Fiction:Essence

"It is our life-force, the reason why we are alive, the reason for our existence, our actions and our thoughts. It is a way of thinking, an uncontrollable current that runs though us all. Light and dark, everything is borne out of pure Essence."

- Unknown



Essence is a phenomenon that relates to consciousness. It is often associated with ideas of magical or supernatural forces, although this gives an inaccurate perception of it; it is no more "magical" than any other branch of science.

Many forms of advanced technology resemble Essence, such as Chronoscopic and the powers of many of the ; while they can be (and often are) used in conjuction with Essence, they are merely more advanced than most civilisations' scientific capabilities.

Physics
Essence is not a single phenomenon on its own, such as a "substance" as it is often treated as being; it is, much like life or technology, a result of the interactions between a variety of physical events. However, some scientists, dissatisfied with the current theory's explanation of consciousness, still posit the existence of a seperate "true" Essence as a source of qualia that is a truly distinct part of the universe.

A basic description of Essence starts in the patterns of consciousness in "realspace", created by quantum processing units such as microtubules interacting with each other and with other structures (in biological organisms, these are typically proteins and other biochemicals). To form "Essence", these regularly emit a large quantity of particles (often photons, part of the components' means of communicating with each other) which have sufficient energy to affect or even move into the extra dimensions of "hyperspace", forming complementary patterns across these extra dimensions. Due to the folded shape of three-dimensional realspace within hyperspace, these patterns extend much further through space than than those limited to realspace. With training or engineering, the patterns can be controlled completely by the realspace consciousness that they originated from; some consciousnesses even move partly or entirely to hypermatter in the process of.

This control is what is responsible for Essence "abilities" or "powers", such as extra-sensory perception and telekinesis from transfer of information directly via the hyperspatial patterns (ESP is from the outside world to the consciousness, while telekinesis is in the other direction), precognition from using hypermatter as a computing substrate to rapidly calculate possible outcomes, and teleportation by moving the body through hyperspace without having to traverse the realspace between the origin and end point.

Division and Variations
Essence is divided into several "Energies". Each Energy is believed to be a result of "pure Essence" being filtered through an Essence-based consciousness, thereby being influenced by the consciousness in terms of the abilities that it is focused on. Although Essence is only directly known from the Energies that manifest themselves in reality, the study of these Energies for many millennia has resulted in the model of "pure Essence" being created.

Essence is believed to be behind consciousness (as creatures' souls are usually composed of an Energy such as Elemental Energy), and so may tie into scientific theories such as Cosmospawn Theory, and even religious beliefs such as the as worshipped by many civilisations across the universe. However, normal material arrangements are capable of affecting Essence, which is a major item of consideration when relating Essence with consciousness, as individual creatures' consciousnesses are heavily affected by material factors such as brain chemistry. If pure Essence is conscious, then it must be a consciousness completely alien to anything else in the omniverse.

In general, Essences are focused on different ends of two spectra: order contrasting with entropy, and the material world constrasting with the mind. The combinations of order with mind and entropy with matter, described poetically as "light" or "good" and "dark" or "evil" respectively (primarily due to most complex life thriving in order and decaying in entropy), are the most common. Energies on opposite sides of the spectra (e.g. an order-with-mind and an entropy-with-matter) can be mixed to form "Shock Energy". It is difficult to control and purely destructive, and is most likely to be pure Essence, being all that remains after the opposing aspects of the two Energies annihilate each other.

There are three primal godforms, each controlling one of the four main forms of Essence:
 * The "Ultimate One" - (order, mind)
 * Vi'Naherza - Elemental Energy (balance between all aspects)
 * Kamik'Shi - Chaos Energy (entropy, matter)

Elemental is the most common Energy, found in all life across the universe; it is one of the most well-known Energies and has therefore been known by numerous other names by thousands of other civilisations across the universe and throughout history. It is based around the principle of balance, to the point that using it to go to any particular extreme is harmful for the user and its surroundings alike. A few powers were once classed as being distinct from Elemental, but are actually other means of accessing the same Energy. For example, the "" and "" are ultimately accessed from Elemental accumulated in the body over time, while "Life Energy" is Elemental as used by divine beings.

One subtype of Essence is known as "impure Chaos Energy", which consists of universally entropy-focused, and mostly matter-focused, powers. The Essence ability of that works with other Energies becomes  when any impure Chaos is used. Demonic and Death appear to be Chaos combined with Elemental Energy; in the latter case, it is specifically Life Energy. They are the most mind-focused varieties of impure Chaos. The other two types are Entropic Energy and Descension Energy. Although an Elemental connection with these is not impossible, they may just be purely associated with the (particularly ) and Umbrux respectively.

A similar concept, albeit a more speculative one, is that of "impure Mystic Energy"; the theory comes from how certain order-aligned Energies seem to match up with entropy-aligned ones. Dream Energy (associated with Veiro'Bheranka and the ) is the polar opposite of Entropic, and Psionic Energy (associated with the Vaalaa, particularly ) is the opposite of Demonic, including being slightly more matter-focused in the same way that Demonic is one of the most mind-focused forms of impure Chaos. Although the opposite of Death Energy is ostensibly that of Life, Pharia Energy is comparable to Psionic much like how Life is comparable to Elemental, being more powerful than its mortal-used counterpart.

Practioners of Essence
Almost every living being in the universe is thought to possess some form of Essence. When a creature uses any Energy, it is incorporated into their soul, flowing through their bodies via specific points known as "meridians" and "subtle bodies" in a complex structure. Almost every culture in the universe has its own perceptions on Essence, nearly all wielding Elemental as it permeates all of reality, and has different uses and groups. The varied forms of Essence have sometimes gone to the extent of defining entire cultures throughout history, as is the case, for example, of Psionic Energy. This page concerns universal societies.

Sages
An 'Essence Sage' is an individual with certain mastery, knowledge (and thus authority) of a certain/multiple energies. Most societies inspired by the Omnipotents, such as the Onuris Alliance, use the concept of "Essence Sages".


 * Less than 3D mortal: Unknown
 * 3D Mortal: After being trained by another Sage and a Taldar, a Ravenrii and Verezaph or a Xhodocto for at least a few years, they can be recognised as an Essence Sage for the energy they were practising.
 * They must be part of the Onuris Alliance, or else this is normally not accepted.
 * Their future must be completely analysed by the Taldar to prove safe and beneficial, with several checks made for Dark Chronoscopic clouding the future.
 * They must undergo at least 20 (timeless) years of practice (by testing their energy, mind and body to the limits), pilgrimages (to several Essence-related locations) and tests (testing mind, body and soul for the limits, and pushing them).
 * Very few individuals do get this opportunity.
 * Higher than 3D Mortal: They are given similar tests to 3D, but these are much more complex and difficult.
 * Immortal: Immortals usually already are Sages.

Essence Sages have around a quarter of the power a member of the Omnipotents with their specialist energy. They can channel and manipulate energies perfectly, and have total knowledge of the energy. They are given authority of their energy, as well as total responsibility. They also serve as mentors of essence practiser. Some Sages can train even further and become immortal.

Scientists
The scientific study of Essence was a universal effort to discover the truth about Essence and to come up with a "theory of everything" that includes Essence along with the spacetime of conventional physics. Although the traditional effort became obsolete with the confirmation of a hypermatter theory of Essence by the, the study of the infinite possibilities of Essence is still ongoing across many civilisations within the wider field of hyperspatial physics.