Forum Game Pillars Of Infinity

Lukasmah

Member
You wake up trapped in some kind of box, unsure how you got there. There's so little space you can barely move. It's almost like a coffin. You hear a voice from a speaker above your head.

Greetings, A-32-1-3. You're probably very confused right now. That's alright. Everyone is at this point. You're currently being shifted to the primary node of your sector. This probably doesn't mean much to you, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that it's a method of transportation which, unfortunately, usually causes memory loss. Don't worry, you'll be told everything that you need to know.

But first, pick a new name for yourself so people don't have to recite your ID all the time.
 
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roytheshort

Guest
Turns out I forgot to pick a last name, my last name shall be "Pavarotti"
 
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Misu

Guest
My name is Albus J. Kevin Wilfred Bryan Dumbledore Jr. III with no science
 

Yokcos

Member
>Doctor Andy Wandy Aezie Pavarotti Robotcake Bryan Dumbledore Jr. III (AKA Charles): Unlock and open the box.
 
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roytheshort

Guest
All these voices in my head, this is all very confusing. I think I'll stick with my normal ID. A-32-1-3
 

Lukasmah

Member
You try to get out of the coffin thing or whatever this place is, without much success.

Are... Are you actually trying to escape? I wouldn't advise that. If you break something, you might get killed. Or, to be more exact, cease to exist. You don't want to get erased from reality, do you? Besides, I see no point in breaking out. You've volunteered, after all.

So, your new name. You may want to choose it now.

"Nope, not doing that. You lost my name, you'll have to recite your ID"

Okay, but that's not how it works. Your name used to be Andy Wandy Robotcake Bryan Dumbledore Jr. III... Your parents had an awful sense of humour. But, anyway, you're the one who decided to change it. You just haven't decided what your new name will be yet.

"Oh. In that case, I think I'll go with Aezie Pavarotti."

Alright. I expected something more... Conventional. But whatever, this works. It's your name, after all.

Anyway, about your memory loss. We don't know what you do or don't remember, so actually explaining everything that you need to know won't be easy. I'll tell you about what people forget most often, hoping that you'll understand what I'm talking about, and if something's still unclear after that you can just ask what you want to know.

Our universe is huge. We don't know how big it is, but we estimate it's somewhere between mind bogglingly humongous and actually infinite. It's filled with islands floating midair and has a multitude of black pillars scattered everywhere. Those pillars, while not particularly thick, are huge and don't appear to have a top or bottom. For some reason, there are always many small islands around the pillars, and the further you go the bigger and less numerous they get. Islands always move away from the pillars, yet new islands always replace them. We don't know if the pillars exist everywhere or just here, but they're the base of our civilisation. Damage a pillar, and it will heal. Shatter it, and it won't collapse. They can't really fall down, they just float midair. We think that the fine pillar dust formed through their constant damage and repair clumps together into floating into islands which then form bigger and bigger islands. This explains the weird island phenomenon, but it requires pillar dust to differentiate into various different materials, which has never actually been observed. Nevertheless, it's the best theory we've got for the origin of everything... Aside from the pillars, that is. As you've probably realised by now, there's a lot we don't know, but we are definitely eager to learn.

So why am I telling you this? Well, because our curiosity drives us to explore. To boldly go where no man has gone before. As the pillars are the only part of this universe that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, we build around one of them. It is a literal pillar of our civilisation.

However, every resource we use we get from the islands, so we must constantly send people there to collect them. We're used to going back and forth, travelling around the islands, so that's where most of our exploration is directed. We hope to get to another pillar one day and expand our civilisation, but we're not there yet. While we may have reached another pillar, all attempts at forming a permanent colony or going beyond the nearest pillar have failed.

However, there is another type of exploration that's frequently neglected... Vertical. We slowly build up and down, so no one cares about it. Everything on our pillar is always "just something we'll reach some day". But exploring our pillar is quite important. We want to learn how to create colonies far up and down the pillar in hopes of one day using that knowledge to colonise other pillars. This is what you're supposed to do. You simply need to go up.

I'll explain the specifics when you get to your node. But until then... Any questions?
 
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Lukasmah

Member
"Cool exposition dump. Can I have another?"

I prefer the term "introdump", as it would only be an introductory one that would be relatively difficult to avoid if this were interactive fiction with players who despise the fourth wall. But as you wish.

In this universe, one of the best selling books is "Real Life" by Hector Thibault, son of Yves Carpentier, grandson of Ludovic Bruneau, an award winning writer and millionaire who died relatively young because he got really drunk one day and fell into a humongous woodchipper made for chipping the enormous trees that grow on the furthest and largest of islands. Real Life is a wonderful meta-story set in a world where writers avoid exposition dumps like the plague despite such things actually existing in the world they live in, and often don't even dare to put them where it makes sense for the characters. Instead, they prefer gradually feeding people information even if there's no in-universe reason to do so. It's an unusual world quite unlike ours. There is no universal up or down and there's a thing called gravity which makes things attract each other, and heavier objects which attract things more are then used to define local up and down. The space between those heavier objects is almost empty, and the amount of mass that exists remains the same. It's a very different and a pretty ridiculous universe, but readers for some reason take it seriously. Thibault, while mocking the practice of avoiding infodumps at all costs, also avoids them himself making the entire book a wonderful self deprecating joke. He can get away with it easily as there is no logical reason for the characters to actually do any infodumps, and also because it's not an interactive medium in which the players actually need to know this to be able to play. I think one of his characters even starts adding more and more info-dumps to his fiction just to annoy someone, making it a really, really meta piece. Also he just really likes to rant no matter how justified or unjustified such rants are.

I can send it to you, if you want. It's a great read. In digital form, of course, as sending actual books to distant colonies might be a bit difficult.


"Why don't I remember anything?"

We don't know. We actually have no clue how shifting works or why it does what it does, we just know how to do it. Using a phenomenon we know almost nothing about may not be the best idea, but not like that has ever stopped us. Don't worry, the memory loss isn't permanent... Usually. You should start remembering things fairly soon, or at least I hope so.

"Why am I here?"

No idea. That's a philosophical question. Unless you're trying to ask me why you're in the shifting box, in which case the answer is quite simple: Because you need to reach the next node.

Anything else?
 
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Yokcos

Member
there's a thing called gravity
"yeah sure how do we all stay on the ground? Do we float around the islands and pillars and that with grappling hooks or something?"
 
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