stems from their doctrine and knowledge. Being so old, they have an understanding of the reality of the latter Switchboard that stems from having been there for the near entirety of it. Being dedicated to doing just so, they have been a foremost force of inquiry into the function of reality. In a sense, ‘Spyndl-ism’ - to convert a methodology of approaching the world into a set of beliefs about it - is a fairly bayesian manner with which to engage with the Switchboard. Spyndl-ism is additionally a product of its adherents’ own personal convictions that derive tenets from Spyndl-ism, and in turn, reap dividends in the form of praxis powers and tangible strength via the praxis mechanics.

However, doctrines are not static things. Both below and above Spyndl-ism are innumerable rival doctrines each with their own approach methodologies and each with their own measures of bayesianity. Far more bayesian doctrines that Spyndl’s exist, but this does not guarantee any kind of higher post above Spyndl except for bayesianity itself. The bayesianity of a doctrine is better viewed as something that multiplies rather than adds. A poorly-bayesian evil empire that commands hundreds of planets, tens of thousands of military starships, and millions of highly-capable infantry is still a force to be reckoned with even with poor rating on the bayesianity scale. And conversely, an immensely bayesian monastic sect on an unknown planet in a dark sector will never be more than that.

But power can change hands. The evil empire can be collapsed under endless corruption, and the monastic sect emerge to storied prominence under the guidance of ambitious but rational leaders. And similar can happen with regards to doctrines and the praximechanics; gradual shifts in the bayesianity of a doctrine manifests tangibly as a weakening of all who adhere to it.

However, the state of a doctrine’s bayesianity is spatially determined. Praximechanics only function in the range of armillary stars, and the nuances of their function - the current bayesianity ‘level’ and thus the power reaped from it - is a product of the star’s own ledgerial record, which is in turn a product of Astrolabic resolutions. In a sense, when a star gets updated via Astrolabic resolution, so does the doctrinal standing of everything in its range, and thus who they interact with the praximechanics.

This has very interesting ramifications on narrative.

For one, the doctrinal standing of any given doctrine is an average across all adherents to it, which does in fact mean that adherents of the doctrine who are poorly bayesian can in fact cause a weakening of everyone who adheres to that doctrine - even more bayesian ones. If a doctrine is being contended with by another doctrine, losses incurred ripple throughout the Switchboard and affect all adherents. Conversely, doctrinal victories - through contending with other doctrines, honing one’s bayesian engine, cultivating knowledge, the like - has a similar ripple effect.

But this is conditional on stellar ledgers. If massive praxis activity in a cradle has caused a doctrine to surge in strength, only when a draw function passes this information from star to Astrolabe - and the Astrolabe updates portions of the Switchboard through a resolution - does the surge in doctrinal strength become felt anywhere other than within the range of that star’s ledgerial influence. Processional Resolutions update the largest portions of the Switchboard with fresh ledgerial data, followed by Seasonal Resolutions though traditionally, they are not used for praximechanical function. Local Resolutions are really only performed when circumstances are abnormal enough to prompt them.

Praxis power is thus effectively region-locked. Striders going on very far-flung operations relative to the Astrolabe learn this and must deal with it rather frequently, as the Astrolabe is not fond of updating sectors of the Switchboard that see little by way of change or activity. They can thus be operating on ledgers many, many processions old, some even predating the Spyndl Academy and the Third Kin entirely.

Narratively, this means the the Switchboard exists in an endless dance of balancing power between persons, the ramifications of this being numerous. Exploiting a weakening in a faction’s leadership or followership based - not solely in the realm of politics, but principle itself - can allow for weaker members of a doctrine to usurp a stronger one. The earnest need to prevent this from happening compels many in the Switchboard.