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The Guardian thread has been derailed by this topic. To understand our position, we need to understand how the reality and fiction interact, and that would mean creating the metaverse model. Mind you, we are staying within the Echo Chamber canon, so don't go too wild.

Those who discussed that in the guardian thread, please, repoost.

Here is my model. Basically, every world has its own fictional world connected to it, separated by the Void. The void has one, too. And so do the fictional worlds. Every world is able to manipulate its underlying fictional worlds by writing fiction. The opposite is impossible. I'm still not sure whether or not the void can be manipulated, and how can we affect the wall.

MODEL UPDATES:
Version 2 - added crossovers and stuff
Version 3 - added the RL perspective

My original theory that started this:

Theory: Mr A is incapable of creating things such as stories and characters for a very specific reason. According to my theory, all beings can be defined in relation to the fourth wall. We, for instance, as in the actual people behind the computers, can be defined as completely in reality. Characters like Amuro Ray or the Cat can be defined as fully fictional, regardless of where they currently are. Mr. A is neither of these things. He exists at a third point: the great white void. He lacks the ability to create fiction that those on this side of the wall posses, and cannot be effected by fiction created by those on this side, like other fictional characters can. This can even be extended to the recursive view of the fourth wall from Echo Chamber involving shows within shows. Every one of the infinite permutations of reality and fiction seems to have it's own fourth wall. Those to the 'reality' side of that wall, can create fiction that appear on the 'fictional' side of the wall. As long as you are on the reality side, you can effect fictional sides infinite levels below you (Theoretically), just as authors of a show can control the Show Within A Show inside of it.

EDIT: Also I don't think Joe is a god of some kind. Actually, I think it's the opposite. Mr. A chose him because he is average, not despite it. After all, average people are really the easiest to manipulate. Too smart, and they have an annoying tendency of catching wind of your plans, too dumb and, in the words of a certain pirate, "You can never tell when they are about to do something incredibly... stupid."

Actually, the point of my theory was that Mr. A is a completely separate type of being precisely because he doesn't seem to have a fictional layer to control. He appears to exist solely in the void, which occurs at every point where there is a wall between reality and fiction, likely all at the same time. The Void is unique in that it appears to be completely free of the ideas of Fiction and Reality. For instance, if someone created a story about the void/set in the void, it would not actually affect he void, but generate an inferior copy of the void on the fictional side of the fourth wall. Get it?

Still not sure I like the idea of a fictional reality for the void. Just don't see why there would be one. It seems to me that Mr. A creates all of his fiction by inducing others to do it for him. This method actually allows him control over both sides of the wall in the Metaverse model.

EDIT: Also, not sure if I was clear on this or not, but I think that all of the voids are the same thing. They seem to exist outside of the boundaries of reality and fiction.

It may be a mistake on my part, but I just assume Mr. A to be human, which leads to him being able to write fiction, which has to go somewhere. Can't help it.
UPD: Summoning the EC canon, I may say that the voids are not quite the same. The Mr. A's instantiations have to actually spread out between them to start their retconning job. So we see that the Administrators can move between the voids in the underlying fictional worlds. That much I can tell.

He seems to be some kind of collective actually. From what I've hear and seen I think that while he is very similar, in both appearance and thought patterns to a human, his nature is something much different.

Dryunya wrote:UPD: Summoning the EC canon, I may say that the voids are not quite the same. The Mr. A's instantiations have to actually spread out between them to start their retconning job. So we see that the Administrators can move between the voids in the underlying fictional worlds. That much I can tell.

That was the point I was getting at. All of the voids are similar in nature, and therefore are inhabited by Mr. A and his instantiations. This model would also explain quite nicely what Mr. A uses infinite copies of himself for. He probably needs them to cover the infinite instances of the void.

Ok, not exactly human, but still. He can think, that means he can come up with ideas. Ergo, he can write fiction (if there is anything to write on ). Besides, I don't think his fictional world is that important, as it doesn't influence our world in any way. We might as well remove it from the model because of that.

And to get the idea about Mr. A's area of influence, we need to know 2 things:
1. Which void he originates in.
2. To what extent he can manipulate the reality above him. He can, in the very least, communicate with people.

For me he is made both of fiction and reality. Therefore, he can't do much on any, he has to physically interfere or gather people to do so. But enven then, maybe all he can do is to interfere here, because of the Space-Time Rules or Destiny a.k.a. Canon here and there.

Dryunya wrote:Ok, not exactly human, but still. He can think, that means he can come up with ideas. Ergo, he can write fiction (if there is anything to write on ). Besides, I don't think his fictional world is that important, as it doesn't influence our world in any way. We might as well remove it from the model because of that.

And to get the idea about Mr. A's area of influence, we need to know 2 things:
1. Which void he originates in.
2. To what extent he can manipulate the reality above him. He can, in the very least, communicate with people.

A good point about his fictional world being unimportant. I probably should have realized that.

I don't think that which void he originates in is that important. Basically, the answer could go a number of different ways, but all of them would turn out the same for us.

First: Which void he originates in doesn't matter because, for him, travel between voids is not a problem. He can move up and down at will.

Second: As you seem to be assuming, he cannot move higher that the void he originates from, but seeing as he can reach the void directly placed between our reality and fiction, it still doesn't affect us. If he originates from there, then he cannot move higher (if there is a 'higher' to move to) but we can't either, so it's moot. If he originates from somewhere higher up (Again, same condition) then he can reach this level easily enough, but we cannot go higher up, so it's still a moot point.

Also, as far as I have seen/heard, Mr. A has never directly manifested himself in reality. For the moment, we should operate under the assumption that that is his limit. (Meta:How would an ARG handle that manifestation anyhow?)

In any case, I need to leave for an hour or so, so the theorizing is up to you. Mr. A should show up sometime soon, so be ready to greet him if he decides to de-lurk.

Sicon112 wrote:Also, as far as I have seen/heard, Mr. A has never directly manifested himself in reality. For the moment, we should operate under the assumption that that is his limit. (Meta:How would an ARG handle that manifestation anyhow?)

In any case, I need to leave for an hour or so, so the theorizing is up to you. Mr. A should show up sometime soon, so be ready to greet him if he decides to de-lurk.

Maybe Mr. A can't manifest in our reality.

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but the Metaverse would be as vast as human imgination so as long as there are people to create fiction the Metaverse will have infinite layers.

Beings inhabiting the void can definitely communicate with beings in reality. From the way Mr. A handled the guardians, we can assume he can influence beings in the universe of fiction, too.

One question I still have is where the fourth wall fits into this. Does the void encompass the fourth wall, or is the void part of the fourth wall? Or is it separate? Mr. A's provided email address is oneabovethewall, which implies that, somewhere, there is an actual embodiment of the metaphorical fourth wall, and that Mr. A stands on it. In "Mind Screw" he said "WE WILL MAN OUR STATIONS ALONG THE FOURTH WALL." It seems that the fourth wall can be accessed from the void. It's just not clear how. Or which side.

narrativedilettante wrote:Beings inhabiting the void can definitely communicate with beings in reality. From the way Mr. A handled the guardians, we can assume he can influence beings in the universe of fiction, too.

One question I still have is where the fourth wall fits into this. Does the void encompass the fourth wall, or is the void part of the fourth wall? Or is it separate? Mr. A's provided email address is oneabovethewall, which implies that, somewhere, there is an actual embodiment of the metaphorical fourth wall, and that Mr. A stands on it. In "Mind Screw" he said "WE WILL MAN OUR STATIONS ALONG THE FOURTH WALL." It seems that the fourth wall can be accessed from the void. It's just not clear how. Or which side.

I think that we should think of a way of giving a finite size for the wall, the void, reality and fiction. Trying to think with measures beyond what the normal mind can understand seens really hard.

Lordxana0 wrote:Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but the Metaverse would be as vast as human imgination so as long as there are people to create fiction the Metaverse will have infinite layers.

I'll throw a curve ball here. If we assume the full metaverse has infinite layers, by the definition of the model that each fictional universe has his own fictional counterpart. Then, what are the odds that OUR universe is the first one in the chain?

Assuming it is not, then we have an upper layer to which WE are the fiction, meaning we could very well be the fictional characters escaping that are escaping to the (upper) real world.

NeverSlender wrote:Maybe Mr. A can't manifest in our reality.

I'm pretty sure he cannot. He was never seen outside the void.

Sicon112 wrote:Second: As you seem to be assuming, he cannot move higher that the void he originates from, but seeing as he can reach the void directly placed between our reality and fiction, it still doesn't affect us. If he originates from there, then he cannot move higher (if there is a 'higher' to move to) but we can't either, so it's moot. If he originates from somewhere higher up (Again, same condition) then he can reach this level easily enough, but we cannot go higher up, so it's still a moot point.

Uh-uh-uh! If he can move higher than our layer, he can manipulate the people in those realities to retcon us, or something. That means he has some supernatural control over our realm. Which he, by the way, does not seem to have. Hmm, I think we have found his origin point.

Sicon112 wrote:In any case, I need to leave for an hour or so, so the theorizing is up to you. Mr. A should show up sometime soon, so be ready to greet him if he decides to de-lurk.

What? I can't possibly do that. I don't even have a clear model, and I doubt he would help us on this subject. Not to mention greeting him - too much pressure!

Wasn't one of the reasons Mister A started Echo chamber to merge fiction and reality. If they were merged he might be able to get out of the wall and then we would have to be worried.

Not really. He wanted to introduce the tropes into the EC's casts's lives, and (according to the Word Of God) eventually to make them fictional. I don't see how it would compromise the real world. On the other hand, ... that's pretty confusing.

This forum sucks. It doesn't have a tinfoil hat emoticon this situation calls for.

Dryunya wrote:Not really. He wanted to introduce the tropes into the EC's casts's lives, and (according to the Word Of God) eventually to make them fictional. I don't see how it would compromise the real world. On the other hand, ... that's pretty confusing.

This forum sucks. It doesn't have a tinfoil hat emoticon this situation calls for.

Just Echo Chamber? Not the rest of reality? Gotta say, that puts everything in a completely different light for me. o.o

IIRC, one of the instantiations told A-Prime that "The Echo Chamber experiment was a partial success". Partial as in "there are actual tropes in their lives now, but the cameraman left, and we can't go on without him".

"The Echo Chamber experiment was a partial succes."

Experiment. Practising for when he wants to merge fiction and reality on a larger scale?

I've had a model similar to this one in my head ever since Mr. A mentioned Dana and Tom on every layer in Echo Chamber. Thus I'll be using Dana and Tom as an example.

So, imagine that Layer 0 is our reality - the one where the real Dana and Tom live. Separated by the Fourth Wall (and the void within it) from the universe below. That universe - Layer 1 - is the one where Echo Chamber, where the Tom and Dana that we see on the show reside: the world of fiction, where Mr. Poirot and our fluffy friend presumably come from.
Now, beneath Layer 1 is Layer 2, where the in-universe Echo Chamber webshow-within-a-webshow takes place, featuring even-more-fictional Tom and Dana. This layer, as you can probably assume, contains fiction from Layer 1 (where Layer 1 contains fiction from Layer 0). The arrow at the bottom indicates that the cycle goes on forever.
But at the top we have Layer -1, a layer that is, for lack of a better term, "more real" than our reality. We are the fiction of Layer -1, which is in turn the fiction of Layer -2 (not depicted as it wasn't necessary), in turn the fiction of Layer -3, and so on. No end in either direction. No one layer is the most real or most fictional; it's like an endless staircase, constantly going down without having a top step.

However, I recognize some possible problems with this model, mainly what I call "competing realities." Take, for example, the fictional universes of "Doctor Who" and "A Sound of Thunder." These two pieces of media have vastly different forms of time travel in them ("A Sound of Thunder" having a timeline that can be changed by the smallest of things, "Doctor Who" having rules that change on the situation, sometimes creating stable time-loops and sometimes breaking all of reality) that could not be reconciled within the same universe. This would imply different universes within one layer, which my model doesn't account for. And then you have "Doctor Who" and "EastEnders," which have both referenced each other as being fictional, despite theoretically being on the same layer.

In short: Wibbly-wobbly, fictiony-wictiony.

Your model is basically a subset of mine. I would argue with the bit that there is no highest point, though. If there wasn't any, Mr. A could manipulate our reality, as it is higher layer's fiction. Unless, of course, we simply don't notice these manipulations. But I believe it's turtles all the way down, and we are at the highest point. It's easier to follow. Occam's razor, you know.

Good point. I didn't think about Mr. A manipulating fiction. It's been a while since I watched Echo Chamber (then again, I watched "Mind Screw" rather recently, so I have no excuse).

So, let's think of Layer 0 as the top, then, as you guys have been (I really should have payed more attention). That still leaves the problem of competing universes. I mean, "Doctor Who" and "A Sound of Thunder" existing on the same layer makes sense as long as you imagine separate universes on one layer, but what about "DW" and "EastEnders?" How can they be mutually fictional to each other while existing on the same layer?

Again, we are coming back to my model. Mine has a completely opposite problem: its universes do not intersect. I made each layer of the fictional world divided by franchises (that's probably not the correct word to use here, but whatever). I think that bit needs to be changed, but I have no idea how.