Terms and Theories

Alaya is the collective unconsciousness of mankind, the drive for survival. Alaya constantly steers mankind away from extinction.

Usually Alaya interferes indirectly by guiding and empowering an individual to eliminate a threat, such as Joan of Arc. When indirect intervention is insufficient, Alaya will deploy the Counter Guardians. The deployment of Counter Guardians is by no means subtle, as the threat will be eliminated with its surroundings, inflicting much collateral damage.

Alaya is of particular relevance to magi, as those close to reaching the Root are deemed threatening by Alaya. Many of them go to extreme length to avoid or hide from Alaya.

Parallel Worlds are timelines within the Universe running adjacent to each other. Moving between and accessing parallel worlds are the domain of the Second Magic.

Quantum Time-Locks are universal events, occurring at regular intervals, that secure certain Parallel Worlds as unchangeable absolutes within human history.

Though the "Universe" permits the birth of unlimited possibilities and countless Parallel Worlds, the unrestricted propagation of this process would quickly exhaust the Universe's energy. Thus, extraneous Worlds are periodically culled by the existence known as the World so as to prevent the needless expenditure of energy, leaving only the "trunk" to advance. Worlds that lie within the "trunk" largely resemble one another in expression and format. The Universe places Time-Locks on these timelines to safeguard these worlds from culling and protect them from disruptions. Because these Time-Locks often revolve around important turning points in human history, they are also referred to as "Human Order Foundations."



Any history that has been secured as a Time-Lock become mostly impervious to interference from the past and future. Hypothetically, if one were to attempt to modify history, as time progresses unto the Time-Lock, history would be forcibly corrected. It is theoretically possible that by some immense undertaking, the course of the History of Man could be fundamentally denied by the successful revocation of a "Quantum Time-Lock."

A Lostbelt is the term used for a parallel timeline that has been designated for culling. Worlds that advance too far into ruin or prosperity are considered to be bankrupt of Adjacent Realities. This is because the choices of the inhabitants of these worlds can no longer effectively impact their future, and can tend only toward immutable outcomes. They are considered dead end timelines by the World, and have lost branching potential, so they are therefore destroyed.

Typically, the appearances and civilizations in a Lostbelt wildly diverge from worlds within the core of the Tree of Time. Visitors to these worlds would find them almost completely unrecognizable.

A singularity is, in its most basic terms, a period of alternate history that "displaces" recorded history within a Human Order Foundation. This period of time--the singularity--is not connected to the timeline on either side of it; any events that occur inside a singularity has no effect on events outside it, and vice versa. However, the existence of the singularity itself threatens to unravel human history, as an uncorrected singularity will potentially result in the revocation of the Quantum Time-Lock.

For example, imagine a change to history is made with the intent to prevent the American Revolution. The first disruption to history results in the formation of a Singularity around that time period. Specific events within that Singularity (say, the assassination of Thomas Jefferson) will not be reflected on the normal timeline; Thomas Jefferson will continue to live on the normal timeline. However, if events within the Singularity progress towards its eventual goal--decisively preventing the United States from forming--results in that Human Order being overturned and permanently damaging the human timeline.

Chaldea aims to correct these anomalies by Rayshifting agents into the Singularities and preventing the overturning of the Human Order. Even if the Singularity's inciting event has already happened, if the overall state of human civilization is preserved--such as ensuring the United States is still formed--the Singularity can be resolved, and normal human history restored. This is usually accomplished by identifying the source of the Singularity's inciting events and eliminating them.

Time travel accomplished by converting a human being into energy particles and projecting them into the past. The capacity of a Rayshift subject to safety return to their era of origin requires that the integrity of their soul is maintained via a quantum observer. Said observer also prevents the local Counter Force of a past era from relegating the Rayshift subject to a phantasmal existence, and thereby excluding them from the Human Domain.

As stated above, interference in past events that may result in time paradoxes are subject to the principles of Quantum Time-Locks. There is zero risk of time paradox within Singularities as their contents are separate from events occurring in the normal human timeline.