[Mage: The Awakening 2e] Lore: The Nemesis Continuum

Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Lore: The Nemesis Continuum

Knowledge Requirements: 

The following requires character knowledge gathered from encountering the Nemesis Continuum, and nearly all the characters in our chronicle either have had direct interaction into its investigations or has access to Cabalmates who do.  It is also possible to inquire about this infection, that is becoming increasingly more well known, from the Scholomance or the Black Zodiac.

Light was a mage who's Legacy, known as "The Truthbringers" was based entirely upon surviving and integrating the truths behind the entity.  He later was destroyed by the Continuum.  Chimera, Jack and Reaper hunting down his last whereabouts in a sealed Sceleti lab beneath Dr. Piermont's office in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  From his infected Daimonoptikon they managed to extract the secrets of Holy Fire, wielding the Pyros of the Principle to fight the darkness...

Source: 

The Nemesis Continuum is a memetic Intruder found in the Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1st Edition and adapted for Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition.

Synopsis 
by Lorekeeper Casstiel

The Nemesis Continuum, also known by the aliases: "The Law of Unreason," "The Laws of the Abyss," and "The Abyssal Meme," is an infectious idea virus.  A mimetic plague.  Part of that abyssal nastiness that falls into the category of "that which man was not meant to know!"  Once it has taken hold of a victim and that victim begins to solve it's proofs, it spreads to any who read and understand its insane mathematics and if used in concentrated areas with cause localized displacement of the laws of physics.

The initial infection, the patient zero, may start from direct abyssal contact of a Paradox that induces Bedlam.  Areas where the Continuum has been researched and studied accumulate localized paradox and manifest anomalies as the fraying of the physical laws continues.  Paradox incurred in these places may worse this decay, eventually creating full on Abyssal Verges.

The Continuum is a corrupter.  An example of the forces of the Abyss that seek to eat away at the Tapestry of reality, "unraveling" the literal fabric of the universe.  The NC is nothing more than a set of physics problems that blatantly contradict the laws of physics as we understand them.  They force themselves into the minds of scientists, causing the, to obsess over the contraction.  These axioms will actually start to make sense, but the understanding and solving of them erodes physical law around those afflicted with its mental enticement.  Worse yet, those who stumble across the written equations that the afflicted are solving can easily become infected with the mimetic disease.

Despite its corruption, the NC is not excessively virulent like other, more dangerous Intruders.  It's only infection vector is from seeing and understanding its proofs.  If a person cannot process the information or doesn't get a good look at what's in front of him, then the Abyssal sympathy invoked by the formation of memory in the human brain is not invoked.  It is possible to use advanced applications of neuromancy to permanently forget the corrupted knowledge, but without care, the knowledge has a tendency to flare up again.

Curiously, scientists and mathematicians suffering from mental disorders and derangement actually have an easier time understanding the insane mathematical proofs of the NC.  Being a sound-minded physicist who strongly believes and understands the laws of physical reality are more resistant because they automatically reject the initial exposure to laws that they automatically know are extreme falsehoods.

Finally, before we get into the gritty details, it should be noted that the Nemesis Continuum is quite similar to another Abyssal Entity and common Intruder in its pathological vector.  There is a being of the void known as Anumerus, an Intruder based in Anti-Numbers and Negative Numerology.  Though I confess that is all I know about this being.

Definition:

An alternate set of physical laws originating within the Abyss, the Nemesis Continuum encompasses the scientific equivalent of the domino effect; the first proof that is realized leads to the second, which, in turn, leads to the third and so forth. As more and more of the laws that comprise the Nemesis Continuum enter into the Fallen World, the weave of the cosmos begins to “thin” in the places where such proofs are discerned. Abyssal physics begin to take root, subtly twisting the natural laws of the universe.

The phenomenon is an alternate set of physical laws, potentially every bit as real and

inviolate as those with which humanity is familiar. The Law of Unreason’s point of origin

may be another dimension, or it may have moved “opposite” the vector of the Big Bang, occasionally intersecting with this reality through the shared connection of the two universes’

shared genesis.

The laws of this other reality cannot coexist with those of ours; the invasive laws

invariably displace those of this universe. Points at which these axioms intrude upon the

cosmos constitute deformities in the fabric of space/time, and perhaps even points of irreparable

damage. In the past, a scant handful of scientists, always derided as crackpots,

warned of such things, or else celebrated the coming of a “new reality” before their

works and names were swept under the rug of academia.

As with almost any mathematical or physical proof, the existence of one scientific law

must, necessarily, posit and uphold the existence of others. Thus, the realization of one or

more of these axioms constitutes a cascade of laws, in which perception equals reality.

If a sufficiently wide-scale shift in perception could be created through the comprehension

of these seemingly irrational truths, then it is conceivable that an alien reality, wholly

incompatible with this one, might invert and annihilate the universe as humanity knows it.

While the Law of Unreason has, doubtless, manifested before, in the halls of academia, in the secluded laboratories of demented visionaries and in the journals of painfully brilliant and disturbed prodigies, the curve of scientific advancement grows ever steeper. As it does, the

types of learning that contribute to the manifestation of this terrible intruder grow more commonplace. The theoretical sciences that posit the existence of alternate dimensions and the nonbeing of reality as we believe we know it are less and less a matter of speculation and

more and more one of scientific canon. Never before has there been such rampant opportunity for the Nemesis Continuum to infect the Fallen World, and the scientific advancements that loom on the horizon seem to indicate that such will only become more prevalent as humanity peels back the layers of secrecy concealing the hidden workings of the cosmos.

Note: There have been two infections I have encountered in my travels.  While we don't know the original source of either Intrusion, we have traced it back as far as we know.  The first was a folio found wedged between two math books in the Idaho State University library, uncovered by Light in 2006.  The other was a series of writings found in a hidden sub-basement under the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in 2014 by Light, Witness, Seraph and Eris.  The sub-basement was presumed to be left by a former hospital administrator and Scelestus.  It is also believed that this was a direct Intrusion, created by a Bedlam induced in that sub-basement.  The place was sealed in 2014 along with Light's body and then was sanitized by the Browncoats (Triforce Cabal) in 2016.

Where and when these “Abyssal realities” are realized, the Tapestry frays: slightly in the case of one or two minor laws — more in the case of multiple and/or highly significant axioms. Effectively, everything and nothing grow slightly closer to being simultaneously objectively true in such places and times, breeding the sort of chaos that slowly erodes the integrity of the Fallen World. If the atomic weight of hydrogen is no longer a universal constant in one place, what other unvarying constants might cease to be?

Of course, prior intrusions of the Law of Unreason have always been relatively short-lived, confined to the awareness of a disturbed genius, and perhaps an apprentice or two. The state of science in previous ages has simply been insufficient to realize any more significant manifestation of the Nemesis Continuum. While isolated instances of brilliance could lead to the necessary

leaps of cognition, the practice of science as a whole was simply too primitive for most other minds to grasp such axioms. This, necessarily, leads to a most unsettling train of thought, however.

If the most advanced and esteemed scientific disciplines were, as a whole, infected with the awareness encapsulated by the Nemesis Continuum, is it possible that the fabric of the Fallen World could be damaged by the swift insinuation of the “substance” of the Abyss on a scale never before seen? What if one or more of the axioms of the Law of Unreason were to become the accepted scientific practice, rather than the mad theories subscribed to by the easily dismissed crackpots skulking at the edges of the scientific community? Could the Tapestry as a whole come undone, its innumerable threads collapsing under the weight of Abyssal blasphemies not meant to

exist, whether in truth, or merely in perception, within the Fallen World?

Note: This supports theories about abyssal realms and emanations from the Abyss proper.  In the Abyss there appears to be "places," the nightmare worlds of the Great Dreamers.  It is these realities that sometimes attempt to overwrite the Fallen World.  A whole-sale assertion of such a non-place would be utterly apocalyptic.  

Most of the few Awakened scholars who know anything of the Nemesis Continuum think not, but it may well be that their assertions are born more of wishful thinking than of any solid scientific method. Form The Nemesis Continuum has no physical, or even ephemeral, form; it exists as a series of ideas, a chain of insane logic, each part of which eventually — and necessarily— leads to the realization of the next. It is a cascade of Abyssal laws that exist solely to infect the Fallen World old source refers to it as the “Law of Unreason,” and it is as fitting a name as any.

While the Nemesis Continuum may be represented in facts and figures, in numbers and characters that cannot be true and, yet, somehow make terrible and undeniable sense, it is not a thing: it is a constant. It is a collection of rules and laws that cannot coexist with those of our reality, and so it devours and displaces them in those locales in which it descends through the medium of human thought, to the eventual end of supplanting the physical laws of the universe completely, and replacing them with the void. It is debatable as to whether or not the Nemesis Continuum even possesses any kind of consciousness or self-awareness: essentially without

exception, the rare few Awakened that have any kind of knowledge of it at all believe not.

If the Law of Unreason can be said to have any kind of material existence, it would be in the scattered research notes of disturbed and gifted minds, in the texts that they have penned by hand and in files on computers that have been squirreled away in evidence lockers. Facts and scientific laws, though corrupted and untrue — in this reality, as much as in its native Abyss — are its flesh, the stuff of which the Nemesis Continuum consists. Unfortunately, the strain that any true awareness of its nature inflicts upon the minds condemned to such knowledge means that they all invariably break under the strain of knowing that which is not and cannot be, and, yet, is somehow horribly real.

Thus, the Law of Unreason can also be said to take the form of a handful of unfortunate souls languishing in mental institutions, as well as the one or two disciples of its unclean lore who still walk the world freely. And, whenever the body of a deranged former scientist’s old colleague turns up, brutally butchered, irrational equations etched into his flesh and written with a fountain pen in blood and bile on exactly 100 sheets of dog-eared notebook paper, the infection may spread.

The Nemesis Continuum may well take a new form the next time it manifests, however. Who can say when it will be that a human mind might weather contact with the unrealities of the Abyss and remain, more or less, intact? Perhaps it will come to pass that a scientist or willworker may gaze into the depths of this knowledge that cannot be and come away stronger, not weaker, for the connection. If such a mind can exist, then it may well be the first step toward doom, not just for one place or a moment in time, but, indeed, all of the Fallen World, past, present and future.

You can see why Light was eventually be revealed to be an enormous danger.  Even with abilities to fight the Abyss his mind could be the harbinger of a larger doom.  Also unfortunately, his immunity to minor abyssal infections did not extend to the NC, the foundation of his Legacy.

Means of Incursion:

Originators:
The most obvious means of passage for the Nemesis Continuum is for a portion of its substance to be realized by a particularly gifted (and, likely, at least slightly disturbed) scientist. This individual may even be researching such esoteric disciplines for purely altruistic reasons, making the manifestation of the Law of Unreason all the more potentially tragic, given the probably limited range of options for exiling the entity.

Exposure:

Another possibility is for an individual, whether Sleeper or Awakened, to come across a formulary containing equations that, properly deciphered, impart knowledge of one or more of the twisted axioms of the Nemesis Continuum. Perhaps this book falls into the hands of a Mysterium scholar — maybe even a player character — and his curiosity unleashes the nightmares of the Abyss.

Abyssal Traversal:

Yet another potential (and purely speculative) means of intrusion for the Law of Unreason would be during the Awakening of a gifted mathematician or other kind of scientist; as the soul Ascends through the Abyss to the Realms Supernal, the Nemesis Continuum somehow impresses some degree of knowledge about itself on the Awakening spirit. The new willworker returns to the Fallen World now possessed of a terrible understanding, and one that she cannot rid herself of, try as she might. Worse still, her great intellect and powerful creative imagination mean that new realizations regarding the Nemesis Continuum spring into her mind, unbidden, every so often, further damaging the Tapestry of creation.

Scelesti Magic:

Because the Nemesis Continuum comprises, and is composed of, the physical laws of the Abyss, it is also possible for magical means (which are as true and untrue within the void as purely scientific laws) to draw it into the Fallen World, though such would likely require an incredibly potent Scelestus. Such a willworker would also probably need ancient texts, powerful mystic relics, and precise configurations of unseen forces. Just as there are those Awakened who believe the immutable scientific laws of the Fallen World to be manifestations of a yet-undiscerned magical order, so, too, might there be Accursed mages who see the Law of Unreason as a purely mystic phenomenon, incorrectly understood by most of the few that know of it through the lens of science.

I shudder to think that perhaps a person could be trained from a young age to accept the axioms as truth, the first version of the laws of physics taught to a child...

Transmission

It may be that a intellectual of great enough intellect and scientific acumen cannot help but comprehend the axioms of the Nemesis Continuum once she comes into proximity with them. Mages of the Free Council (given some of that order’s reliance upon modern scientific principles, especially those that skirt the edge of mundane disciplines) are the likeliest victims of this possibility, though anyone with considerable intelligence and education in the sciences is potentially susceptible.

Exposure seems to cause mental illness, even if the victim isn't fully infected with the intrusion.

Detecting infection might be possible through the detection of subtle signs similar to Paradox, or some other phenomenon that sets them apart, marking them as tainted by unclean knowledge.

The Nemesis Continuum enters into the Fallen World through the realization of one of its proofs by a being native to this reality. In order to come to such a conclusion, the individual in question must be quite brilliant and a master of one or more of the “hard” sciences: mathematics, physics, chemistry and the like. Lesser minds simply cannot grasp the vicissitudes of thought necessary to envision even the barest fragment of the substance of the Law of Unreason. Of course, given that the Nemesis Continuum is formed of Abyssal logic, a certain amount of madness, whether latent or fully manifested, is also requisite. Thus, the cloistered “mad scientist” is probably the likeliest vector through which the Nemesis Continuum might insinuate itself into the Tapestry, but such an individual is by no means the only possibility.

One doesn’t just stumble upon the forbidden sciences of the void, after all. Not usually, anyway. It is possible that a sufficiently deranged or remarkably brilliant scientist could come to perceive such blasphemous truths spontaneously, without any prompting or prior research in such a direction. Such a scientist is likely to come out of a cutting edge discipline, or else a branch of a more established discipline considered fanciful or even faulty by the mainstream scientific community.  Once the idea of the Nemesis Continuum has infected the Fallen World, it becomes considerably easier to transmit. Those of considerable (though not necessarily genius) levels of intelligence, and with a strong background in the sciences, who have a close connection to the individual to initially realize one or more Abyssal laws, can become carriers of the idea. Those whose intellects have been significantly shaped by the person in question are particularly susceptible, as their thought patterns constitute a ready vector of passage from mind to mind.

Effectively, the Nemesis Continuum is easily passed along ties of sympathy, provided that the potential carrier is intelligent enough to grasp the theories of the Law of Unreason after they’ve gained an anchor in the Fallen World. The Law of Unreason is an idea that moves like an illness between acceptable hosts, an Abyssal meme.

This also means, however, that its spread can be traced along lines of sympathy and that the infection might be able to be contained in such a fashion. Remember, though, that the Law of Unreason doesn’t actively try to spread itself; it doesn’t actively try to do anything. At least, no more than the vibration of sound in air or the refraction of light through water is capable of making any kind of conscious effort. Just as such physical laws are what they are, without the capacity for self-awareness or reason, so, too, is the Nemesis Continuum.

Sleeper Response

Any manifestation of the Nemesis Continuum will be confronted by ordinary people on two fronts. The first of these is by those who are actually exposed to the effects of its intrusion. Inimical to life as we know it, the laws of the Abyss will express themselves in various deleterious ways, causing harm, whether subtle or blatant, to those touched by them. People will start to panic when dropped objects fall too slowly, or anything green is scalding hot to the touch, no matter the ambient temperature. If the matter isn’t contained quickly, the intrusion could become the subject of a governmental investigation, though, as is more often the case with such Fortean strangeness, it is likely to be quickly dismissed and quietly shunned.

On the other hand, there are the academics who will be able to read the proofs and equations.

Most, naturally, will be unable to process what they read, and so will dismiss such writings as sloppy scholarship, incomplete experiments or inexplicable flukes. Others will have some degree of understanding, enabling the infection to persist and even to spread. As it does so, most of the scientific community, however, will write off the Law of Unreason as ridiculous pseudo-science and abject nonsense.

Means of Banishment

The Nemesis Continuum is especially insidious, in that it is “summoned” through intellection alone. Every mind that comprehends even the least portion of the formulae that comprise it becomes a carrier of its corruption, capable of realizing yet another proof and so contributing to the spread of the Law of Unreason throughout the Fallen World.

In order to halt the spread of the Nemesis Continuum, there are a few options. One obvious answer, though probably not the most humane, is to kill those who have reasoned out the laws of the Nemesis Continuum, thus preventing the proliferation of its corruption. For the most part, however, the Law of Unreason isn’t something that people seek out; it is an unwelcome revelation, and one that can’t be shut out. To murder those who have had such understanding inflicted upon them is truly a monstrous act.

It is also possible to cut off an individual from her research materials. All save the most transcendentally brilliant of scientists still need to be able to scribble out theories, cross-reference ideas in books and access scientific journals for precedents set in similar or related work. Many of those who realize one or more of the laws comprising the Nemesis Continuum are apt to be terrified by these terrible new insights that they cannot shut out. Odds are that a group of characters offering to protect such an individual could easily get him to agree to forsake any further scientific research.

Willworkers can, of course, also excise the information from the minds of those that have ascertained fragments of the Law of Unreason, but doing so is less a fix than it is a patch. After all, what is to prevent someone from realizing such lore anew? Another option might be to

exile someone infected by knowledge of the Nemesis Continuum into Twilight or even Shadow; perhaps the different laws of those places might prove more resistant to the inverted physics of the Abyss.

Fortunately, as the Nemesis Continuum appears to have no higher consciousness, no sense of itself — being a set of physical laws, and not truly a being of any sort — it cannot put up any kind of resistance against those that attempt to do it harm. If means are found of banishing the Law of

Unreason, it can take no action to defend itself; instead, it simply exists, passed on from mind to mind, infecting higher thought with possibilities that cannot exist and logic that annihilates the truths of the cosmos.

None of this, however, addresses the issue of what to do about those patches of the Tapestry that have been “damaged” by the realization of Abyssal unreality. It is possible, though by no means certain, that careful manipulation of ley energies can gradually set right the physical laws of such places. The passage of time would almost assuredly eventually smooth over all save the most

forceful fraying of the Tapestry. Indeed, if the Nemesis Continuum has intruded upon the Fallen World in the past, no obvious evidence of such exists today.

In places where a number of the laws of the Nemesis Continuum have been realized, semi-permanent spell effects, generally of a physical nature, might start to take root — altered gravity or strange alterations of the material states of inert matter, for example. The most

common effects for the Law of Unreason to replicate are those of the Arcana of Forces, Matter, Space and Time. An Anomaly is probably the most common sort of Paradox that crops up, but all of them are possibilities: dwelling overlong in a place tainted by Abyssal logic might lead to Bedlam, while a creature might worm its way through a gap in the Tapestry, leading to a Manifestation. Even Branding is possible, as Abyssal biology insinuates itself into the Pattern of a living being.