Alt Text Terms used in the 6578rnd1/2 and 6578Srnd simulacra.

- Aetherspace: is the unsimulated space that exists between areas of normal space. These regions allow immense simulated spaces to exist with little computational cost. Synonymous with Voidspace and Deus Somnium. The Aetherspace regions can be recognised by the absence of texture and light which is the reason astronomers refer to these regions as untextured space.

- A sense of self: is the awareness of a coherent stream of me impressions projected in the sphere of awareness (S.O.A.) from the ego disk and which form the ego. The self-illusion disappears when attention is directed elsewhere.

- Analogical model: a way of representing a complex system with a more straightforward system.

- Awareness: a sensitivity to a change in the environment which causes a behaviour change.

- Consciousness: is ordinary awareness. The term is entirely synonymous with awareness.

- Deus Somnium: is a Latin phrase meaning either "God of Dreams" or "God of Sleep" when translated to English. The phrase was adopted by the Church of Metaphysical Engineering to describe regions in space that are unsimulated. "Dei somnia" was also once utilised, but it is no longer commonly used. Synonymous with Voidspace, Aetherspace and Untextured Space.

- Distress: A highly distressed ego machine will attempt to move its Ocular Hose to the inner or foetal ego disk tracks. This is the ego machine equivalent of suicide because the disk engrams sustain damage and the mechanism can no longer function. Early mechanism would break the guard rail or the restraining cables in their eagerness to embrace oblivion. Synonymous with Suffering.

- Distress Index/Scale: is used by L99 simulation engines to terminate a simulation and is taken to be 15. The value comes from, now forbidden, Metaphysical Engineering research on early ego machines. Fifteen pounds was found to be the weight needed to counteract the force with which a highly distressed ego machine’s Ocular Hose exerts to reach the inner or foetal tracks. Early ego machines were physically prevented with guard-rails or cables which broke if not robust enough. A weighted average value based on age and distress (the force with which the Ocular Hose tends towards the central tracks) is periodically derived for each simulation.

- Dreams: are distortions of reality created by the ego disk. They are the sum of the thoughts we have about ourselves. Ego distortion is an inevitable consequence of ego machine design. Still, extremes are common where an individual’s perception of reality is too out of alignment to permit them to function normally. Such individuals are called delusional. Metaphysical Engineers at this time referred to the images observed in the S.O.A. during the machine’s downtime as dreams. The O.H. moves randomly over the ego disk surface, activating and re-encoding engrams (see Sleep). The S.O.A. projections tend toward the random and have been called ego machine dreams. Finally, the emissaries referred to simulacra as dreams in the late Nineteenth Century.

- Ego: a coherent core of me engrams documenting an individual’s journey through time and space from first to last breath. Synonymous with self.

- Ego-Disk: a rotating disk, commonly made of teslarite, stores engrams.

- Ego Machine: an analogical model of the human ego. It is a machine that creates the illusion of a self. It assembles an ego in the mental landscape.

- Emperor: The symbolic head of the Empire is traditionally on Sol’s third planet, though the Imperium is a network of star systems which exploit the etheric bonding properties of voidspace (Paracausal Twinship) to maintain a single entity spread over many star systems. The components of the original ego machine were made by The Emperor Irons Company which manufactured pots, pans, tools and household implements. The company was active in Earth’s late nineteenth century. The ego mechanism was originally nicknamed Moriarty but decided on Emperor when it noticed Emperor Irons Company Ltd. stamped into its metal.

- Encoding Arm (E.A.): writes S.O.A. projections onto the ego disk and searches the disk for matching engrams.

- Engram: a unit of sensory information stored on the ego disk.

- Enlightenment: recalling awareness before ego formation. The innermost ego disk tracks are the site of engrams made during this period. Enlightenment is a state of non-focused attention. It is the things of the world that cause us to focus. For a time, we forget the ego. Eventually, the things of the world and the S.O.A. projections claim attention, and we lose the enlightened state.

- Feelings: are a chemical interaction between consciousness and meat. The Victorian ego machines tried to simulate feelings with colour, imagery and poetry fragments. Synonymous with mood.

- Foetal awareness: awareness before the ego is often referred to as proto-awareness or proto-ego awareness. The goal of meditation. Also known as Enlightenment.

- Human consciousness: is awareness of the external world and an inner mental landscape containing an ego.

- L: refers to the level of a simulacrum within a hierarchy of simulacra. Typically, the numerical value is unknown, but L1 represents Prime Reality, the highest level with no simulacra above it. In discussions, L100 has come to represent an individual’s present level which is also the level the Emperor and the Church of Metaphysical Engineering accept. L101 traditionally denotes the simulacra generated by the Imperial Simulacrum Engines. LB signifies the level at which an individual was born.

- L99: is the level of the simulation hierarchy immediately above ours. We can infer many things about L99. The overwhelming presence of unsimulated space in our cosmos indicates that they have limited computational power. The presence of teslarite suggests they are fallible and can make and execute poorly thought out plans. Like us, L99 want to create simulations of their reality. We can therefore infer that we are made in their image, both physically and psychologically.

- Mappers: are autonomous mechanisms that create detailed planetary records and send the information to the Imperial Library. The first mappers were small intelligent recording devices sent into space in large quantities. They sailed through interstellar gulfs on light sails until they located a suitable mapping world. Nowadays, mappers are assembled on the worlds they are designed to record using printing mechanisms sent from the Empire long ago. These mappers are self-sufficient, well-adapted to the environment of the world, and possess sentience. Many are unaware of their origin or purpose, but they send recorded data back to the Empire through acts of worship in temples that are also assembled by the Printers.

- Me thoughts: are thoughts about what things of the world mean to the ego machine. They were stored only in the inner tracks. In Dorian, all Me thoughts were stamped with the Yin-Yang symbol. This increased the similarity between engrams and promoted a strong sense of self.

- Meaning: the ego machine has encountered a situation before—it has an engram record on the ego disk, close to the freshly encoded engram from the visual funnel.

- Mind: a catch-all for everything that happens in a human skull.

- Ocular Hose/Apparatus (O.H.): conveys impressions from engrams on the ego disk surface to the S.O.A. Victorian ego machine implementations attached the O.H. to the V.F. and the E.A.

- Pattern matching: is used by the ego machine to recall and organise ego disk engrams.

- Personality: are the typical ways a person interacts with the world of things.

- Printers: are mechanisms that are sent to other worlds by the Empire. Their purpose is to gather materials and await printing instructions. Typically, they construct mapping mechanisms using metals obtained locally, or more recently, using biological materials. Advancements in germ-plasm manipulation have enabled Printers to manipulate the local wildlife in order to carry out tasks such as mapping, gathering resources, and even building civilisations. It is important to note that Printers are not sentient, but they operate autonomously.

- Rift: is an area of unsimulated space discovered by H.M.S Albion in the late Victorian era.

- Self-awareness: See A sense of self.

- Simulacrum: something which behaves like something or mimics something, even though it is made of something else. Approximately synonymous with Simulation.

- Sleep: a periodic slowing down of the disk when the ego machine stands by for orders.

- Sphere of awareness (S.O.A.): provides a darkened area for a stream of ego impressions (foreground) from the ego disk and the V.F. to be projected on. Also, a microcosm of man in the Cosmos.

- Suffering: caused by early episodes when the loss of a toy was a catastrophic event. No distinction was made between a toy and the self. Recalling these early moments of ego diminution causes present suffering—also the need to reinforce the ego with the things of the world.

- Teslarite: (an amalgam of fused quartz, semi-precious stones and gold) is an artificial substance used to make ego disk engrams in 19th-century ego machines. Teslarite lozenges are an amber colour flecked with brass and gold. It is at the highly negative end of the tribo-electric series. After initialisation with an electric charge, a teslarite lozenge can record moving images exposed to monochromatic light. Subsequent exposure to monochromatic light recalls the entirety of recorded optical information. Depending on its purity, a tablet can register a maximum of ten seconds of visual data. The speed with which it retrieves recorded information is proportional to the monochromatic light intensity. Teslarite slides with duplicate optical data can act as polarising filters. In nineteenth-century ego disk implementations, they used this property to perform rudimentary pattern matching. Later developments allowed teslarite lozenges to be wiped with an electrical charge and used again.

- Untextured Space: is the term favoured by astronomers to describe unsimulated areas of the Cosmos visible by telescope. The simulation engines at L99 (the level above ours) economise on processing resources by leaving large swathes of the Cosmos unsimulated. The dark areas are the computational boundaries of the simulation beyond which is Voidspace, Aetherspace or Deus Somnium. Current estimates are that 90

- Visual funnel (V.F.): conveys visual and auditory impressions from the world of things to the ego disk.

- Voidspace: a region of unsimulated space. Originally used to refer specifically to the quality of space in the Rift but now synonymous with Aetherspace, Untextured Space and Deus Somnium.