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  Excerpt from The History of Forerunner Expeditions, by Dr. Astal Lewis:

  It was this peculiarity that lead Helucar to postulate that all of these seemingly disparate phenomenon were, in fact, one singular mechanism expressing itself in a multitude of different ways, something that he called allosmos (a composite word roughly meaning ‘different world,’ a mirror to the fictional concept of 'isekai').

  Despite fairly significant resistance from his coworkers, he persisted in his attempts to both find and document examples of allosmic transfer from across the universe, slowly filling out the unified theory of allosmos for the remainder of his life. Of course, Helucar died before his work was fully complete and widely recognized, but necromancers have confirmed that had a few very choice words for many of those who doubted him, very few of which are appropriate for this book.

  Nonetheless, Helucar’s apprentice Cerina Suith carried on his research well into her life, and eventually published the first treatise on the subject, A Study of Atypical Soul-Cycling.

  In this, Suith the outlined four core tenets of an allosmic transfer, the Nucleus, Jump, Initiator, and Arrival.

  The Nucleus is the term given to the original driving force behind the overall allosmos, the driving force behind the summoning altogether. While most commonly an external factor, such as invading abyssal creatures or simply a marauding empire, the Nucleus represents the initial conflict which drives the world’s inhabitants to panic.

  It was, in fact, the Nucleus that served as the greatest obstacle to the development of overall allosmic theory, as several observed examples of allosmos had no apparent cause beyond general ‘luck,’ be it from a wayward soul that managed to escape the normal river of souls in the time after its death, or mere spontaneous interdimensional teleportation. While some of these events were indeed found to be unrelated phenomenon, they did not disprove Helucar’s theory on account of their “Nucleus” (though utilizing that term is incorrect) originating from the world they lived in, rather than from the world they ended up in.

  It may be useful to imagine the Nucleus as a sort of pressure zone within Fate not dissimilar to how prophesies form. However, while a prophesy forms in response to a very strong positive Fate pressure, a Nucleus is formed from a negative pressure zone, where whatever catastrophe is inbound destroys enough Fate that the natural balance of the world is disrupted, and the wider Tapestry attempts to correct this imbalance by drawing in Fate from other worlds.

  Unlike common conceptions, a Nucleus does not need to be that massive in an absolute sense. Anything that can cause a large amount of Fate to be destroyed in a very short amount of time can function as a Nucleus, regardless of the scope of said Fate. Smaller-scale Fate destruction is less likely to form into a full allosmos, but these events have been found to be responsible for most apparently-aimless allosmic transfers.

  (Incidentally, some forms of familiar summoning utilize a method not dissimilar from allosmic transfer, carving out a section of Fate from the caster’s own future in an attempt to summon and bind a creature that would properly fill in the sacrificed Fate, but such exploration is beyond the scope of this text.)

  While in recent years the term of Jump has been taken to refer to the entire process of allosmic transfer, thanks to the media attention on Forerunner Expeditions, an allosmic Jump is the means by which the nucleus manages to actually draw a target into their new world. Most Jumps can be fairly easily classified into two categories: Reincarnation, and Portaling.

  Reincarnation Jumps are far more common with solo transfers, and are the most common for very low-energy instances of allosmos, where there is no obvious Nucleus for the transferee to solve. These form when the fate differential of the allosmic Nucleus passes across the River of Souls, drawing a disembodied soul from the recently-deceased into the world.

  Portaling Jumps, by contrast, are those wherein the entire person (possibly with additional material) is physically transported between worlds. These are the result of the fate differential acts on more material objects, usually instantiating a physical effect on the world around them in preparation for the Jump.

  In both instances, the stronger the pull of Fate from the Nucleus, the greater the impact the allosmos has on the world around it. This can be seen with some Reincarnation Jumps wherein not only does the Fate current pull on the soul being transferred, but so too does it impact the world around them in the lead-up. In these instances, circumstances often conspire to kill the allosmos target immediately prior to reincarnation. The exact means of death can vary, though it often involves means of transportation, as the Jump is a very Space-heavy phenomenon. For several decades, trucks were an especially common instigator of Jumps, though in more recent years teleportation accidents have taken their place, and are therefore the technology of choice for the Forerunner Expeditions.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Portal Jumps occasionally experience similar build-up, and may likewise manifest in the near-death of their targets, but it is far more common for Portal-types to live on the boundary between spaces. Walking through arches or doorways, falling down large holes, being entrapped within enclosed areas attuned to spatial or dimensional magics, or ever infamously being eaten by a hippo have all been known to be lead-ups initiated by a Portal Jump.

  Then, there is the Initiator of an allosmos. While common conception necessitates a conscious mind behind the Initiator, no genuine Thought is required to aim the overall phenomenon. While it is true that an Initiator is usually either a Tyrant or a powerful mage working a massive ritual, this is simply due to automatic Initiators being substantially rarer.

  When a self-aware Initiator is present, the means they utilize to direct the buildup of Fate pressure can occasionally allow for cross-dimensional scrying and thereby individual selection of targets. However, it is far more common for the selection of a target to be entirely spontaneous, as the Nucleus’ pressure attempts to leech off another world’s, one with substantially more people than its own homeworld and consequently much grander Fate. That Fate, then, is drawn through the Jump and into the Nucleus, restoring the balance. It is not inaccurate to say that the principle transfer of the allosmos is the Fate carried with it, with the person or persons nominally thought of as the target merely being the host required for all of that Fate to actually be carried along.

  The Arrival of an allosmos’ target is the final portion of the overall phenomenon, and despite the name cares very little about the exact mechanism behind the actual physical (or spiritual) appearance of the individual in question (as such things are more under the purview of the Jump itself). Rather, the Arrival has to do with the excess Fate that the allosmos brings alongside the individual actually transferred. In nearly all instances, a certain degree of the Fate clings to the person and empowers them in certain ways. This is what is responsible for the sudden improvement in power seen in more traditional allosmos.

  (Separate from this influx of Fate empowering an individual – a phenomenon well-studied through prophesies, the Arrival will also see the local magic of the new world suffusing the individual, which is another means by which allosmos results in stronger individuals.)

  Incidentally, this imbalance of Fate is why so often we see that targets of allosmos who have the least innate potential gaining the greatest degree of power, as they bring with them so much more Fate from their homeworld. By contrast, highly competent individuals (such as the squads chosen for Forerunner Expeditions) innately possess a substantial amount of Fate intrinsic to their presence, and as such see a much smaller influx of power thanks solely to their allosmos.

  In all cases, the excess Fate from the allosmos is dispersed out into the world, empowering the world itself to recover its otherwise lessened Fate. Only in rare conditions, with absolutely massive Fate differentials, does so much Fate stay within the transferred individual that the world around them remains lessened even after their arrival, but due to the immense amount of power that necessitates remaining inside the target, such situations often result in a non-insignificant degree of the entire Fate of the world residing within a single individual.

  ...

  Yet no sooner had The Last Binding War concluded, His Blasphemous Majesty began to set up the first Forerunner Expeditions. It was, undoubtedly, an excellent and elegant solution to many problems. For as often as not, the wake of an allosmic transfer for the most dire of circumstances would leave a single individual with far, far too much power for any individual to wield, resulting in oppression the likes of which can only be matched by a Tyrant.

  Therefore, by dispatching a trained squad of elite agents, we can not only prevent the rise of these Allosmic Emperors, but so too can we conclude whatever devastation created an allosmic Nucleus in as little time as required, thereby minimizing the trauma experienced by civilians that would otherwise be casualties of the calamity. In many cases, it is even possible for the agents to overthrow local Tyrants even before their creation of their return portal.

  Once the return portal is established, of course, the mutual benefits only accelerate. Access to a new culture is immensely beneficial for the resilience of both our own world and those which recently underwent calamity. The opening of new worlds provides abundant resources and land for expansion, whereas the new world gains the benefits of our culture, freedom from Tyrants, and many opportunities for growth, especially among those whose worlds possessed magic that was exclusive to but a few.

  It is for these reasons that the Forerunner Expeditions have been heralded as the grandest invention of our age, and as the third generation of Expeditions launch, we can only wait and see what grand stories they return to us, of wonderful worlds, colorful cultures, and amazing adventures.

  What heroes, one and all!

  The Factory Must Grow, currently on a daily release schedule.

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