A narrative is a story that describes a sequence of events, fictional or otherwise. It might be written, spoken, or performed, and may be in the form of a document, a speech, poetry, prose, pictures, motion pictures or theatre, interactive games or virtual experiences, or dance. Stories are common to all Terragens, and to the oldest known Terragen cultures, and certainly pre-date civilization itelf; they are a key aspect of human cognition, and of sophonce in general.
In classical times on Old Earth, narration was considered one of the four rhetorical modes along with exposition, argumentation, and description. Of these, narrative is the most effective; it has long been known that information carried in a narrative is more compelling and memorable than information in other forms, and this effect has often been employed in practical memetics. As pure entertainment, narrative is the oldest and most ubiquitous form. Storytelling is as important today as it was when the first tales were shared around campfires by baseline humans on Old Earth.
Articles
Aesopica Fantastica - Text by Mark Ryherd A collection of virches used as a didactic tool for the express purpose of teaching and reinforcing morals. Other common names for the series are Xin Daodejing and Virches of Virtue.
Allegory - Text by M. Alan Kazlev In literature, symbolic story or interactive that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface.
Archetypal Narrative - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Narrative that conveys an archetypal message, and is the vehicle or memetic carrier for an archetype or myth. It may be sublime and inspiring, or mediocre and insulting to the intelligence of any sentient of reasonable intellect. Examples of archetypal narrative include the voyage of the hero, the toposophic ascent, the star-crossed lovers, the journey into (and subsequent escape from) danger, the wild frontier, and so on. Most pop culture is based ultimately on archetypal narrative.
Cinema - Text by M. Alan Kazlev 2d sound and light-projection media popular during the late Industrial, Atomic, and early Information Ages; replaced by interactive virtual reality during the later Information Age.
Encyclopædia Galactica, The - Text by Selden Ball Encyclopaedaic database that aims to include comprehensive information on Terragen history and galactography, amongst other subjects
Enhancer - Text by Todd Drashner and Anders Sandberg Also known as a matter enhancer or an enhancer device. A semi-mythological clarketech artefact that is very popular in pop-culture dramas.
Fabulism - Text by Anders Sandberg [1] The art of storytelling. [2] The art of creating mixtures of fiction and reality in order to entertain, confuse, perform ontological sabotage or educate. [3] Ideology or view that promotes fabulism in the second sense as a way of life, hiding ones real life behind a layer of disinformation, deliberate myths and rumours. Fabulism in this sense is sometimes a reaction against rigid and panoptical societies, sometimes a way of self expression or self creation.
Fantasy - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Popular narrative genre of virch or rl world, employing races, history, and laws of physics that do not occur in the physical universe. Fantasy virchworlds and interactives are easy enough to create, but rl fantasy worlds requires extensive utility fog and nanotech to give the illusion of a fantasy universe. Themes and genres include neotolkeinism, trekism, ardentism, kalyptism, gothism, and more. Of greater interest are fantasy worlds created by non-aligned demiurge ai.
Fog Wood - Text by Ben Higginbottom Famous series of interactive novels coded by Il Casi Tranden an SI:2 sentient from the Byron Habitat in the Sophic League.
High Frontier - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Information Age term for space beyond Old Earth as the frontier for development. Although romanticised during the interplanetary age as a great land of opportunity, the reality was never quite as exciting as the myth.
Holy Grail - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Any objective of a long and difficult quest. In Old Earth lore, the Grail refers to the plate or cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. The Holy Grail subsequently became the object of knights' quests in tales from the late Agricultural Age of Europe, and became a recurrent image in subsequent Western literature. The term has since been adapted to contexts completely unrelated or irrelevant to the original.
Hyperdrive - Text by Mike Parisi Sci-Fi plot device, originating and most common during the late Industrial to early Information Age, whose sole purpose is to allow baseline (i.e. Human) relations to take place at the familiar speed, in an interstellar society which lacks traversable wormholes. Despite the ubiquity of the concept, the exact physical workings of the Hyperdrive, or how it avoids violating either Relativity or Causality, is never adequately explained (a.k.a. "Warp Drive" and various other names).
Literature - Text by M. Alan Kazlev, from the original write-up by Robert J. Hall The analysis and interpretation of narrative texts, including fiction, poetry, and drama, from the trivial through the fabulist to the mythopoetic.
Meetings With Dgii - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Popular interactive fable and hypertext, co-authored by m2vi19-t34201 (later the Megsov Godling) and purported to be a record of m2vi19-t34201's experiences with Dgii144. While agreed by all scholars to be a factiod work, rather than a true documentary, Meetings With Dgii topped the NoCoZo best-seller lists in the years 6921 to 6924, and was widely disseminated throughout the Nexus (apart from the Negentropy Alliance, where it was considered Proscribed Narrative and banned). It remains popular in parts of the NoCoNeg to this day.
Memetic Art - Text by Anders Sandberg Crafting skillful memes, spreading them into society. Partially a form of hacking, partially storytelling the form also has a somewhat competitive aspect.
Muuh Historifics - Text by Dalex Unique genre of Muuh art combining characteristics of fiction and factual literature, most often in the form of a virch.
Myth, Mythology - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Any ancient traditional story of archailects, superiors, powers, gods or heroes, especially one offering an explanation of some fact or phenomenon, or a story with a veiled or extended meaning, or a commonly-held belief that is untrue, or without objective foundation. A powerful but obscure memeticity.
Novel - Text by M. Alan Kazlev A long prose narrative, typically describing fictional persons and events, written by and intended to entertain modosophonts. Such narratives became increasingly common over the course of the late Agricultural Age of Old Earth and had become strongly established by the late Industrial Age. Originally they were printed in ink on paper, and by the Information Age they were commonly transformed into digital media. Descendant forms, not always called novels, include interactive elements up to and including sims, turing agents, and so on.
Pulp Hero - Text by M. Alan Kazlev, Peter Kisner, John B Heroic yet caricature-like artificial biont created according to stylized and absurdly one-dimensional fashions of pop-culture.
Schnizlers - Text by John B Animated/RL children's show recorded from 3050 to 4025 AT.
Sepulchre Variations, The - Text by Liam Jones One of the oldest collections of virchworlds, consisting of a vast array of grotesque and eerie iconography adapted to hundreds of different clades.
Space Frontier Epics - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Popular Interplanetary through to late and post- First Federation Age fabulist genre, featuring a romanticized interpretation of the deep space frontier. Replaced both the Western and Science Fiction as Important archetypal narratives of the Pre-Consolidation Age.
Sun Wu K'ung (fiction) - Text by Stephen Inniss A popular fictional character, sometimes known as Monkey, from Old Earth Chinese literature, known in the original version and many subsequent versions even today.
Superhero - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Late Industrial Age to Information Age genre regarding characters with strength or abilities far exceeding mere baselines, and (especially with the earlier superheros) playing out a very morally simplistic memeticity. Similar genres have arisen periodically since that time and replicas of 'superheroes' and their habitats are popular in places.
Tragedy - Text by M. Alan Kazlev [1] A literary or multimedia work with an unhappy outcome, often with an implicit or explicit moral lesson attached. [2] An unfortunate event in the real world with an unhappy outcome, often disastrous or involving loss of life.
Virch - Text by M. Alan Kazlev [noun] virtual reality, any digital space or environment; [verb] to interact with or exist or function in virtual reality. Hence vircher.
Voyage of the Arcturus - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Popular SI:<1 to SI:<<1 virch interactive produced by Novamedia. Tells the story of an S2 sentient ship, the Arcturus, a relativistic freighter in an uncharted region of the Outer Volumes, carrying a supply of nanomodules and SCMs (Santa Clause Machines), and eir crew of four bumbling but lovable SI:<1 sophonts, a vec, a splice, a virtual, and one of the galaxy's last remaining pure baseline humans, and the various adventures they have along the way.
Western, The - Text by M. Alan Kazlev Popular atomic through to early interplanetary age fabulist genre, featuring a romanticised interpretation of 19th century America. It remained an important archetypal narratives until being superseded by the space frontier epic.
What the Thunder Said - Text by Stephen Inniss A classic interactive work of philosophical literature, based on the varying answers that transapients give to the deeper questions that still baffle ordinary sophonts.
Wild West - Text by M. Alan Kazlev; amended by Stephen Inniss From American culture, depicting the western frontiers of that nation in the 19th century CE (1st century BT). The romanticized image of lawlessness and heroism on the frontier. Eventually displaced and superseded in the popular imagination by the by the equally romanticized concepts of the High Frontier or Wild Frontier.