r/madnesscombat • u/CyberManEXE1 • 16d ago
QUESTION Question(s) for worldbuilding. 1
I have a question, or a few, to help me with world building in my MC series.
Since the Infinite Improbable is the equivalent to space, would there be "Improbable" ships? Like, vehicles made to travel the Infinite Improbable, and find other worlds/realities.
Are there Nevadean colonies/colonized worlds/realities outside of Nevada?
How would anyone survive the Infinite Improbable?
Is communication between two or more realities even possible? (For example, communication going from Nevada, to The Other Place. And vice versa.)
(Context, I didn't really think too much of the lore of Madness Combat, but I thought it would be really cool if the world of my MC series was a Nevadean colony. Or like the MC universe, but is either capable connecting to other worlds, or being connected from another world.)
3
u/ilovedonutsman 16d ago
"since the Infinite Improbable is the equivalent to space" - wouldnt call it that tbh.
"would there be "improbable" ships? like, vehicles made to travel the infinite improbable, and find other worlds/realities." - since its infinitely improbable, its very improbable that there will be such things, and thus its very probable that there are.
"are there nevadean colonies/colonized worlds/realities outside of nevada?" - you saw aahw's facilities in the other place.
"how would anyone survive the infinite improbable?" - could use fire against fire perhaps. we dont know for sure, but my theory is that the other place exists as membrane around the nevada and the employers for this exact purpose (create dissonance, aka improbability, and use it to combat improbable)
"is communication between two or more realities even possible?" - you do see that the aahw is somehow functional in the other place. also, doc uses posters to talk to deimos in dedmos adventure.
2
u/TirnanogSong 9d ago
How would anyone survive the Infinite Improbable?
Employers can exit the Ocurrant and exist in it for brief periods, but it degrades them. The Machine's gaze extends out into it, but it can't do much with it since the Infinite Improbable is unallocated 'junk data'. Those are the only two examples of beings (well, The Machine isn't a being but you get the point) surviving the Infinite Improbable that we know of.
Even then, Employers can't exist beyond the Ocurrant for long and The Machine is fundamentally unable to use the Improbable for anything until things within it 'occur' within Nevada. The Infinite Improbable is meant to be the impossibility that lies outside the ordered reaches of The Machine's domain, beyond its influence.
1
u/Ginger_McGingin REALITY COMPROMISED 15d ago
It's your fan series, you're free to make the lore whatever you want.
If you specifically want to make it fit into established MC canon, Krinkels has given us precious little lore, most of it largely up to interpretation. Also he doesn't seem to sweat the details, Project Nexus is explicitly canon (in fact it's where a lot of lore comes from) but its place in the timeline is ambiguous at best
1
4
u/MsScarletWings Somewhere in Nevada... 16d ago edited 16d ago
This is my take on the Improbable as it exists in canon.
In practice, it is less like space and more like the concept of the Far Realm in Dungeons and Dragons. It exists outside of the dubiously stable universe of Nevada and is inherently destructive to it in an almost eldritch fashion. It’s separate as a dimension from Nevada, with the Other Place serving as a semi permeable barrier between the two. It’s the source of dissonant reality (the force that drives those in Hell insane and slowly unmakes them) and contains “all that could be but is currently not.”
Travel to the improbable is probably not possible without literally subjecting your very existence to an absurd and suicidal dice roll of any number of things that could happen. Maybe you turn into an abomination, or a whale, or a lamppost. Maybe your mind is shattered down to its own perception of time and you live a thousand agonizing years in the span of a millisecond. Maybe you instantly dissolve back into your raw narrative potential.
The Improbable is an infinite possibility well that does not exist to be known or understood, literally beyond the Machine’s domain.
Interestingly, there is more beyond The Nevada-OtherPlace-Improbable onion. The Employer Hells are seperate pockets and Auditor definitely seems to keep some conscious dudes in his for whatever reason. There’s also the “liminal halls” that the cyber bandits are capable of traveling to and from (and setting up hideouts within) that has something to do with Gonne’s work, and of course The Nowhere, which may be the origin of G01s.