Stories of the Galactic Mindsea Empire wait to be told
The Empire is distinguished by its "Deep-level" technology, technology bridging the gap between fantasy and science fiction. In this empire of the distant future, mindseas can call upon powers that seem magical, but there is a scientific explanation for all that they do.
The secret of mindsea power is in a new way of looking at reality, in which the laws of physics familiar to humans today arise as special cases within the more general operations of Patternistics. When all of the possibilities are explored, it becomes evident that what humans today regard as reality is illusion. Time and space can be taken apart and rearranged into countless alternative structures. The universe is created from patterns that take every possible variation through the working of invariant rules of recombination. The illusions of consciousness and free will arise from the superposition of patterns with the awareness that fills all combinations equally.
Stories of the Empire arise against the background of this contradiction. How will the characters meet its challenge? How do they define themselves, knowing they are bound by patterns, their lives fleeting currents in an oceanic mind? Is love possible in this new reality?
The science of Patternistics divides reality into successive levels. Home Level is the realm where humanity evolved, where the illusions of space and time prevail. Patterns of deeper levels allow awareness to see beyond ancestral limitations. By shifting their identities onto a deeper level, mindseas gain the power to break classic laws of physics, though they remain caught in the illusions of their new level.
Successively deeper levels exist, each containing more raw creative and destructive power than the shallower level it enfolds, culminating in the Center, where nothing exists because all is one undifferentiated all-encompassing awareness. In the Center, there are no patterns, only formless potentiality.
The history of the Empire follows the efforts of men and women who tried to grasp the Deep and change the lives of their people with its power. As it is commonly believed that only one mindsea can shape the future, wars between mindseas, each striving for a unique vision, have frequently erupted.
Only a small part of this history has made it into novels thus far. There are many planets yet to be explored, lives yet to be recorded, time periods yet to be unraveled, as well as alternative histories that branch off with every quantum refresh, as the Deep regenerates shallower levels.
Story settings may be found among the 3010 original planets, and there are millions of possible characters to be found on the lists of prominent imperial citizens. Who knows what long-forgotten dramas await discovery?
Stories about historical events, landmarks, and characters described in already told tales should meld with what has been written before—or have a good patternistic reason why they don't—but other times, other places, and other persons are open for interpretation.
