The Convolution

The Convolution is a character in The Glorious Championship.

Equipment/Abilities:
The first phase of the Convolution manifests subtly. Over a certain small geographic area usually one of the lower class, a spike in creative activity will lead to the development of new trends, styles, customs and slang throughout a minority of the population. People will find themselves coming, going, staying, and staying away, as they always have, but perhaps more pointedly.

In the second phase, the cultural shift becomes immediately noticeable. Ideas from within the Convolution space are broadcast or sent out, attracting new residents. Social and artistic activity within the space increases, and a distinct community forms. Shifting language styles create a noticeable divide between those within and those without, and solidarity leads to a decrease in tax revenue and school attendance. People passing through begin to become lost. Oddly enough, violent crime at this phase is at its absolute minimum.

In the third phase, solidarity and cultural pride become rampant. Violent crime rates return to pre-Convolution levels, and arrest rates skyrocket as tensions develop with law enforcement agencies. As educational attendance rates plummet, intelligence and political literacy rise sharply, and conception and birth rates rise to a reasonable degree. Everybody within the Convolution space at this point knows each other, and weaker connections with outsiders are severed. Stories are told, and some citizens are elevated to heroic status. In addition to the actual “hero” figures, those within the Convolution space speak of, and claim to have personally met, certain celebrities and community leaders who seem not to actually exist. Messages relayed from these phantom figures are likely to be direct messages from the Convolution itself.

Phases four through six, being the violent phases, are less well documented. Phase four is a simple series of surprisingly successful riots, drawing the attention of the community at large. In phase five, the borders of the Convolution space begin to spill over as outsiders react to the violence. Biology and geometry are both mutated within the convolution space, and the previously imaginary avatars of the Convolution manifest as community leaders (publicly, they can be seen trying to put a stop to the violence, though many argue that this is a front. In phase six, the “climax,” both the Convolution and its opposition have irrevocably changed from what they were previously, and a final battle, be it physical or political, is waged.

Phase seven is transmission. Phase six may end one of two ways. If the Convolution succeeds in taking over the host community, some time is allowed to pass for life to continue as usual, and for moderation to dig its roots into the new order. If the Convolution fails, a small percentage of the population venerates it in its martyrdom, and stories are passed from one to the other. Either way, a new pocket of Convolution inevitably arises.

The amount of time necessary for this process is highly variable. In a mid-sized human city, the time until phase 3 can be anywhere from three hours to three weeks. In insect communities, phase seven can be achieved in a matter of hours, and in fungal cultures, minutes. Astronomers have noticed certain Convoluted patterns within galaxies that have continued for millennia…

Description:
The Convolution is currently incarnated, in a sense, in a small purple badge with a yellow triangle on it. Transporting this badge will shift the consciousness of the Convolution, and if the badge is too far away to return itself to the hub (if, say, it has been teleported through a round transition), a new iteration of the Convolution will begin immediately. If the badge is destroyed, a new one will pop up; the Convolution cannot be killed simply through destroying any particular item, but by killing the ideas behind it.

The Convolution will, first and foremost, target humans or humanoids. Lacking that, it will go bigger or smaller or dumber or more abstract. It likes the color purple, it likes triangles, it carries certain radical notions of art and sex, and those are the only real constants between the aesthetic and artistic output of Convolution iterations. However, it picks up certain highlights of its previous iterations and transmits them, making each successive iteration slightly more bold and exotic than the last.

Biography:
The Convolution has been around since dyes were discovered, or since a young person first realized she was smarter than an old person. This was more recently than you’d think.