Q&A Chapter 1
Is the Void Sea a place that consists of pure Void, or is it diluted with some of the two other primes? Do certain planes have more of one prime over another? Is there an ideal ratio? Are they renewable resources?
A: The Void sea consists of the Void medium, which consists mainly of Void, Quintessence, and Aether made material. Although there are trace amounts of other essences.
Yes, different planes have different ratios of the three primes. For example your plane has an excess of Void which has led to its unceasing expansion. It also seems to have a lack of Quintessence.
It depends, traditional alchemists would say that an equal amount of the three primes, layered like this Æ/Q/V, is the ideal plane. Although in practice those are impossible to form.
To some extent resources are renewable, if you can find a way for the void medium to power a turbine you can have ‘free’ energy.
Q: LunaSoltaer
I get the feeling Æther is somewhat of a medium between Void and Quintessence, but... orthogonal? creating a.... triangular symmetry?
A: Aether as well as the other three primes are considered equal, although if there was a medium, in my opinion, it would have to be Quintessence. As for symmetry, the order of how the essences combine matters ÆQV is different from ÆVQ. You can, however see the essences as having a symmetrical relationship. In that case we would use a diagram like this:
If Void can be folded upon itself to make up the mind, do the number, complexity, etc. of the folds have an impact on a corresponding quality of said mind? Empathy, Intelligence, etc. however difficult those may be to quantify.
A: No, Void folded on itself would get you 2V also known as Mind. If you fold Mind on itself you get 4V or Space. Folding Space on itself results in a singularity, although this is probably more due to our method than a hard limit, due to the fact that we have gotten to 32Q.
It is important to note that Mind does not equate to your brain. You can see it more as the ‘fuel’ and/or ‘medium’ that allows your brain to think.
Q: HelloHound
Are any of them edible in their prime forms?
A: Technically, and this is only because in their prime forms Void, Quintessence, and Aether are not tangible. However, if you were to eat material Void, or any of the others, this will result in mutations in Body, Mind, and Soul. The exact mutations are hard to predict and also depend on the type of essence consumed. Consuming or coming in contact with any of the three primes without proper protection is highly dangerous.
Poll topics
Planer formation - This chapter will be about the basics of plane formation.
Essence combinations - This chapter will be about the basics of essence combinations. How it works and how to do simple notation.
The strengths and weaknesses of each prime - This will be an expansion on the current chapter.
Now vote:
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Planar Formation Votes: 1 25.0%
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Essence Combinations Votes: 2 50.0%
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Strengths and Weaknesses Votes: 1 25.0%
You may have to get a little creative with folding Space, which according to some theories in infinite across its dimensions. In any event, it seems like there's an asymptote either involved in folding onto space, or folding space onto something.
Additionally, these foldings appear additive. S = M + M = 2V + 2V = 4V, for example. Also combining essences, as you note, is NOT communicative. Which means (2 + 2) + 4 is very different than 4 + (2 + 2) which is distinct from 4 + 4.
Proposal: Fold Mind onto Space to gain 6V, then Mind or Void Twice onto the result to gain 8V. May also wish to test if 8V is not supposed to be Singularity.
Also... It may be worthwhile to test if all ways to reach 4V all yield Space. If so, cool, we just note that order matters and proceed nominally. If Not... we may need to update notation.
PS: If Mind onto Space breaks, try Space onto Mind, but I think the problem is with folding Space.
This reminds me of calculus and cream puffs. Yes, I am hungry.
I think it might be interesting to see if Mind can “fill” Space, thereby giving it more structural integrity and more stability to prevent anomalies. Perhaps unadulterated Void could also help “inflate” space the way air inflates cream puff.
When you make a cream puff, you have to cook it twice. https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-choux-995618
This double cooking helps to produce the airy interior. How that works is, heating the flour the first time causes the starch in it to gelatinize. That's the same principle that works when we make a roux to thicken a sauce. By gelatinizing, the starch helps support the structure of the gluten when the steam inflates it. This structure also helps hold in the steam.
The first cooking also helps to denature some of the gluten molecules, so that the dough is less elastic. Instead of a new rubber band, which stretches and snaps back, the molecules become like old rubber bands. They stretch but don't snap back all the way. So the steam pushes out the dough to form bubbles, and instead of snapping back right away, the bubbles stay stretched out. Meanwhile, the starch structure (as described above) helps support the bubbles while preventing the steam from escaping, thus keeping the air bubbles inflated while the pastry has a chance to set.
Alternatively, folding space could be more like making pastry dough, with rough puff recipes and such having good analogies. There are tricks to grating butter, folding different directions and order to get different consistencies, and many other factors that complicate a recipe that basically can be summarized as smash butter into dough.
We have tried those combinations with the same result. We will get into this the next chapter, but folding combinations are more complex then simple ratios. You must encase the essence with in the thing you are folding with. So M + S is Mind encasing Space. Typically when folding we use spheres as the shape we encapsulate with. This is where we believe that our attempts have been wrong. Perhaps Void must be a cube and Space some sort of prism. We don’t know yet, and testing this fold is expensive and dangerous, with little competition.
@MintiLime Exactly, it depends more on the shape of the folds, than what is being folded.
Be well, prof!
I think Essence Combinations could help clarify Planar formation, as planar formation most likely involves essence combinations. Strengths and weaknesses might also be good to do, as they may change with combination. I will be excited to learn in any case!
If Quintessence forms Soul, and our plane lacks Quintessence, do we also have a lower quantity or density per capita of Soul?
Maybe, my hypothesis is that there are pockets of Quintessence that allow for more complex souls. But it is just as likely that the Body and Mind are imprinting thoughts on a smaller Soul.