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.

Introduction

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, with millions dead and cities flattened, 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.

The name of these guardians?

The Transpace Guard.

There are millions of millions of Canons out there. 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

Note: Philosophical and deeper discussion of the nature of the Metaverse can be found in the Metaology section

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 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.

Canons 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. 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.

At the same time, a canon can regrow from damage done to it, or be destroyed almost entirely.

As humanity continues to create works of fiction, this "forest" will continue to expand and seemingly impassable routes become widened sufficiently for travel.

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.

Canon Destruction

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.

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.

This section and theory runs independent of the possibility of divergent or unknown events or plots that could possibly happen. This theory also only applies within the confines of a canon.

SUEs

What are SUEs? The primary enemy. In layman's terms and in our real world, we call them Mary Sues. In the context of the Editors' Setting, SUE stands for Supernaturally Unbalanced Entities. They can be 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.

SUEs originate from unskilled authors in "realspace" (the 'Real' 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 crystallize into a form known as a SUE.

The question whether SUEs should be treated humanely or be communicated to like other fictional characters is a subject of debate as well. 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.

Combat against SUEs is done 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 meta-factions have similar devices to reality emitters and some may have additional abilities as well.

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

Metaology

There are many theories about the meta, more than just the ones written by Meta-Earth or the Transpace Guard.

• Canons seem to have a preference to group among themselves in certain ways, thus forming a collection of canons within a region of the Meta that the Transpace Guard and TSAB call a sector. Some of the ways that a sector is composed are aspects or categories, like forms of media, genre, or even large, large subsets of a given canon or franchise/metaseries.

• It is said that canon can regrow from damage done to it, or be destroyed almost entirely. One could say that, if an important character disappears, the canon will destabilize violently, but given enough time, the canon will regenerate and replace disappearances and destruction, as well as the flow of time. Conventional means of disrupting canons by removing people and places has to build up to a critical amount or number of times to stunt the canon in a significant and perhaps, permanent way. And yet, there exist decisive methods to destroy a canon.

• In general, it is typically a dangerous practice to just wait for a canon to merely regenerate. As time in the Meta is typically not uniform, the waiting period for the regrowth to occur, and the healing period are not predictable. Compound or consecutive destabilizations can cause unforeseen consequences.

• The concept of canon itself might not be set in stone as previously thought. In fact, the concept of canon among the Transpace Guard is such that it is merely a set of events that can be reliably predicted, a sort of "tendency" within a me if you will.

• Readings of reality distortions seem to have a measurable quantity, with acceptable ranges for deviation.

• Does a "canon SUE" exist? Does an "Anti-SUE" exist? Such concepts seemingly circulate among the Editors and Transpace Guard, and Meta-Earth, for the most part.

Note for GMs: Various, and contradicting theories about the meta are fine. For the most part, they are merely handwaving attempts to explain and ease the running of a campaign.

Expected Player Mismanagement during Editors Campaigns

Some rules in this list have exceptions given varying contexts and situations of a campaign. The Metaology section gives insight to how rules might be bent or changed

These mismanagements are seen as the don'ts of a campaign run from the Editors/Transpace Guard perspective:

1. Players kill the SUE in one session after exploring approximately 3% of the world.
2. Players side with the SUEs.
3. Players openly reveal themselves, and rally the forces of the world to exile the SUEs.
4. Players openly reveal themselves, and convince the world to ally with the SUEs.
5. Players openly reveal themselves, try to seduce/bar fight with the major characters, and ignore the SUEs.
6. Players defeat the SUEs, and declare themselves the new SUEs of the world.
7. Players get curbstomped by the SUEs and die
8. Players are fucking morons and require constant babysitting to prevent their reveal and/or curbstomp.
9. Players stealthily try to raise the militarisation or tech level of the world, rather than try to combat the SUEs directly.
10. Players fanboy/fangirl over the fictional world, and the session devolves into fanboy arguing and/or fetish shit. At this point, No players, You are the SUEs.