Owls and Pussycats from Beyond Space

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.

"The Owl and the Pussycat", Edward Lear                      

An attempt at developing that new idea from NetherWerks and C'nor, the Worldboat.

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The Worldboats drift, among our stars and elsewhere.

Out in the voids they pass the deep time, then pass on, silent pseudosolutions. In our universe - though not in the least of it - they are squeezed, misshapen to fit.

While complex in structure externally, and of a construction impractical in our space and time, the interiors of these vessels are more marvellous still, in parts unfathomable to all but the most experienced of transplanar explorers. Here are tubes and tunnels, extensive chambers and vast halls, all apparently observing Euclidean norms; here again spaces patently impossible, reflections of infinity, refractions of other, stranger natures far beyond the limits of the knowable. Spaces biomechanical, epistothaumaturgical. Out on the surfaces, between the skins, down in the depths of these vessels wonders move, born of multidimensional and polyplanar ecosystems evolved over aeons, evolving still.

Entities may not be entirely backward or forward compatible between universes. The fundamental recompilation taking place at an intercosmic membrane can bring into being significant anomalies. Appreciation and depreciation may occur, and prepreciation and repreciation too; and all of these in any combinations corresponding to the variation in basic principles on either side. Structures simple in one time and space may break free of conceptual constraints and blossom fractally in another, while intricate structures born of mechanisms beyond imagining are reduced, conflated, singularised, or written into wholly different forms, damaged, corrupted, but never quite lost.

Worldboats seem to have been constructed within a mesh of sprawling supracosmic buffers, into which excess data may be fed in such cases, where circumstances and, to some extent, anticipation allow. Within these, emulation may be possible, giving continued existence to the menagerie of beings and materials not feasible for the duration of a Worldboat's voyages in a given universe. These buffers have their limits, however, and overflows do occur when entering sparer realms. In such instances the raw data spill out to flood the tapestry of existence and crystallise in new forms, producing bizarre changes in regional polycosmic topography, flowerings, splinterings and interstitial graining, and casting the arcs of epoethereal rainbows out into the darkness.

Entering a Worldboat is not for the hearted. Primordial lifeforms are tolerated, and may even pass unnoticed, but the dangers they face cannot be understated for the simple fact the dangers cannot even be known. Corridors pulse as localised gravitational distortions career along incomprehensible, achaotic tracks. Substances both are and are not, or may be, in a single moment; or maybe not. The possible yawns wide open, but with jaws that snap shut in time with the spin of a fundamental particle. Creation and uncreation go hand in hand on the edge of the sand and dance by the light of the moon.

These are the Owls and Pussycats from Beyond Space. They are non-sense, poetry, married ever anew in their Worldboats, and helped again by a Piggy-wig no less.

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Thanks to NetherWerks and C'nor. You can also help in the exploring - start here.

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