Paracausality

Paracausality is a term used to refer to forces, beings and abilities that defy the conventional laws of physics.

Overview

Paracausality is described as "an intervention in reality from outside, parallel to causality." Golden Age science defined paracausality as "a correlation...between events with no plausible causal relationship under closed monist physics, but a plausible relationship under another conceivable system of cause and effect."

The best-known examples of paracausality are the Light and Darkness, two cosmic paracausal forces which have existed since before the beginning of the universe. Both of these forces are wielded by the Guardians of the Last City, and they have individually been used to varying degrees by other beings across time and space. Each force has been seen to manifest itself in a variety of "elemental" forms, with the Guardians wielding Solar, Void and Arc Light alongside Darkness in the forms of Stasis and Strand.

History

Origins of Paracausality

"Once upon a time,* a gardener and a winnower lived** together in a garden.***
* It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun.
** We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes.
*** It was the field of possibility that prefigured existence."

— Unveiling: Gardener and Winnower

According to the Lore Book "Unveiling," which is seemingly narrated by the Darkness itself, both the Light and the Darkness have existed since before the start of time, and thus before the universe came into existence. Being unbound by the laws of causality, neither the Light nor Darkness can be said to have a beginning. Rather, they are emergent properties of even more fundamental "mathematical structures" that underlay reality itself.

In the allegorical story in the Lore Book, the Darkness and Light occupied themselves by engaging one another in a game, analogous to a vastly more complex version of the "Game of Life" devised by Earth mathematician John Conway. This game would consistently arrive at an end-state dominated by a single, self-perpetuating pattern, which subsumed all others in the game. The Darkness found this to be a pleasing outcome, but the Light felt the pattern to be boring and desired that the game endlessly produce novel patterns instead. To promote this novelty, the Light transformed itself into a new "rule" within the game; the Darkness did the same, to counteract the Light's efforts. These new rules were "set aside" from the other rules of the game, so that they could not be limited or influenced by them, but could manipulate the other rules to bring about their intended outcomes.

While the story above is laden with metaphor and open to interpretation, it appears to suggest that the universe is the "game" that the Light and Darkness played in the garden, that the rules of the game are the laws of physics as they are commonly understood, and that the "new rules" that the Light and Darkness became are the basis of paracausality. Unveiling also mentions that the garden was inhabited by "worms" and "insects" that fed upon "what was and what might be", which later escaped into the universe; this may refer to the Worms and Ahamkara, which are both ancient species of paracausal creatures that base their existence on the Anthem Anatheme.

The Ancient Past

Though their origins remain unknown, the Traveler and the Veil are two of the oldest known paracausal beings in our universe, having existed for billions of years.

Various species of intelligent beings across time are recorded as having encountered or made use of paracausal forces. The precursor species that became the Witness were the first known beneficiaries of the Traveler and its Light. Later species visited by the Traveler included the Harmony, who also had a relationship with the Ahamkara. Conversely, the Ecumene and the Qugu were attuned to the Darkness and used it for a variety of purposes.

Examples

Light

• Arc
• Solar
• The Traveler
  • The Pale Heart
  • Ghosts
    • Lightbearers
      • Guardians
      • Lucent Brood
  • Shard of the Traveler
• Void

Darkness

• Deepsight
• Stasis
• Strand
• The Veil
  • The Witness
    • Disciples of the Witness
    • The Dread
    • Black Fleet
      • Nightmares
    • Worm
      • Hive
    • Taken

Other species/races

• Ahamkara
  • Scorn
• Awoken

Miscellaneous

• Prismatic
• Echoes
• Sword Logic
• Final Shape
• Anthem Anatheme
• Black Heart
• Tree of Silver Wings
  • Seed of Silver Wings

Trivia

• Throughout the game, there has been an established difference between Paracausal and Acausal. Para- is a prefix meaning "beside; adjacent to", while causal refers to the physics of cause and effect. Paracausal is not the same as acausal, which is the opposite of causality with the Greek prefix a- ("not, without"). Paracausal thus means the Light and the Darkness obey physics which ignore or sidestep conventional cause-and-effect systems.

• Before its use in Destiny, the word 'paracausal' was coined at least twice, once in a 1970 study of belief systems in Aboriginal children and once in Christopher Bennet's 2011 Star Trek novel Watching the Clock. It has since appeared in the roleplaying game Lancer and other science fiction media as shorthand for a system of non-physical causality.

List of appearances

• Destiny (First appearance)
• Destiny 2
• Hidden Dossier (Mentioned only)