Icathiria

Icathiria (pronounced /ɪkəˈθɪriə/) is a universe many of the species in which seem to have been drawn from other universes, presumably by unknown entities referred to as the Stagehands. This process still continues, with more creatures apparently being somehow transported from their home universes to Icathiria. Whether, in fact, Icathiria has any native life at all remains in question; it's conceivable that all life in Icathiria was originally brought there from elsewhere—including the Stagehands, who some believe actually created the entire universe of Icathiria.

Evidence

A number of separate lines of evidence suggest that Icathiria is a universe separate from the home universes of some, if not all, of its inhabitants. One of the most obvious is the fact that a few of its inabitants remember their previous homes. These newcomers make up an extremely small fraction of Icathiria's inhabitants, but there are still enough of them to make some assumption of shared delusions problematic, especially given that those of similar origin independently agree on many details. Furthermore, some of these newcomers are scientifically knowledgeable to be aware of certain details of their own universe which do not hold of Icathiria. Some human newcomers, for instance, know that the universe they're from is expanding. Icathiria, however, seems to be in a steady state; if there's any expansion or contraction, it's too small to measure. Other intelligent species of Icathiria claim different rates of expansion for their home universes, which suggests different universes of origin.

Nevertheless, some have proposed other explanations for these facts—either that the universe is uneven, that the supposed newcomers have had false memories implanted, or that creatures are brought from different times rather than different places, among other proposals. Some of these ideas have found significant appeal, but the theory that the inhabitants are brought to Icathiria from different universes remains very strongly the majority view.

Cosmography

Despite its possible (but dubious) artificial origin, Icathiria's contents and known layout are much the same as those of a conventional universe. It contains galaxies similar to those in other universes, likewise arranged in groups, clusters, and attractors. Within each galaxy are normal stars, many orbited by normal planets. Nebulas, quasars, and other familiar celestial features appear in Icathiria in about the same frequency as in other universes.

One unique feature of Icathiria, however, is the so-called warpholes, distortions in space that convert otherwise distant points. Some warpholes connect areas between which no other connection has been found; although there's some speculation that these warpholes connect areas in entirely different universes (and that therefore Icathiria isn't a single universe after all), it could also be that they simply connect points so distant that no one has yet found a conventional route from one to the other.

Clarke Chambers

The most obvious relic of the Stagehands is the strange structures that have come to be called Clarke chambers. Though they come in various sizes, all Clarke chambers have exactly the same shape, that of a five-sided pyramid with a doorway on one face. Clarke chambers are scattered all over Icathiria, mostly on the surfaces of astronomical bodies, though they're as likely to be found on a lifeless moon as on a populated planet, and some have even been found floating free in space.

A Clarke chamber has some sort of effect on anything entering, but the exact nature of the effect varies from chamber to chamber. In fact, it may vary for a given chamber depending on various factors—some Clarke chambers always have the same effect, but others vary cyclically over time, or depending on certain characteristics of the entering object, or, in a few cases, seemingly at random. In any case, Clarke chambers have a very wide variety of possible effects, including many possibilities that are totally outside the capabilities of current technology (though apparently not outside the capabilities of the Stagehands). Clarke chambers can change the shapes or substances of their contents, or alter their sizes, or give living creatures that enter them inexplicable powers. The exact alterations produced by known Clarke chambers are likely to be known to local residents or documented by certain record-keeping bodies, but anyone running across a previously undiscovered chamber can determine its effect only by putting something inside and seeing what happens.

Like so much else about the Stagehands, their reasons for creating the Clarke chambers remain unknown.

Life

Icathiria contains a wide diversity of lifeforms, apparently collected from many different universes. While many planets have their own unique ecosystems, however, there a number of intelligent species which have spread over wide regions of Icathirian space (and have taken some unintelligent species with them). Humans are among these species, but are matched in number and influence by many others. The apparently most technologically advanced Icathirian species, next to the Stagehands themselves if they're still around, is the ach-chaiche, a sluglike organism covered with eyes and tentacles that is capable of creating artificial organisms. The zaheidi merit mention as forming the largest single-species government body in the universe, the Zaheidi Empire. Zaheidi keep themselves constantly encased in metal armor, so their natural appearance is unknown. There are even a few species of Icathiria that seem to be descended from prehistoric animals of Earth, suggesting that the Stagehands have been at their abductive business for many millions of years: the trimmy seems fairly clearly descended from Palæogenic giant avians, while the etasen's ancestry is more uncertain, though its genetic code seems to give it away as Terran in ancestry.