Specus Fiction
Specus Fiction is the authored world of a single-player role-playing game in development. People entrust their shared memory to personal devices and a network of archives. In this world, the agreed account of the past also determines the present: family ties, property and the layout of familiar places.
During a public rite, the protagonist’s sister removes herself from shared history. Her family no longer remembers her. He retains a connection through a paired instrument and begins searching.
Characters → key terms → events and rules of the world.
Characters
The story begins with a brother and sister. The other participants show who preserves memory, who checks records and who takes responsibility for a shared history.
The protagonist
Brother. Second observer.
- Action
- Receives Parallax Node B from his sister. After she disappears, he retains a record that contradicts the world and starts searching.
- What matters
- Recovering his connection to her and understanding the cost of restoring their earlier life.
The sister
Initiates her disappearance.
- Action
- Modifies Parallax, keeps Node A and exploits the naming rite to leave Active History.
- What matters
- Her purpose emerges through the investigation. Later, the protagonist meets two equally credible manifestations with different lived histories.
The archivist
Works with conflicting records.
- Action
- Helps compare testimony and preserve information that does not fit the shared history.
- What matters
- Understanding where contradictions come from and which conclusions the sources support.
The Keeper of Canon
Defends the stability of shared history.
- Action
- Proposes the Great Canonization: establishing one history on a large scale.
- What matters
- Stable families, law and memory. She has seen incompatible histories disrupt ordinary lives.
Canon Official
Leads the Naming Rite.
- Action
- During the Naming Rite, the official says the participant’s name aloud. The official’s Root Witness records the rite; that record carries extra weight.
- What matters
- Correct recognition of a person’s connections. This is the procedure the sister exploits.
The Corrector
A Canon official.
- Action
- Checks what a record means. In a separate episode, a family relationship can be removed from a meeting’s description while the observation itself remains.
- What matters
- Reconciling testimony with the current network. An official correction can benefit society and harm a person.
Characters are identified by their roles. These portraits are provisional visual interpretations for this introduction.
Shared memory
Every citizen carries a Witness, a personal AI device. With its owner’s permission, it records events and speech, recognises participants and preserves an account of what happened. Each record includes its source and degree of confidence.
For example, one person hands another a house key. The device can record the exchange, but that alone does not establish that the house was sold. A contract, other evidence and rules for interpreting it are still needed.
People, devices, archives and institutions compare their records. This process is called Reconciliation. A sufficient set of independent confirmations is a quorum. Canon is the combined system of memory, law and procedures.
Event
One person gives another a key.
Testimony
The device stores its interpretation.
Review and recognition
Records are compared with other sources.
A key changes hands. Several sources are needed to establish who owns the house.
Illustrative scene. OpenAI ImageGen, 2026. Not an in-game screenshot.SPECUS FICTION / DEVICE
Witness
Body, segments, index ring and interchangeable pins. Rotate the model and separate its parts to inspect the assembly.
- 01Body
- 02Four segments
- 03Index ring
- 04Central wheel
- 05Four pins
- 06Four round nuts
Drag to rotate · scroll or pinch to zoom
Names and recognition
A Name connects a person to family, work, property, promises and debts. These links allow other people and institutions to recognise a life as theirs.
During the Rite of Names, disputed links are publicly confirmed. An officiant names the person and devices record the event. The officiant’s Root Witness has particular authority within that ritual window.
The account of past and present supported by Canon is called Active History. The fictional rule is that changing it also changes material circumstances. For most people, the new history has always been the only one.
A person and their connections
Family · home · records · promises and debts
The officiant and participants confirm a person’s identity during the Rite of Names.
Illustrative scene. OpenAI ImageGen, 2026. Not an in-game screenshot.The sister’s disappearance
Before her turn, the sister gives the protagonist one of two linked instruments: Parallax Node B. She keeps Node A.
When she is named, she uses a prepared vulnerability in the Root Witness. The system cannot find the person it should confirm and proceeds to the next participant.
Active History changes. The parents’ memories, documents and family possessions now describe a life without a daughter. Everyone else continues an ordinary day.
The protagonist’s personal Witness accepts that history. Parallax keeps a record that contradicts it. The other node responds: the sister exists in another state of the world. He remembers her and can begin searching.
In the old photograph the siblings are children and their parents are younger. After history changes, the daughter is absent from the picture. The grown protagonist outside the photograph remembers her. This illustrates a change in family evidence.
Illustrative scene. OpenAI ImageGen, 2026. Not an in-game screenshot.The two Parallax nodes
Parallax consists of two nodes and a protected channel between them. Specialists use the official system to work with conflicting testimony.
The sister has modified it so that incompatible records can survive. Through the pair, the protagonist maintains a connection with another state of the world.
Each node stores Indexes: address records for a person, object, place or state. An Index helps locate a target. It does not establish that a person is the sole original version.
Node A / sister
Exists in an incompatible history.
Node B / protagonist
Keeps the record and receives a response.
Echo and Hold
A ruined bridge blocks the protagonist’s route. In an adjacent history, the same bridge is intact.
Echo makes part of the adjacent history visible or audible. The visible span cannot yet bear a person’s weight.
Hold temporarily adds physical support from that history. The current world stays in place. The protagonist can cross the intact span while the instrument maintains the connection.
When Hold ends, the temporary support disappears. Crossing the bridge does not make that version of the world permanent.
Current history
The bridge is broken. No crossing.
Echo
The span is visible but cannot bear weight.
Hold
The span supports weight. A crossing is possible.
The protagonist uses a span from another history. There is a limited time to cross.
Illustrative scene. OpenAI ImageGen, 2026. Not an in-game screenshot.Transition and Fixation
Moving into another state requires a known Index, an understanding of the conditions, a shared anchor and a completed procedure. The player works with possibilities authored for the story.
Transition changes the observer’s relative state. Fixation establishes an admissible state as Active History. These are related but distinct operations.
Changes affect biographies, relationships and rights. If a house belongs to another family in the new history, restoring its former owner affects people who have already lived a life there.
Hold
Temporary access to a fragment.
Transition
The observer enters a different state.
Fixation
A history gains shared authority.
Two families can hold evidence of a right to one house. Reconciliation determines which history will apply.
Illustrative scene. OpenAI ImageGen, 2026. Not an in-game screenshot.Traces and limits
A Remainder is a trace whose origin the current history no longer explains: a scar from an injury that never happened in that history, for example. Such traces provide evidence for the investigation.
An Anchor is a shared point between two histories: a person, object or place that exists in both. It helps compare states and perform a transition.
Coherence limits the duration of Hold. Overheating restricts immediate reuse. Divergence records the longer-term cost of preserving incompatible connections.
Remainder
The scar remains; the injury never happened in the current history.
Anchor
An object or place is identifiable in both histories.
Two versions of the sister
The protagonist finds his sister alive. She recognises him and remembers their childhood. For a while, her return seems complete.
He later meets another version of her. She also remembers her brother and has people close to her, work and obligations. Both know their private language: gestures, sounds and memories whose meaning belongs to the two of them.
Neither the instrument nor their shared language identifies an ‘original’. Each version has a lived life. Restoring one history changes relationships and authorship that belong to other people in the other.
Two possible biographies of one person. Both are internally coherent. The illustration explains the principle; the particular relationships and occupation are illustrative.
Illustrative scene. OpenAI ImageGen, 2026. Not an in-game screenshot.People and organisations
The protagonist seeks help from people who work with shared memory. An Archivist preserves conflicting testimony. A Keeper of Canon defends the stability of shared history.
Four organisations operate in this world. Their aims partly overlap, but they handle contradictions differently.
Reconciliation
Protects shared history, law and infrastructure.
Risk. May require incompatible testimony to be suppressed or removed.
The Nameless
Defend the ability to live without compulsory public identification.
Risk. Without a recognised Name, rights and long-term obligations become harder to protect.
Archive of Relative States
Preserves contradictions and studies different histories.
Risk. Research may turn a living person into experimental material.
Order of the First Form
Seeks recurring structures in memory, space and ritual.
Risk. Differences may be treated as distortions of the identified order.
What the Corrector changes
- Observation
- A woman met a man.
- Earlier record
- “The bearer met her son.”
- After correction
- “The bearer met an acquaintance; kinship is not confirmed by the current network.”
The observation remains the same. Its recognised meaning changes. An official correction can affect people’s relationships.
Places in the investigation
The search passes through several regions. Each confirms identity differently: through archives, relationships, routes or ritual.
Vesper Basin
Salt Steppe
First Mountain
Ash Observatory
Vesper Basin
The capital, archives and Rite of Names. Institutions and public records confirm identity.
Salt Steppe
Caravans and oral genealogies. A person’s route and relationships with fellow travellers carry weight.
First Mountain
Acoustic temples and research complexes. The origins of memory and ritual are investigated here.
Ash Observatory
A place where incompatible states converge and the Great Canonization is prepared.
The Great Canonization
The Keeper proposes establishing one history on a large scale. Her argument is practical: people need stable families, property, medicine and contracts.
The cost is closing off other admissible histories. People and relationships that have no place in the chosen account lose the possibility of recognition.
For the protagonist, this concerns his sister. Restoring his familiar life requires a decision about the changes he is willing to accept in other people’s lives.
Establishing one history on a large scale
Stability of shared life limits other possibilities.
Third Memory
In the game’s design, Third Memory preserves histories the player has actually come to know. After Active History changes, earlier records remain available for comparison.
The Observer is an interface to that memory. It helps distinguish an observed event, someone’s claim and a hypothesis. It can access only information known to the player.
The investigation can therefore continue after the world changes: the protagonist compares the present with preserved observations and tests new explanations.
Left: he observes the intact bridge. He then encounters another history of the same place. Right: he compares both records. The paper notebook is a visual metaphor for external memory.
Illustrative scene. OpenAI ImageGen, 2026. Not an in-game screenshot.Vocabulary
Short definitions with everyday examples. The drawings are schematic; these rules belong to the fictional world.
No matching term. Try another word.
Shared memory
- Witness
A personal device that records its interpretation of permitted events and speech.
Example. The handover of a key is recorded. A house sale still needs confirmation.
See it in the story ↑- Testimony
A record of an observation, with a source and a level of confidence. It can be compared with other evidence.
Example. A device recorded two people meeting; that alone does not establish a family relationship.
See it in the story ↑- Canon
The network of devices, archives, law and rites that supports a publicly effective history.
Example. A record, a contract and neighbours’ recognition help establish whose right to a house applies.
See it in the story ↑- Reconciliation
Comparison of conflicting testimony, relationships, documents and material traces.
Example. Two records name different owners. The system examines their grounds.
See it in the story ↑- Concordance
A sufficient level of agreement between records to support one Active History.
Example. Records of a family, its home and its obligations no longer contradict one another.
See it in the story ↑- Quorum
Enough independent testimony for a claim to be considered as a public fact.
Example. Several copies of one record do not replace independent confirmation.
See it in the story ↑- Active History
The version of past and present currently supported by Canon. In the fictional world, it also determines material conditions.
Example. After history changes, records and family possessions reflect a life without the sister.
See it in the story ↑- Name
A binding between a person and their family ties, rights, promises, debts and authorship.
Example. An institution uses it to identify whose contract or work it is.
See it in the story ↑- Rite of Names
A recurring public confirmation of disputed identity bindings in front of people and devices.
Example. A person crosses the threshold; the officiant names them and devices confirm the event.
See it in the story ↑- Root Witness
A device whose testimony receives special weight within a particular ritual window.
Example. During the rite, its confirmation affects the primary name binding.
See it in the story ↑
Parallax and states
- Parallax
Two connected nodes for working with incompatible testimony. The sister’s modification preserves a contradiction.
Example. The sister keeps Node A; the protagonist receives Node B. Their channel keeps them connected.
See it in the story ↑- Index
A record inside Parallax pointing to a person, object, place or state.
Example. It can locate a manifestation of the sister, without proving it is the original.
See it in the story ↑- Echo
Seeing or hearing a fragment of an adjacent history without physical contact.
Example. An intact bridge is visible but cannot yet support a person’s weight.
See it in the story ↑- Hold
Brief physical coexistence of compatible fragments from two histories.
Example. The protagonist uses an intact span while the connection lasts. The support then disappears.
See it in the story ↑- Transition
A change in the observer’s relative state after a valid procedure.
Example. The protagonist enters a different present produced by a different past.
See it in the story ↑- Fixation
Establishing another admissible state as the new Active History.
Example. The selected history takes effect for relationships and rights. Hold alone is insufficient.
See it in the story ↑- Remainder
A trace of an event that Active History no longer explains.
Example. A scar remains although the injury never occurred in this history.
See it in the story ↑- Anchor
A person, object, place or testimony identifiable as the same across two histories.
Example. A surviving threshold helps align two states of the same house.
See it in the story ↑- Coherence
The short-term stability between two states during a particular Hold.
Example. It determines how much longer the temporary span can remain accessible.
See it in the story ↑- Divergence
The observer’s accumulated incompatibility with Active History through preserved contradictions.
Example. The protagonist remembers relationships and events the current world no longer recognises.
See it in the story ↑
External memory
- Third Memory
A planned external memory that preserves several histories the player has actually learned.
Example. After the world changes, the earlier bridge record remains available for comparison.
See it in the story ↑- Observer
A planned interface to Third Memory, limited to information known to the player.
Example. Helps distinguish an observation, someone else’s claim and a personal hypothesis.
See it in the story ↑
About the project
Specus Fiction is a fictional world and a single-player RPG project. This page describes its premise and the rules guiding development. The illustrations show the intended world; they are not screenshots of a finished game.
Shared memory changing the world’s physical state, and communication between incompatible histories, are fictional assumptions of the project.
Edited 17 October 2026. Based on the project bible, World and Story, Gameplay Systems and Parallax, the CANON glossary and the Third Memory design.
Portraits and narrative illustrations were created with OpenAI ImageGen in a consistent black-and-white engraving style. Diagrams and visual symbols were prepared for this explanation. Character appearances and clothing are provisional visual choices.