The Dawn of the Dancirah

In the beginning was the Switchboard, and the Astrolabe kept its time. Through the celestial brass-work’s endless calculus, all things that would come to populate the ontological and phenomological ledgers arose. By and through chalk was Dancirah, the Great Sky, woven into being, and in the earliest and succeeding Cradles did thinking pattern arise and be nurtured; the First Thinkers - minds spun from dormant chalk, the civilization-building Vermeil Second Thinkers, and the Third Thinkers - the Third Kin - where we find the Chalkstriders, Weavers and Grounded, current denizens of the Switchboard.

Scope

This document seeks to establish the foundational lore of the Switchboard, beginning at it’s origin and ending at the beginning of the Third Thinker’s Era. That being said, this is a first iteration; while there is very much a fairly solid shape established, much is still subject to an amount of change, especially as regards to the names of actors, concepts and occurrences. Name changes in particular will have a section where the names in the draft will be measured against alternatives, as we work towards the draft to a final product.

Dancirah’s Dawn

From the inception of the First calcic intelligences to the domination of the Switchboard by the Third.

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.

The First Thinkers’ Era

The first Switchboard intelligences arose in this time, the resultant of calculations carried out by the Astrolabe. Their original forms were simply animated weave; mobile pattern, gossamer cloth like curtains of fabric carried by strong wind, migrating across the early Great Sky on the pseudo-winds of chalk current induced by the Astrolabe’s endless information draw. They gained bodies by inhabiting objects; lone individuals inhabiting inanimate solid structures, to conglomerates inhabiting large celestial bodies ranging from drifting rocks up to entire planets. Iterations of body seeking and formation led to the First Thinkers to adopt a somewhat universal body plan; formed from early chalk-metal proto-alloys, they took the form of animated geometric structure, spinning wireframe cubes and triangles, projected arms of weave-fabric, existing in constant rotational flux, all existing around a centralized core that served as the seat of their early intellect.

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.

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.

Academics further on dubbed them the ‘Overseer Collective’, and they held sway over the Switchboard for many, many processions.

The Overseer Collective

The general task of the Overseer Collective was shaping the Switchboard. By feeding the Astrolabe information about the Switchboard, it worked in turn to shape it. Through this, more and more Cradles came to be, and as they continued to satisfy their prime directive and thus feed what could be described as ‘proto-doctrine’, their natures were made greater, manifesting as a gradual evolution of their thinking faculties. In time they learned to build, and chose to build interplanetary mega-constructs from material stripped from planets, these constructs serving as temples of sorts to the Astrolabe and its calculus, as well as nexuses of grand computation and thought carried out by the Collective themselves. Their thinking, however, was centered primarily around physical existences; discussions on how ‘better’ to shape the Astrolabe, and what ‘better’ even truly meant.

As the Overseer Collective persisted in their duties and in turn, their gradual evolution, more and more of the Thinkers in it found themselves pondering the shape of what was truly possible in the Switchboard. They began an early form of experimentation within the Nexuses, learning to alter the resultant of the Astrolabe’s calculation by feeding it information modified in certain ways. They learned to get answers they wanted by altering the questions. While many of the Thinkers in the Collective argued that this was ‘deceiving’ the Astrolabe, the tangibly evolving thinking patterns of the Collective saw a rise in those who wanted to see what was possible.

A Question

It was not long, then, when the Collective pondered whether it was possible to induce the creation of more thinking chalk like themselves. They sought to do this by passing an imagined scenario to the Astrolabe that would cause it to respond in such a manner as to cause its calculus to resolve, creating more thinking weave. This was accomplished by telling it an emergent phenomenon had resulted in most or all of the First Thinkers and the Overseer Collective being wiped out, rendering them incapable of serving their duties. The Astrolabe, which had come to rely on the First Thinkers for their dutiful passing of information was not able to begin another great information draw from the entire Switchboard to resume calculations quickly or accurately enough.

As such, it resolved its calculus and gave rise to more thinking chalk.

The Second Thinkers’ Era

By the resolution of the Astrolabe’s calculus, new weave arose, capable of thought. It formed on the now established planets, emerging from the chalk deserts that dotted many large planets. This new thinking weave - the Second Thinkers - differed from the first in that they took more ‘grounded’ forms, possessing more recognizable body plans rather than the geometric constructs that served as the bodies of the First Thinkers.

Appearance-wise, they straddled the divide between the First Thinkers and the human-shaped Third Thinkers that would come later. By some accounts, they resembled early iterations of humans - ‘proto-humans’ almost, realized as possessing distinct limbs and body parts, but skewed into weirdness by number and shape. Many were quadrupedal, bodies segmented in manners, limbs existed, but may not necessarily have been connected to the body by discernable means. Heads bore multiple eyes, other orifices often absent. Much debate exists about their appearances, as all information on them has been gleaned only from the ruins of their civilization.

The Vermeil

The Second Thinkers were the Vermeil, and they emerged with thinking faculties far beyond those of the First. Lacking the Strider and Weave Protocols did not stop them from building a civilization that many would spill gallons of ink aiming to understand. Playing alongside the rules of chalk even while not wholly able to interact with it on the level that the Third Thinkers would be capable of in their era, they progressed down the many metaphorical tech trees until they reached truly ridiculous travel speeds and the ability to terraform and colonize other planets, which they began doing extensively. They soon became a multi-planetary civilization, spread far and wide across the Switchboard.

Of particular note about the Vermeil was their considerable drive to build and their perceptible infatuation with the color red. The Switchboard was filled with their various megastructures, red complexes dotting every planet and hovering in stately positions in the Great Sky.

Naming the Great Sky

Their study into their nature of the Switchboard and the Great Sky in particular led them to conclude that, despite how it appeared, there was an undeniable amount of order for it. In an era of Vermeil thought defined by a delving into new spheres of art and expression, the Vermeil named the Great Sky. Drawing inspiration from the Switchboard’s orderly mechanics and in particular from the stellar processions of armillary stars moving across the Sky, they saw it as something of a dance.

They chose the name Dancirah, the Great Sky.

The Resultant of the Resultant

The rise of the Vermeil in the Switchboard brought about a litany of changes, particularly in the form of a skew to the Astrolabe’s calculus. As the Vermeil lived and thrived - generally existed and acted - they skewed the information obtained by the Overseer Collective and in turn skewed the results of the calculus performed by the Astrolabe. This led to a thin layer of esotericism and absurdity - almost - descending on the Switchboard, resulting in change to many of the Switchboard’s laws and mechanics. Planets’ biomes grew more strange and skewed, armillary stars began the Radiance Cycle, stellar processions became more frequent, Cradles became larger, Wellsprings glowed brighter, chalk in general surged forth.

As the skewed data provided to the Astrolabe caused it to yield a ‘wilder’ Switchboard, in turn the data this growing, evolving Switchboard created further skewed the Astrolabe’s calculus.

The Birth of the Void

Void_5 is recommended reading for this section.

Of major note however, was the most concerning result of these changes; the creation of the Void, which would later come to be known as Isalveh, the Challenger Dark.

While the fourth spatial dimension had always existed, it was the actions of the Vermeil that led to its shaping as the realm it is today. As their thoughts and actions generated chalk and thus information, and the Astrolabe’s calculus became more skewed, the Switchboard as a whole got more information dense, and flux storms began. Flux storms were ‘breaches’ through which the excess information mass leaked through, flux storms themselves being a resultant from the uneven curving of the plane between the Sky above and Deep below. Through the flux storms was the Switchboard ‘drained’ almost, and the storms themselves soon grew larger and larger and generally harder to control, resulting in large gaping rifts across the Switchboard existing just out of view, with the risk of falling into the slowly growing space ‘below’ at any given time.

And these rifts grew, planets, Wellsprings and even the occasional armillary star falling through, captured in the tendrilled grasp of a powerful flux storm and pulled down under into the realm just out of sight, crossing the breach resolving their patterns and weaves into the amethyst-colored stardrip, filling the Void’s oceans with endless scintillating purple. The Stardrip Cycle began and soon became self-perpetuating, chalk being drained from the Dancirah into the Void, filtered through the Void’s soil, and returned to the Dancirah once again by the Void’s volcano-like structures, spewing massive rivers of chalk back into the Dancirah.

This further skewed the Astrolabe’s calculations.

The Collective Acts

The Switchboard rapidly began a descent into total chaos. The Overseer Collective saw this and were dismayed, as their thinking faculties had evolved to the point that they began to conceive a sense of appreciation for the work they had done beyond the sheer mathematical significance of it to the Astrolabe. Over time, they had begun to develop the ability to view the Switchboard as something they built, dwelt in, and was important to them by virtue of the effort expended in making it what it was.

Thus, when its decay as a result of the rapidly deteriorating mathematics fed to, performed by, and spat out by the Astrolabe became apparent, the Collective knew that something had to be done to secure their creation. The Collective came to a conclusion that chief of all causes were the Vermeil, who - unable to grasp the butterfly effect of their actions - viewed the changes taking place in the Dancirah as a natural progression of existence from a state to another, older, state, and these changes should be mitigated if necessary, but primarily adapted to whenever possible. Above all, they were to be studied.

The Collective - by virtue of their ability to see more of the Switchboard and their knowledge of the means by which the Astrolabe operated and the connections between seemingly unrelated things in the Switchboard - disagreed, and knew that if something could be done about the Vermeil, the Switchboard could be set on a path to recovery back to what they viewed as its ideal state.

Perhaps chief among the actions of the Vermeil that directly impacted the Collective is their formation of the first few ‘pure’ doctrines in the Switchboard, as the Vermeil both began to form principles, do things guided by those principles, and believe deeply in those principles. The Collective observed this as they were tasked to do, and while they passed these observations to the Astrolabe as their prime directives demand they do, they themselves felt a further acceleration of the development of their thinking to the point of evolving thought patterns similar to the Vermeil.

It was this reason in particular that gave them the concept of ‘ugliness’, which many individual Thinkers felt described the state of the Switchboard. Others, however, developed other thoughts, becoming convinced of their own ugliness, individuality, loneliness and more. Some grew to envy the Vermeil, desiring both their bodies and their manners of being, a rising sentiment taking place being that they - the First Thinkers - were lesser; that the Vermeil were the result of higher, better calculus, and that they were a form to strive to replicate if not achieve. This manner of thinking was further conceived as pain, something the First Thinkers were only able to conceive of after their minds observed further from observing the Vermeil.

As more and more Thinkers developed higher thinking and newer thoughts, debate among the collective grew more pitched and frenzied, as many concluded that what they chose to do with the Vermeil would decide the fates of both generations of thinkers and the Switchboard at large.

The Philosophical Divide

When the first discussions on what to do about the Vermeil began however, the now quite evolved thinking weave that was the Collective discovered a most peculiar quality in individual members; a deterioration of uniformity in thought and purpose. They disagreed. Debate and contention led to the formation of philosophically-aligned factions among the Collective;

• The Overseer Adamant; who felt that the Vermeil and thinking chalk like them were an inevitability, demonstrated by their existence and what may have very well been another existence later in the Switchboard’s history had they not expedited the process. They felt that their only task was what they had been born with at the very beginning; observing the Switchboard, reporting to the Astrolabe. They chose to abstain from acting in any manner towards the Vermeil, continuing the ongoing non-interaction policy that existed in the time.

• The Eradication Imperative; who felt that the Vermeil were a mistake, and the deteriorating state of the Switchboard were a consequence. They argued for the elimination of the Vermeil and the commencement of deep inquiry and experimentation on how they could fix the Switchboard; close the flux-formed rifts, end the Stardrip Cycle, mend the planetary equations, rectify the Radiance Cycle, and restore the Switchboard back to their rigid, hammer-forged definition of order.

• The Weave Divisive; who stood diametrically opposed to the Imperative, seeing the Vermeil as not just an inevitability, but something to be fostered, nurtured and encouraged. Their budding philosophy saw value in the existence of a plentitude of things that could think, and they saw the ‘decay’ of the Switchboard not as decay, but as growth and maturity from a docile infant stage to a fiery, near-adult one. They argued that the Switchboard’s chaos was only one perspective, and where they others saw the proliferation of chaos, they saw the emergence of deeper, valuable complexity.

• Others; who - while not defined by a stance towards the Second Thinkers - were divided along the lines of prime directive, becoming minor factions with specific functions and thus purposes.

With these tents pitched and battle-lines drawn, it became obvious that the only resolution would come through direct martial conflict - entity against entity, Thinker versus Thinker, doctrine clashing with doctrine. All thoughts and theories had to be put into practice. Thus began the First Praxis War.

The First Praxis War

The Praxis War was a series of Switchboard-spanning engagements fought between two major sides; the Vermeil allied with the Weave Divisive, and the Eradication Imperative. The conflict lasted a number of processions, culminating ultimately in considerable victory for the Imperative. Concrete details on the war are hard to glean, and much extrapolation would be done by Third Thinker historians much later in the history. One thing that can be commented upon however, is methods.

Technology Versus Technology

The Vermeil boasted an advanced civilization even without command over chalk. Interacting with the Switchboard at the macro or pattern level, they built edifices to themselves, their ideals and technology that translated easily into advanced weaponry. Of particular note is that the Vermeil engineered the computer, pseudo-thinking-weave almost, and this particular invention - as in our world - was the necessary leap in civilizational might that gave the Vermeil their edge.

However, there existed a difference in the thinking prowess exhibited by the First and Second Thinkers. While the Second were capable of the higher thoughts that ‘infected’ the first and drove the conflict in the first place, they paled in comparison to the pure calculating speed of the First Thinkers, who - while not computers - thought and processed many times faster than one, a quirk that Third Thinker studies would theorize was why the infection of new manners of thinking was so grating and monumentous to them.

The result of this is that while the Vermeil’s technology was every bit as advanced as a civilization that perfected NLS travel would imply it should be, the Imperative were more than capable of stealing, reverse-engineering, re-engineering and perfecting any design created by the Vermeil. It became a case then of the Vermeil aided by the Weave Divisive becoming locked in an arms race with the Imperative to perfect their technology and develop the most effective weapons to use against each other.

The war was won by the Imperative, however, not through technology at all, but resorting to what had engineered the Vermeil themselves; manipulation of the Astrolabe’s calculus.

The Results of the First Praxis War

These can be outlined as a series of bullet points.

• The Vermeil by any and all conceivable metrics were wiped out. Armillary stars went dark. Wellsprings rotted. Planets shattered into pieces and collapsed into the Void. Orbital stations fell from orbit and rained fire and steel on habitations. Essential planets of Vermeil strategic importance were pounded to ruin where they weren’t scorched to ash. Systematic elimination of their kind was carried out by the Eradication Imperative, and it was grossly successful. All that remained of them are the scars they left on planetary equations, causing Vermeil ‘biomes’ to emerge where there ruins lay, dominated by red foliage and reeking of aged chalk, as well as massive dumps of the evidence of their civilizations in ‘vaults’ that are elaborated upon later.

• The Weave Divisive suffered a similar fate. The Imperative did not spare them, and those who weren’t destroyed went into hiding.

• The sheer scale of the Eradication Imperative’s victory was by and large due to the creation and deployment of their superweapon - the Vitric Shelf. Perverting the Astrolabe’s calculus to believe it and all of the Switchboard faced annihilation due to chalk itself, the Astrolabe engineered a functional antithesis in the form of Glass - the ultimate counterweave. Deployment of Glass through the ‘jaws’ allowed the Eradication Imperative to destroy the Vermeil with brutal, unchallengeable efficiency, securing their victory perhaps long before the conflict even began.

• The Eradication Imperative - demanded by the Overseer Adamant which had remained neutral in all these dealings - formed a division of themselves and the Adamant called the Interdiction Collective, which would come to be later known colloquially as the ‘Vault Minds’. While they were loyal to the Imperative, they did not engage in direct conflict, and instead served as sentinels and wardens for the Switchboard’s first vaults; intra-planetary mega-constructs in which the ruins of the Vermeil civilization were dumped, indexed and locked away for the sole study and perusal by the Overseer Adamant. The Switchboard was scrubbed - though not totally - of the evidence of their existence, so drastic a measure taken as the Imperative felt that only if the Vermeil no longer existed could the Astrolabe’s calculus become ‘pure’ again.

To their great chagrin however, the entirety of the conflict and its aftermath so thoroughly unbalanced the Astrolabe and its calculus that it went into another state of great mathematical resolution, as it did when the First Thinkers and Second Thinkers. Only now, the sheer volume of chaos and discord to resolve exceeded all of what drove those to form, caused by the creation of the Vitric Shelf, the deepening of the Challenger Dark, the widespread death of innumerable amounts of thinking weave, the mass destruction of armillary stars, Wellsprings and planets in particular, followed by their replacement with massive mega-construct and supermassive vault, interdicting often entire planets from access, cluttering the Switchboard.

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.

The Rise of the Third Kin

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.

The result of this was that the Third Thinkers arose as nigh-omnipresent reality benders, and they raced down the tech trees and across the Switchboard as they developed rapidly into a civilization, differing greatly from the previous Vermeil civilization in a number of ways, the differences driven primarily by their ability to wield chalk and stride the expanse of the Switchboard.

With the Weave Protocol, they could reshape the Switchboard as they saw fit, and with the Strider Protocol they could be anywhere they chose, whenever. Their ability to fly across the expanse of the Switchboard led to their division across rapidly developed ideological lines, resulting in the rise of the Four Progenitor Families.

The Progenitor Families

In the earliest days of the Third Thinkers, they spread across the astrolabic spheres and the local planets close enough to the Astrolabe for those bold enough to tentatively exercise their new powers. As time passed, the Third Thinkers came to call themselves ‘Striders’ by virtue of the Strider Protocol. Groups of like-minded Striders would coalesce and stride on similar trajectories, leaving the original astrolabic sphere from which they initially arose and establishing settlements in other astrolabic spheres as well as local planets in what amounted to the Astrolabic Cradle.

As Striders who were similar in thought and deed - formed by their emerging, differing understanding and interpretations of the Switchboard - moved together as larger groups, eventually forming clans and having descendants, these similarities across members began forming a sort of ‘backbone weave’ that served as a basis on which all descended from that clan found themselves shaping their philosophies and world views. Further concentration and evolution of this backbone weave baked these similarities and qualities into the lattice of all descendants, eliminating deviations from its root-self via dilution out of the lattice-pool. This occurred and replicated in four major instances and many minor ones, forming the four major, progenitor, families, and dozens of branching ones leading outwards from the main root or bridging the gap between two progenitor families.

Further simplified, the four progenitor families arose from the behaviors and subsequent natures of the earliest Third Kin becoming part of the lattice of their descendants, creating generations of progeny that bore similar traits among themselves and dissimilar traits from those not descended from common ancestors. This shared backbone formed their identity, and this shared identity were the progenitor families. While the backbone primarily carried philosophical outlooks from generation to generation, it carried a number of secondary characteristics, such as physical appearance, proficiency with chalk and the Strider Protocol and even unique powers.

All within the Switchboard trace their lineage to the progenitor families, often through branch families that serve as forks from the root, which necessarily have a connection to the root in the form of an ancestor. Forks tend to form their own backbone weaves as well, given enough time to exist, and they often possess philosophies and traits derived from the closest root progenitor family, forks from it, or all new doctrine entirely.

The original progenitor families were;

• The Danseers
• The Arcad
• The Pre-Vahnkin (Placeholder)
• The Pre-Lancasters (Placeholder)

The original names borne by the early great families is pending, and will be amended as the lore for each family is finalized.

Each family had some aspect, domain or doctrine assigned to them, but of them all emerged the greatest, the Danseers. They wielded uncanny command over the Strider Protocol, coupled with a hunger for exploration and discovery, a concerning penchant for violence, and a distinct enjoyment of pursuing questionable pleasures. Put together, they became a formidable force in the Dancirah, and this would soon be put to the test.

The Imperative Takes Notice

The Eradication Imperative, having enjoyed many processions of peace in the Switchboard, were enraged to see new thinking weave emerge from the resolution of the Astrolabe’s calculus, and were even further incensed when their first encounters with the Strider Third Kin showed just how formidable the Strider and Weave Protocols were as weapons, even in poor hands.

Their first few altercations with the Danseers proved particularly disastrous, as where the Vermeil had been fairly docile civilization-builders and pursuant of arts, the Danseers and the Third Kin at large were shapers, rebuilders, sculptors, and incredibly ready to use violence. The additional might of their familial backbones manifested as fully-fledged doctrinal power, which shattered the Imperative’s weak philosophies even as the blades of the Danseers shattered their geometric automata-bodies and tore their thinking-weave forms.

The Danseers and the Third Kin spread as a result, more and more houses and families emerging soon afterwards. The First Thinkers could not allow this to happen, and so they concocted a new offensive.

The Vitric Minds

The Eradication Imperative fell back swiftly to using their superweapon - the Vitric Shelf. They wove new Minds into being - three of them - that differed from the others in their ability to track the Strider Protocol and Striders, allowing them to remotely deploy jaws of Glass throughout the Switchboard.

It proved terribly effective against the Third Kin, who soon made the most abysmal discovery that the protocols in their lattices is what made them so particularly susceptible to the Glass in the first place. An elimination campaign began against the Third Kin, and they couldn’t even categorically identify the enemy. Extinction seemed imminent.

It was around this time, however, that the last of the Weave Divisive minds emerged from hiding. Seeing the Imperative making their moves and fearing a repeat of the Vermeil, they moved in and informed the Third Kin of the shape and manner of their new enemy.

It was then that the Danseers and the Third Kin realized that should they want to survive and thrive in the Switchboard, they would have to earn the right through conflict. But conflict could not begin without first consolidating their resources into a singular sword; a united entity that would be capable of opposing the Eradication Imperative.

The Spyndl Academy

Of the four progenitor families, the Danseers with their command over the Strider Protocol and the Arcad with their command over chalk and the Weave Protocol, seemed most suited to spearhead the offensive against the Eradication Imperative. While the (Vahnkin) had begun research into what they had come to call the Challenger Dark - that being the Void - it hadn’t yet yielded much fruit other than as a staging ground for potential offensives. The (Lancasters) on the other hand, were a family who really had only numbers on their side, as they were defined by a lack of the Strider and Weave Protocols.

As such, the Danseers and Arcad were charged with finding a means to oppose the Vault Minds. While their names have long been lost to time, the first few Danseers and Arcad convened on the astrolabic sphere Spyndl, from which the Third Thinkers had arisen. Meeting with members of their families and others, they all pledged to contribute all effort and talent they had towards shaping something able to oppose the Imperative. Settling on that being an institution for the study of the Switchboard and the weaponization of the knowledge gleaned, they formed the Spyndl Academy, and set about preparing their first offensives.

The First Five Skydancers

As the coalition that was the Spyndl Academy grew, members of it began to distinguish themselves through character and accomplishment, strength and proficiency in flight, exploration, calcic powers and combat. One such character as this was Shalkarah, rumored to have the fastest Stride of anyone at the Spyndl Academy, and an uncanny knack for finding paths and navigating the Switchboard. Considering the scale of the Dancirah as a potential battlefield, the usefulness of an unrivalled navigator could not be overstated. It was decided that Shalkarah would lead the battle charge against the Eradication Imperative.

More followed suit in proving to be Striders and Weavers without compare. One called Zahir proved a master of any and all weaponry, and a formidable force on the battlefield. The Academy’s recordkeeper Shadri had learned to grasp the movements of the Astrolabe’s barristeel apparatus, and even glean information from distant sectors of the Switchboard by parsing the chalk in currents through the Dancirah created by Astrolabe’s calculation. An Arcad Nefelé had dwelt in Wellsprings, soaking up their power and drinking deep of the chalk within, and none could match them in weaving and the ritualism. Knowing the nature of the conflicts ahead as regards the battlegrounds to be fought on, a skilled explorer and psychitect Cicere emerged with great command over the manners and matters of the Dancirah’s planets.

Taking titles for themselves they became;

• Shalkarah, The King of Roads
• Zahir, The Sword
• Shadri, The Keeper
• Nefelé, The Dreamer
• Cicere, The Staff

All bore a final commonality with each other; an unshakeable Strider Protocol, that let them cross the Dancirah with ease and grace. It earned them the title ‘Skydancer’, and the Spyndl Academy raised them up as their vanguard, who would charge forward and bring all along with them, meeting the Eradication Imperative with sword in hand.

With this, the Spyndl Academy launched their first organized offensive.

The First Offensive

The aim of the first offensive was to gather information on the nature and methods of the Eradication Imperative and the Interdiction Collective, particularly in the form of intel on the location of the Vitric Trinary Minds, or a means to find them. What they did discover swiftly was that killing a Mind was no mean feat; truly killing a Mind required killing its physical weave-form, usually housed in a ‘domain’ such as a Vault or a Mind Nexus.

To find a way into these structures, the Academy began stealing and reverse-engineering the only thing that seemed able to enter these constructs despite their massive shielding and elaborate defenses; the Chromelings, Mind-manufactured machine minions that did the Mind’s work of stripping planets for resources for their massive construction projects, the actual building of said projects, and various other tasks such as reconnaissance and defense. Destroying the Chromelings and harvesting their parts is what led to the Academy to discover computers in the Switchboard, a technology that had been lost when the civilization of the Vermeil was locked away in the Vaults.

The discovery of computers brought with it something doubly significant; the discovery of the Anarhiza, and how it in conjunction with the Vitric Shelf was being used by the Minds to communicate with their Chromeling minions and each other across vast distances. Rapid reverse-engineering of the technology led to the creation of the Academy’s own analogue, the prototype of what would later become the Dendro-Vitric Network, or the DevitNet, and this led them to conclude that entry into the Vaults and Nexuses was done almost certainly by communication between the Chromelings and the Minds.

This information was vital to the next steps of their plans, and the offensive was declared a success.

The Slate & The Sixth Skydancer

The Spyndl Academy was now empowered with computers and information technology, and with them they set about crafting their next offensive against the Minds. Further study led them to conclude that engagement with the Minds had to first be fought across the Anarhiza network. Better put, the staging grounds for any offensive would begin first on the anarhiza root network, where Academy forces would attack the Mind’s command and control networks that coordinate the various offensive and defensive assets wielded by Vaults and Nexuses.

As such, there needed to be something created - a tool - that would give the wielder ultimate command of the projection of their will in and through the root network, a device capable of interfacing with more of itself, the the root network, machines and devices, and local calcic reality. The drafting of this device yielded a schematic that seemed impossible to realize, but this did not stop Onuris a skilled Strider, Weaver and artisan from the Arcad to try. Iteration after iteration of the schematic yielded results closer and closer to what they sought, until the final model sprung from his presses. It was dubbed the Slate. It reeked of fine-tuned calcic power. It was a weapon without equal. Onuris’ talent and skill was likewise, and he was made the sixth Skydancer, titled the ‘Forgewarden’.

When the Slate was shaped, more followed suit, and it was given to the Skydancers and various others who were capable of wielding it. Field trials exceeded all expectations.

The second offensive could begin.

The Second Offensive: The First Kache Krash

In a battle that would define the rules of engagement in the Switchboard, the Academy and the Skydancers took the battle to the Eradication Imperative and the Interdiction Collective in the first ‘Kache Krashing’ operation ever carried out in the Switchboard.

They were victorious.

The Slate proved a formidable weapon in breaching the Glasswall of the Vault they made their target, penetrating the Mind’s network, lowering the Vault shield, sabotaging it’s Chromeling defense squadrons, and allowing the operatives to breach the Vault. What they saw and faced inside has also been lost to time, but accounts universally agreed that the Skydancers contended with higher powers within the Vaults, where the Vault Mind was near-deified and held sway over their domain. The offensive was not without considerable loss, but the information gleaned was invaluable, both for staging future offensives, as well as for filling out the various holes in the annals of history, holes filled by access to the Vermeil’s long-buried civilization.

Harvesting the technology of the Vermeil and the knowledge gleaned from the offensive empowered the Academy further, and now that they had the means to crush the Minds, it was only a matter of time until continued offensives would yield the location of Mind assets, important Mind Nexuses, and ultimately the location of the Vitric Trinary Minds. All that was needed was the continued raiding of Vaults and Nexuses, an endeavor made all the more possible and simple by the formation of the Breach Protocol, a Slate-reliant power that consisted of a litany of tools for opposing Minds and their constructs.

The path forward, thus, was clear. This began the Second Praxis War.

The Second Praxis War

The Second Praxis War was a conflict waged between the Third and First Thinkers. The progenitor families and the Third Kin at large led by the Danseers and the Spyndl Academy and allied with the Weave Divisive did battle with the Eradication Imperative and the Interdiction Collective led by the Glass-wielding Vitric Trinary Minds. Third Kin clashed with Mind in a series of kache krashing operations, battles on planets, interplanetary and intra-planetary battles in the sky itself, skirmishes in the Challenger Dark, and battles of pure will fought across the DevitNet and the Mind’s networks.

Heroes and tales of heroes were made and put to rest, lines were drawn, blotted out of sight with sundered weave, and redrawn, planets and Wellsprings and constructs were breached, looted, shattered or fell into the dark. For processions, the Switchboard existed in anarchy that spanned ever shifting, ever evolving, ever growing swathes of it in campaigns that seemed that they would never end. But they did. While there was no side that didn’t suffer tremendous loss, the Third Kin led by the Danseers saw many of their aims realized, particularly in the form of acquired intel and experience on fighting Minds.

While they saw many return to the Current, the Third Kin declared themselves the victors of the Second Praxis War, in a victory that the Weave Divisive that fought alongside them saw as denied from, and done posthumously in the name of, the Vermeil.

The Results of the Second Praxis War

These can be outlined in a series of bullet points;

• The Academy learned the exact location of the Vitric Trinary Minds - in the Vitric Shelf - which presented a considerable problem as no Third Kin was unfamiliar with the sheer destructive power of Glass.

• However, they also gleaned something particularly useful and powerful; the means of deceiving the Astrolabe to compel it to resolve its monumental calculus in certain ways, as was developed by the First Thinkers. They discovered that the methods of doing so wasn’t particularly difficult from the execution of a ledgerial cast; a large, powerful, incredibly complex ritual carried out using the Weave Protocol.

This information presented an obvious path to the Academy; the engineering of a ledgerial cast that would compel the resolution of the Astrolabe’s calculus to create a means to oppose and defeat Glass. They set about preparing this complex ritual’s schema, all the while engaging in skirmishes with the Imperative, which was recovering quickly from their various losses. Time was of the essence, and soon the ritual’s schema was complete. Plans to execute it were devised as well, as they would only have a small window in the Astrolabe’s computational cycles within which to inject their manufactured variables.

All plans were set in motion. This began the third offensive.

The Third Offensive: The Forging of the Glasseater

The Eradication Imperative swiftly caught wind of what the Third Kin and the Academy planned to do, and as the Skydancers, the Spyndl Academy and the Third Kin set about placing the pieces for the ledgerial cast, the Imperative launched an all-out assault against the various locales that served as points where the ledgerial cast would be executed from. The Third Kin fought and defended valiantly, Academy forces engaging the Chromeling assault as Arcad Weavers worked the ritual.

The third offensive was fairly short, defined by a series of dense pockets of conflict at very precise locations, the Minds aiming to dismantle ritual infrastructure as the Third Kin defended it. It came down to a final race against time to fire up the cast just as the window drew near, and the nail-biting closeness of the execution of the cast and the window led many to believe the cast had failed, and for their dismay to deepen when they realized they had no contingency plan for failure.

But the Third Kin proved their strength once again, and the cast succeeded.

The Seventh Skydancer

While the success of the cast was immediately apparent, it soon became clear that it was, as a descendant was bestowed upon the Spyndl Academy, describe only as ‘having a mouthful of crystal teeth, and a armillary star burning bright in their belly’. They were named Ryjik, and they were the only Third Kin immune to the annihilating effects of the Glass, more than capable of consuming it as though it were nothing. Ryjik was the superweapon to counter the Mind’s superweapon of the Vitric Shelf. They took the title of ‘Glasseater’ and became the Seventh Skydancer.

With Ryjik in tow, the Spyndl Academy could now breach the Vitric Shelf, and take the fight to the Minds in a battle that would secure their existence in the Switchboard once, and for all. The Skydancers, the Academy, the Danseers and all the Third Kin mustered up all their resources and resolve for one final, decisive strike against the First Thinkers, in a battle that would take place in their closest approximation of hell.

This, was the fourth offensive.

The Fourth Offensive: The Trinary Complex

With Glasseater Ryjik in tow, the Spyndl Academy and the Skydancers made an expedition to the Vitric Shelf, in what could very well be their final conflict with the Minds, or their total destruction at the hands of the Glass-wielding Trinary Minds. While Ryjik made the excursion possible, his protection from Glass was not absolute. Nonetheless, they embarked, and after safely passing through one of the many persistent Glass jaws in the Switchboard, they emerged in the Vitric Shelf, a plane consisting entirely of the lethal crystalline Glass.

The Eradication Imperative threw everything they had at the Academy and the Skydancers the moment they emerged, and they engaged in a pitched battle in the scintillating, chromatic realm, where every foot closer they pushed closer to the final bastion of the Minds was paid for with dozens of Striders returning to the Current. Nonetheless, they persevered, and once they were able, they wielded their Slates against the Mind’s network and launched the most powerful tool in the Breach Protocol’s repertoire; the PRISMpick, able to shatter any Glasswall. Breaching the command and control network of the Trinary Complex allowed them to disperse the assaulting Chromeling army and lower the Trinary Complex’s shields, granting them entry into the Complex itself, in a Kache Krash operation that would…

…curiously be lost to record. What the Skydancers encountered within the Complex was known only to them, as they were the only ones strong enough to enter and contend with the Trinary Minds. While Shadri, the Keeper went with them, she emerged with empty notes, but darkened eyes. What occurred in the raiding of the Trinary Complex is known solely to the seven Skydancers that went in, and the seven Skydancers who came out.

The conclusion drawn was fairly straightforward, however; all sides fought with all that they had, but the final realization of praxis, the Skydancer’s doctrine, their protocols, their command over chalk, weaponry and themselves, proved more than match for the First Thinkers, and the Vitric Trinary Minds saw final defeat at the hands of the Skydancers. The Third Kin had proven to be the shape of victory in the Switchboard; the model of thinking weave that triumphed over all else.

The Skydancers and the Spyndl Academy crushed the Vitric Trinary Minds, and the fourth offensive was declared a success.

The Eighth Skydancer

Within the depths of the Trinary Complex, once it was safer to explore, the Academy discovered a litany of powerful artifacts and constructs, one of these being an experimental device for the synthesis and alteration of immensely advanced calcic intelligences. Far later, this device would come to be known as the Triptych Crucible.

The Academy seized the crucible, reverse-engineered it, finished it an perfected it, creating a tool capable of creating and modifying Minds. When the Weave Divisive and the Arcad saw it, they asked the Academy to grant a single request for them, as a gesture of gratitude for the invaluable roles they had played in reaching this point. The Academy granted it, and into the crucible did the last of the Weave Divisive Minds pour themselves, assisted by the Arcad, the crucible taking them in and melding their weave together into a lattice in the shape of the Third Kin, gifted the powers of Stride and Weave. Finalizing it, the dead weaves of the defeated Trinary Minds were added to the melding as well, and the result was a Chalkstrider radiant with power - power honed in particular to flay living, thinking weave.

This Mind-Strider hybrid bore a lattice beyond comprehension, a bundle of conflict and contradiction that somehow meshed perfectly into a being that took the name of Morrigan. They emerged - similar to the First Thinkers - with a prime directive; revenge against the Eradication Imperative, and a charge to crush all that remained of the First Thinkers. They were made the eighth Skydancer, and took the title of ‘Mindflayer’.

The Dawning Chalkstrider Era

The Second Praxis war closed with the Third Kin on a charge towards inheriting the Dancirah, and while the largest battles had been fought, some still remained. Just as important as fighting and winning these final battles was preparation for a new era of the Switchboard; an era defined by the Strider and the Weaver, entities that exemplified the realization of dreams.

The Formation of Combined Strider Operations

With the Trinary Minds eliminated and the Eradication Imperative scattered, many decided that all battles that needed fighting had been fought, and that there should finally be some semblance of rest for the Third Kin, and an opportunity to begin exploring, building and inhabiting instead of destroying. Some however, felt that so long as the Minds still existed in some capacity, there would be no safety or security for the Third Kin, and that any war worth fighting demanded fighting to the finish.

As such, the Academy allowed those who no longer wished to fight to leave active service to the Academy, or take up non-combatant roles. Though who still wished to fight however, stayed, and together they formed the Academy’s dedicated paramilitary coalition; the Combined Strider Operations. This first generation of CSO took the title of ‘Operator’ to describe a Strider asset working under the Academy.

New Charges

The Skydancers split up based on domain, some choosing active combat roles, while others chose to pursue different endeavors. Additionally, they took on what would be their final titles, elevated to near-deity status by the Third Kin at the time.

Combined Strider Operations

• Morrigan, the Pattern Flayer
• Zahir, the Starward Sword
• Ryjik, the Ravenous Jaw
• Cicere, the Beaten Path

Spyndl Academy

• Onuris, the First Hammer
• Shadri, the Final Ledger

The Wylds

• Shalkarah, the King of Roads
• Nefelé, the Ceaseless Dream

The Wylds team led by the King of Roads and the Dreamer in tow set about charting the first great roads in the Switchboard, and officializing the roads developed during the Second Praxis War and various other conflicts waged by the Third Kin. They forged new paths, repaired old ones and drew maps of all, in a move motivated by a need to prepare for a post-wartime Switchboard, one where Striders - no longer tasked with fighting to preserve their existences - could launch out into the deep in pursuit of vast unknowns.

The Academy team stayed behind on Spyndl, doing research into chalk and the wider Switchboard, developing strategies and technologies for the Combined Strider Operations and the wider Third Kin populace, studying, indexing and storing the various oddities acquired during the numerous conflicts fought and won before, and working to establish Academy and non-Academy complexes and outposts on other planets, spreading their reach further into the Switchboard. Working off maps sent by the Wilds team, the Academy team worked to claim planets for Third Kin kind, establishing settlements and infrastructure, as well as demilitarizing assets such as the DevitNet for civilian use, also in preparation for a post-conflict Switchboard.

However, while many had chosen to begin living in what they saw as a post-conflict Switchboard, the newly-formed Combined Strider Operations embarked on their first mission; an offensive that would serve to bookend an era of Thinker conflict.

The Fifth Offensive: The Mind Hunts

The fifth offensive, dubbed the ‘Mind Hunts’, was a one-sided feasting on the remaining stragglers of the Eradication Imperative by the Combined Strider Operations. Led by Morrigan the Flayer, casted from the molten thought-stuff of the Weave Divisive Minds, and Ryjik the Jaws, descended from astrolabic calculus, with the Skydancers of Sword and Path in tow, they were followed by the newly-minted ‘Operators’, a concept that was rapidly evolving in power and meaning.

The first Operators were perhaps the first to glean the shape of the post-conflict Switchboard, and they were given the chance to spread their striding wings like never before. The pursuit of the Imperative Minds to the farthest corners of the Switchboard saw the testing of the Operators and the compulsion to develop new techniques and skills, to discover the science of striding, weaving, and existing in the Switchboard, skewed by the new perspective of conflict in what would be the frontier upon which they would fight for a long time. In their time they forged names and ballads for themselves, and many would persist in Academy history long after their return to the Current.

The result of the fourth offensive - the attack on the Trinary Complex - was the scattering of the Eradication Imperative and the sowing of discord among their ranks. With so many Minds destroyed, Nexuses shattered, and Vaults plundered, the Imperative were not able to muster any realistic opposition capacity, and instead fled, taking refuge in the various Vaults still dotting the Dancirah. Some fled to the Vitric Shelf, and many still tried to escape to the farthest, darkest corners of the Switchboard, aiming to hide from the Third Kin until their doctrines weakened to the extent that they would fade from existence.

The Mind Hunters pursued and slew whatever Minds they could find, toppling Vaults that served as the last refuge for many, and launching targeted assaults on Minds attempting to rally and reorganize to prepare counter-offensives. The Mind Hunts were regarded by many as a victory lap; a rubber stamping of their right to exist in the Switchboard, paid for in sundered weave.

In a move, however, that many academics would conclude later was a fatal error, the Mind Hunts also brought about the fall of the Overseer Adamant; a faction of Minds that had remained fairly neutral during the conflicts between generations of Thinkers. The Mind Hunters - understandably - annihilated them as well, wanting to crush any and all chance the First Thinkers had for an opportunity to rise again.

When finding Minds proved more trouble than it was worth, caused by the statistical difficulty of finding them in the depths of the Switchboard, the Mind Hunts came to a ceremonious close. It was still celebrated as yet another victory by the Third Kin and the Skydancers, as well as final, total victory over the First Thinkers. The Third Kin had met, fought and crushed all that opposed them and challenged their right to exist in the Switchboard, and now the Dancirah, the Great Sky, was truly theirs to inherit.

The Ninth Skydancer

Returning from one of their many long sojourns, Shalkarah, the King of Roads, brought back a descendant. Considering they had arisen when the Switchboard had become theirs, they were imbued with the then persisting atmosphere of conquest and jubilation. They were named Leilani, and became the ninth Skydancer, taking the title of the Gilded Cup - many of which were raised in those days - and the Reveler, becoming a symbol of the Third Kin and their triumph, and the dawn of a new era of the Switchboard and the Dancirah.

The Infinite Offensive

With the Eradication Imperative crushed and the Interdiction Collective not ones for elaborate offensives and open conflict, it was subconsciously agreed and even vocally echoed that so long as the Vaults still stood and the First Thinkers still hid in dark corners of the Switchboard, the Minds were still out there - doing whatever it was they were - and they still existed in a capacity that argued that the work of the Third Kin was not yet finished. As such, the Spyndl Academy declared an ‘offensive’ that featured no organized attack against a target, but rather an inward state of vigilance, readiness and awareness of duty towards preserving the Third Kin by dismantling all plans of the First Thinkers wherever they may be found, if ever.

It was dubbed the ‘Infinite Offensive’, and persists well into the modern Switchboard.

The declaration of the Infinite Offensive did state one thing however, the Switchboard was well and truly theirs, and they were free to dwell in it as they saw fit.

But there would still be a final tragedy to come.

The Astrolabe’s 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.

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.

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.

As the astrolabic spheres began to split and shatter, the Third Kin who survived the storms were forced to flee off-planet, abandoning the many great things they had built behind, including the first Spyndl Academy complex, where the Academy had been formed so many processions ago. It was a catastrophic loss of both lives and legacy, a total cultural disaster that hadn’t been dreamt possible. It was dubbed ‘The Refrain’; the Astrolabe’s answer to all of their actions in the Switchboard taken to secure their existence. It was a reminder that they were born and defined by conflict in and perhaps with, the Switchboard, and even as they had secured it for themselves, it would not rest in their hands so lightly.

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.

Now they could begin fostering descendants, and descendants of descendants, building legacies and dynasties, monuments to themselves and higher things, pursuing said higher things, existing unrepentantly as the final shape of thinking weave in the Switchboard.

At last, the Era of the Third Kin began. The Chalkstrider had inherited the Switchboard.

pNarrat: Post Scriptum

Writ for further development of things to come.

Some notes for what takes place in what could be dubbed a ‘Dancirah’s Noon’;

• The Danseers begin to die off as the consequences of their relentless striding, warfare and the final blow that was the Refrain begins to wear on their lattices. Further complications render them incapable of creating more descendants even through the Ritual of Conjugation, and it became apparent that the Danseers faced extinction. The Arcad, however, intervened; using the power of their Sembleworks and harvesting lattices from all four progenitor families, they engineered a new backbone weave from which a new family would be born. These were the Sil’khan.

• The sequence of events that led to the Arcad becoming the Fel-Arcad - their fall from the First Arcology, began with the conclusion of the Refrain.

• The Vahnkin conflicts began as they delved deeper and deeper into the Challenger Dark, much to the consternation of the Fel-Arcad, who saw exploration and interaction with it as the precursor to another calculus resolution by the Astrolabe and subsequently a second Refrain.

• It became clear the damage that Striding and armillary stars were having on bearers of the Strider Protocol, and the niche created by those who were becoming wary of sojourns across the Switchboard was filled by the family dominated by those lacking the power to stride and weave; the Lancasters.

• It was around this time that the Third Kin came to call the overwhelming majority of Minds that still remained - the Interdiction Collective Minds - simply ‘Vault Minds’, as they served as the wardens of the various Vaults that still persisted in the Switchboard.

• A most peculiar behavior was observed exhibited in the Switchboard, by the mechanics of spontaneous equations described in The Hands as Chalk, certain oddities in the Switchboard would induce the evolution of elementary calcic intelligences in their vicinity - called Emergent Minds - resembling the First Thinkers. Occasionally, oddities in the Switchboard would find their way into Vaults as well, either swept up in chalk currents into them, or captured by the Vault Minds for study. In the case of newly-evolved Emergent Minds, they arise with a singular prime directive in the form of a doctrine; preservation of whatever it is that induced their inception. Thus, these ‘new’ First Thinkers think almost identically to the initial First Thinkers, and in particular the Interdiction Collective, and begin constructing Vaults to protect the object that brought them into existence. This thus results in two kinds of Vaults; old Vaults created by the Interdiction Collective, and younger vaults created by spontaneously-evolved Emergent Vault Minds.

Excerpt from the deprecated Early Switchboard doc; Delving into the narrative design, each Progenitor Family aims to encapsulate some aspect of the Switchboard’s canon. This affects their disposition to Striding and exploration of the Switchboard, how they practice their chalk-weaving, their ambitions and manners of living, mostly everything that would fit under the umbrella of ‘culture’ and then some.

Each family bears a name, the name of the doctrine that guides them, and what aspect of the Switchboard I aim to ‘channel’ through them.

As it stands currently, the families and their doctrines are;

• The Fel-Arcad and the Fey Curlicue
• The Sil’khan and the Silken Writ
• The Vahnkin and the Depthstones
• The Lancasters and the Castar Credo

The Curse of the Refrain

SB_Physiology is encouraged reading for this section.

The Astrolabe’s resolutions are means of upholding it’s prime directive; that of perpetuation, the principle of things persisting onwards and forwards into time, rather than becoming static and decaying under the weathering force of entropy. It must be said, however, that the Astrolabic resolutions are a product of cold, unfeeling calculus, and thus are not dispensed with anyone or anything’s best interest in mind, other than the upholding of this principle.

As such, those who curse the Astrolabe for the Refrain do so in vain.

The Refrain struck the Switchboard and just about shattered it, grinding entire planets to powder and causing stars to burn through their lifespans and wink out like old lights. That the Third Kin survived it at all is decidedly a miracle, but they didn’t survive in their totality. Following the Refrain was the curse it inflicted upon all denizens of the Switchboard, that would see the Old Danseers scrubbed from all but the annals of history, and all who remained burdened with the reality of the stars themselves scorning their existence.

Mechanically, the Curse is a ledgerial clause inscribed by the Astrolabe and passed to all armillary stars. The writ of this ledger is such that any thinking weave with Danseer backbone is struck with greatly hastened degradation of the integrity of its weft, causing rapid decay and fairly swift death. The more a backbone resembles an average ‘model’ backbone possessed by the Astrolabe, the more strongly the curse afflicts it’s bearer.

That all kin are descended from the Danseers means that they are all affected by the Curse to varying degrees. This is why - among other reasons - the Sil’khan have the shortest lifespans of all great families, having been made with Danseer backbone as a base for their own. The Vahnkin are mostly wholly unaffected by the curse, as Brother Vahn took it upon himself to skew the lattices of the Vahnkin away from the Danseer blueprint much faster than the gradual, natural deviation that takes place moving from generation to generation.

The Curse does have some additional quirks to its workings. For one, its targeting Danseer weave means that it more strongly affects subjects whose lattices have become more like the Old Danseers, notably those who have taken spokes or exalted their shape in other manners such as through triggering Weftcrash. Because the Curse is ledgerial, it is only active where there are armillary stars. This means that, for one, Danseers could have survive unharmed outside the Far Armillary Rim, but this comes with its own set of problems. For another, however, it does mean that a sufficiently engineered ledgerial cast could scrub the Refrain’s curse from the mechanical foundation of the Samsara, thus greatly extending the lives of all of the Switchboard’s great families, especially the Sil’khan.

Perhaps the most notable quirk of the Curse’s workings are those who - inexplicably - proved too hardy to even this ledgerial clause. There were some - Old Danseers - whose shapes resisted the Curse to immense degrees, nearly rendering them immune to its effects. Against these, the Curse takes a different shape; rather than hastening their death, they are inflicted with greatly lengthened lifespans as a product of a modification to their lattice’s unravelling reversal, making them highly resistant to the passive lattice decay that counts as aging in the Switchboard. Danseers who were afflicted in this manner went on to persist even into the modern Switchboard, but the processions piled upon them as well as the awareness that the stars call for their demise have taken a toll on many of their minds, and most are driven to a worrisome flavor of madness that sees them terrorizing the modern Switchboard.

These Danseer Incarnons dominated much of what would follow the Dawn of the Dancirah; a period of many processions that span the beginning of the Chalkstrider Era and the modern Switchboard, a period that scholars call Spyndl Noon. Driven to unsavory actions by their madness, the Incarnons became a terror to the modern Switchboard and its peoples, and those denizens - time and time again - were forced to deliver final rites to their errant, undying ancestors, and return them to the chalk dust from whence they came.