Shiny people

[Adelene]

Nothing to do with shiny people, nope. Ask about shiny people in a separate Spoilerland topic if you want the details :)

And here I am, doin' the thing. ^^

[Kappa]

<3

So: BEEs!

This came out of a conversation between me and Alicorn way back about a hypothetical breakroom in which the personifications of various universes chill out, swap funny stories, and acquire templates from the vending machine. We gradually decided that this breakroom is an actual thing, and Breakroom-Enabled Entities (of which there is at most one per universe) have certain abilities relating to their worlds - in particular, they can instantiate templates at the time and place of their choosing as long as it's feasible for that template to appear there with its core characteristics intact, and have a certain amount of control over the details of how metacausality shapes the world's circumstances to arrange for the new template instance. They can also know anything they care to know about their own universes and what goes on within them, and can enter the breakroom at will, either transporting their physical bodies there (if they have one - some don't) or perceiving/interacting with the breakroom and their mundane location simultaneously. Oh, and they are fully and entirely immortal; if they have mortal physical forms and those forms die, they persist as disembodied intelligences overseeing their worlds. I guess in theory if a universe died its BEE might go with it, but I don't think that's a theory we're going to see tested in Effulgence.

A universe with no BEE can gain a BEE, if some person from that universe comes to occupy a position of ultimate relevance to it, where the details of such a position vary widely from universe to universe; once someone is the BEE of a universe, however, they remain that universe's one and only BEE forever.

Callahan is the BEE of Materia. She deliberately instantiated a Bell and a Joker into her world, for reasons of her own that may or may not include "shits and giggles".

The BEE of Thilanushinyel is the Wild Magic... and an outlier instance of the Libby template. It instantiated Lissa with an eye to someday promoting her to cover all or some of its job, and may merge with her someday. Hence why Lissa is only partly shiny: she isn't a BEE, but she is arguably part of one.

The BEE of Downside is, of course, the admin. The powers of a BEE are virtually useless to her, because she can't instantiate templates unless someone has kids or otherwise produces new intelligent beings within her domain, and standard-issue Downsiders can't do that. In theory, though, somebody could come to Downside from another world (or a local dead person could use magic) to have children there, and she would be able to cause those children to be templates if they otherwise weren't going to be. I don't recommend requesting it, though, because as we all know the admin hates doing things.

[Shoal]

If Bells learn about BEEs do they form a goal to become a BEE if possible?

[Alicorn]

Bells would like at least one of them to become a BEE to test it out, but they can't all do it (in particular, obviously many of their universes already have BEEs). Of Bells, Chi might turn up in a Lissa-like capacity but nobody is definitely slated to outright BEEcome a BEE. Of other characters you've met, Matilda and Jane are possibilities but it will depend on how we play it.

[Anya]

Why Matilda?

[Alicorn]

In Wellspring, Matilda is the originator of the magic system, which is the sort of thing that can sometimes qualify you for BEE status, and we don't have another one designated for Wellspring already the way we do in some worlds.

[Tamien]

Jane? I'd think Milliways would be the BEE for Milliways, so I guess she'd be the BEE for Peace? That makes some sense, I guess, since she kindof embodies that universe's technology at the very least.

If Jane were a BEE, could she pick people up and put them down in the Breakroom? Could she put templates in universes other than her native/identified one?

[Alicorn]

Jane would be for Peace if anything. It's actually possible that BEEing would curtail her current multiversal reach, which is among the many reasons we might not do it.

Non-BEEs cannot enter the breakroom, is my current understanding, but I don't recall hammering it out explicitly with kappa. Template vending machine only delivers to your own universe. (Although templates can land in worlds without deliberate BEE intervention.)

[Kappa]

"Non-BEEs cannot enter the breakroom" is also my current understanding, so let's call it canon. :D

Also, re: being the BEE for Milliways - it's not possible to become the BEE for any world other than the one where you originated. And Milliways has a BEE, which is the same as the force that operates the door; Milliways regulars know it as the Landlord. No one has ever interacted with it directly; even Bar herself hasn't ever had what you could call a conversation with it. It is highly mysterious.

Rather than "template vending machine only delivers to your own universe" I'd be inclined to put it "you can only instantiate templates in the universe whose BEE you are", but it amounts to the same thing.

[AndaisQ]

Could you duplicate a template using the vending machine? I'm struck by the idea of Callahan spawning ten Bells of different species, guiding them to MU, and watching them bounce off each other.