Embresday, Serelakkan 3, 1133 LE
"You thought in your hubris you could replace the sun, yet now you stand eyeless and blind to the faintest radiance."—Nokh, The Dyeing of the Rings
Author's note
This article is not meant for the faint of heart or the casual reader. This article is meant for me, the author, Smoothie, to notate every physical and spiritual law as it appears in Chromagaia so as to explain the principles of the universe to myself. I fully intend to supplant any real-world ideas of physical laws, be it the fundamental forces, periodic table, or chemistry, to implement my own version of it that best suits Chromagaia as a Scope. Often this will mirror the real world in some way, as I find the principles of reality interesting, but do not hold this as an expectation in your heart. Be warned again, reader, this article is not made for you. I will only answer questions I have not answered to myself.
Beginnings
I like to assign colors to various concepts for my ease of visualization. Some of these, like the Celestial Partitionings, do not make much sense and are mostly aesthetic. But for the layer of reality before them, the true prime from which all else derives, it does.
Nothingness, a true null with no potential, capacity, scale, nor ability to store any concept or thing, is what infinitely and infinitesimally surrounds the universe. It can be thought of as transparent. In opposition to this is Black, the color representing Absence. Absence is also nothingness, but with potential, capacity, scale, and the power to store things. It is stillness, unconsciousness, nonliving. But it is. It exists. The potential upon Absence is the prime and fundamental force of reality, the realization of it taking the forms of literally everything else.
The Silent Song is the least conscious sort of mind in the universe, and its body is the well of Absence within the absolute Nothing beyond it. This is the primeval entity that can be thought of as the "will" behind the Absence, as lack requires want for something not present.
Arapawa
The force of want, of that building desire which grew into the potential of the Black and amplified it. Endlessly greedy and envious, a force of pure objective intake. It is boredom and reason, and it fundamentally gives nascent things that need to act, that desire and ambition. Its driving expression, its identity, its existence is that of accumulation. It is the driving force behind the Silent Song's mind, the personification of it that led to everything. It is the principle before the First, the vector of concept that takes no direction, only intensity.
Ultramarine
The force of action upon potential, the release of it through motion. Ultramarine was the first motion of the Silent Song, in fact, the first direct color of odhir that was made by its action. Together with Arapawa, it forms the process of creation, the building tension of want then released by way of action, through stress lines along the geometries of concepts.
But Arapawa and Ultramarine are stygian colors, and cannot be seen against Black. They are darker than it, deeper than it, and need to have light to contrast it to reveal them. This revelatory force manifests in Amaranth, the color of travel, of the god/sun Regalion. Why is travel this powerful? Because it is a process, one of motion into accumulation rather than motion from accumulation. It is the opposite of the fundament, and therefore is just as objective by virtue of being an inversion. It is the process of creativity not via stewing in isolation and building, not out of spite or boredom, but by inspiration. For the influence of Amaranth is what can show someone the nature of Arapawa and Ultramarine, it is called the color of the Liar, because only through this asbtraction, this opposition to it does one see the truest truth, the impetus behind which all creation bloomed.
Celestial Partitioning
These are the four most fundamental active forces in the universe, a set of principles higher than everything else besides the very concept of process itself. They are the prime calculations of experience that the Silent Song knows, and the baseline for most other things built off of everything. They show themselves through various other forces and objects in the modern universe, and are named as such because of the type of celestial body that best represents them.
Sun - Identity
The principle of the First, the one that defines. The Solar Principle is the process of Identity, conceptualized as a unique or defining trait. The connection to suns is such because each sun dominates its system, stands its ground against all motion, and has a unique bleeding color of odhir emanating from within.
Star - Connection
The principle of the Between, the one that interacts. The Stellar Principle is the force of Connection, conceptualized as a merger, understanding, or brief interaction. The Stellar Principle took on Causality as well when Time began, cementing it as a process of connecting cause and effect. The connection to stars is such because of their fundamental replaceable sameness and their motion between the solar systems.
Moon - Form
The principle of the Border, the one that excludes. The Lunar Principle is the state of Form, conceptualized as structure and exclusive stability within an area. The principle took on an emergent property of Variety when Time began, as the structure of a thing can easily give it a secondary identifying trait. The connection to moons—planets fall into this category as well, as it just means any non-luminary celestial object—is because of their incredible variety in composition and size, and the brittle matter that makes them up being easily exchanged for other matter in collisions.
Void - Potential
The principle of the Last, the one that acts. The Abyssal Principle is the presence of Potential, conceptualized as the ability for change to occur or a state of being not quite at rest. This principle is most intertwined with the fundamental Black of Absence, and thus could be thought of as First, but this is not so. The Abyssal Principle is the Last thing one must relinquish before returning to oblivion, and it will be the Last principle remaining if the rest of the universe is blanked out. It is named for the void, that emptiness between bodies, because of that being the residence of raw odhir, which while solar in nature is spawned infinitely by the Abyssal Principle.
Domains
Ultramarine interfaces with the Fundamental Celestial forces and the Silent Song's own mind in Arapawa to create a set of Domains within the Silent Song. These Domains serve no real purpose to themselves or the Silent Song, but can in the right hands serve as an interface with the base of Creation itself. They are the first action of the completed Process, the first turning of the Wheel back onto itself. Arapawa demands principles, Ultramarine releases the Partitioning, Amaranth links them back into Arapawa itself. In this way, the Domains are a proof of concept that complex things can be built, and furthermore provide a set of actions in the Fathomless Arts that can be replicated by others.
The Domains are the complement and opposite to the Enlightenments, and most become inaccessible when their respective Enlightenment is Witnessed. The sole exception to this is the Sea of Stars, as its Principle and Truth do not contradict as directly as the other three Celestial Forces.
The Court of Suns is the Solar Domain, the seat of the Silent Song's own Identity. This Domain is where it processes order, hierarchy, and its own Rules. Currently inaccessible by all but the Radiant Hive, the Court's representation is that of a burning colorless sphere surrounded by an immense crown, woven a planet's diameter thick with spires of the stuff bathed in its black-white light. The sphere in the middle is the seat of power, the collective will and ability to change and define. The Solar Force, enmeshed within the infinitely rapid Process of Creation, creates the indeterminable color of Imposition. This Court is where all odhir derives its Color, where the beating hum of the Universe's motion produces more of it.
The Solar association with the color gold is not derived from the Court of Suns. It is in fact impossible to define the true Solar color seen within the Court of its origin using visible color. While visual depictions will show iridescent gold, a heretical marriage of Haerox and Luxor's own radiances, Brilliance and Concealment, the Court appears as a hueless and yet infinitely saturated expanse of simultaneous light and darkness.
The Sea of Stars is the Stellar Domain, the seat of the Silent Song's ability to Connect to both itself and outside information. While not physically outside itself, the rest of Creation atop the Absence it emerges from is ontologically separated, and so the luminous shades they cast within the Sea of Stars are how the Silent Song "sees" the Universe.
Odhir
Odhir is the prime statement of potential, the factual representation of the Silent Song's motion through itself, the rippling of its potential against its potential. Whereas the Black of Absence is stillness, every other color of odhir emerges from this conceptual motion. Its prime action is existence and imposure thereof.
Odhir can be thought of as both Sun and Void equivalent, being the potential itself realized, but also a statement of identity. Its manner of being is spiritual and energetic, though those categories succeed it. It has no interaction with itself besides its statement and motion, and thus intersects itself without contradicting or interfering. When all possible colors of odhir are together in even quantities, like the hum of the Silent Song allows, then the resultant white has no net effect on other parts of reality, becoming a raw source of potential. Raw odhir, as it is known by most.
Odhir's sole properties are color and intensity. Color is simply what concept, principle, or idea the odhir represents, and there are a vast many colors. It can also be thought of as the direction of the Silent Song's motion. Color ranges are equivalent to broader concepts, but narrower and narrower ranges zero in on hyper-specific ideals, as is done when refining odhir for doing Sunstep. Color as a spiritual concept is not the same as color within visible light, and while the brain processes the latter, the mind processes the former. The mind-brain complex of mortals synthesizes the two into comparative spectra. Intensity on the other hand can be described as the speed or force behind the motion of odhir, a simple amplitude of its wave, and defines the extent to which it can exert itself on the world around it. Beyond a certain intensity, reached only by the primal pre-time writhing of the Silent Song as a whole, odhir vortices can become self-sustaining patterns known as gods.
Vyraf
Vyraf, physical energy, is the first attempt by the Silent Song to disentangle the gods from one another. It is a state of being that exists as measurement, that which seeks to tell the identity of odhir apart. Its statement of potential always takes some sort of elemental quality, and by reflecting itself off of odhir it is changed. What was not intended by this interaction is the depletion of odhir by vyraf. Any interaction between the two changes the physical energy, but depletes the spiritual energy. While one changes form through the connection it forms, the other uses up potential to exert its identity through the connection it is pulled into. Its prime action is measurement through these processes.
For its shifting form and propensity to measure and connect with all other states of being, it can be thought of as both Star and Moon equivalent. Its manner of being are physical and energetic, though it precedes all matter as per Sequential Quadrant Cosmology. It interacts with all other states of being, and interferes with itself in wave-like patterns. Vyraf's many forms are kept at a near-constant amount by interactions with odhir. While interaction with itself and physical matter has no ability to create or destroy it, spiritual matter and energy is able to change the total amount of physical energy within the universe. These processes do balance out, leading to an effective conservation of energy unless consciously altered by a mage.
Súla
Súla, or spiritual matter, is the Silent Song's successful attempt to disentangle gods from one another and itself from Nothingness. It is the first of the two forms of matter, and its prime action is separation of one thing, area, or concept from another. It is self-similar, but forms structures according to its own logic. It is capable of holding and storing odhir, and being moved by it.
The Firmament of the universe is made of the strongest and purest súla in existence. It is the material body that encloses the universe, the Silent Song, the Black Absence, from true conceptual Nothing. Once a gradient between Black and transparency, it now has a hard border.
Creas
Creas, physical matter, makes up the majority of the observable stuff in the universe. While it appears extremely liable to be varied and inconsistent in its properties, its fundamental makeup mirrors the Celestial Partitioning to give it a rather predictable and repeatable structure. Notably, this state of being was not created by the Silent Song, but rather Mananakus, the most starward of the gods, the one made of odhir colored with the concept of bonds. By combining the materiality of súla and the physicality of vyraf, he created the first physical matter. Physical matter, uniquiely, has mass, an emergent yet somewhat fundamental property that created a cascade of necessitated concepts. Space, time, causality, gravity, distance, direction, initiality and finality all emerged from the necessities of mass.
Mass
Mass is a sort of narrative weight that physical matter uniquely possesses. It distorts the universe around itself on a level much more present than the conceptual, the spiritual level that is most fundamental, and thus necessitates a whole array of its own subsidiary forces and mediums. The sole purpose of mass is to assign importance and depth onto things, to give definition to the physical. This blasphemous force results in the creation and then attraction of space and time,
Emergent Forces
Besides the fundamental forces and states of being discussed above, there are several forces (mostly physical but also some spirituo-physical and spiritual) that emerge from them.
Gravity
Gravity is a connecting force between space, time, and mass. Rather, it is the force from which space and time arise, necessitated by mass. Gravity's sole principle is to attract or repel, radiating outward infinitely quickly from all objects with mass. It is a Stellar-Solar force, defining the dimensionality of the universe for the sole purpose of its interaction with matter. Negative gravity is possible through directly warping spacetime with magic, but very few materials naturally do this. Usually, this effect is indicative of magic being actively done.
Charge
A Stellar excitation of matter, one that turns the inherent structure and motion within a physical atom into a force that enables natural lightning. While not lightning itself, charges convert easily into it when moving together and annihilating. Certain energy glancing off of an atom becomes two ghost-particulates, the pale yellow Glambit and the muted indigo Squallbit. Glambits are a luminary splitting, favoring the Sun/Star side of things, and keep the wandering and excited aspect. Squallbits stick much closer to their origin atom, favoring the cimmerian Moon/Void side of the Partitioning. The initial reaction relieves energy that would otherwise destabilize the atom, and the recombination of a Glambit and Squallbit into a particulate of elemental lightning releases the energy in a much more diffuse form.
The colors of the charges, called the light and dark charges respectively, are known mostly due to the ability of zirconium dragons to separate them out in high enough amounts to be plainly visible.
Magnetism results from the interaction between ambient particles of lightning with individual charges, causing it to rotate and revolve. Certain materials have a lower threshold for magnetizing, bound via the structure of their creas in such a way that they spontaneously undergo charge interactions and remain magnetic permanently. Other low-threshold metals like iron and cobalt are able to be induced with magnetism via exposure to elemental lightning easily, and relatively pure samples retain this magnetism for a short while after the influence is removed.
Thermic Force
The Thermic Force defines the temperature of matter, which furthermore defines the phases of matter for different elements.
Difaceted (Draconic) Elements
The Silent Song has bound certain odhiric action concepts together with expressions or types of physical matter to create more powerful elemental forces a total of ten times. These bindings form forces that are neither fundamental nor emergent, as they are not predicated on anything but are not inherent to the universe's structure itself. These so-called difaceted elements are named as such because of the connection their concept has to the matter of it. This noticeably changes how its matter interacts after the bindings are made, as recorded with the changed behavior of criosidium that allowed it to be used for soul tech after the manifestation of the technological dragons
Facilitation - Space
Space is the matter of non-matter, the empty space between it. This Absence-Void-Space throughline betrays a pattern of how asymmetrical the universe truly is, favoring the force and form that ties most closely to potential and that which begins. Because it is the stage that all physical stuff happens on and is inextricable from, and because the Void within Space is where the Absence leaks its Potential through, it was connected to and bound to the concept of facilitation. The connection of emptiness and potential has been well known and incredibly strong for all of recorded history.
Consumption - Fire
Fire is the matter of flame, the
Observation - Air
Synchronization - Earth
Domination - Water
Excitation - Lightning
Adaptation - Life
Imitation - Shadow
Innovation - Technology
Cessation - Death
List of things to explain
- 6D periodic table
- determine where fire and lightinng are on that. all draconic elements for that matter
- are Earth, Air, Life, Death, and Technology even on that? how is that fucking determined.
- are fire and lightning contained in other matter?
- determine where fire and lightinng are on that. all draconic elements for that matter
- Transmutation
- process behind mundane transmutation vs magical
- e.g. lightning generation in clouds and fire generation from friction, vs azurate transmutation
- BURNING, how does that shit work on micro and macro scales
- Vyraf
- how it interacts with odhir, súla (if at all), and creas
- Different types of it
- Charge/Temperature and how that relates to the MATTER of lightning/fire
- magnetism also
- Wave vs particle, which is which
- Energy transmutation
- equivalences and ease of transition between different values
- some elements absorb and release different types like a non-esoteric azurate process
- Súla
- how does it arrange itself and interact when NOT fused
- how does it utilize that when "in control" like in spirits
- again, does it interact with vyraf
- how does it arrange itself and interact when NOT fused
- FIRE
- how the hell does burning work as a process?
- fire production and decay
- temperature release
- transmutation of burned matter
- how does dragon fire (the shit ON the dragons that comes out they body) not decay into yuckygas or require absurd amounts of fuel. is it different than regular fire. DO THEY GO BALD IN SPACE
- how the hell does burning work as a process?
- AIR
- there's CLEARLY multiple gases. what essence of "Air" do they collectively have or is it all one element with isotopes and allotropes
- hwhat the FUUUUUCK does Observation have to do with any of this.
- what defines breathable air. oh god biochemistry nonononon
- EARTH
- same as air. how does the Silent Song define Earth? does it include metals? wood? complex soils?
- WATER
- if i make it one particle instead of a molecule shits going to be so fuuuucked. no electrolysis
- LIGHTNING
- mass generated from charge nullifications. this HAS to be a new development post-Time. what does that imply for charge and its interactions pre-Time? Waveform until Matter?
- Lightning decaying into energy. Mass destroyed. implications?
- LIFE
- WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK DEFINES ORGANIC MATTER
- WHY CAN DRAGONS ALL EAT THIS SHIT
- ESSENCE OF LIFEFORCE??? FUCKING WHATS THE POINT OF BODIES THEN??
- SHADOW
- i actually know how this one works :grin:
- TECHNOLOGY
- same problem as earth AND life together. what fucking defines it
- where is the "Essence of Technology" and how is it made/destroyed
- DEATH
- get to this after defining life.