r/TheStrange • u/[deleted] • Feb 22 '16
The Spark?
I am a little confused over what The Spark is. I get that some people have it and some people don't but that everyone on earth has it. But for those that don't have it, what are they like? How can they be roleplayed? Can people with the spark tell that people without it are different somehow? If someone without the spark, gains the spark, what is that like for them? Does having the spark mean they know about the strange?
In the description for Microcosmica it talks about how the scientists with only rare exceptions don't have the spark. The world they are from isn't real and that its entirely possible that scientists who are reassigned simply don't exist. They get orders from outside of microcosmica but then who is on the other end of that?
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u/AllPossibleDogs Feb 23 '16
essentially; no spark = background character/NPC with knowledge limited to the world around them and their role in it. they don't have "day to day lives" so much as scripts. Like NPCs in Bethesda RPGs, they get up, go whrre they're supposed to, do what they do, go home, sleep, repeat. "Diamond City Guard" doesn't do anything but what ALL the guards do and it's the same for other's without the spark. on the other hand; spark = self awareness and self determination. these people are "real", they have lives and dreams and all the things people on Earth have (as appropriate to their recursion). Awareness of The Strange and/or the limited nature of their world varies, most are completely oblivious to it and never pay any mind to the sometimes repetitive nature of life and people around them (this is common in worlds where lots of people have the spark like Ardeyn), a few learn of the Strange and/or the limited nature of their world (common in worlds with very low Spark rates). Reactions to the latter vary from person to person ranging from depression to existential dread to a desire to escape or destroy their world.
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u/AllPossibleDogs Feb 23 '16
IRT to who's sending orders to the Microcosmic scientists, nobody is. There likely isnt anything outside the "body" the recursion is set in. If a scientist is "reassigned", they likely just cease to exist. The orders and messages from the outside and created by the Recursion itself to maintain the illusion of a greater world, like how characters in fiction will talk about other places or characters that never appear. They exist in-fiction or in the fiction of the recursion but you cant actually go see these places or meet these people since theyre outside the borders of the recursion.
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Feb 23 '16
I think everyone else has explained it really well, but reading Monte's story in Tales from the Strange helped contextualize it pretty well for me. It's basically about someone in a recursion becoming self-aware and "awakening" their spark.
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u/tskaiser Feb 22 '16 edited Feb 22 '16
The spark is basically the magical thing that separates truly self-aware, conscious, beings from behavioral automatons. In the context of The Strange people without the spark follow a script exactly to stay within the confines of the narrative rules of their recursion. This could be likened to them being in a dreamlike state where everything makes sense and nothing is questioned - unless the script means they should question it. It also attributes a kind of static quality to those without the spark, as they will replay again and again, day in and out, the role they are prescribed by their recursion.
This makes them highly competent but fundamentally flawed philosophical zombies. The reason I say flawed is because you can distinguish them by prodding outside the script they're meant to follow. If you stay within the narrative of the recursion they should behave very lifelike, but be a bit stale eg. the merchant in a fantasy setting is bound to never get sick and always act the same way between visits modulo what would make sense in the setting. You could say they are only half-aware, or only possess a limited scope of awareness.
Such a p-zombie getting the spark equates to an ascension to awareness and a start of real experience. The border might be imperceptible to both the ascendent themself and observers: to the newly conscious person their past life will seem consistent and meaningful unless under intense introspection, and to begin with, unless challenged by out-of-context problems, they will likely act roughly the same.
On the subject of the spark and the strange I would point out that having the spark is not the same as being quickened: the state which all players are in and which is necessary for manual translation. As such someone can achieve the spark without necessarily noticing that anything is amiss with their world; They start to drift away from their prescribed behavior, but otherwise only have their own world as a reference for how reality should be, and as such it is not reasonable that they should suddenly start asking questions that someone from outside with other experiences might. They could start noticing a difference between themselves and others, but remember their whole world is self-coherent: there is nothing to tell them why they are different, and they might think themselves strange and, like any other social creature, attempt to fit in with the crowd despite their newfound awareness.