Overall this is a very solid lore document! It's quite detailed and well-organized I do have several suggestions for improvements though.
For the Scaling Chart, there's a couple elements that I feel need to be explained in a more clear and structural way. Currently this is how the levels are presented:
- Level 0: No Impact, No Effect, Individual/No Spread
- Level 1: Mental Impact, Ideological/Religious/Philosophical Effect, Family/Culture
- Level 2: Visual Impact, Behavioral Effect, Multicultural
- Level 3: Behavior Impact, Instinctual Effect, Anomalous-Supported Spread
- Level 4: Behavior Impact, Instinctual Effect, Anomalous-Catalyst Spread
- Level 5: Total Impact, Total Effect, Eidelon/Ontological
While I think Levels 0-2 are clear, and Level 5 to an extent, Level 3-4 are very specific differentiations. It's also not entirely clear what exactly these different impacts or effects are. For example, a Level 2 meme that has a Mental Impact and Religious Effect would most likely have a Behavior effect on the individual too. If someone is converted by a meme to be a fan of a different sports team, their behaviors would likely change in accordance with their new inner belief. While the meme's "goal" isn't necessarily the Behavioral effect, it still indirectly causes it. The line between a pure Behavior effect and an Instinctual effect is also somewhat unclear. A meme that causes someone's brain to make them stop breathing is obviously an instinctual effect, but it could also be a behavior effect of the individual's subconscious.
I would like to suggest this revision:
- Level 0: Individualized Affect, No Spread
- Level 1: Interpersonal Affect, Familial/Tribal Spread
- Level 2: Societal Affect, Cultural Spread
- Level 3: Civilizational Affect, Multicultural Spread
- Level 4: Cross-Species/Anthropological Affect, Cross-Contextual (Space-Time) Spread
- Level 5: Ontological Affect, Metaphysical Spread
All I basically did was change the category of Severity from the "effects" of the Meme to who is "affected" by the Meme. In this way, any meme at any level can cause any effect, whether it be an ideological effect or an instinctual one. This also avoids having to differentiate between the "severity" of the effect itself. A meme that changes someone's favorite sport team would become a lot more severe if that meme changed everyone's favorite sports team on Earth. In the other classification system, that wouldn't have been necessarily clear.
For the Primers, I feel as if there are potentially more vectors that could be added. We have Compositional-Proxior, Optical-Medusa, and Metaphysical-Eidolon. I would like to see more types of perception-based vectors added, perhaps something for an Ideal/Conceptual-Vector, Linguistic-Vector, Sonic-Vector, Haptic/Gustative-Vector, Olfactory-Vector, Chronoceptive-Vector, and Auroric-Vector.
For the Payloads, I'm not sure I understand the different between Motus and Potentia. The way I understand these are Motus-Emotional, Phlegethon-Kinaesthetic, Lethe-Epistemological, Potentia-Instinctual, and Basilisk-Vitalistic. I feel it's a vague distinction to make because something that causes an emotional effect could result in instinctual behaviors, like PTSD for instance. I think what you're trying to say is Motus paylords change someone's conscious thoughts and actions, and Potentia payloads change their subconscious/automated thoughts and actions. I would suggest making that distinction more clear.
For the Mental Stability Checks, I think it would be fun to have a couple questions from these checks featured in that section. What kind of questions would trigger certain memes the Authority is looking to detect?
[+] Excerpt from 'Introduction to Memetics'
This collapsible is very close to the top of the page. Maybe add a line break to make it look cleaner.
(Visual/Auditory/Haptic/Olfactory/Gustatory/Kinesthetic1)
I think this would probably look better in a footnote.
Assuming spoken language is not classified as memetic, most memes feature an optical vector.
Well that would also include other non-optical based memes right? Not sure why spoken language is singled out in particular.
Generally, individuals who are asocial or "introverted" were believed to possess a higher Theophan Resistance, but this is more related to context or circumstance rather than embedded resistance.
What about people who are sociopathic or have other psychological conditions that would be theoretically associated with a high level of resistance?
names, etc in
Forgot period in "etc."
(account deleted) 18 Jan 2023 21:31
