SCP Foundation

НАРРАТИВИСТИКА И ВЫ:

Стирание граней между реальным и нереальным

ВЕДУЩИЙ СЕМИНАРА:
Ст. исследователь Дж. Ансельм Харкнесс
Концептуальные и онтологические исследования, Междисциплинарный отдел Центра Пилкроу-Минковски
от имени отдела Метафизических Гибридных Наук

СЪЕМКА ВЫПОЛНЕНА СОТРУДНИКОМ КОМПАНИИ VIKANDER-KNEED TECHNICAL MEDIA

Камера снимает пустое, окутанное тьмой пространство. Издав характерный щелчок вспыхивает мощный прожектор, направленный прямо вниз, заливая все вокруг ярким, но болезненным желтым светом. Камера неуклюже устремляется к пустому центру крошечной сцены для презентаций.

Доносятся редкие, разрозненные аплодисменты; направление камеры скрывает от зрителя даже намек на присутсвие аудитории. Картинка резко переключается на боковой ракурс, демонстрируя темное пространство между сценой и рядами кресел. Камера плавно панорамирует и фокусируется на алых занавесках, скрывающие за собой маленькую закулисную зону.

Через несколько секунд оставшиеся аплодисменты стихают. Их заменяет странный шелест, доносящийся с невидимого потолка. Сквозь динамики, установленные по всему залу, раздается приглушенный голос.

Ладно, ты справишься.

Ты же справишься, правда?

Что я блять несу? Нет, все в порядке. Просто следуй слайдам. Вспомни свои реплики. Не проебись. Только не снова.

Голос откашливается, и после паузы из-за кулис появляется фигура, щурясь от неприятного света и поправляя маленький микрофон, прикрепленный к рубашке. Он недовольно подносит руку ко лбу и, осторожно продвигаясь к свету прожектора, приближается к сцене под тихим, ожидающим взглядом неизвестной аудитории. Он начинает говорить, и за его спиной с потолка медленно опускается проекционный экран.

Благодарю вас за участие в сегодняшнем семинаре.

Добро пожаловать на, эээ, запланированный семинар по Наративистике и Модели Наративной Относительности. Эти два взаимосвязанных, но различных элемента являются краеугольными камнями отдела Нарративистики, новой ветви отдела Метафизических Гибридных Наук, которая недавно появилась в стенах престижного исследовательского центра Фонда. Сегодня я выступаю от имени нашего отдела в роли связующего звена, многолетнего настройщика Wi-Fi и реальности, бумагомарателя и, как говорится, "мешка для битья", старшего исследователя Джеймса Анселя Харкнесса.

Честно говоря, я даже не знаю, почему меня сюда притащили. Я не считаю себя экспертом в этой области, и никогда не имел дела ни с чем, даже отдаленно связанным с этой темой.

Как я понял всего пару дней назад, этот "мета-бред" внедряется в отдел Метафизических Гибридных Наук и постепенно распространяется в узких кругах с целью внедрения базовых знаний во все области естественных наук, изучаемые в исследовательских центрах Фонда.

А это значит, хотите вы того или нет, Наративистика (а значит, и весь этот "мета-бред) станет неотъемлемой частью вашего образования в Фонде. Она важна для вашего понимания аномального, для понимания места этой вселенной среди всего остального, и для понимания места всего остального среди всего того, что за ее пределами. Вы можете задаться вопросом: зачем это нужно и кто вообще этим интересуется? Не волнуйтесь, я тоже не знаю, но на ваши вопросы рано или поздно ответят.

Итак, я рад, что вы все удобно устроились, потому что у меня для вас шокирующие новости. Если вы немного знакомы с патафизикой, то, вероятно, догадываетесь, о чём я хочу сказать:

Знаете ли вы, что, согласно заявлениям отдела патафизики, все мы — лишь вымысел?

Аудитория, человек двадцать-тридцать, реагирует молчанием, стонами и другими признаками нескрываемой скуки. Раздается кашель, на который Харкнесс кивает с таким же презрением.

Да-да! Все мы слышали это, по крайней мере, один раз, а некоторые, и вовсе, множество раз: "Пата видел вашего бога, и это писатель фанфиков из Нью-Джерси" или что-то в этом роде.

Позвольте развеять ваши страхи… а именно, страхи перед ещё двумя с половиной часами, проведёнными за слушанием моих излюбленных тезисов, которые вы уже слышали бесчисленное количество раз, но теперь с "новым, модным вкусом" мета-ерунды, под названием Нарративистика. Да, она не такая, как шипучий доктор Пата вашей молодости. В ней нет ароматов одинокого писателя ужасов из Нью-Джерси, диктующего правила всей мультивселенной. В этом можете быть уверены, мои дорогие друзья.

Нет, вместо этого она обладает насыщенным, резким, постоянным ароматом обширной и постоянно расширяющейся сети сложного повествования. На переднем плане — авторы. И в послевкусии тоже. Этот вкус –- повсюду, сверху донизу. Везде. Внутри и снаружи, с закатанными рукавами, погружённые по локоть в психику друг друга. Вы, писатель фанфиков из Нью-Джерси, я, ваш бог, и вы, наблюдающие за этим прямо сейчас, тоже. Да вы, кто читает эти слова, поскольку они записаны для дальнейшего распространения, ad infinitum¹, добро пожаловать на вечеринку. А тот одинокий писатель-фантаст из Нью-Джерси - это персонаж какого-то другого автора, и вы тоже являетесь персонажем того же автора. Возможно, однажды другой автор создаст вас, но этот автор - это персонаж какого-то другого автора.

Поиск корней приводит к истине: мы все едины. Едины.

Харкнесс смотрит в камеру, его глаза излучают энергию человека, пытающегося обратить внимание на что-то очевидное и неправильное, неспособного или не желающего говорить о его существовании. Какое-то полное нарушение даже самых элементарных приличий. На записи пропущены несколько секунд, но тайм-код в правом верхнем углу указывает, что продолжение видео начинается на три секунды раньше. Харкнесс этого не замечает.

Однажды, быть может, вас создаст другой автор, но и этот автор окажется лишь персонажем в чьей-то книге. А "вы", существующий прямо сейчас, не будете тем же самым "вы", что и за пределами этой истории. Возможно, даже за пределами этой сцены.

Нет-нет, вы не ослышались. И да, я знаю, кое-что из этого может показаться… не совсем относящимся к естественным наукам. Однако, прежде чем вы начнете приписывать ко всему этому свое "пата-", позвольте мне договорить. Уверяю, в итоге все от этого только выиграют.

Харкнесс смотрит на нарастающий шепот толпы.

Да-да, вижу ваши взгляды – особенно, хм… пожалуй, теперь нас можно назвать коллегами, верно? Вижу, как качают головами мои коллеги из отделов патафизики и нарративистики. "Почему бы не использовать патафизику? Она оперирует и основами, и авторами, она справится с этой задачей!" – словно слышу ваши возражения. И хотя я согласен, что патафизика способна объяснить многие из концепций, о которых мы сегодня поговорим, она не всесильна. Она не в силах объяснить собственное место во вселенной и реальности. Более того, Патафизика просто недостаточно научна. В наше время нужны цифры и детальные объяснения. Нам нужны системы, на которые можно положиться, в то время как раньше все предыдущие методы были недостаточны.

Патафизика — это философская система управления. Она полезна в спорах и помогает нам сохранять скромность. Наратология невероятно эффективна для небольшого количества миров, но в других она дает сбой. При этом вины её в этом нет. Проблема кроется в архетипической истории, на которой она решает сосредоточиться.

Эти существующие модели предназначены для наведения локального порядка в том, что статистики Фонда называют "все более хаотичной" макросистемой. Но вот в чем проблема такого мышления: эта система не становится все более хаотичной. Хаос всегда был с нами, кружил вокруг, в то время как мы привыкали к порядку, и наша хватка ослабевала в том уголке мультивселенной, который мы так упорно пытались контролировать все это время.

В конечном итоге, мы лишь стали более осознавать эту абсурдность. Некоторые из нас понимают, что такой уровень хаоса нельзя по-настоящему сдержать в таком масштабе. Это несбыточная мечта.

Но большинство из нас всё ещё уверено: нужно сделать всё возможное, чтобы понять и измерить этот хаос. Бесконечный, неисчерпаемый источник знаний, который нужно осушить до дна. ЭРУДИЦИЯ. Вот в чём суть хаотичных макросистем: чем дальше мы отходим, тем более упорядоченной она кажется, и тем более знакомы правила, которым она подчиняется. Наратология — это дистанция. Максимально возможная дистанция.

И хотя Нарративистика имеет совершенно ясные, измеримые приложения для понимания совокупности различных Великих Космологий как единой системы, или для полного их игнорирования (мы дойдем до этого), патафизические попытки объяснить самые запутанные аспекты нарратива нашей реальности всегда были в лучшем случае туманными. Возможно, вы в какой-то момент оказывались на одной из сторон многочисленных споров — о существовании, о релевантности, о причинах отсутствия широкого согласия со всеми временными линиями, или о том, какого демиурга вы считаете патафизически высшей силой — споры эти, кстати, не прекращаются и по сей день. Если бы только ответы находились чаще, не говоря уже о консенсусе.

Часто вину возлагают на плохо определенные «правила» популярных моделей Патафизики, или на отсутствие их применения. Модели, основанные на прототипических постулатах исследований С.А. Суонна в этой области, рассматривали такие мелкие аспекты реальности так же, как протогерметики изучали эзотерические аспекты алхимии. В результате многие сотрудники Фонда сегодня сыплют патафизическими терминами, словно это какие-то заклинания, которые сами собой должны привести их к истине.

Аналогичным образом, хотя даже самые бесталанные члены Ордена Золотой Зари могли получать золото из ртути, сегодня мы знаем, что их методы были, мягко говоря, далеки от совершенства. Громоздкие и неточные, они уступали методам физических наук, которые в последующие столетия смогли объяснить многие явления. Уже в 1941 году было получено первое доказательство возможности синтеза золота с помощью ускорителя частиц, но экономическая система, основанная на дефиците, сделала этот способ слишком дорогим. Сегодня передовые технологии Фонда позволяют печатать золотые слитки на 3D-принтере за ничтожную долю их стоимости, и если вы мне не верите, спросите у Федеральной Резервной Системы США.

Согласно контракту я должен уточнить: Не надо так делать. Они не поймут, о чём вы говорите, а вот мы - да. А ещё у нас есть очень сильные препараты, которые мы вводим людям, разглашающим секреты Фонда, и тем, кто эти секреты услышал. Они начинаются на "А", но я никак не могу вспомнить название…

Несколько секунд тишины.

Ха-ха. Да, хорошо. Небольшая разрядка нам не помешает. К тому же, это ПМ Центр, вы, ребята, знаете, как держать язык за зубами.

Еще несколько секунд тишины.

Господи, ну, э-э, не так уж это и смешно. Спасибо, спасибо.

Вернёмся к тому, с чего я начал: разговоры об использовании и обоснованности патафизики в рамках деятельности Фонда ведутся с момента создания отдела. И хотя мы подтверждаем необходимость в подразделении, специализирующемся на изучении переменчивых реальностей, пора нам отказаться от наших прежних представлений о природе нарратива и, честно говоря, о природе нашей собственной реальности. Как только вы поймёте взаимосвязь между различными нарративными основами, вы увидите параллели между онтологией и нарративистикой, и дальнейшее станет очевидным.

Фигура извлекает лазерную указку из переднего кармана своих брюк, нацеливая её на проектор.

Итак, прежде всего: что же такое нарративистика?

С щелчком на проекторе появляется слайд, и Харкнесс удивленно реагирует на это.

Narra—uh—wait, what? This isn't my copy… Are these notes? Hm. Sorry folks. Looks like we have a page vandal on our hands… or something.

I'll try to work around the more, uh, cogent stuff. Just pretend it isn't there.

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Harkness spends the next five minutes navigating around the slide as if solving a maze, using his laser pointer to do so. He explains verbatim the points on the slide, then turns back towards the audience, a collection of dark figures in rows now seen as the camera pans across the venue. Higher up, private booths with tinted glass stare downward at the host. Who owns these booths and why, no one could know.

—Thus, Narrativistics is a reframing of the roles of the narrative, character, and author that is infinitely extrapolatable and fully inclusive. It has three main pillars of understanding that hold up the cornerstone of Narrativistics' entire cohesion.

Pillar One. There is no difference between fiction and non-fiction, as the title of the seminar suggests. There is something of an illusion of fictionality or lack thereof, due to the perception and origin of the observer within this nested web. Determined to be represented by factors influenced by three features: Narrativism, Believability and Realism, which are byproducts of narrative relativity and measured through comparison of narrative signatures to the one the observer currently exists within.

Thus, all narratives are equally "real" to the characters experiencing them; it is, by all intents and purposes, their Baseline, and thus their reality. As stated, NBR levels can only be determined through comparison, as baseline is all you've ever known. And so, we use this methodology:

Harkness clicks the pointer as a new slide replaces the previous.

—oh, look at that, more "notes". Agh.

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I can't tell if you're making fun of me or trying to lighten the mood but it's definitely only doing one of those two from over here.²

Hm? Harkness glances around briefly. Did someone say something?

Silence.

Odd… Anyway, when I say baseline, I should clarify: Baseline is an illusion. The baseline of a character in a story is one, the baseline of our reality is one, the baseline of anywhere is one. One is arbitrary. The point is that the baseline of the story is equal to the characters'.

An easy metaphor, perhaps: Picture—

A sound akin to knocking occurs stage left, distant and inappropriately loud, like a rap on a solid slab of rosewood echoing far greater than it has any right to be. The air is hot and stuffy, and the room is silent. Waiting.

Ahem, okay. I think someone got turned around. What was I saying? Oh, right—

Picture the characters of a given story driving in cars on a multi-lane highway. The lanes of this highway are different narratives. The highway itself is the Tabula; the whole of all narratives within the book of stories we find ourselves driving along. Some characters will be with you for most, or even all of your journey, some only for a little bit, until you reach their stop, or they reach yours. Following so far?

If you are moving the same speed as someone else on the highway, to you, that car will not appear moving. It will seem stationary to you in terms of distance, and will not move. That car is at baseline with you, but another car could always be driving faster/slower than your car.

Imagine now that the cars are not propelled by their motors and, instead, the road moves at different speeds under your car. The lanes may move at different speeds, but if a few moved at the same speeds, then the cars do not move and the lanes do not move, relative to one another. Staying with me? Cause this is where things get a little strange.

The trick is that your perception limits you from understanding that there is no difference between a lane and a car, but they are the same. The road is actually the top of another car, it's just really really really large. Unfathomably large, such that you cannot even comprehend that it is a car.

And there are more cars, and more roads.

There are actually infinite cars stacked on one another, in both directions and in parallel. And if there was a version of you in a car a few roads under you, they would feel as if that reality is their reality. Because it is baseline. Baseline is always the same to the character.

This may look like a "narrative stack", but we avoid such terminology here. A "narrative stack" is erroneous. This metaphor is simply a visualization tool, like the point-line-plane postulate—

The slide changes on its own.

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Er— that's right. Thank you?

Anyway, usage of this system to describe literal narrative reality is erroneous and obsolete, as there is no linear vector to/from other narrative planes. Even the books you read from are not the narrative plane they represent. Their two-dimensional narrative quanta creates a three-dimensional holographic projection in another reality.

Many narratives exist with similar levels of Narritivity, Believability, and Realism (NBR), but do not interact and are, in all actuality, disparate in nature. Thus, you can assume that narratives are not "stacked" in the traditional sense.

It may help you better understand narrative realities to picture them as frequencies on a radio that exist out-of-phase with one another, in tightly wound groups of related stories called canonical bundles. "Tuning" into a specific plane involves moving the dial a certain distance from your origin station, which is harder to complete, the further your destination is from your origin. If you turn the dial one way, you become less relatively real to people in your origin station. If you turn it the other, you become more relatively real.

The slide changes once more, though Harkness' back is turned to the projection. It appears he is unaware of its presence.

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That is pillar number two: Perceived realness fluctuates in two directions, either unreal or hyperreal, and each narrative has a unique signature or "frequency" that you retain when you move across layers. Being hyperreal or unreal accounts for all ontokinetic activity; all reality bending anomalies can be filtered as relatively hyperreal or unreal to baseline.

If you travel "up" a narrative layer, the layer you enter into is more relatively real than you are, you are therefore relatively less real. Anomalies that can manipulate those spaces are unreal reality benders, and they often do so by using their own less real narrative causality to invoke "storybook/fairytale"-style abilities. These reality benders usually only impact their immediate surroundings, contingent on their situational awareness; while powerful entities at times, these reality benders are typically cocky, fallible, and have large cognitive or perceptual blind spots which can be exploited for containment or termination purposes.

If you travel "down" a narrative layer, you are more real than your surroundings. Thus the area is relatively unreal and you hyperreal. A hyperreal reality bender is far more dangerous and destructive on average; we're looking at top-down control as opposed to bottom-up. Of course, both hyperreal and unreal ontokinetic anomalies exist on a spectrum of power. A particularly weak or untrained hyperreal entity might fare worse than a confident and well-prepared unreal entity. A rule of thumb to identify one over the other is to ask yourself: Can it alter reality itself? Can it destroy the universe, or erase the narrative it exists within if it so chose? If both are yes, the entity is hyperreal.

The slide changes just as Harkness turns to face it again. He studies it for a second and shrugs, continuing on.

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So, hyperreal reality benders are akin to simple proxy authors; as author intentions dictate all events across all planes of existence, an entity written into the story with the ability to change up fundamental rules is more-or-less an author entity written into existence by an author even further "above". This is because of—

A small, golden envelope falls from above, listing downward through a gap in the drop ceiling, slowly, as if impossibly light. The word DOUBT is seen in block letters, a bloody red color, gracefully tumbling over itself until it rests upon center-stage.

Harkness approaches slowly, blinking faster than usual. He worries internally, and his worries are confirmed by the sounds of murmurs from the impatient crowd. He places his fingernails under the thin stationery and lifts, emitting a small yelp made far louder by the microphone on his lapel.

Heavier than I expected, heh.

With some effort, the envelope frees itself from gravity's clutches. Harkness turns the envelope around in his hands and stares at the back for a moment.

…Doubt…

Opening the card, Harkness eyes widen. He scans the message, eyes moving laterally and downward over time. After a minute, he stops.

Uh… Okay. I see. This—This wasn't part of the plan. But we stay dynamic here in this field of work. So, I feel it necessary to point out that I am 100% sure this is true. I'm also sure that I hate it. It's impossible. He shakes his head. What does that mean? What am I saying?

Flipping the card around, the inside appears blank. He folds the stationery and sticks it into his pocket. He swallows.

It's all for amusement. This shit isn't important. It's zero plus zero. Stop… stop confusing me! I don't want to do this!

Harkness buries his head in his palms. A long, aching breath sneaks from between his clenched teeth. After a moment, the host looks up from his hands and continues.

Apologies. It's just—this—thing. This place. All places. It's like a play, but no one knows they're in a play. Even when you tell them, they don't get it. Even me, I-I'll forget. It'll get pushed out of my mind and I'll return to ignorance. But it'll still be there, in the back of my brain. It never truly leaves! Not for me. Not for my author. I can't speak for anyone else. And… I-I don't—I don't understand my job duties. How did I get here? Why am I here? Answer me!

Harkness' bellow echoes through auditorium. Nothing else can be heard.

The spotlight above him changes with a flash to a deep red, bathing his face in sanguine luminescence. He looks directly into the light and stops moving. It reflects off the man's eyes, shifting hue. It travels into blue, then green, then red again. It starts slowly, then shifts rapidly, violently. Harkness' eyes remain locked upwards. After a long while, the light shifts back into the incandescent shade it had prior. The man jerks to life, and resumes talking as if nothing had occurred.

And, finally, pillar three:

There are an infinite number of narrative layers that can be hypothetically accessed. There will be a layer between two layers, always have been, even if they appear identical, because the "layers", as stated prior, are a visualization guide to help our feeble human minds parse a more abstract phenomenon. Narratives, being a spectrum of frequencies, place you out-of-phase with your current plane, one degree on either side, increasing in dissonance as you travel from your Point of Origin. The farther you travel "upwards", the less and less real you are relatively to the current plane, thus you have less and less influence over the planes themselves. Inversely, traveling "downwards" any distance does not impact your control over the layers below you, however, narratives continue to be less relatively real to you as an observer and thus become inherently less meaningful the further you travel "downwards".

Of course, there is a workaround for this loss of meaning/believability: writing author entities into substrates to act on your behalf. Any characters written by you will be relatively less real than you, making them ideal for injection into other narratives. They, like all characters/authors, lack agency other than that which is given to them by another author/character.

Likewise, a character does not typically incur on the plane of their Author, but it becomes a greater possibility on "lower" substrates. This is because the H-Energy/cognitron density required to manifest an entity is less when generating characters within narratives possessing lower NBR values. We've heard stories about entities ascending upwards to attack their extranarrative demiurge, but these are all fallacious by design; take SCP-3812, for example.

If you ask a handful of people about 3812, you'll hear at least one person erroneously mention the entity is ascending up narrative layers to attack the author entity above us that wrote it into existence. While I'm sure the anomaly wants to attack its author, the series of events that would more likely occur would involve the author entity writing a proxy author into a "lower" plane to get punched on his behalf. This way the author can write 3812 into layer -2, then the proxy author into -1. The entity would then ascend (as per the author's intention) and fulfill its purpose. However, if you zoom out, you realize -2 and -1 are thus part of the same story. -2 is the metanarrative to -1, and the entity had not actually traveled outside the bounds of its authors' intentions. Even if it did attack something or someone that supposedly wrote it into existence.

In the end, this was always the intent of an author, as intention is distorted through the lens of ego, or self. This barrier is what leads one to believe they are separate from their characters. Though they might feel like the author has their own intention, only the intention given to the characters will be the intention they have, and this intention is passed on via author to creation, who authors a creation and continues the chain.

Author intention is the only thing that matters in the multiverse. Some of you might have noticed a great deal of inconsistency in your day-to-day life. One day Humes were a reliable measurement system, the next day they weren't. What's the deal with that?

Some people in Metaphysical reported a complete alteration of certain fundamental forces, others discovered at least two versions of SCP-3125, one a dead memeplex and the other a giant fuckoff starfish. Well, you can blame sloppy author intention or coordination for that. If an author wishes to mess up your continuity, or introduce conflicting rules, they can do so, and narratives cohere just the same, where their influence touches, anyway.

Don't be too hard on them, though, as they're being driven by other authors' intentions. Same with those authors, and the ones above that. Ad nauseum.

And yes, this implies that no beings have true free will or agency, even ourselves. We only exist as a link in a possibly infinite chain of authors writing stories, a nested loop of creative worlds that evaporate as soon as the medium is disrupted.

On that note, you might find some of this information distressing or despair-inducing. If you begin to feel this way, just wait, as the pastries and coffee you've all been consuming were laced with a minor anxiolytic, something of the -azepam or -azolam variety, very mild. Shouldn't be a problem unless you've all been drinking, in which case, yeah- you? And- one, two, three, four-four? Okay, you five, please excuse yourselves to the medical bay at the end of the hallway. Let me check my watch.

Okay, yeah. You're fine. Just walk quickly.

Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's better than potent hallucinogens, although I'd be remiss if I borrowed anything else besides the route of administration used in the Type Green seminars we used to give back in the day. I'm sure you've heard the stories. The psychiatric costs alone—

Harkness coughs and changes the topic.

Regardless, I'd like to shift gears and talk a bit about the physical structure of narratives. We all know at least some of the typical fundamental particles that we believe comprise our reality; photons, quarks, bosons, etc. As mentioned earlier, it turns out that these particles are a simple projection of reality. These particles have little to do with the actual rendering of a narrative plane, only for it's reconciliation within three dimensions. Instead, we have to look at the table of fundamental Narrativistic quanta. Many of these are used to construct the narrative and render it into a specific format, so that its information can be conveyed repeatedly and as effortlessly as possible. For example, quantized energy fields such as the glypheme, chereme, and phoneme are fundamental units of specific mediums; written language, sign language, and spoken language, respectively.

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This table is propreitary and constanly evolving. We learn things as our author learns and relays them. This is because it would simply be too impossible to believe if our author's author gave their character this information from nothing. It has to feel real. It has to be real.

The camera view falls out of focus slightly but regains clarity a few moments later.

These quanta are not so much actual particles as energy fields represented by discrete regions where phenomena is taking place, and we know the phenomena is happening. Yet, similar to the typical properties of wave-particle duality, the observer effect, etcetra, we cannot measure the forces at play without changing them. Their exact locations are fuzzy and remain unknown to us. They are instead physically represented by the spherical region in which the measured data still checks out. As you can see—

Harkness clicks the remote, and a confused look appears on his face. He's never seen this slide before. It looks new. He skips it quickly, and another new one takes its place.

What—

He changes the slide again. The next one is similarly unrecognizable. He proceeds to do this six additional times, refusing to read from them, having no lines prepared to discuss them in the first place. However, you can just make out the contents of each, right before he skips to the next one.

After this, the slide skips back to the first in the set. Someone is heard walking from their seat and leaving the auditorium, though the camera remains pointed at Harkness. His face is red, and his eyes blink several times in bewilderment (or perhaps to signal for help, but this is just speculation).

Ahem. Right.

H-Energy. Cognitrons. Knolemes. The most relevant for the creative process, and for this discussion. H-Energy, also known as Headcanon Energy, is used in the creation or cementing of worlds. It permeates all realities, it exists as a river that flows through our minds like a chain, rushing in one direction. It is converted into the cognitron, which is the fundamental unit of awareness. Cognitrons are produced from these creative reserves en masse during periods of emotional experience, typically negative, though in various other situations as well, to lesser extents. Cognitrons convert into knolemes called schema, eight flavors of proto-idea-units. When these schema are used in the creation of a narrative substrate, accompanying creative inertia aids in the cementing of narrative worlds in a medium through concentrated effort.

I'm oversimplifying again, but these knolemes convert into idea-units such as narremes, memes, semes, culturemes and a mix of various communicative phenomena such as lexemes, phonemes, morphemes, etcetera, depending on the medium. The experience of these narratives generate pathos, or emotional response, represented by the rouseme and the valeme, which ultimately convert into H-energy within the minds of the audience, which remains for later use. If a story is stored in a digital medium, its fundamental components are converted into bits until recalled by said medium.

Narremes form complex compounds called devices, tropes, and themes. Depending on the medium, additional materia—phrasemes from morphemes, diaphonemes or triphonemes from phonemes, and many more, may form.

Various devices and narremes combine into segments called sujets. A Fabula, or complete worldline, progresses through its sujets at a rate of pacing, which is calculated via chronon density per sujet. This force is called Continuity and the natural, sensible progression of Continuity is called Narrative Cohesion. This is synonymous with Causality, as we know it. Narrative Causality, on the other hand, is related to ontological concepts such as synchronicity, serendipity, deus ex machina, and plot armor. These concepts impact a narrative's Believability when overused, reducing perceived verisimilitude to more relatively real realities.

Exponential reduction in H-Energy observed within narratives suggests that subsequent nested Fabulas possess less potential quanta density.

The one thing worth mentioning regarding antiquanta is that the generation of such is the cause of all hazardous phenomena. We still don't know why or how anomalies are made, nor how they influence reality to manipulate antiquanta density, but we are confident that hazards are caused by such interactions; antinarremes to narrativohazards, antimemes to memetic hazards, iconomeres to iconohazards, antisemes to semiohazards, so on and so forth.

While H-Energy is responsible for the creation of canons and worlds in general, it can also be theoretically expended on making a story element faintly more "real". It takes quite a bit of effort and collective headcanonizing, but it should be possible to have an idea be believed enough such that it manifests on the material plane. We call this process psychogenesis, which requires simultaneous and sustained head canonizing by many, many authors at once. When an idea undergoes psychogenesis, the resulting creation is called (in our typical understanding) a thoughtform or tulpa—basically concentrated belief manifesting as real.

Sorry, that last part—I'm not entirely sure it's true. I mean, I know it's true, I just didn't know it until a few seconds ago, and it definitely would mean our reality is being influenced by our author's author. Which would make our author a character, and our world a metanarrative. Which changes nothing. My head hurts. I want to go home, but I'm not sure one exists anymore. Or has ever existed.

That's the thing, right? Someone has to give me these ideas, just like someone put me on Narrativistics' Erudition Project. I don't know who; I woke up one day and had the promotion. Certainly an oddity, but not as much as this seminar, or anything else, really. Do any of you remember what you were doing before this? Anyone? I don't. I remember… being backstage. I remember doing this seminar before. But I don't remember when or where. Here? Has it been here this whole time?

That's Narrativistics at work. Narrativistics is why I'm here giving this seminar, over and over again, and it is also why none of your faces are visible. I just realized that. You're all facing away from me. This is fine.

I'm going to ignore this development and calmly wrap up my diatribe before I get too bogged down in the minutiae. The closer you look, the more you realize you didn't want to know in the first place. Still, we take the good with the bad here; it's all part of the game, as I'm sure you're aware by now, yeah?

All… part of the game.

S-So—As I was, uh, I, um, shit. Sorry. Spaced out for a sec there, I think—? D-did anyone else feel that? That, uh. Ah, nevermind.

Right, right. Let me just—

Another deep breath, another long exhale.

To summarize. Narrativistics is the multiverse theory of Pata-superset models. It assumes all stories are equally true to the characters and relatively real to the observer.

All theories, canons, stories, good and bad, believable or otherwise, exist on some level. Things like plot holes and incompatible cross-linking can be accounted for; The author's intention is the only thing that matters. If I write two incompatible stories to crosslink into each other, they will magically be compatible, but only in the small isolated narrative bubble in which I write them to be so. If someone writes a story that is purposefully discounting of Narrativistics, it still works under Narrativistics, because that plane still exists, and has always existed, somewhere. This meta-meta-framework is not confined to any one timeline, nor to the multiversal subset in which the SCP Foundation exists and dies within. It is not a narrative on its own; this seminar is only the narrative substrate by which Narrativistics is being conveyed to you in this instance, but its origin beyond myself, even my author, for that matter. The idea is what drives us all to wake up from the collective dream, because you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep, and you can't fall asleep if you were born dreaming.

Narrativistics is a unified theory of narrative causality that includes all stories, real and imagined, future and past, SCP and non-SCP. Your story. My story. The stories of gods in places far above and motes of dust far below, of collective consciousnesses in existential grandeur and the fleeting daydreams of single-celled organisms. Everything. Everything and everyone.

And now, I return to that liminal space I exist inside, that one found between recollections of narratives within which I am present. The audience is nonexistent. I am speaking to a blank wall. There are no questions. The seminar ends.

Goodnight—oh—

Harkness steps into an open trapdoor within center stage. He yells, voice growing rapidly distant after his form sinks into the gap beneath. The scream stops, abruptly. There is no light under the floor, the opening a silent void staring back at the roaring crowd. The seminar ends.

Everything must end.

The audience ceases. The folding chairs are stacked against an auditorium's far wall, opposite a stage. How much time had passed in those creeping moments? A distant rumble is felt by no one. The seminar ends.




Darkness overtakes the stage.