Breakwater

Idea
See also: Prophecies of the Reaping

According to a Planter philosophy, material reality is a manifestation of powerful universal phenomena, called datawaves. The true universe, “behind” the material universe, is dataspace. This nonmaterial space is governed by at least three types of wave-like phenomena: imaginative, constructive, and destructive. For example, the planters are often constructive, the reavers are often destructive, and many humans are very imaginative. At least three more wave types are believed to exist.

The Breakwater has kept most oddities out of the Closeness for several centuries; its rise corresponds to the late Renaissance/early Enlightenment.

Elias Rossman discovered dataspace and its malleable nature. Rossman (and many like him) had a paranormal power that permits direct influence on dataspace. In effect, a paranormal being like a magician can generate very minor datawaves directly.

The Closeness is a discrete region of dataspace, including Earth, Cryos, Tessera, and few other neighboring worlds. At the start of the 20th Century, the Closeness was bounded by the Breakwater at the "Outer Rim," limiting the influence of the datawaves. The Breakwater resulted in a mostly static reality (e.g. gravity, carbon-based life, etc.). Within the Closeness, the datawaves still manifest as mostly-Earth like entities (e.g. large fleets of ships, imperial nations, collective minds, etc.). But strong datawave-influences are increasingly noticeable, especially on the fringes of reality and society (e.g. quantum research, criminal insanity, etc.). To protect the Closeness from the full force of the datawaves, the Breakwater needs to be maintained and improved. This is the primary goal of the Rational Ascendancy. Since the turn of the millennium, they have been moderately successful.

Rossman’s experiments on the boundary in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s eroded the Breakwater. The Breakwater is still up, but weak.

Warlocks are rare on Earth, because of the Breakwater. A warlock bond is unbreakable by something like the Breakwater. But it's harder for patrons and would-be warlocks to connect in the first place.