Three phase states are published. Stable Reality is the site as it agrees to be: physical barriers are coherent and lighting is stronger. The ASCII Void is the degraded signal underneath it: selected barriers lose collision and visual noise increases. The Black Annex is a captive sub-space where the phase is refused.
The suit's Resonator Core shifts an Operator between the first two. Nodes are commonly sealed behind Stable Reality bulkheads and reached through the Void.
The coherence economy
In a standard Mark VII core the Void is where the charge is made and Stable Reality is where it is spent. Phase-shift energy bleeds away in Stable Reality and recovers in the Void, faster within reach of a Transmit Node. The cost of returning is paid on the way out of the Void.
The combat Resonator Core issued for the armed response is rated for phases of a second or less, too short for the Void to charge it. It charges in Stable Reality and from each entity put down, which the field manual calls the reverse of a standard Mark VII core.
Phase stress
Repeated transitions stress local coordinates and can admit an additional external threat into an area already cleared. Coming back to Stable Reality, the lattice cannot hold an operative and what it passed through at one coordinate, and they rupture. A Stalker, being Agency hardware, does not.
SANITY does not read the phase
Identity coherence is a separate gauge from phase energy and does not depend on which state an Operator is in. Neither state is safe for a mind. See SANITY.
See also
Records cited
- LP-MAN-1993-S7, section 2, Phase states
- Critical Response field manual, FIELD