---
title: Glossary
---

Apygmaliophobia
:  The fear of uploading (literally, the fear of becoming an artificial copy of yourself). Coined in the late 2130s as the cost of uploading began to drop. Also occasionally used in relation to taskers who fear individuation.

Artemis
:   An extrasolar probe bearing four races of uploaded consciousnesses. Discovered in 2346 by Tycho Brahe

Clade
:   A collection of individuals all descended from the same uploaded consciousness through the process of forking. Clades are named after the root instance (e.g: the Bălan clade), but they can also choose their own name (e.g: the Ode clade).

Cocladist
:   Used to refer to another member of the same clade. Up-, down-, and cross-tree are used to refer to the relation between the two cocladists: an up-tree instances is one that is descended from the individual, a down-tree instance is one from whom the individual is descended, and a cross-tree instance is one who shares the same down-tree instance but who isn't a descendent or an ancestor.

Cone of silence
:   A mechanic on the System that prevents others from hearing what those within the cone are saying. As of 2349, it is also possible to opaque or blur the contents of the cone from the outside, and to prevent the transmission of sensorium messages.

Conflict
:   During the process of merging, memories and ideas between the up- and down-tree instances will differ, if only by physical point of view. The more these instances diverge, the more these differences will cause conflicts, whether in how they remember things or how they think about things. During merging, this takes effort to rectify internally.

Collective
:   A group of individuals who emulate the idea of clades phys-side, doing their best to maintain a tree-like hierarchy, share common names, and so on. Many also resent the System and refuse to upload.

Dispersionista
:   An individual who enjoys individuation on the System. They will fork and allow their forks to diverge from themselves without any goal of letting them merge back down.

Dissolution strategy
:   A set of general categories for how one approaches forking, merging, and individuation.

Forking
:   The process of creating a complete copy of oneself. The new instance is exactly the same as the individual up to the point of forking, when they immediately begin to diverge, even if only in their physical points of view.

Individuation
:   The slow process of an up-tree instance changing from a down-tree instance. The longer the two spend apart and the greater the differences in their experiences, the greater the individuation. Dispersionistas in particular encourage individuation, while taskers do their best to avoid it at all costs.

Instance
:   A consciousness within the System, whether the original uploaded mind or one of their forks.

Launch Vehicle
:   The two smaller copies of the original L<sub>5</sub> point System launched in 2325 in opposite directions at a high enough velocity to leave the Solar System. Often abbreviated to LVs.

Merging
:   The process of incorporating the memories (and thus personality changes formed by new memories) of an up-tree instance after they quit.

Phys-side/sys-side
:   Phys-side (rhymes with 'fissile') refers to the physical world outside of the System, while sys-side refers to everything on the System.

Quitting
:   The act of an instance ceasing to exist on the System. If the instance is a fork of an individual, the down-tree instance may merge back in the memories from the instance who quits (this set of memories can be given a priority, felt as an amount of adrenaline; at a high priority, this can be quite startling, while at a priority of zero, the down-tree instance won't even be notified of the quitting). If there is no down-tree instance --- as in the case of the root instance or an orphaned branch of a clade --- quitting is quite difficult, described as trying to wade through mud or push through a barrier.

Reputation/reputation market/the exchange
:   In order to regulate resource usage on the hardware of the System, certain things cost reputation (denoted Ŕ), such as forking, as well as acquiring sim designs, clothing, and so on. These latter are exchanged on the reputation market (sometimes called the exchange). Reputation can be gained by creating things to put on the market or simply just interacting on the System: having conversations, making friends, and so on. When one first uploads, one is provided with a chunk of reputation to get started with.

Root instance
:   The root instance is the original uploaded consciousness, the progenitor of the clade from which all other instances are forked.

System
:   Used to describe both the hardware to which consciousnesses are uploaded as well as the world that exists inside that hardware. Originally chosen as a vague name to prevent leaks while the project was still secret, it stuck through the centuries until a few years after the launch project, when each of the three Systems began to be called by specific names: Castor and Pollux for the launch vehicles and Lagrange for the System remaining near Earth.

Tasker
:   An individual who specifically does not enjoy individuation. They will rarely fork, only doing so if they absolutely must, and then usually only to accomplish a task that requires more hands.

Tracker
:   Between taskers and dispersionistas, trackers fork more often and are more willing to let individuation take place as their forks track specific projects or relationships, almost always merging back down.
