The Freeing of Shared Incantation Space

The Freeing of Shared Incantation Space

The history of the freeing of what we now know as Shared Incantation Space is the history of a battle fought over 100 years which saw three distinct Ages and two Revolutions. The Shared Incantation Space that we now rely on and trust was not always as reliable or as trustworthy as it is today.



The First Age

The First Age began with the discovery of Incantation Fire: a discovery so powerful and unsettling that the Emperor at the time immediately siezed it in fear for his own power. Working in private, his teams of Alchemists studied it and developed the Art of Incantation. When this was not fully refined but with great promise, the Emperor authorized the setting up of a Temple to house a beacon of Incantation Fire attended by a handful of Priests (the very same, once-grubby Alchemists now in fine robes). The idea was to use this new found force of Nature to boost the control of the Emperor over his own subjects, while raising more from them in effective taxes.

The Priests were called the Incantation Beacon Masters and they presided over a remarkable industry: people representing Guilds and other groups would present themselves at this Temple and, in exchange for very large bags of gold coins, make their requests for new property of the Masters. These Masters would then mutter incomprehensible Incantations to the Beacon of Incantation Fire. There would be a white burning flash, and the request would become manifest. A little Incantation Oil would be used up in the vaporising flash - which would then settle into the form of the new object.

If a Guild wanted a new stained glass window at the back of their Hall, they would collect together a bag of gold and take their request to the Temple. That very day, they would have their new window. The Emperor's coffers swelled with gold. Apart from plenty of inexpensive Incantation Oil to feed it, using the Beacon's power cost him nothing.

Of course, the greatest user (who paid nothing) was the Emperor himself, who used the new powers to multiply his own. He could, once people relied upon their new property, simply take them away or use the threat of this as a bargaining tool. He would also post instant statues of himself in places he felt his presence was needed.

The Priests of the Temple actually had a limited power and a clumsy Art compared to today's Shared Incantation Space. However, this power and Art was sufficiently useful in itself that they jealously guarded the Art and the collection of Ex Eruditio held in the Temple.

The Ex Eruditio were the knowledge scriptures describing the known properties of all things, by which the Incantation Beacon interpreted each new request. Teams of Priests would work on refining these scriptures to cover greater and greater requirements with terser and terser Incantations.

Clumsy and weak the Art may have been, but soon the entire Empire depended on its powers. No one wanted to give up their new instant possessions and abilities. The Emperor and his Temple Masters soon had total and absolute power over the Empire. Which, history tells us, is when Revolution stirs...

The Second Age

A rebel group of apprentice Incantation Beacon Masters soon discovered new refinements to the Art of Incantation - the so-called Davidovian theories. They made an important new insight: that the Incantation Fire actually provided a gateway into what we now call Incantation Space. They found that it was possible to use properties of the Incantation Oil to tease the Incantation Fire into many threads in this Space, so that many, smaller, Incantation Lights could be fed from one Incantation Beacon. This enabled the heresy of an Incantation Light for every subject of the Empire. They could not only spread the Fire beyond the confines of the Temple and its greedy Priests, but they could also magnify its power, still at no great cost in Incantation Oil. The rebel apprentices named themselves the Incantation Thread Light Masters.

A rebellion ensued - whose details we omit. Suffice to say that the end result was the installation of a new Rebel Emperor, the destruction of the Temple and the installation of an Incantation Thread Light in every household. It was the start of the Second Age.

Over time, the name of the rebel group changed, via the Masters of Incantation Thread Space to simply the Masters of Space, an arrogant but prescient name. As the name changed, so did the goals: from giving power to ordinary citizens, to taking that power away. In fact, to a Dark Age of such oppression that the Emperor of the First Age would have been delighted, had he lived to see it. The Emperor monitored the daily lives of his citizens and collected bigger fees and taxes than ever before. Everyone paid for instant manifestation of new things. They depended on their Incantation Lights more than they ever had in the First Age - but the system simply could not be trusted.

Everyone's life was under the observation, control and extortion of a Cartel formed by the Emperor, the Masters of Space and the Guilds. This oppression was effected through property - gradually it became impossible to do without the new manifested property, and real objects became museum pieces. It was still cheaper than buying the real thing to have an Incantation manifest something.

But no-one owned their property any more - even though the actual cost of manifesting it was now very small, if you were living, you'd use it and if you used it, your use was authorised and logged by the personal Incantation Light which was still controlled by the Cartel. The Cartel ensured that you paid for every Incantation and even for every use of your new property - what we now call Shared Incantation Space was then named 'HireSpace'. And of course they now knew everything you were doing and could prevent you doing anything they disapproved of. All 'public' places and things were Incantated: even sitting on a seat in the 'public' square cost you. Not just in money - the Cartel knew where you were and what you were doing, whether at home or out.

Lives were interweaved with the ritual of asking for the items that were needed for daily existence. The old Ex Eruditio were supplied into each person's Incantation Light from central Cartel sources. If you wanted anything, you had to hope the Incantation Light knew how to do it in the Ex Eruditio. You couldn't teach it, as that knowledge was as jealously guarded as before. So if you did or said things slightly differently, or wanted something a bit unusual, you were stuck. Your very environment was subject to the moulding of unseen workers in the Guilds and the Masters of Space creating inscrutable Knowledge that affected the daily lives of all citizens. The inscription above the entrance of the Grand Lodge of the Masters of Space read 'Knowledge is Power'.

Consider the simple pot. At one time, before the Incantation Fire was discovered, you would visit the Potter's Guild and put in an order for the utensils you needed, perhaps for a feast or because of breakage. You paid for their skill and knowledge and for the materials of the pot. This was still the norm when the First Age came, as no-one would ask the Priests of the Temple for something as mundane as a pot, except perhaps a ceremonial one. Now by the time the Second Age was fully underway, everyone's pots were manifested from Incantation. But the Potter's Guild was no poorer; in fact, their riches grew like never before.

Even though the pot's materials now cost next to nothing - a little cheap Incantation Oil each day - the knowledge of pottery was still metered out by the Incantation Light, and it was the control and logging of the everyday use of this knowledge that gave the Cartel members their power. This knowledge - the Potter's Ex Eruditio - encapsulated their craft in the form of the physics, the geometry and the decoration of everyday pots. This knowledge was the Potter's power.

If you weren't up-to-date with your payments, the pot knowledge might be denied you: all your manifested pots might simply cease to exist. Perhaps when in the middle of using them, spilling their contents everywhere - grain or even boiling water. Even if you were in credit, your every use of those pots was being monitored, and every new pot requested was being logged. Should it be needed by the Emperor, every intimate detail of your daily life was accessible on demand.

Lives were also subject to constant intrusion by the manifestation of what became known as 'Space Junk' from Cartel members, which would appear without warning in any room of your house: free samples that a Guild hoped you'd find indispensible before they started charging for them. The Emperor also used this power to remind people who was the boss: people showing signs of non-conformity might be visited by a fine new statue of the Emperor himself.

Even more unsettling than this was the daily stress suffered by people caused by the fallout from the total control of the Ex Eruditio by the Cartel. It meant that life was no longer as simple and predictable as before. What you learnt about the world as a child would often fail you in the Second Age.

Consider the brother of Space junk: 'Space Judder', where something familiar to you suddenly did something odd. The pot might start 'singing' at a medium pitch, or its decoration shudder or blacken. A similar failure of natural expectation occurred when the Incantated pot refused to be stacked with metal cooking utensils from the Blacksmith's Guild - either because of a conflict between Guilds, or simply because the Guilds never discussed such a possibility when refining their Ex Eruditio. But of course, the Guilds, notoriously unsympathetic to those that could not pay, would be similarly unreceptive to pleas to correct these failures. And it goes without saying that the Potters would change the nature and behaviour of pots by fiddling with their Ex Eruditio without notice.

It also goes without saying that if, say, you were using incantations that instructed the Incantation Light to decorate your pot with images of people that alluded to the Emperor and his cronies, perhaps in ridiculous poses: such rebellious actions would be quickly prevented and your life monitored and intruded upon somewhat more vigourously than before.

Property could be passed around via the HireSpace. It was possible to create a pot you thought would be suitable for a friend or group of friends and have it manifested at their doors with a greetings tag. Naturally, such actions were studied even more carefully by the Cartel. It was one thing being rebellious in your own home, quite another to spread rebellion to others. If there was something unsuitable about that pot's decorations, it simply wouldn't arrive.

Even if it did, the hapless recipient still took over responsibility for the pot via their own Incantation Light. So you could design a beautiful pot in your work-room and then 'give' it to a friend, but if they hadn't paid the fees for exactly the same Potter's Ex Eruditio that you had, it couldn't exist for them, or might be substandard in some way. And if you improved your gift and wanted them to benefit, you had to go again through the remote-manifestation routine - the knowledge about this particular pot not being freely shared between you.

Apart from mundane pottery, there were two other kinds of pot: archaeological ones and artistic ones. The Museum Guild was responsible for the former, the Artist's Guild for the latter. The Museum Guild guarded the knowledge of the exact designs and geometries of the real artifacts. It was possible, for example, to ask for a well-known historical pot to be manifest in your garden. This was not done very often, as there was a double-hit: you not only paid the Museum Guild for the privilege of experiencing what was once public property, but also paid the Potter's Guild for the basic pottery knowledge inherent in the manifestation. An alternative to this was a visit to the Lodge of the Museum Guild, but this was also seldom done, not only because of the cost of the visit (you paid as if you had 'experienced' all the pots even if you only saw a few), but also because of the inevitable stack of 'free samples' that would be waiting for you on your return.

The Artist's Guild also capitalised on the market for special pots in the home. They would design and sell non-functional pots for decorative or ceremonial purposes. If you or your guests picked up and turned such a pot to examine the design, you would be charged. You would also be charged smaller amounts for having the light on in the same room as the pot. Again, there was little to be gained from making a gift of such a pot, since the recipient ended up paying for it still. And you certainly couldn't create a new design based on one of these pots, as the Artist's Guild would eventually find out and have it intercepted.

You could design a pot using simple pot Incantations, but if the Artist's Guild felt your work intruded on their domain, they could appropriate your designs as their own, and re-sell them. The Cartel had the right to re-own any work and re-sell it to you or anyone you passed it on to. If your design became popular amongst your group of friends, you could be sure it would be siezed. No-one could ever set up a pot design business as any profitable designs would be taken from them. And parodies or derivatives of Artist's Guild pottery would be stamped on immediately. You could only operate an informal system of payment between friends, since the payment system of HireSpace was locked down, but, in any case, sooner or later the Cartel would find out about what you were doing and take away your works.

The Cartel's Ex Eruditio were renamed the 'Declarations of the Master's Control and Authority' - a provocative and audacious assertion of power. The world was strictly viewed and experienced through the omniscient eyes of the Cartel. There was no freedom of speech, no privacy, not even any public, freely-available property. The Cartel alone had the rights of privacy.

A few people realised that they were held in a firm lock, and that the technology should actually enable greater freedoms than ever before. If nothing else, you should be able to create and free your own works even without payment. Rebel groups formed.

Two rebel groups came to prominence: the Eruditio Freedom Fighters and The Real Masters of Space (a name whose irony was lost on some of its more zealous members). These groups met and communicated in secret codes, using old-fashioned, hard-to-find real things. These groups followed some of the ideals of the original rebel group that initiated the transition into the oppressive Second Age. The Real Masters of Space were subsequently renamed the Free Space Fighters - a more direct, but no less contentious title.

The Free Space Fighters created their own Incantation Light system: the Northern Incantation Lights, after its creator who was born in the Northern Lands. The Eruditio Freedom Fighters were responsible for a method, using this new system, that tapped the existing Incantation Light system using new 'Declarations for Common, Shared Space', in direct violation of the power of the existing 'Declarations of the Master's Control and Authority'.

However, although these groups gained significant support, their strength was never enough to topple the Cartel. People grew used to the status quo and accepted it, along with all its oppressions: they could get things they would not otherwise have, and started to accept the way things were as inevitable (especially under the constant brainwashing of a self-promoting system) - and so believed themselves happy.

The Third Age

What started as a simple, popular movement became the overwhelming power that would usher in the Third Age - the free Age we enjoy now, of Shared Incantation Space.

It all started when a Guild member, secretly a member of one of the two Freedom Fighter Groups, had an idea. This person, working in a safe room in his Guild, found a way to tap into the Incantation Light system and direct it in such a way that anyone's Incantation Light could interact directly with anyone else's, without detection, and without any dependency on central sources of Incantation Fire.

In a further refinement of the Davidovian process of teasing Threads from the Fire, he found a way to completely split it up into tiny Fireballs. Incantation Space could be accessed directly using individual, invisible droplets of Incantation Oil: Incantation Droplets. People who used this new system were pleased to find it gave out a glowing mist. They were even more pleased to discover that the Incantation Lights themselves - always a resented piece of furniture - started to crumble into smaller pieces, then dissolve into a bright cloud and finally fade away. They all merged into what was called the Common Incantation Light: the gateway to our Shared Incantation Space.

With the new system, shared secretly at first, then ever more boldly, anyone could create new items or pass around items they owned without hindrance. Suddenly, ordinary things were released from their tethers: stuff around you became just stuff around you, with no veil of Incantation Light negativity - echoing a faintly-remembered past for some people, or a whole new reality for the younger. Incantated items were suffused with an internal glow.

Instead of the constant, oppressive feeling people experienced when going about their everyday lives - that of having to be aware of every action, every interaction - there was a new enthusiasm, excitement - a new creativity. It goes without saying that, before long, this approach was being used by everyone to bypass the Cartel's control. Once people had tasted freedom, they would never go back. Such popular feeling could not be resisted by the Cartel, even with all its powers.

Even the, at first reluctant, Eruditio Freedom Fighters and the Free Space Fighters saw the opportunity and turned their substantial weight behind the new movement, even though it meant the end, in its Incantation Thread form, of their much-loved Northern Incantation Lights system. The Cartel withered, and finally died. Guild members dispersed, the Masters of Space dissolved, the Emperor was powerless.

The gradual disappearance of Space Judder and Space Junk was an enormous relief of daily stress. Public things became truly public; private things became truly private.

All historical artifacts were released from the jealous Guilds, public places freed from payment and supervision, and the old, secretly-developed and jealously-guarded Ex Eruditio became common knowledge, shared and improved by everyone. Creativity bloomed: ideas flooded free. Broken, unreliable and unintuitive things were fixed and made ideal for everyone that used them.

People's homes became their own, not promotion theatres for the Cartel. You owned your own property and could decide by yourself who you trusted to know about it or take it. If you made something for someone, you could transfer ownership or copies to them as a genuine gift. If you shared something with someone, each of you could change and share the changes to it. Most novel of all, people now had the ability to even share their homes with others far away. You could 'invite' your relations over to share an evening together in a shared, Incantated room. No-one else could go there uninvited.

And new enterprises blossomed like Spring flowers: people could trade with one another in ways not known since the First Age. Although no-one could control the free copying of well-favoured ideas and designs, new trading habits took over - based purely on creativity: originality. The very copyability of everyday things put a huge premium on originality. Since every item was effectively free, the only way to make an income from a day's work was to produce something new - every day.

A new, public institution, the Incantation Association, was set up to ensure the new freedoms of Shared Incantation Space were written into Law. This declared that the Art of Incantation was public property, that, once freed or published, things could never be re-owned, that everyone had the right to control the exposure of, and interaction with, what was theirs until that right was deliberately passed on to another.