The Great Fold

I keep thinking that I can't explain this without an image but I don't have the skill to make the image

I stole this one from 'Le Topologicon' a nice comic about multidimensional spaces that I did not understand, even in translation, but if you are better than me at mathematics (and who is not?) then maybe you will understand it.

You are OK downloading it as the guy who made it made it specifically to communicate, here is the English version..

So, two worlds, folded at right angles, cross each other here and you can move between them.

It's really more like four worlds.

This could be like a Boys shape, but taken literally, and yes I am aware that a Boys surface is a three dimensional impression of a multidimensional idea and that it wouldn't really work like this because the two 'surfaces' wouldn't seem to interact if you were walking along them.

But if we imagine one world extending in a vertical sweep high into the sky, and if it is a Boys surface, then on the other side is ANOTHER world, and below this world, but inaccessible, is another world, except they all interconnect in reality but here you can access them all together.

From world One you can see world Two rising up like a translucent wall covered with mountains and rivers. If you go to the point where the worlds cross you can push through if you focus. It’s like walking through soft cotton, and it goes on for a while, creating opalescent half-lit lands, a double right-angled wilderness.

You cant just dig down into the world underneath your own (you would find dirt), but you can go to the big world rising up out of the ground in front of you, close your eyes, reach out your foot and climb up onto this new world.

As you look back your old world has become the one rising up out of the ground and you can push through it whilst walking along this one and then you can reach the world opposite to your usual one. Your own antiverse that would usually be separated by the slenderest but most absolute of cosmic surfaces.

If we imagine the cultural, economic and ecological consequences of four worlds meeting together in a huge line there would be some intense effects. In fact, on each world, it's likely that the lines of intersection would be the dominant cultural and economic powers in opposition to the more distant uniplanar lands.

What would be the effects of the sun shining through another world? Would there be world-shadows? Would the sun of another world reflect on its oceans and thereby shine on you? What about where rivers or oceans cross currents and weather patterns? Even four-world whirlpools created by tidal complexes across four dimensions.

Politically, maybe the alter-worlds don't get on, maybe they are opposed to each other in some fundamental way, with each someone reflecting the negative of the other

Plane 1 world Alph and world Sheol.

Plane 2 world Ko Kai and world Ho Nok-Huk.

So from Alph you can access Ko Kai or walk through Ko Kai and access Ho Nok-Uk on the other side.

Same thing from Sheol.

But you can't get straight from Aleph to Sheol, you have to go through other worlds to do that.

What are the worlds like?

Alph - Bright. Apollonian, Nintendoy, ever-young, Rey-esque (Madrinian), drama can happen but silly things also. Reasonable and non-psychotic power structures. Could even veer over into Adventure Time territory. If there was an apocalypse in its past it was more of a paradigm shift like in Rachel Pollacks Unquenchable Fire or in the end of Promethia.  Ruled by Good King Mario from the City of Angles, "Los Angles" and his Hermes/Mercury/Flash herald Lord Sonic. Bad guys rise up but are always taken down by the good guys. Problems solvable through combat and empathy. XP for making friends and healing the Kings wounded heart, or making the city gardens bloom so a hopeful theme strikes up in the background.

It;s from Breath of the Wild.

Sheol - Dark. Has deep time, a lot of time has happened in Sheol. Aesthetics of Ruin, Piranesi, Gothic, cathedrals up the whazoo. The dead walk. Wh40K. Old, mad power structures. Lots more people. Storm-wracked seas that represent and feed off the tortured unconscious of the population. Cities are teeming locked-in arcologies. Environment is ruins on top of ruins built over a strata of more ruins. Wrecked post-apocalyptic environments. Drained seas. Pre-unification Terra from 40k. Horrible abusive psychic warlords vs horrible but more organised Inquisition-backed megachurch. We have to be horrible to beat the horrible. Crush or kill problems at terrible loss. XP for survival and holding back chaos.

Blanche.

Ko Kai - Bright. Artistic influence is Mogul miniatures, civilised, refined, watery, lots of archipelagos, Indonesian influence. Has the theme song of 'Mysterious Cities of Gold' as an emotional tone. Armadas of bright-sailed ships who don't even genocide people when they arrive (much). A world in a state of discovery and re connection. Ruins exist but courage and effort can make them live again and reignite dying cultures. As if the whole of the world was the Indian Ocean and South China Seas plus Indonesia. Resolve problems like detectives or defeat them like rational knights by discovering their secret flaw. XP for returning ambassadors of new culture to the Sultans court, for opening trade routes, discovering new lands, translating ancient texts and increasing the culture of the home society or rescuing ancient knowledge from destruction of time.

Click to see the big version. It's worth it.

Click to see the big version.

Ho Nok-Huk - Dark. Artistic influence is Aztec or mesoamerican scary sculptures. All the Princes of Elemental Evil vs all the Kaiju-Sized Cthulhu Mythos creatures vs Godzilla and all the Godzilla creatures vs Demogorgon and Orcus and Yeenoghu vs some of the creepier Aztec Gods. Even the "small" creatures are fucking Dinosaurs and Pleistocene Mega-fauna. The closest you can get to a good guy is King Kong or Smaug. People are ants in a world of monsters and titans except the Titans got fucked in the eyehole by Chthulu. Problem solving means avoiding getting skullfucked and brainraped by something bigger than you until something bigger than the thing trying to kill you, kills it. Like living on Monster Island forever, everywhere. XP for staying alive & not eating most of your friends.

Felipe Escobar Bravo

Coatlicue

What are the folds like?

Alph folds into Ko Kai - ports of adventure and alliance. Could be dual-plane kingdoms run from corner-cities occupying both realities. Rationalism and fineness of Ko Kai meets enthusiasm and optimism of Alph. A great place to be really.

By Dan (http://dandibuja.blogspot.co.uk/) see comments

Alph meets Ho Nok-Huk - Refugee-cities of people trying to escape Ho Nok-Huk. Berlin-wall or North Korean DMZ situations. Wall gets smashed sometimes by rampaging Kaiju and teams of anime-bitches need to climb up in Godzillas earhole to blow up his brain. Much easier to get into No Nok-Huk from Alph than visa versa. Giant Attack on Titan fortifications and some surprisingly dark Nintendo-people having to make terrible choices. This is probably the most terrible place in Alph and the nicest place in No Nok-Huk. Alphic cultures mysteriously drawn towards the fold despite hating it as gives them access to an absolute horror and consuming otherness not often available in Alph.

By Dan (http://dandibuja.blogspot.co.uk/) see comments

Sheol meets Ho Nok-Huk - Sheol sending in crusades and legions of doom-knights to be stepped on by kaiju and trying to force its insane byzantine religions into Ho Nok-Huk where they are consumed by literal chaos. Lots of creepy alliances and backstabbing plus insane Inquisitors thinking they can ‘tame’ Godzilla. Cities built on Kaiju corpses and bones stopped when they tried to cross the planes. Sheol probably think they are 'colonising' Ho Nok-Huk but in reality they have no fucking idea what they are doing.

By Dan (http://dandibuja.blogspot.co.uk/) see comments

Ko Kai meets Sheol - Rules decided by insane Talmudic bureaucracy who choose who can and can't cross and what the relations between the societies should be. Linkage corrupts the rational religions of Ko Kai towards tyrrany and fear and perverts the decadent churches of Sheol towards humancentric liberalism. Highly civilised with lots of stratification Court of Versailles stuff going on. Wigs. Plots. Quite a drugs trade.

Dan did another image a year later!