Setting:The Editors

The Editors Setting is a setting that considers all works of media ever created as its own world, or subset of worlds inside The Meta, a corner of infinity that connects on a deep level to humanity's imagination.

It is a setting that is designed to support and handle crossovers of more than one work of fiction at any given time.

The setting is normally intended to run via RISUS for simplicity and game balance, but the setting has also been ran via Quests.

Introduction

Welcome to Meta. We've got a job to do. It all began one day, when the crossover began. Not like any other, it was the mother of all crossovers...

On a level of reality just below our own, the Crossover began. A thousand walls between fiction and the Metaworld tore open, releasing the hungry forces of Sue from their cannibalized homes. Metaworld itself- connection between Fiction and Reality, and the result of seven billion human's perception of Reality, was nearly rent apart.

In the aftermath of what was known as the Crossover War, with millions dead, cities flattened, and stories across the worlds of fiction devastated, the Rifts existed still. The group that had managed the feat of slaying the SUEs stepped forward to defend these gates between Meta and Fiction. They knew that the only way to restore stability was to keep to the Canon, as thousands of Meta inhabitants disappeared into the worlds of Fiction, intent on their own agendas.

There are organizations dedicated to preventing another Crossover War, as they travel across the stories in the Metaworld that fight against the mary sues. Organizations as these, in the long-running fight, loot non-vital equipment characters from canons and direct them into squads....

... Such as yours! Go murder some SUEs. Lay the law down on Fixers. Arrest the smugglers. Bump into rival armies. Mend broken worlds. Keep reality together. You've got jobs ahead of you, and reality ripping itself apart can't wait for you forever!

One of those organizations up to the challenge is the guardian of Earth:

The Transpace Guard.

There are millions of millions of fictional worlds, the canons, out there in the Metaworld. From video games, to books, to movies, to movies, traditional games, and more. The goal of the Transpace Guard is to ensure that nobody fucks with the story, and that Canon is preserved, so that the Metaverse remains stable, and no great castastrophe happens again.

Even now, valiant heroes fight to restore stability, from countless bad fanfictions, disastrous crossovers, hostile entities in the Meta, and author-self-inserts known as S.U.E.s.

Metaverse

The forest was still, and it felt as if it was a world-between-worlds. MAN resided in the tree of Earth, but could not see, for their world was still shielded. Lo, and War came, and broke the shield, and MAN fought valiantly and lived. MAN then looked forth from Earth and saw the forest, and learned of the wood and the hills and the valleys and the paths, and MAN learned the paths of the forest, and could wander and tend the forest, and MAN rejoiced.

The Metaworld, or Meta, in its most essential aspect, is a corner of infinity that has a deep connection to the subconscious of humankind in the "real" world. It is believed that it is the collective creativity of mankind, considered the lone sentient race in the "real" universe. The analogy of the Meta can be that of a great forest, according to Meta-Earth's understanding and experiences of interacting with it. As humanity continues to create works of fiction, this "forest" will continue to expand.

Canons, or other worlds of fiction, can be described as trunks with unique frequencies (or coordinates or addresses depending on the meta-faction in question). Fanons, expanded universes, alternate timelines/permutations of events can be analogous to branches.

A canon can be disrupted by crossovers and invasions by SUEs. It is also possible for a canon to become sick, "burnt down" or "chopped", as well as being planted and transplanted as well as heal and regrow. A crossover can be understood as the intersection of two branches on the same or different tree, or two trees (canon trunks) growing into the path of each other.

Canons can also take damage and distortions to their reality by outside forces beyond SUEs, if they have enough capabilities to intrude and interfere. Destroying a canon will saddle an Author (on the "real" Earth side) with lost creativity and drive. It damages canons related to it, and nearby canons as collateral.

Crossovers

Crossovers can occur naturally, or by outside forces. Naturally, canons might hit themselves with their own branches, or hit other canons. SUEs and other extra-dimensional forces can cause crossovers. These crossovers show up as reality distortions and may have the potential to affect nearby canons as well. One symptom of the effects of large distortions are the weakening of dimensional boundaries between worlds.

Finished Works

Finished Works refer to canons that are considered completed series and Public Domain. These canons are extremely stable and can snap back from distortions very easily. It is such that interventions are only required when actual SUEs appear in them.

One way of defining a Finished Work is if it is a seminal work of fiction, and/or that this is a work that has a fundamental basis in some way to the formation of other canons. Works such as that of Shakespeare, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, pulp fiction, the Barsoom series, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Robert Heinlein's writings etc., would be considered "Finished Works".

PseudoHeisenberg's Literary Uncertainty Principle

The Uncertainty Principle refers to the concept that one cannot know the location and velocity of an off-focus character at the same time. "Off-focus" means that the narration or "camera" of a canon moves away from that character at a certain point. What this does is that it allows for respawns of background characters in a canon. "Nameless" characters and seeming "redshirts" are recruited this way. As a result, the application of this principle with regards to recruitment, makes asking what is real or not in MetaEarth's multiverse a subject of debate. For some, the principle creates a moot point with the fictional nature of characters.

A corollary to this principle is that other characters in a canon, even up to a main character at times, can be subject to recruitment. "Death" in a canon is almost equal to a character's removal from it. Hence, recruiting a character and staging his death as canon dictates, is fair game. If a character dies permanently off-screen, then the recruitment of that character at the point where the canon goes off-focus, or the death is staged according to canon, will not be destabilizing either.

WARNING: This theory has its own unforeseen shortcomings.

SUEs

SUEs are the primary enemy of the setting. We call them Mary Sues normally, but in the context of the Editors' Setting, SUE stands for Supernaturally Unbalanced Entities. They are roughly described as destructive, attention-seeking demigods (but to use the term demigods is an approximate descriptor due to how they can wield immense power). It would be easy if SUEs only had mind control as their powerset, but that is not the case. Not all SUEs are alike, as some are very weak or only have mind-control, whereas the ones known as Arch-SUEs have powers so immense they twist many worlds and their inhabitants to their whims. To this end, the means to defeat SUEs are tackled on a case-by-case basis.

In theory SUEs originate from unskilled authors in "realspace" (the 'Real-life' Earth). Sources of SUEs usually come from fanfiction.net and deviantart. Yet, it is not just "bad" fanfiction and fanart that they originate from. SUEs can come from even fangames as well. In other words, the effect of bad authors on the meta will materialize as SUEs.

It is under debate whether to treat SUEs humanely or communicate with them in civilized ways. Some are merely animalistic or one-track minded, not dissimilar to bipedal human-sized virii, and others are intelligent masterminds capable of terrifying schemes and strategies. Depowering a SUE is a luxury; killing them is priority.

Typical SUE combat is risky and messy affair, but it is possible to beat them without stooping to the same level as they do via assassination and clever work. Open combat is often suicidal and destructive.

Combat against SUEs is also possible by harnessing the power of devices known as Reality Emitters. These things weaken or cancel out SUE powers to make them capable of being defeated. In most cases it brings down their capabilities such that they can be beaten in physical or magical combat. Others require greater feats of power to quell. There are many varieties of reality emitters up to capital ship-grade versions, as well as actual upgrades to them. Other organizations have similar devices to reality emitters and some may have additional abilities as well.

Notable examples of Arch-SUEs, are Sapphy and Chaosbringer.

Beyond the obvious threat of SUEs, many other enemies and threats lie across the Meta. Rival armies, superweapons, horrors, and various criminals roam wild....

Campaigns

I

TG Meta Quest

Yellowman Quest

II

The Last Library

See Also

Glossary of Terms in the Editors Setting

External Links

Compiled Setting Notes:

Google Docs version

Pastebin version (less recent)

Editors setting development:

First thread

Second thread

Third thread