Physics: Detranslation

Hidden in reality are multiple universes, not just the one known. While transportation between them is incredibly difficult, it is possible – though travellers incur the information hazard known as detranslation as they are not transported from universe to another but translated into new patterns based on the old ones that are as close as possible.

Patterns are simply the fundamental rules of the universe which describe all energy, matter, time, space, probability, possibility, potential and information as a whole and can be thought of as “anything knowable which happens or does not happen”.

Direct perfect conversion conventionally cannot happen because certain patterns are not physically capable of occuring in all universes in the same way. This can be down to sheer impossibility caused by contradictory patterns or the probability of that pattern being so low that without special circumstance the universe flat out refuses to translate that pattern. This is called detranslation.

Detranslation's physical symptoms are the physical failure to translate a thing into its nearest equivalency – resulting in things like substances (such as metals, plastics or advanced meta-materials) turning into solid blocks of carbon, advanced arrangements of certain technologies becoming completely useless (often destroying themselves), memories being missing and records being altered. It is not uncommon that when a piece of equipment is detranslated, once broken nobody knows how to fix it and only have the vaugest idea of what it actually did. Similarly, memories involving groups or organizations lose their names and other identifying information and instead only attributes are remembered rather than specific key information.

Information Not to be confused with information as data, information states variables or patterns within a given universe – the facts, truths, names, peoples, events and places of history itself. This is all a pattern, referred to as information.

When crossing from some universes to other universes, knowledge of some information doesn't survive the trip and is no longer known by characters. This is referred to as expunged information. In many cases, those who travel have no idea they have actually left somewhere, or have made preparations to part, or that they have arrived.

• See Universes

Some species have developed means of moving objects or information across universes not by actually existing in the universe but by finding a means to only issue information to an agenthood in the other universe and request only raw information back from which to draw their own conclusions. In this sense, no axioms of concluded information are transmitted and while the conclusions will be very different, the actions are normally “reasonably appropriate” with some fairly simple exceptions (predominantly relating to language and interspecies interaction).