Metacosm

In Vaestic metaphysics, metacosm is the translated technical designation for the infinite realms of Light and Dark, which exist outside and beyond the material world, in contrast with the mundane. Various other designators are also used, such as "transmundane", or loosely "infinite", though the latter term is ambiguous with mathematical infinity and discouraged in technical discourse (it is principally found in older, more poetic texts). The artificial incarnation of fragments and energy from the metacosm is a principal field of experimental metaphysics, taking place in metacosmic incarnators and in specialised fragment incarnation laboratories.

The transfer between matter and energy is interpreted as a transfer along a mass-energy conduit existing between the mundane and the metacosm, "realising" metacosmic energy. Matter may either "incarnate" or "become confined". For instance, the new fragments produced by the collision of two prior fragments are said to have incarnated; by contrast, the measured velocity of a fragment has "become confined" as a reflection from the metacosm, and its position will recess (the Principle of Transfinite Reflection). The contrast lies roughly in the direct alteration of the metacosm to produce new reflections, and manipulation affecting only the reflections themselves.

Metacosmic weaponry incarnates vast quantities of energy by manipulating the unstable reflections of particular fragments and composites, in effect acting as uncontrolled metacosmic incarnators. Experimental incarnation, referring specifically to incarnating souls, also depends on artificial manipulation of conduits to the metacosm, but in a less direct way. In popular Vaestic terminology, "spirit" is often used as a loose replacement for the more technical term "metacosmic", as in "spirit power" and "the spirit bomb". The metacosm plays an important part of the Vaestic cosmology, and is believed to be inhabited by sentient creatures known as Demons.