+ ETLE Universe Glossary

ETLE Universe Glossary
© the A.O. Movement Collective, September 25, 2015

Terms

the Chronoverse: Our current universe, understood with the knowledge that there are infinite branching causal universes, and that time is a non-linear and subjective navigation through them. Each moment of uncertainty branches into an array of possible options, and each moment of certainty is only a decision to take one of those paths. Different occurrences have different densities—for example, a global war has a huge density whereas one person’s obsession about “what could have been” has much less density, but perhaps still more density than an insignificant event that actually was.  All occurrences are resistant to change, but this resistance increases the denser (and more widely experienced) the event.

Chronomultiplous: possessing the quality of existing nonlinearly across multiple times.

Chronosingular: possessing the quality of existing linearly through time.

Glitch: a short-lived fault in a system. Often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations and nature. As glitch theorist Rosa Menkman writes: “Glitch are is often about relaying the membrane of the normal, to create a new protocol after shattering an earlier one.  The perfect glitch shows how destruction can chance into the creation of something original.  Once the glitch is understood as an alternative way of representation or a new language, it’s tipping point has passed and the essence of it’s glitch-being is vanished.” (Rosa Menkman, Glitch Studies Manifesto)

The Absence: An epidemic beginning in the near future in which women and non-binary individuals fall out of time and drift through the chronoverse, leaving their bodies behind for their lovers, families, and governments to deal with until they return, sometimes minutes sometimes weeks later.  Absent people report the internal experience to be surreal but familiar feeling—a flood of images and feelings similar to their lives, but slightly different to varying degrees. Initially thought to be a form of en masse depersonalization disorder, it is clear that the Absence causes a fair amount of body trauma, including the loss of child if pregnant.  There are many different theories on what caused the Absence.

Reality Intensification Binder (the RIB): Invented and produced by the FATH Company, the RIB is a surgically implanted piece of hardware (like a pacemaker) that allows Absent people to remain tethered to the current present.   Because it is exorbitantly expensive, women wishing to don a RIB and stay in the present must become indentured to the Company until they pay off the operation.  It’s just a formality, really.

Hacking the RIB/the RIB Hack Ceremony: A highly experimental (and very illegal) process wherein the FATH company’s RIB technology is hacked by the rebel THIC, giving the user the ability to control and navigate the Absence, rather than just negate it. A successful hack can only occur within a very small margin of time—rebels must abduct a recent THIC patient shortly after their implantation, hack their system (causing the patient’s system to overload, causing death) and then attempt a manual restart. Though this operation is surgical in nature, the operating hackers (most often Anders) form a chronoerotic bond with the THIC they hack, imbuing the operation with a ceremonial tone.

Anding: A manual form of labor (like welding or engineering) related to the production and maintenance around the rebel THIC and their RIBs. Anding includes hacking the RIB, igniting and maintaining the RIB’s charge, and ongoing maintenance. The fueling charge that anding provides allows rebel THIC to travel between signposts via their RIB, utilizing the body as time machine.  Anders experience this charge interaction as extremely pleasurable.

Anders: Chronosingular hackers skilled at anding, devoted to aiding the rebel THIC. Anders always occur in pairs (both named Anders); two expressions of the same consciousness. Anders can have professional anding relationships with rebel THIC and/or friend/partner/lover relations (which include anding as social behavior.) Rebel THIC and Anders usually interact in triangles of one rebel THIC and two Anders.

Millk: A white viscous liquid inserted into a rebel THIC’s body during the RIB Hack that serves as a conductor for the RIB’s charge, and assists in the RIB’s ongoing process of digitizing body function. Consisting of a complex mixture of proteins, hormones, and electrolytes, a rebel THIC’s Millk must be changed regularly. Rebel THIC may experience rushes of testosterone when first receiving new Millk, and may act more aggressively and recklessly than usual.

Signposts: Marker points unknowingly created at “dense” moments collected throughout an individual’s lifespan. These markers indicate moments in which the body’s readings (as measured and digitized by the RIB) create a unique and traceable point of density, usually associated with physical and/or psychological extremity or distinctiveness.  These readings are recorded and tracked as a string of six coordinates, each containing a more detailed string of coordinates:

  •  Objective Time: measures the second, minute, day, year, etc the individual is present in
  • Objective Body: pinpoints the individual via their DNA
  • Subjective Body: tracks factors such as bone density to determine the body’s age
  • Subjective State: tracks adrenaline, heart rate, etc. to quantify the body’s current state
  • Subjective Eros: tracks the physical (DNA based) contact between beings
  • Patterning: relates first five coordinates to similar patterning in individual’s existing index.

Index: Each rebel THIC’s individual collection of signposts that hold the greatest density, and are therefore most navigable. Though there is quite a range depending on the individual, most rebel THIC have somewhere between 25 and 59 signposts at any given time, in a continuous state of evolutions as new points are recorded into their system.

Heavy Set: the set of signposts that a rebel THIC uses most often.

Distant Reach: The ability held by a very small number of rebel THIC in the far future to travel beyond their own lifetimes. While most rebels can only travel within their own lifetimes via their accumulated signposts, rebels who cultivate Distant Reach are able to intuit the signposts of their distant bloodlines, and use these to travel back and forward across a much broader range of time.

The Violent Female Revolution (the VFR): The culmination of tensions between rebel THIC, and the FATH Company; a 29-day violent gender war that breaks out at the end of the near future, preceding the Lost Years.

Chronomadic: leading a lifestyle isolated from others through time and space. Refers to the rebel THIC in and after the Lost Years.

SAFE: Secluded Anachronistic Failsafe Encampment. An encampment outside of time that houses Professor Boundless Gorgeous.  Once considered the failsafe against ETLE, SAFE is converted into a headquarters for tracking ETLE once she goes off the grid, and is a location where rebel THIC, Anders, and individuals from the AOMC’s current present can convene.

EXISTING SLANG

Slick: exceedingly good or swoon-worthy. Etymology: as relating to glitch as a positive occurrence; from the German word for glitch glitschen ("to slip") and the Yiddish word gletshn ("to slide or skid").

Fat: powerful, rowdy, bodacious, and boisterous, as noted as a positive quality.  Etymology: being “overfull with Millk;” from the Greek word for fat: piduein and "to gush forth", Lithuanian: pienas "milk."

Secret Gold: an undercover rebel THIC. Refers to the gold-colored filament used in the R.I.B. implant.

DRUids: Members of the Distant Reach Unit

Executable: FATH slang, a rebel THIC (once declared illegal post VFR)

Broken Executable: FATH slang, a rebel THIC whose Absent body has been captured and interned by FATH

“Lonely Rivers”: slang for Anders

“Sea”: slang for ETLE/the rebel THIC

“Lonely Rivers: flow to the sea”: A call for Anders to come to the aid of their THIC

“Behind the Eyes”: rebel THIC terminology, describing the sensation of time traveling by experientially inhabiting a future or past version of your self

Drifters: anyone who participates in or comes into contact with the AOMC's ETLE Universe project. Specifically, individuals who participate in the ETLE_immersive or as audience members for AOMC performances.

CHARACTERS

ETLE: The absent center (no pun intended) of the ETLE Universe.  Dark, vengeful, and unwieldy, ETLE is credited as the first rebel THIC to realize her Distant Reach ability, bringing a close to the Lost Years and ushering in the following era of Reconstruction. ETLE is much more powerful than anyone realizes; the ETLE Universe’s big plot twist hinges on the fact that ETLE has gone back to the early origins of time on three occasions: first to birth the first pair of Anders, second to populate her own bloodline through time, and a final time to wait at the beginning of Agriculture, ready to wipe out humanity if the rebel THIC fail in their absence glitch revolution.  

TransHuman Indentured Cybernetics (THIC): By donning the FATH Company’s RIB, women are modified into TransHuman Indentured Cybernetics. Forever bound to this singular present, they regain the ability to bear children and are “cured” of the Absence. As part of their indentured servitude to the FATH company, THIC must spend a number of years (tbd) bearing children to bring post-Absence global population levels and economies back up to capacity.

The rebel THIC: A group of intersectional queer/feminist glitch terrorists that advocate understanding the Absence as the next stage of human evolution—an exciting, albeit dangerous, possibility for the future of the human race.  Their origins date from the early days of the absence, in which their guerilla acts of terrorism (ie: planting themselves as decoy absent women and then executing harassers) ignited their controversial reputation as violent girl gangs. (Old, based on the AOMC’s work on the ETLE Universe circa 2012-13)

  • ANDRY: a rebel THIC DRUid, eventual bloodline of AOMC performer Leah Ives
  • OSHE: a rebel THIC DRUid, eventual bloodline of AOMC performer Anna Adams Stark
  • PO: a rebel THIC DRUid, eventual bloodline of AOMC performer Emily Skillings
  • BATH: a rebel THIC DRUid, eventual bloodline of AOMC performer Lillie De
  • SNO: a rebel THIC DRUid, eventual bloodline of AOMC performer Aya Wilson
  • OHERA: a rebel THIC DRUid, eventual bloodline of AOMC performer TBD

Professor Boundless Gorgeous: a multiplous being, an eventuality of humanity uncomprehendable from our current evolutionary state. Before ETLE turned on them, PBG was housed in SAFE as ETLE’s failsafe against her own plan; however, as their struggle evolved they became embattled against each other. PBG is now the link to the AOMC’s current present; they cannot be seen or experienced by human senses, but they help the AOMC assist the rebel THIC in the Absence Glitch Revolution.  PBG can imbue themselves into multiple forms, many of them musicians, eccentric personalities, performers, and iconic strangers.

the ISM.E clan: A matriarchal clan circa developing after the rise of the Absence, and instrumental in ETLOGEN's eventual spread as a street drug. Closely tied to the Anders, and to terroginist group WHOLE

  • 888ism.e: an elder of the ISM.e clan, curator of The OH Files
  • B4LKism.e: a member of the ISM.e clan, active in the ETLE_immersive
  • OSHEism.e: a member of the ISM.e clan, active in the ETLE_immersive

the FATH Company: A company with ties to the US government, the inventors and patent holders of the Reality Intensification Binder. Origins are unclear – may have evolved from the Familial Applications for Theoretical Hormones Institute, and then became a for-profit entity post-Absence. At one point, FATH may have contained a branch called the KAIROS Clinic for Temporal Studies. The FATH Company may grow into a governing force of its own depending on which timelines/plotlines you follow, and eventually develops a form of chronomultiplicity that is made accessible to men.

The Kairos Clinic: A branch of the FATH Company focusing specifically on the use of hormone therapy as related to reproduction and time, who pioneered the early developent of ETLOGEN and subsequently, the RIB

The 20h Lambs (more details HERE), 20 individuals who pioneered the rebel THIC's RIB Hack by sacrificing themselves to its early attempts

  • Mary F. Shelley: Codename MOTHERMAKER. The first woman to die in a RIB hack, former FATH employee who was on the team that invented Etlogen and subsequently invented the RIB as a means to control it. Eventually became a whistleblower on the company and disappeared, was assumed dead until her reappearance as the first casualty of an attempted RIB hack
  • Eva Rosemary Green: Codename HERMIA. The second person to die in a RIB hack, first woman to be institutionalized due to the Absence
  • Estelle H. Octavian: Codename BLOODCHILD. The third person to die in a RIB hack, Mercenary/WHOLE Activist
  • Sarah Byrde: Codename ARTEMIS. The fourth person to die in a RIB hack, scientist and Middle School Teacher
  • Rachel Jonesay-Butler: Codename RIPLEY. The fifth person to die in a RIB hack, theoretical mathemetician
  • Janet A. Russ: Codename MOCKINGBIRD. The sixth person to die in a RIB hack, inventor/scholar of cybernetics
  • Sara Kanter-Gould: Codename DIVINITY. The seventh person to die in a RIB hack, scholar of embodiment
  • Malala Abenzahi: Codename SOUNDER. The eighth person to die in a RIB hack, filmmaker, first super public death
  • Carrie M. Carson: Codename ANESCRAM. The ninth person to die in a RIB hack, lawyer/public defender
  • Dana M. Sterling: Codename FAUX. The tenth person to die in a RIB hack, doctor working in private security
  • Ladonna Heyway: Codename PROPHET. The eveventh person to die in a RIB hack, trans-absence activist, author
  • Theressa S. Elliot: Codename MISSING. The twelfth person to die in a RIB hack, fashion icon, ex pop star
  • Peggy M. Toad: Codename ATWOOD.The thirteenth person to die in a RIB hack, author of children's books
  • Beatrix Despentes: Codename SWOON. The fourteenth person to die in a RIB hack, outspoken queer celebrity
  • Virginia Amanda Welford: Codename VERYWOLF. The fifteenth person to die in a RIB hack, socialite
  • Ariel Ursula Leffing: Codename URSAR. The sixteenth person to die in a RIB hack, teacher/writer
  • Shula Mandala: Codename FIRESTARTER. The seventeenth person to die in a RIB hack, separatist/WHOLE activist
  • Alla Ngoa Adichie: Codename SPEAKER. The eighteenth person to die in a RIB hack, pro-absence feminist activist
  • Gemma Rey Stanbach: Codename CASSIDY. The nineteenth person to die in a RIB hack, mother
  • Virginie Benson-Borden: Codename KING. The twentieth person to die in a RIB hack, artist/activist
  • Amie Ohe: Codename ARCADE. The first successful RIB hack, sex worker