Tasakeru

SUPPLEMENTALS #1: Dimensional Bleed

12 Aug 2011 3 Comments

by BHS in Supplementals Tags: dimensional bleed, japanese culture, supplementals

***Still working on the next chapter of The Voice of the Dawn, but meanwhile, here’s the first in what will be a series of short posts explaining various aspects of the Tasakeru universe. This information will generally be stuff that won’t fit on any of the About pages, so think of them as bonuses to reward your patience.***

- BHS
Dimensional bleed is name for a concept used to explain the similarities between our reality and the alternate reality in which Tasakeru takes place. Many people have asked, “If humans never existed on the other Earth, why do the sentients use Earth languages and names from human cultures?” This is a very good question, and one that goes frustratingly unanswered in a lot of talking animal stories.

It’s been stated from the start that Tasakeru takes place on another Earth, in a parallel reality to our own. In the context of the series, alternate realities occupy the same physical space, but on different dimensional planes. The human Earth and “other Earth” happen to be very close, dimension-wise… so close that ideas and elements of human culture can “leak” from one plane to the other. This effect is never directly recognized by the sentients of “other Earth”; all human influence would be unconscious at best. So, the in-universe reason the squirrel culture modeled itself after feudal-era Japan is because they’ve unintentionally tuned into our memories and knowledge of the place, like a radio picking up a weak frequency. That’s dimensional bleed in a nutshell.

Dimensional bleed also serves as an in-universe explanation for the use of Japanese and Latin as Old and New Standard, respectively (bravo to my readers who figured out the latter!) There’s a certain amount of translation convection involved, of course, but generally the languages are close enough to each other so as to make little difference.

So, to put it simply: human ideas have an effect on Tasakeru, but the characters aren’t aware of it.

To the Next Supplementals entry>>>