Anomaly.Monster
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Exoworlds

Exoworld is a broad term for an external world experienced by a system that isn't the headspace itself. It is derived from Exomemory, which in tern "exo-" means "outer". This term doesn't have a large outerworld use - and we may potentially have been the coiners of it.

A connected term for exoworld is "canon", which are the specific collection of memories and experiences that an alterhuman has, commonly associated with fictionkin and fictives. The main difference is that canon refers to the specific timeline of experiences whereas exoworld is more broad with a focus on the world itself and can be a standalone world without being tied to a specific headmate.

Exoworlds from gateway and travel experiences

Systems that have gateway elements or experiences with astral travel might have outerworlds that aren't inherently tied to a headmate's memories and can be experienced by the entire system. "Exoworld" can also refer to worlds experiences by reality shifting or parallel lives.

Exoworlds to our headmates are rarely experienced in this way, with only a few headmates who practice travel and fewer gateways within the headspace. The biggest way we experience an exoworld as a "tangible" world is with our parallel lives.

Getting to an Exoworld (Work in Progress Section)

While the ability to return to an exoworld is rare for our system, it's possible under certain circumstances.

Gates and Gateways: the easiest way for systems

If an exoworld can be returned to, the easiest method used to do so are by what we call gates. These are pretty self explanatory with just being some kind of gateway to another world.

They can be similar to the Anomaly Portals with their design, but they are also more likely to be something called a Gate Field, which are a some stretch of land that usually isn't larger than twenty square feet that while walking through, leads to the other world.

Connecting to an Exoworld

The easiest way to reconnect to an exoworld without physically (metaphysically) going there is usually through Soulbonding. That page is a work in progress.

Having an exoworld

Systems that have walk-ins, metaphysical headmates, or fictives may experience personal outerworlds. These can alter how a headmate views both the inner and outer world and are tied to a headmate's Exomemory.

Within our system, metaphysical headmates are the most common experiences with personal exoworlds, and usually personal exoworlds refer to the source a walk-in came from. However, these aren't the only ways exoworlds exist.

Headmates with more than one exoworld

It's possible for one headmate to have multiple exoworlds! This usually happens for a fictive having multiple sources.

The ways a singlet might be spiritual polykin or have multiple spiritual alterhuman identities also applies to us. This includes:

  • Past lives: a headmate went through multiple lives before dying and reincarnating here, with those past lives being an exoworld.
  • Soul fusion: With many different potential reasons and experiences, a more than one soul just combines into one entity or latches on.

Typically "exoworld" is also saved for when the world is intensely experienced. So for example someone having a distant parallel life in a world with mermaids wouldn't be counted as an exoworld for our system archives, but someone with a strong kithtype from a disconnected past life that has an exoworld would be.

Psychological Exoworlds

While exoworld is typically used for a spiritual experience and when describing exoworlds, they can also be psychological, just as how exomemories can be psychological. The same theories and causes for "false memories" also applies to how psychological exoworlds can happen.

Some headmates may lean into false memories to create a semi-voluntary exoworld - making it into something like a worldbuilding project.

Differences between Exoworlds

The differences between exoworlds is an interesting topic. Even for exoworlds which are Earth - or close to it - there can be a lot of differences that are subtle but notable.

"Exo-Earth" vs. Earth

Earth exoworlds, even if they look very close to this world, can carry differences. There are likely to be differences in things like atmosphere, climate. and wildlife distribution. Just because this Earth has an inclination of 23 degrees with the sun being 94 million miles away and the moon 238 thousand miles away doesn't mean every version of Earth has those exact measurements.

Differences in history is also very likely, especially for worlds with a fantasy or supernatural element. We don't have a secret society of magic users or fantasy creatures, nor do we have ghosts like they're written in supernatural genres, but if they do exist, then history will alter to reflect this. Some Earth exoworlds might be missing major wars or events.

Humans can also differ with anatomy to reflect any differences with the world they're in. One example is how with most Pokemon exoworlds, humans have some Pokemon abilities and are stronger than a normal human, being able to survive more and sometimes have "pesudotypes" - like a pseudo-psychic human having moderate psychic abilities. Because of this, human Pokemon fictives in our system are different from standard Earth homo sapiens.

Another obvious example are worlds that have superpowered humans in general with things like metahumans, mutations, or even science fiction. Chemicals giving someone the ability to turn invisible isn't possible in our world, but in a world where this is possible, human makeup will differ.

In general, our Body OS does give headmates access to the knowledge about how our world works, but there might be slip ups or cases where a headmate doesn't know something that's common knowledge here.

Canon-Divergent Fictive Exoworld

Fictive exoworlds within our system are a lot more likely to be canon divergent. Usually these differences are made to be more "realistic", but we're also not opposed to having completely out of left field and weird fictive exoworlds.

For example, several fictives from the series Five Nights at Freddy's have an exoworld where several characters in the series as it's written are completely different or don't exist - with a character who is evil in that source being a amoral psychopomp or a character who "dies" instead having been changed to a completely different robot.

Our Pokemon parallel life is also notable because a lot of Pokemon that exist there don't exist here (which documenting them is a planned project). All Pokemon have a baby form and also a stronger form, so we have a lot of Pokemon in our system that are a species that doesn't exist. Our Pokemon can also have completely different features.