INFINITE MEMORY
TECHNOMANCERS SHOULDN’T EXIST (ACCORDING TO PHYSICS)
Posted by: Perri
> It’s rare to have Perri post over here on JackPoint—she’s usually too busy running the Nexus, but as Fastjack’s daughter, she has a lifetime membership here, regardless of how rarely she posts. You may have noticed from the last section that she is working on a new theory about the Matrix, a universal information theory called UnITy. It’s an attempt to tie together the Resonance Realms, digital life, technomancer abilities, the Deep Foundation, and the digital Matrix that all of us operate in. I thought it would be interesting to see things from this perspective, so I’ve asked her to introduce this topic and share some of her insights on the Resonance Realms.
> Slamm-0!
Let’s face it, technomancers shouldn’t exist. The science says that a metahuman mind should only be able to access a computer by using technology designed to pick up brain waves. The science says that generating the power needed to manipulate a computer system from across the room, much less from across the sprawl, is totally impossible. But it happens every day, thousands of times a day. So, what’s actually going on? There must be some force beyond the reach of science that the mind of the technomancer is tapping into. There is such a force, and for lack of a better name I’m calling it nous—the Greek version, not the English slang. Technomancers can reach out through this force, connecting their mind to the Matrix and by extension accessing everything connected to the Matrix. Sounds like magic, right? But it has nothing to do with magic—if anything, you can think of nous as a parallel universal force extending through the metaverse touching every place that stores digital information.
Near the physical world, it organizes into a noosphere exactly mirroring the Matrix. Every bit and byte in the Matrix is duplicated in the noosphere, and when a technomancer’s mind alters the nousfield structures, the real world data is also changed. The overlap between nous and circuit is so smooth that it’s not readily evident that there are actually two different processes occurring. When the real-world data changes, the nous version continues to exist, but in a form with lower entropy. Untethered from its mirror version, it drifts lower in the noosphere, resting in the Deep Foundation for a while before passing on to a Resonance Realm like the Endless Archive or perhaps some of the others.
What does this have to do with the Resonance Realms? In short, everything. The nous energy accumulating in the deep Foundation is what powers up Foundation-tech hosts. I also suspect it’s the energy that gives rise to sprites and other forms of digital life, even providing the life spark for otherwise non-Resonant AIs. The structures of the noosphere are organized to mirror the Matrix when they are created, and they retain a semblance of that pattern as they move away from it. They become self-organizing fractal reflections of the Matrix and the world that it operates in, each iteration diverging further from the original pattern. The Event Horizon and the deep Foundation form a shield around the noosphere where it overlaps the Matrix, acting as a barrier for most users. Submerged technomancers can pass through these barriers and travel along the tendrils of nous energy connecting the Resonance Realms. They may take the novice traveler to a random location, but they can also be used like highways running across the desert connecting distant cities, towns, and the occasional lonely waystation. The technomancer who has undergone submersion can travel along these trails and highways, for as long as their bodies can allow, using only their minds to explore the unknown frontier.
I’m going to turn the rest of this post over to one of those explorers, someone who has spent more time in the Resonance Realms and gone further into the unknown than any other technomancer I know. With that, I’ll introduce you to T3chK1d.
