Cosmology — the Rules of the World
The load-bearing rules are locked in CANON. This page is the in-world telling.
The Scourge’s nature
A host-dependent parasite from the void — no native form, not evil, only driven to survive and spread (an AI-like emergent mind, not a demon). It consumes hosts to death, extinguishes a world, and jumps to the next. See CANON §1–2 and Scourge.
Breaches
Where the Scourge punches into a world from the void — orbital descent, crashed breach-ships, the wound it burrows and roots into. Physical, entrenched nests that pulse, escalate, and spawn waves — not mystical rifts. The source of every game’s groundside conflict. (Origin: Zero-Day, the first-contact sequence inside Starblight.)
The Choir — the hive mind
The Scourge knows everything its parts know, all at once, over a signal called the Choir. There is no single general to kill — the mind is the connection. See CANON §5.
Isolation — the weakness
The Choir has a limited radius, so the Scourge must mass densely and extend reach with repeaters/relays. Destroy the repeaters or push a node beyond the radius and it is severed — feral, blind, dumb. Isolation is how humanity fights at all. See CANON §6.
The Lanes
The only traversable corridors between breaches and the holdouts. To hold a lane is to survive; to lose one is to be overrun. Holding lanes also fragments the Choir at the chokepoints. (See Deadlane.)
The Purge
Going into a breach to destroy its source — and to sever the local node by killing its repeaters from the inside. Suicidal, close-quarters, the Purgers’ job. (See Perdition.)
TODO
- What powers the towers and the Purgers’ gear (see Tech).