Postfurry Wiki - User contributions [en]

Downwarp

2015-03-19T02:40:08Z

Aleph: /* Inhabitants */ (Added Aleph as an inhabitant, and maintained alphabetization)

Downwarp is one of the six warps of the [[Puzzlebox]], a ruined high-tech metropolis where nothing holds together without effort.

== Environment ==
Downwarp is an arbitrarily large cityscape in a constant state of artistic near-collapse. Inhabitants of Downwarp have the same post-mortality, post-scarcity lifestyle that the Puzzlebox always provides, but in their case, it mainly frees them up to do their best job of scavenging out a satisfying lifestyle in a rather challenging environment.

Downwarp also features a few other differences from the standard baseline Puzzlebox reality that help add that extra bit of challenge. Most obviously, entropy seems to run a bit stronger (or at least stranger) in Downwarp compared to other areas. The city itself seems far more run down than anywhere else in the 'Box, and despite the theoretical infinite resources and capabilities of the residents, it stays that way. It seems that the bigger and more elaborate a structure is, the more likely it is to quickly wear down to a state of disrepair, often still useful for some purpose, but never the original intention.

The same effect also effects the instantiator system in Downwarp; while the instantiator is never particularly effective at creating complex or well-built objects, on Downwarp it seems to be able to create little else than raw materials; its maximum resolution is around one centimeter, so it can create bulk iron or silicon or food paste, anything more elaborate must either be crafted or salvaged.

In fact, Downwarp seems to be a never-ending font of useful salvage. It seems that no matter how many times a particular abandoned building or collapsed freeway has been searched, there’s always a chance that someone will find something interesting by scrounging further, though it may need some repair work; it <em>is</em> salvage, after all. By the same token, there's no guarantee any person will find something that meets their immediate needs, so swap meets and flea markets are constant, and alway full of fascinating finds. Outwarp researchers have suggested that the salvage economy is actually secretly enabled by the instantiation system, creating the salvage unseen and placing it to be found. Downwarpers don't usually see it that way, but then again the common sentiment to explain good salvage is "The City provides."

== Sociology ==
The ambient ontological pressure that keeps Downwarp from building itself up into a bustling metropolis works on social structures as much as physical ones. Large group dynamics don't hold together, but the locals seem quite content to avoid them anyway, instead congregating in small tribes and intentional families, usually with no more than a few dozen members. A tribe will settle down in a particular city block or high-rise floor, building it up according to their own personal aesthetics and letting new members come and go as mood and ideology dictate.

As such, Downwarp factions tend to be fairly loosely affiliated, existing more as general belief systems than organized movements. The two most well-known are the [[Gridshamans]], urban mystics who believe that everything, natural or constructed, is tied together in a network of willfull energy, and the [[Eistenstimmen]], strong-willed workers devoted to improving their bodies as much as their collectives need, to help them bear the burden of sustaining them.

=== Inhabitants ===
* [[User:Aleph|Aleph]]
* [[Arc-Light]]
* [[Groove-Weld]]
* [[Nikolai]]
* [[Torque]]

== Inspiration ==
* '''Writing'''
** {{wp|Bone Dance}}, by Emma Bull - One of the best syntheses of magic and technology ever to have been given the label urban fantasy, it's about the search for identity in a ruined future Minneapolis where the {{wp|Loa|Lwa}} are just as real as the body-hopping psychics.
** [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/593789.The_City_Not_Long_After The City, Not Long After], by Pat Murphy - Post-plague urban collapse narrative involving San Francisco housing a collective of dreamers and artists, defending it against militaristic invaders via creative and surreal means.
* '''Music'''
** {{wp|Burial (musician)|Burial}} - Dark as a city-wide blackout, but with rich and complex layers of bass and modified vocal samples that are never boring to listen to. It's been called dubstep, but it's like no other dubstep you've ever heard.
** {{wp|The KLF}} - Down-and-dirty situationist house musicians who'd rather burn a million pounds on a beach than let success make them boring.
** {{wp|The Shamen}} - Perhaps no one was more serious about making rave culture into a spiritual experience. And "Techno-tribal, positively primal, shamanic anarchistic archaic revival"? That might as well be Downwarp's motto.
** {{wp|Dead Cities (album)|Dead Cities}} by {{wp|The Future Sound of London|Future Sound of London}} - More than most of FSOL's catalog, this album's pretty close to Downwarp's slightly grungier and ruinous side. Starts out a little more agressive, but fades into more ambient work towards the latter half.

[[Category:Puzzlebox]] [[Category:Stubs]]

User:Aleph

2015-03-19T02:39:16Z

Aleph:

Aleph is an artificial manticore construct that is divided into instances, though by far her most active instance is also the oldest, a rusting accumulation of metal parts from various [[Metacosmology|syncosms]] that nests down into a scrapyard located in the [[Downwarp]]. By her nature she is constantly repairing herself to survive, and by some strange quirk of fate, the parts she sheds invariably wind up creating new versions of herself in other worlds in new and often weirder configurations. These configurations can also invariably create their own replicated bodies, creating something of a mess when it comes to sorting which instance of Aleph is descended from what combination of parts, foibles, and long-forgotten memories.

=== Fiction ===

[[Hello Friend]]

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Aleph}}

Hello Friend

2015-03-19T02:30:01Z

Aleph: Created! (And some minor editing of word choice since its first published draft)

[[User:Aleph|Aleph]] awoke to a heavy drizzle in the junkyard, her body splayed across a dent she had placed along the side of a refrigerator she called a bed. Water poured in rivulets down her forehead, eyes, and cheeks, before forming a larger necklace around her shoulders that fell to the ground in a steady dripping. The pistons in her chest slowly extended as if to yawn, until a small [[ratray]] perched on her shoulder with some morsel it had found.

"Oh, good morning, friend." The manticore murmured to the tiny vermin, which ignored her as it attempted to nibble away the husk of a seed. She studied it for a moment, her pistons thrumming alive with some vague sense of pleasure until one of them let out a violent squeak and groan as it threatened to seize in the accumulated rust and grime that served as its home. Aleph grit her teeth so fiercely she thought she'd crack a bolt, and slowly pushed the piston deeper with a vague hope that it'd stay put for the time being.

She rose and the ratray shuffled in place before simply taking wing. She nodded. "Goodbye friend. I don't want to go shopping either." Her head began to swim as she stumbled off towards the shopping district of the [[Downwarp]]; her metal pawfeet plunging deep into mud and muck before she finally reached uneven concrete that threatened to split under her weight. She pursed her lips and froze as she felt that rusting piston shiver like a heart failing to beat. Her window to properly fix it was beginning to shrink, and the consequences of that tragedy bubbled in the back of her head.

Eyes were on her almost immediately as she approached what one might call "civilization" as she towered over most if not all of the bazaar's inhabitants. Moving through without hurting someone was already something of a challenge, but the nauseous spinning of her head doubled that difficulty, and in exasperation she finally reached out with a metal paw to occasionally spread innocents out of the way of her stumbling ton-and-a-half form. The shouts of fright, surprise, and anger filled her ears to the point where she nearly missed the sign of tent she needed.

Inside was a stout little mutt that let out a shout as the manticore stepped in. "You! Get out! Last time you were in here you broke a godforsaken shelf and left me to clean it up!" Aleph ignored him as she browsed the shelves, a shaking pawfinger pushing past bits of scrap and imported goods for the one thing she needed. The mutt stayed behind his desk, eyeing the pliers at the end of Aleph's tail. "I know you can hear me; you ain't that broken just yet, but you're gonna be if you don't get the hell out!" The manticore found the can of oil and slammed it down on the sales counter, her lips curling into a pained grimace. "I need."

"Listen darlin', we all need something out of life, and the things I need the Instantiator can't make."

"I need."

"That's an [[Upwarp]] import! Do you think I get that every day and can just give it to you?"

The manticore's pawfingers rapped against the salescounter as her body shook in a dry sob, terminating with a grinding pop that forced small plumes of smoke to exit from the mufflers in her mane. Trembling, she reached into a cavity in her shoulder, and with a horrible screeching snap of metal she tore out what looked like an ancient hood ornament. What was once an almost tacky relic of another era now looked practically totemic, the end of it having been hammered and shaped into a makeshift crankshaft for tiny gears. She offered it to the shopkeep, and took her can with a shiver. He looked up at her, eyebrows raising. "How could you even have something like this? This isn't even..." He studied it, but the manticore merely shrugged. "I am not from here."

She tore off the top of the can, and her pawfingers moved to crinkle the end of it to form a spout to tip into an intake valve. The first rotation of her crankshafts was painful at first until the fresh oil found purchase, but the new cycling of her pistons made her pawtoes curl against the concrete floor in pleasure, and removed the spinning in her head like the shade from a lamp. The mutt eyed all this in a silent bemusement, before murmuring. "You know, shouldn't you change an oil filter, or something...?" The Manticore headed for the exit, a soft smile breaking on her face. "Goodbye friend."

The junkyard was as quiet as she left it, but everything seemed calmer now that her engine had been sorted out. She rested back on her refrigerator, her left arm limp and lifeless since she tore out a major mechanical component there. She chuckled a bit and found a spoon that had somehow escaped some of the moisture, and began the process of shaping it. A blowtorch sprung out of the tool assembly along her tail, and once the spoon was red hot, she brought it up to her mouth, where her twin rows of teeth hammered down in quick succession to form the tiny crankshaft she needed. It was with a quiet amusement that the manticore noted that the hood ornament that was once the end of her old part was now the head of a spoon.

She'd begin inserting the new part into her arm while she thought: "...Did I lie?" The remnants of the old part ground gears to a halt. "The shopkeeper is not my enemy." The ruined remains were removed with needle-nose pliers. "He would take me apart if he knew me." The insertion of the new part made her pawfingers on that arm tingle and slowly regain motor control. "It is better that he doesn't, then." She laid back, while water poured in rivulets down her forehead, eyes, and cheeks. A ratray perched on a slowly shifting piston, its muzzle going to clean under a furred wing. "Hello friend."

User:Aleph

2015-03-19T02:13:14Z

Aleph: Created!

== Aleph ==

Aleph is an artificial manticore construct that is divided into instances, though by far her most active instance is also the oldest, a rusting accumulation of metal parts from various [[Metacosmology|syncosms]] that nests down into a scrapyard located in the [[Downwarp]]. By her nature she is constantly repairing herself to survive, and by some strange quirk of fate, the parts she sheds invariably wind up creating new versions of herself in other worlds in new and often weirder configurations. These configurations can also invariably create their own replicated bodies, creating something of a mess when it comes to sorting which instance of Aleph is descended from what combination of parts, foibles, and long-forgotten memories.

=== Fiction ===

[[Hello Friend]]