Teks

The Weave Protocol grants its bearers command over chalk and all things calcic. The Switchboard’s Chalkweavers are able to interface directly with its underlying mechanics, interacting with phenomena ‘at the ribbon level’ as the lowest level at which calcic interaction happens is described. To make ribbon chalk into anything useful, folding and weaving it into patterns and weaves is necessary, performed through physical with the hands, devices designed to work with chalk, or rituals that take in chalk and components to fold complex patterns of chalk into being.

But there are levels of weave complexity that are nigh impossible to achieve except through other means. Examples are the various calcic machinations that are performed by the Astrolabe, or the workings of a planet’s calcic interior. While the effects of these machinations can be seen, what produces these effects rarely can - and most of, all can rarely ever be grasped. This is the domain of equations; chalk that has grown so proficient at folding chalk through their irreducible complexity that the results of its machinations appears to defy what is understood about chalk and the Weave Protocol. The Strider and Weave Protocols themselves are good examples of this.

The Nature of Teks

Teks being chalk equations and thus chalk makes them subject to the familiar rules that govern the functioning of chalk itself. Particularly, this alludes to how Teks are formed. Equations in the Switchboard cannot be created by its denizens, and thus any equation that exists in the Switchboard is a result of spontaneous evolution, followed by a selection process as equations are fairly self-correcting. What causes these equations to spawn has been studied, and the prevalent theories are discussed further down, though summarized; Teks are seemingly a measure put in place by the Astrolabe to mitigate the necessity of large-scale resolutions to its calculus.

When Teks fully ‘mature’, they take the most unfortunate form of fairly ordinary-looking weave, which is then swept up into the various calcic transport phenomena in the Switchboard; caught in a flux storm and sent to the Challenger Dark to be caught in the Stardrip Cycle, caught in the calcic draw of a Vault beginning a mighty calculation, blasted away on stellar winds where they are caught and trapped in Wellsprings, only to be discovered often by mining operations or terribly lucky Weavers. The actual finding of Teks is discussed further down.

Teks being weave can only function for a Strider or Weaver when integrated with a local lattice, that primarily being the lattice of the subject who aims to use the Tek. Simply using the information affinity ‘draw’ is enough to integrate a Tek into the lattice of one’s body, the interpreter line doing the function of parsing the chalk-weave into an equation. Teks function using the Five Straits; they are stored - almost like programs - in the memory line, and occupy a fair bit of space too, so much that most can never wield more than one Tek at a time without adverse consequences. Teks being equations perform their calculations in the computational line, exchanging information with the interpreter while drawing on chalk kept in the potential line and outputting the results of their calculations through the interface line. This particular quality does make Teks somewhat vulnerable to certain forms of attack in the Switchboard, but mainly it means that any thing with the Five Straits are able to wield Teks, including those who don’t even have the Weave Protocol.

So how do Teks form? Seemingly, they emerge from thin air, seeded by apparently nothing, before growing and maturing to a form where they can conveniently fold chalk in a manner that escapes even the most skilled of Weavers. This is not entirely the case. Teks are equations in the literal sense, in that they take in chalk and variables and output folded chalk and answers, with the net change in the Switchboard remaining zero; the metaphorical left hand side equals the equally metaphorical right. The level of complexity in their function that they exhibit generally means that there are only so many ways Teks can form, and primarily, they form via seeds of minor complexity undergoing evolution, skewed by the vacuums within their evolutionary context. Much of the Switchboard’s Teks are formed by the mechanics of the Astrolabe in its endless resolution, Teks arising from the Astrolabe guiding the evolution of simpler weave to complex weave, the weave most utilized for this function being ‘seeds’ provided by the ‘cooling’ of hyperweave emitted by the Armillary Stars. When an Astrolabic Resolution mandates computation exerted over a locale, a Tek is engineered to calculate that locale to the Astrolabe’s ends.

As a note, while the Astrolabe seeds the creation of many Teks, including some of the most powerful of them, it is additionally the case that Teks form randomly from the complexity-inducing environment that is the Switchboard. How these Teks are found is elaborated upon in further sections.

There is an additional theory that some Teks - if not all of them - are holdovers from the Second Thinkers’ civilization, the Vermeil. Some theorize that proto-weave from their time that formed in the recesses of their civilization which themselves from the lack of the Weave Protocol, would later be scattered across the Switchboard after the First Praxis War, and later evolve over time into Teks as they are used and understood today.

And there is a far more questionable, worrying, but leagues more interesting theory that Teks are the Vermeil themselves, their thinking weave being compacted, reduced and yet honed into weft of pure function; the capabilities of the Tek being emblematic of the Vermeil entity and its nature that it once was.

What do Teks ‘calculating’ look like then? Imagine travelling across a frozen tundra, sheets of ice as far as the eyes can see. Blizzards strike without warning, valleys dip below eyelevel and promise colder temperatures, while high peaks threatening heavy exposure. Nights bring truly nail-biting cold, and all but the absolute strongest are felled. And then, without explanation, in your travels you come across a patch of verdantly green grass. Continuing forward you find larger and larger patches, taller grass, now flowers and even bushes, before you find a small tree, growing pleasantly in the inexplicably warm air. Beyond it, a pool of sparkling warm water, summertime fields all around it.

In most cases, this would simply be a fluke with the planet’s equation, or a psychitect inserting a jarring clause in the equation stack, laughing to themselves at the face they imagine whoever stumbles upon it to have. But in some cases, for reasons that escape even those who do nothing other than study it, the Astrolabe’s calculus may require there to be a hot spring in the middle of ice-scorched lands, and the task of realizing such a thing is offloaded to a Tek, that will be present in the local lattice of that environment.

This, however, is a simple Tek, and an obvious one more so.

Returning to the tundra example, suppose you set up a base camp to begin multi-subject - meteorological, geological, population, etc. - study of this region over a period of time, say, a season or 144 days. In this time you record every single thing that happened; light snowfall, heavy snowfall, outright blizzards, the movement of icebergs off the coast large and small, the migrations of animals, type, number and where to, the rise and fall of celestial bodies, the path of constellations, all of these things you recorded and then charted out at the end of your session. You then run this data through a Slate and ask for what conclusions it makes.

You might observe from the Slate’s output certain… oddities. Storms hit at dates with similar intervals between them, and the amount of snowfall is always a multiple of five. Polar animals migrate east and do so along a perfect diagonal, even through treacherous terrain. Auroras hit at the start of every week and last for the same amount of time. Snowdrifts grow and shrink by amounts sharing common denominators. It is simply all too ‘calculated’ - as it were - to be mere coincidence, and thus the simple explanation is that it is not, and rather is the result of a Tek at work on the local lattice, acting to compute the Astrolabe’s endless calculus, the results of which passively shape reality around it.

Finding Teks

It is with that final note given that we may delve into how someone finds a Tek. Summarized, it is a matter of searching for ‘negentropy’ or the absence of chaos. Teks for the most part bring order to an environment, and thus to find them one must search the fairly chaotic calcic reality for small pockets of inexplicable, apparent intentionality. This is no mean feat, adjusted for all the contexts in which Teks can be found and the subtle ways one might manifest. It can be likened to trawling through a sequence of infinite random numbers, aiming to find the gravitational constant or Avogadro’s number; a truly herculean task that means without certain tools, tricks, experience and plain dumb luck - and even with those things - many will go Tek-less, even considerably powerful Weavers.

Knowing the nature of Teks can allow for narrowing down where one might spawn. As Teks tend to form where there is an abundance of chalk, searching wellsprings and large planets - particularly those fairly near to a star - is often the first idea many Tek hunters have. Teks always become more prevalent the farther one is from the Astrolabe, as the Astrolabe induces more of it them to spawn to aid in computing the farthest reaches of the Switchboard. Regions of high calcic throughput such as Anarhiza nexuses, Vaults, ongoing ledgerial casts, the paths of migrating stars and frequently travelled routes through the Dancirah are also good places to search. The insides of Vaults often contain Teks too, often multiple even, as Interdiction Minds have a habit of procuring ones they come across to aid in the Vault’s calculation, as well as Vaults themselves being conducive environments for Teks to spawn. Teks can be acquired through the Void as well; Depthstriders being able to be Given or Take Teks from the Void, though they aren’t particularly able to use them, and Teks frequently come to the surface, just above the Challenger Horizon, usually when they reach the end of the Stardrip Cycle or during particularly terrible flux storms.

When near a Tek, the mere weavesight of a chalkweaver is often enough to analyze a local lattice and find the brains of the operation. Retrieving the Tek is equally simple; a matter of severing the boundary where order and chaos meet, easily deduced - again - by weavesight.

Knowing what a Teks are for does prompt the question of whether it is safe to remove them from where they are in active use in the Astrolabe, and the general consensus by astrolabic scholars is that yes, unplugging a very important piece of a very large network is arguably a poor idea.

That being said, the Astrolabe has been observed to be somewhat plastic, able to function even nominally with this kind of damage sustained, even over multiple occasions and in different contexts along an extended period of time. Occasionally, the computational load is simply offloaded to other Teks or similar nearby, the burden of the void created by one loss shouldered by a vast net of many others, each that had enough ‘slack’ to begin with in anticipation of such a thing. Under ripe conditions, the Astrolabe may simply respawn that exact Tek there again, especially if the Tek when harnessed by subjects in the Switchboard turns out to be fairly elementary in function; and this respawning of Teks has created almost a body of knowledge and even an industry around Tek ‘farming’, with the aim to outfit large swathes of persons (such as an army) with simple Teks as even they are better than nothing.

Wielding Teks

Upon acquiring a Tek, it must be integrated with the local lattice, done primarily though a Chalkweaver’s innate ability to draw and store chalk from the local lattice in their potential line, the line in the Five Straits that stores all the chalk available for a subject to use. The Tek is passed to the interpreter line which swiftly evaluates what it is, and goes about making the changes to the subject’s local lattice that are necessary to allow the Tek function. The bulk of the Tek’s information mass is passed to the memory line, and operating ledgers are opened on the computational line. Gateways to the wider Switchboard are established in the interface line as well. Some Teks prompt physical, anatomical changes on their subjects, which will form as necessary.

Once a Tek is fully integrated, how it is wielded comes down to the individual nature of each Tek. As Teks are immensely varied, there is no universal method of wielding Teks.

A not for the future; a chromegraft known as a ‘Tek-loader’, able to allow loading additional Teks and wielding them using a chromegraft interface.

Commenting further of the ‘soft’ limitation of only being able to wield one Tek, while a subject could wield multiple Teks if they so choose, each Tek takes a huge swathe of the real estate available on the Five Strait’s memory line. While some may have larger ‘memory banks’, as it were, allowing loading of additional Teks, most do not, and loading a Tek beyond the first may forcefully overwrite existing information on memory sectors. A subject could forget what they had for breakfast, their own name, or everything they’ve ever known, becoming merely a blank slate weapons platform.

Interesting prospect here.

Teks and the Switchboard

A rather interesting ramification of most denizens of the Switchboard only being able to wield a singular Tek at a time, coupled with the fact Teks are immensely varied and unique from one another, is that certain Teks become ‘assigned’ to certain persons - a part of their identity, as it were - especially in the case of Striders.

Striders known for using certain Teks accumulate renown or notoriety, the implications of which is elaborated upon in the discussion of Yarns. Striders with particularly powerful and well-known Teks may knowingly or unknowingly cultivate groups of other Striders that follow them, and by virtue of Strider Evolution, may develop weaker versions of the Tek they posses. It leads to the formation of ‘cults’ of Striders, all using powers similar to that of their leader’s.

pNarrat: A Different Origin of Teks

This one I have cherished.

A Skippable Digression

In the doing of worldbuilding, it is occasionally necessary to drop pretense. Why do Striders use revolvers and katanas? Why is the internet a giant tree? Why is the universe run by a colossal gold computer? At a point, you owe it to yourself - and to your audience that is gradually cottoning on to what’s going on - that some things are just cool, interesting, and please you as the creator in one way or another.

Teks are perhaps the best example of this. I wanted an explanation for the ability to do far more interesting things with chalk than the systems I put in place would easily allow, and as such I devised the Teks; phenomena that function perfectly within canon even while somewhat stretching one’s imagination of what can be performed within that canon. The existing Teks in the various Arsenal Cards that have been devised are good examples of this;

• Adven Ventura: the ability to draw invisible rulers in space and calculate the trajectory of all objects moving within it.
• Wyldsman Cendyr: formation and utilization of twin-form flames.
• Doctor Ellaine Hex: a lost Skydancer relic that allows for increased command over chalk, including effortless formation of hyperweave.
• Freedryck, Favored by Frost: conjuration of ice, as well as an almost alchemy-like power of transmuting ice from one form to another.

How doable is all this with chalk? My answer is 100% - totally doable. But how explicable is all this? How can it be broken down? I can outline the first principles of chalkweaving and the Five Straits and all that for you - as I’ve done in numerous other docs - and I can talk to you about how they work at the macroscopic level (Ventura’s tek being a modification to his interface strait, and Freedryck’s ice transmutation being reliant on the dedicom to be as fast as it is), but its that little bit in the middle - between first principles and final process - that may never be satisfactorily explained. Not from lack of trying, but because it simply isn’t as important from the rest. It is doable, but not necessary for the realization of the final product, and exists mostly as either something outlined later to then be expanded upon or subverted in some way, or as fun trivia for those interested in that kind of thing.

What does this have to do with the origin of teks then? Very little, as this is much larger commentary on how I build things as a whole; a gripping, interesting idea, and the painstaking writ necessary to justify its workings at the first-principle levels. There is very little that I’ve wanted to include in Samsara that I didn’t include in Samsara, because I have built this sandbox to facilitate - put most simply - my heart’s desires.

And so when I decide that teks arise from the collapsed straits of living things in times past - quite literally formed from the decay of their bodies - it is because I am wholly confident in my ability to realize this in-canon.

On the Origins of Teks

Teks are at their core, calcic equations. In-canon, an equation is a set of instructions on how to fold chalk to yield certain results. Subject ribbon chalk to an equation, and out comes a pattern. Those with the Weave Protocol can learn equations and this ‘writes’ them to their computational strait, and this in turn allows them to weave chalk along those equations and yield pattern on the other side. Beyond traditional elementary chalkweaving that allows for forming simple calcic structures like blades, bullets, the like, equations are the real deal, and what give actual power to those who claim to weave chalk.

Where the ‘bullshittery’ begins is that I can declare equations to be as complex as I like, as there is no real objective measure of these things. All that matters is that chalk goes in, and something achievable only through chalk and its folding comes out. Teks thus being incredibly complex equations is just me saying, “This could’ve been doable if you were a ludicrously powerful chalkweaver, but Teks simply expedite the process and also let you measure/blast ice/blast fire/blast hyperweave at people.” It would all be very tidy, were it not for two key things; what made these immensely complex equations, and my own dissatisfaction with Teks not having much ‘order’, as it were, as a power system.

The first issue, ironically, is already solved. Teks were a result of the Astrolabe’s novel approach to handling the computational load of the entire Switchboard;

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.

Link to original

This distributed compute approach resulted in the Astrolabe spawning immensely complex calcic equations in random places throughout the Switchboard, and teks being astrolabic in nature does do a lot of the heavy-lifting of explaining their inherent complexity. But I was still dissatisfied as the second grip remained unresolved; the lack of neat classification of Teks across any lines. All Teks simply are, with no way to group them according to origin, nature or function. I did, however, find a means to resolve this.

The writ under Birthing and Being describes - among many other things - the process by which pattern is inherited from one’s ancestors. Teks in particular have a propensity to pass from parent to progeny;

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

Link to original

Beyond the narratively interesting quirk of Teks that grow stronger over time within families (excellent case study; the Roslettes) the idea of dead things leaving behind these bits of functionally amazing power to the generations to come just would not leave my mind. It seemed like an excellent driver of all manner of things; an overall strengthening of all actors in the Samsara canon time over time, a source of narrative conflict between ancestors and descendants, the opportunity to introduce powers that truly stretch the limits of what is doable with chalk - in the spirit of building a sandbox, I am incentivized, if not explicitly mandated, to choose the avenue that yields more avenues, and to pursue expansion wherever sensible and possible.

Consider the following idea then; that at death, the straits of thinking weave decay and collapse, but under rare instances, something survives. Something like the computational strait, that instead of decay, instead morphs into some new form - perhaps compelled to by praximechanics or upon bring struck by incident pattern-forming hyperweave - and this new form is an immensely complex calcic equation, bearing this complexity as a result of its origin as an entire computational strait. In sacrificing its generalist function as a parser of all kinds of pattern, it becomes a single-focus, immensely potent bit of chalkweave, defined by facilitating weftcraft that’s impossible to do otherwise, and doing so remarkably efficiently too.

Consider the extension of this idea then, that in addition to how Teks are formed by the Astrolabe, they were additionally created by the above phenomenon afflicting the lattices and straits of the First Thinkers - the Minds - and the Second Thinkers - the Vermeil - as they are outlined in The Dawn of the Dancirah, resulting in what I’ve come to call the First and Second Generation Teks to form in the Switchboard. Depending on the origin, the resulting Tek facilitates different kinds of powers, these powers being greatly similar across a generation, but differing between them.

This gives rise to a system by which we can classify Teks.

Generations of Tek Equations

Below are the various classifications of Teks, grouped according to their origin, and in turn, their nature.

First Generation (G1) - Enhancement Teks - The First Thinkers

• Bearing incredibly simple lattices and straits, the First Thinkers did not have much by way of capacity for equations - and by extension - particularly incredible feats of chalkweaving. For this reason, their fairly simple computational straits were more than willing to collapse into elementary teks, though these teks weren’t particularly powerful. Events such as both Praxis Wars and the Mind Hunts that would come much later filled the Dancirah with piles of elementary teks.

• At a point, some questioned whether first generation could even be classed as teks, due to their sheer abundance and relative weakness relative to other Teks, as well as how they had come to be imbibed by a wide variety of more elementary life in the Switchboard, serving towards their rapid evolution. It was overwhelmingly voted that they be classed as teks all the same, to establish a useful baseline for a yardstick to measure all that would come afterwards.

• G1 Teks are poised primarily for raw, physical enhancement, conferring upon those who take them enhanced baseline capabilities with regards to strength, speed and agility, endurance, sense and perception, cognition and regeneration. Beyond their usage in the Third Kin, other life in the Switchboard with computational straits imbibed these elementary teks to grow stronger in all the spheres listed above.

• In a manner perhaps analogous to how single-celled organisms were assimilated into others to yield larger cells with more complex functions, arising out of symbiotic relationships, the taking-on of the remnants of ancient, simpler thinking weave in the Switchboard serves to empower the complex thinking weft that now lives.

• Due to their relatively low complexity, they do somewhat allow defying the rule of not having multiple Teks, and it is is often the case that some double, triple and even quadruple stack G1 teks before acquiring a ‘real’ one. Because these teks also don’t necessarily ‘output’ anything, serving more so as onboard enhancements to lattice and strait functionality, they can in turn be used by subjects without the Weave Protocol, such as the Lancasters.

Second Generation (G2) - Creation Teks - The Second Thinkers

• The Second Thinkers to arise in the Dancirah - the Vermeil - operated perhaps under a prime directive to build. Lacking the Strider and Weave Protocols, they were thus compelled to do things slowly and in manners deeply familiar to us, beginning small and slowly progressing down the various civilizational tech-trees before finally expanding far and wide across the Dancirah, becoming an interstellar civilization that boasted richness of knowledge, wellbeing, trade and culture. Were it not for their destruction at the hands of the First Thinkers using the wicked perfecting power of Glass, they might’ve continued their era ever-onwards, and the Third Kin might have never arisen.

• That not being the case however, the Dancirah and Switchboard at large are littered with ruins of their civilization, particularly in the various Vaults that hang suspended from the arms of stars, where the First Thinkers interdicted nearly their entire existence in a bid to purify the Astrolabe’s calculus, though this resulted in the exact opposite happening, as outlined in the Dawn of the Dancirah.

• This doctrine of building that the Vermeil seemed to operate under was thus, in turn translated to the final product of the morphing of their computational straits as they - one by one - were either killed by the First Thinkers and their weapons, or died off at the hands of the Switchboard the conflict created. Both their desire to build - as well as the final desires of the last of the Vermeil to rebuild as their civilization was shattered - lived on in the form of the second generation of teks. These teks took on an aspect of creation, being geared towards primarily, the fabrication of complex weave with marked ease, something that would be immensely welcome in a hypothetical endeavor towards rebuilding their civilization.

• Creation teks generally facilitate forming something out of chalkweave, being able to constrain or shape it to various dimensions or skews to its nature. These teks as they are used by denizens of the Switchboard see much of their application as the linchpin in some setup that makes extensive use of whatever material the tek creates, such as a tek that folds chalk into durable metal finding much use in the hands of a Strider that uses ritualism and elementary chalkweave to integrate that metal into how they work and fight.

Third Generation (G3) - Manipulation Teks - The Astrolabe

Under the third generation of teks, there is further subdivision into ‘Alpha’ and ‘Beta’ categories.

Third Generation ‘Alpha’ (G3A)

• Following the demise of the Vermeil, the Astrolabe rebuilt its entire toolbox of computational processes, adopting a new doctrine that operated via the exertion of ledgers via the newly-formed armillary stars for larger scale computation, while deploying teks for computing at a smaller, more targeted scale in various locales of the Switchboard.

• Deploying these teks was done primarily through harnessing the propensity for hyperweave - released by adequately nearby stars - to form complex weave patterns in the process of its ‘cooling’ or reconstitution, the final result of this cooling process being skewed by locale and astrolabic calculus, to form a tek that is required in a given locale.

• These teks are primarily manipulative, working by skewing the local calcic compute preformed to yield outcomes needed by the Astrolabe. They are extensively described in the Finding Teks heading outlined above.

• Used as teks by the Third Kin, they are somewhat of a ‘downgrade’ from the G2s, as they grant enhanced command over material, or other phenomena, but aren’t able to produce that material or phenomena on their own. That being said, the supposed weakness of G3A teks is really only waiting for someone strong and creative enough to bring out the true power within them.

Third Generation ‘Beta’ (G3B)

• The beta class of third-generation teks are a result of the Astrolabe modifying second-generation teks to obtain functions of both creation and manipulation. In practice, a tek might fold chalk to produce meteors, as well as direct the path those meteors take when they are released.

• They differ from the G2s in their power of manipulation. This manifests in ways differing from tek to tek, but their general principle is that far more control is granted over the functionality of the tek. A general rule of thumb is how much more can be done with the result of the tek’s usage once that result is now in the environment; if little, it’s a G2, if a lot, it’s a G3B.

• The ability to manipulate appended to the already-strong power to create makes the third-gen beta teks the most widely sought-after, as they bestow upon wielders an almost bottomless bag of possibilities, especially when combined with elementary chalkweaving, ritualism and advanced chalkweaving, extended disciplines such as raveling techniques, barriers, hyperweave fueling, output maximization, and finally the flash protocol. So powerful are the G3Bs that only in rare cases do the Switchboard’s most powerful Striders wield anything else.

Fourth Generation (G4) - Unique Teks - The Current

• The Current Switchboard is a veritable sea of chaos, and little else is a better sign of this than the Calcic Current, a term that describes the sea of ledgers that exists and flows from the Switchboard to the Astrolabe, carrying with it records of all that is and occurs in the Switchboard.

• Despite being mostly unable to see or interact with this Current in any tangible way, from it are all manners of things born, as it can be viewed as almost a molten river of all things calcic from ages past all the way up to the modern era, melting the banks of history and dragging them along to be melded into the material of the future.

• It’s no surprise then, that this crucible-like environment is unfathomably splendid grounds for the seeding, growth and evolution of all manners of calcic phenomena, teks being no exception to this rule, perhaps even having an enhanced propensity to it for the same reasons teks tend to pass better from parent to progeny.

• Within the crucible of the Calcic Current, teks meld with teks and that in turn melds with other things, and should the resultant be stable enough, what emerges is a unique tech which possesses writ that escapes classification entirely, except by being classified by how unclassifiable it is. Because of the sheer randomness inherent to the process, often one such tek forms and the conditions for it - or even something relatively similar to it - never occur again, resulting in teks wielded by sole denizens of the Switchboard. That teks cannot be replicated means that, outside of immensely fringe cases, this state of ‘sole wielders’ is unintentionally maintained.

• Unique teks vary in strength, but most tend to be tied with the weakest G3Bs at absolute minimum. The power or powers they confer are nothing short of esoteric, and they often have unique conditionals surrounding their usage.

• In particular, their power is even further enhanced by the praximechanics of infamy, resulting in teks with an inherent propensity to grow even stronger with time.

Fifth Generation (G5) - Theoretical - The Astrolabe & the Third Kin

To the best of anyone’s knowledge in the Switchboard, G5 teks do not exist. That being said, students of teks and similar equations have still gone on to theorize about the existence of G5A ‘alpha’ and G5B ‘beta’ denominations of a possible fifth tek generation.

Fifth Generation ‘Alpha’ (G5A)

• These are theorized to arise from the collapse of Third Thinker straits, similar to G1 and G2 teks. While this strait collapse hasn’t been observed due to the writ of Third Kin straits returning to the Current upon their demise, many theorize that there is a way to prevent this from occurring, perhaps by bypassing Astrolabic principles using something akin to the Starless Ritualism. All the same, it has not been done.

• The sheer lack of solid material from which to draw theories from has thus made it impossible to reliably deduce what G5A teks are even like. The prevailing theories however, believe that praximechanics resulting in the Vermeil-derived G2 teks resulting in teks that espouse creation, means that similar will happen to the Third Kin - that the teks spawned from Third Kin strait collapse will be skewed by praximechanics to yield a tek that espouses a dominant doctrine. Many believe that the resulting final power of the tek will be determined by the most prominently-held doctrine of the subject at death - and this must be a decidedly strong doctrine in addition to that - leading many to suspect there are only a handful of possible G5As in existence, the most prominent being born from the deaths and strait collapses of members of the Great Families.

• Some expand this scope however to include institutions such as the Spyndl Academy, and further theorize of the existence of teks born that espouse the power of an organization, group, coven or order. The Brass Monastery, the Roslettes - all could have a tek that is seeded from their doctrine, and born from their carcasses. The nature of these teks, however, remain mostly impossible to truly deduce, and thus it remains to be seen.

Fifth Generation ‘Beta’ (G5B)

• Voted as the less interesting of the two, G5Bs are suspected to result from the Astrolabe doing similarly to the G2s that resulted in the G3Bs, enhancing instead the G4s via its calculus to better serve that same calculus.

• This would in fact, result in the Astrolabe greatly amplifying the power of a tek of which there is likely only one instance in the Switchboard, and this would in turn be an empowerment of a lone figure to far beyond their initial bounds. For many, this is rather worrying, as it could very well lead to the creation of an entity beyond even the Old Danseers in strength, with no guarantee they’ll be similar to the Old Danseers in disposition.

• To the best of all researchers’ knowledge, however, this has not (yet) occurred, nor is there conclusive explanation for why it might. This is only a cold comfort though, as many suspect that there would be no better time for it to eventually happen than during a wholly unpredictable Astrolabic Resolution - or worse - the Second Refrain, some suspecting that a wielder of a G4 tek enhanced by astrolabic logics might even be the catalyst for bringing about this direly-feared end.

Fifth Generation ‘Gamma’ (G5C)

• The least theoretical of the fifth generation teks as these actually exist.

• These teks are defined by their artificial origins. By combining and optimizing the weft of various teks and other equations, and combining them into a cohesive whole, it is possible to create artificial teks with various high-level functions.

• This is incredibly hard to do as it requires working with the veritable black box that are chalk equations, and haphazardly trying to work with chalk at the ribbon level can result in grievous harm to one’s lattice. Properly engineering teks in this manner requires incredibly competent weavers aided by specialized equipment and cognitive contributors such as amalgamated minds.

• Considering that G5C teks are a product of what goes into them, they are a veritably boundless category as they are denoted by how they are made more so than what they can do. G5C teks are generally made to order; fabricated because the the problem that demands them is best solved by having the solution tackle weft at the fundamentals, and be wieldable in the hands of the Third Kin beyond the manner of simpler tools.

In Practice

This new classification system can thus be summarized as;

• G1 ‘Enhancement’ - elementary teks that primarily augment the base functionality of the lattice and straits, conferring upon their wielders enhanced physicality and mental proficiency.

• G2 ‘Creation’ - more complex teks that greatly expedite the folding of chalk into certain patterns, allowing for the creation of complex weft for utilization in other applications, such as elementary weftcraft, ritualism and extended disciplines.

• G3A ‘Manipulation’ - teks formed by the Astrolabe for the purposes of administration and control, functioning by manipulating the on-goings of many facets of the Switchboard. While less immediately obvious in their utility as teks, skilled weavers can squeeze usage out of them that would surprise many.

• G3B ‘Formulation’ - perhaps the holy grail of teks, these combine G2s and G3As to yield a tek capable of both creating and manipulating on both ends; what is created, and what happens even after the creation. These teks are the hallmarks of the most infamous across the Switchboard, and many of their wielders have gone on to live past even their own deaths, existing as canticles on adoring lips.

• G4 ‘Unique’ - an utterly esoteric class of teks that escape classification and comprehension, formed from the chaotic melding of calcic weave and the resultant self-correction patterns that stabilize it enough to persist into being. The conditions required for these teks to arise, coupled with the utterly incapability to replicate even simple teks, has resulted in the wielders of G4 teks becoming sole in doing so, and by extension the stuff of legend. Stretching the limits of the rules of the calcic, G4s tend to be powerful in manners that command respect, and the infamy born from their mere existence only takes the tek and its wielder to greater heights.

A rule that goes somewhat unmentioned is that further generations of teks are more rare than the ones that precede them.

We can thus do a case study on the various arsenal cards that exist and classify the teks they possess according to the system above;

• Adven Ventura - Calculated Trajectory - G1 An immensely simple tek that merely interfaces with his weavesight, but despite its simplicity, Ventura punches in an incredibly high weight class because of it. The ability to exercise almost literal prescience with regards to incoming projectiles, as well as perfectly place returning fire, gives Ventura an uncanny edge on any battlefield.

• Ellaine Hex - Lesser Eye of Shadri - G4 A tek with history; once wielded by a Skydancer, this tek grants immensely enhanced calcic perception as well as the ability to rapidly form hyperweave nearly on demand. This tek is granted greater esotericism by the fact it has been tainted by the things of the Void, which grants it even further capabilities with regards to the school of dark, such as assessing manipulated curvature.

• Cendyr - Starfire Conduit - G3B Perhaps a rough baseline for the function of teks, Cendyr’s Starfire Conduit allows for the forming and manipulation of his own brand of two-tone flames, using them in a variety of casts, including a reverse unravelling technique and his flash protocol. Teks like his are highly sought after, due to their relative simplicity in usage, and bottomless versatility.

• Freedryck - Freeze and Clear - G3B Very similar to Cendyr’s, Freedryck can form and shape his ice and use them in a litany of ways, forming weapons, projectiles, sentient units for attack and defense, and making use of casts and the flash protocol. Deep versatility of function makes his tek highly coveted as well.

pNarrat: Common Teks

Weave and Warfare is recommended reading for this section.

There is something that always struck me - with regards to various fictional media - as one of those things that must be done to fulfill the author’s desire to avoid monotony in their works. This ‘thing’ is that, in worlds and universes where having supernatural powers of whatever flavor is established - magic, mutations, sufficiently-advanced-technology, whatever - you rarely ever see two characters wielding the same power, unless immensely needed by narrative.

Ultimately, this is a point of flavor. It is simply more interesting to see how a diverse sandbox of powers and power-wielders interacts with itself, than for everyone or even overwhelming majorities of people to bear one of a small pool of possible supernatural capabilities. Granted, I have seen this done in a number of ways.

• Supernatural capabilities have divisions/subdivisions or ‘schools’ much like RPG classes, and while there is variation within subclasses, the theme of the superclass can’t truly be escaped from entirely, ensuring there is still an amount of diversity in the sandbox, and interesting sparks from the clashes between them.
• Very restricted pools of only being able to do one thing (like super strength, speed etc.) and the interesting bits comes from the creativity characters are able to display in their usage.

That all being said, Samsara does handle things in a somewhat similar manner; generally Teks are as varied as they come, as narratively, the power of a Tek is to massively expedite or facilitate something that may or may not be doable with plain chalkweaving. For this reason, Teks are immensely varied. That being said, Teks are hard things to acquire, in that they are scattered across the stars and the stars are a dangerous place. Ironically, the power granted by a Tek would be immensely handy on the quest to find one.

The fact that Teks are also physical and tangible - as opposed to various supernatural power systems that have all manners of restrictions on passing powers between parties, or even outright hardcoded rules that make doing so impossible - and the fact Teks have mechanics behind their formation, means that there are various Teks used by vast swathes of people across the Switchboard, due to their having been spawned in places that can be monitored and thus farmed for them, and the fact they can be transferred from subject to subject.

For this reason, ‘newbie’ strider-combatants in the Switchboard may wield a very widely-practiced skillset, and the differentiation between them comes from the individual creativity and auxiliary proficiencies possessed by individual subjects.

Rephrased in line with the new origin of teks, this means that G1 and G2 teks generally suffer from an overwhelming amount of cross-board ‘sameness’ with regards to their nature, while also being the easiest teks for newbie Striders to wield. As such, there are vast swathes of denizens of the Switchboard that make use of similar or even wholly identical teks, though they often differentiate in how they are used, stemming from each individual subject’s personalized approach, when coupled with all other quirks and qualities they possess.

pNarrat: ‘The Writ and Spirit of Teks’

Weave and Warfare is recommended reading for this section. Similarly, a solid grasp of combat in the Switchboard is ideal.

In practice - narratively - teks are functionally unique powers wielded by denizens of the Switchboard, and thus see their primary application in combat. The ability for Teks to allow a subject to perform chalkweaving that - ideally - no one else can replicate means that Teks are often the sole decider of a subject’s combat potential. Reflecting this the design of Chalkstrider Arsenal Cards, which use Teks as their linchpin, or the axle upon which everything else in the Arsenal Card - and thus the subject’s combat ability - revolves.

For this reason, ‘how to make a Tek more powerful’ is among the most frequently pondered things by those who frequently find themselves doing combat in the Switchboard. Various methods exist, but this section addresses one of the more noteworthy ones. Rather than being a direct means to empower a Tek, it instead seeks to compel one to change how they look at them entirely.

Teks are primarily natural phenomena. They are the resultant of Astrolabic calculus, emerging in induced conducive locales for the purpose of enacting some change on local space. When a Tek is found, the first and most important thing that must be done is deducing what exactly it does. This is the ‘writ’ of the Tek; the understanding of the Tek as penned by the Third Kin. However, the writ of the Tek is rarely ever the full picture, as how the Tek is understood is merely a subset of what the Tek truly is - or better put, what problem it arose to solve. This latter bit is the ‘spirit’ of the Tek.

This concept is somewhat downstream of an existing concept in the legal domain; the ‘letter’ of the law versus the ‘spirit’ of the law. In legal cases, it is occasionally the case that one must address the discrepancy between what a law states and what a law intends. Consider the example of a sign at a public park stating ‘No Vehicles Allowed’. While you could argue that this law applies to remote-controlled vehicle toys or pedaled kiddie cars, there is an understanding that this law is meant to prevent driving ‘actual’ vehicles in the park due to the danger they present. The true intention of that sign isn’t to prevent vehicles from entering the park, but to protect that park’s inhabitants from a possible threat to their safety.

Such a thing exists because we humans are not omniscient, and thus in the making of laws it is impossible to account for all current and future possibilities. We see this a lot when enforcing the writ of laws made hundreds of years ago, such as the US Constitution, as it is difficult to jacket those old laws upon modern society. Determining the spirit of the law from the writ is often a difficult task, as various interpretations can produce ideal or catastrophic outcomes for any number of allied and/or opposing parties.

Teks are much the same.

The writ of a Tek is the function the Third Kin can deduce from it. It often has very little bearing on the spirit of the Tek; the true limits of functionality of the Tek as it was ‘devised’ by the Astrolabe. All that is understood is ultimately a subset of all that is. The discrepancy between the writ and the spirit of the Tek is often the most immediate barrier between a Tek’s - and its wielder’s by proxy - current and actual utility.

For this reason, one seeking to do greater things with their Tek must look beyond the obvious writ and delve into the realm of speculation and hypotheticals. What is clear, and what is downstream of what is clear? What is the effect, and what is the intent? A Tek’s weft constitution is virtually unreadable; often, using Teks is a matter of instinct. As it is woven into one’s strait, it integrates itself as part of the larger whole, losing its individuality. One must imagine themselves as the entire Switchboard, and the Tek as a component of it. What service does it render towards the perpetuation of existence itself? Neither the Tek nor the Astrolabe will tell you; one must dream and experiment.

A Tek is much like a new limb. It can be flexed one way, or another. But the true function of that limb is further downstream. One must be willing to push joint, muscle and tendon beyond their limits to find that spirit, otherwise one will be condemned to only the surface-level writ.

It’s no easy task however. Aiming to understand a Tek is much like trying to reverse-engineer alien technology, and then deriving it from first principles. Teks are black boxes at the best of times. For this reason, attaining the true functional limits of a Tek is generally achieved with shortcuts or backdoors, such as the Collapse Function. All the same, there are those who need no aid; whom - through some permutation of skill and luck - are able to imagine a functionality of their Tek, and for that functionality to be so.