here's my theory on how the radiocomputers in disco elysium operate:
the computers themselves have minimal or no real processing power. the feld tape experiment may have been the only actual computer in the setting. instead, computation is what happens when radio waves travel through the pale.
the pale is a hyperobject analagous to global warming, but with characteristics more like a black hole. when the material world interacts with the pale, like in the porch collapse, information is not destroyed, just compressed into the singularity-like nature of the pale. this includes the time dimension. the pale contains not just everything it has consumed in the past, but also it already contains everything it will consume in the future. it's a hologram. (maybe supposed to be what a black hole might look like from the inside?)
so, when the radio waves pass into it, they pass through all that information. and the "event horizon" or point of no return is said to be deep within the pale, well beyond the porch collapse boundary, or else interisolary travel wouldn't be possible. so the radio waves can safely bounce back from the pale after interacting with it and being changed by it. the pale is the thing doing the computation, but it probably functions more like a quantum computer; the pale already contains all possible answers, and by asking the right questions (i.e. sending the right radio waves), you can get them back.
fully possible there is something i missed that contradicts this theory but i feel like it fits with the general vibe of entroponetics
Where moralism seeks to freeze the present and make future and past the same—where fascism desires an impossible return to a past buried by the present—there communism recognizes a future to be built and actively created. The communist, as diamaterialist and inframaterialist, is engaged in the generation of the future, and the arrow of time can survive by their persistence.
The moralist, the nihilist, the fascist—they do not believe in the future, and this is what differentiates them from the communist. The former, as enemies of the future, are enemies of mankind. And the youth of communism, for their commitment to future-building, are the future itself.
okay. LONG post incoming. i have summarized all available information on the pale, separated into confirmed objective truth & in-canon speculation that may or may not be true, and then appended my own very detailed theory on the pale! this post is meant as a resource; please feel free to add things of your own in replies/reblogs (please tag me if you do!) or point out any errors i may have made. you’re welcome to use any of my personal theory in your own work but please credit me if you do!! (and tag me in that/send it to me, i really want to see what you do with it!)
Here’s what we *know* about the pale, according to in-game and concept art:
It erases data, at least the kind stored on radiocomputer filament and magnetic tapes.
It has no dimensions of its own- pale latitude compressors serve to force dimensions on raw pale and allow navigation.
The pale is referred to in the context of entropy
It arrived with mankind, but not immediately- there are 8000 years of written history, but the pale was first recorded 6000 years ago, implying that pale either didn’t start forming immediately or that it was so insignificant/distant that it went unnoticed for 2000 years.
There exists a group of people who are actively trying to expedite entroponetic collapse; the ideology is called entropolism
To this point, pale isn’t immediately visible. Pale has molecular structure, but manifests as a waveform, and only becomes visible at a certain distance from the origin, once wave frequency is sufficiently high.
During pale exposure, people experience “sense objects”: visual or auditory hallucinations and/or vivid physical recollections of memories. These hallucinations may originate from their own consciousness or someone else’s. c
People require physical and mental examinations before interisolary travel and are allotted a certain number of days per year as their pale exposure threshold.
Overexposure results in a pale “addiction”- these individuals crave pale exposure, and it’s unclear if this addiction can ever be broken. It’s also unclear whether there is a point at which pale exposure becomes lethal, but given that it dissolves matter, we can be fairly certain that a given length of continuous exposure will kill.
Radio signals, cold plasma torches and anodic sound are all used to manage the pale to permit travel through it. Plasma torches destabilize the molecular structure of the pale to create gaps, anodic sound widens and maintains these gaps, and radio signals rationalize the pale into recognizable dimensions.
Radio signals are, in return, susceptible to corruption by the pale, resulting in entroponetic crosstalk, where signals from the past or the future are transmitted to the present. CCP is one such phenomenon and is directly related to the formation of new pale through magpie interpretation.
There is a dedicated Union for people who work in and with the pale (the Pale Workers Union). They have two slogans; “The light purifies; The sound absolves; The pale no more” and “Son et Fureur” (sound and fury)
Here’s what we may choose to believe about the pale, based on the thoughts and beliefs of in-game characters:
In conversation with Soona, the pale is described as a “curdling milk” phenomenon: “repulsive, but natural”
In this same conversation you can theorize that the churches were meant to contain the pale origins; out of the seven churches, six were destroyed during the suzerain or the revolution
The phasmid and whatever other lifeforms it’s communicated with believe that entroponetic collapse is comparable to an oxygen holocaust (i.e. the great oxygenation event), implying mass extinction due to a toxic overabundance of sapient thought
Harry refers to it once by saying “The wolf is at the door. It’s going to eat the sun.” so take that as you will
It’s likely that Tiago’s “Mother” is some manifestation from the pale, if you choose to believe that the 2mm hole is in fact a pale origin point (the concept art does confirm it’s a pale origin, but the game offers other explanations, so I won’t say it’s the only answer)
Inframaterialists believe that revolutionary action (NOT thought) may create a counter-force that will prevent the spread of pale; it’s unclear if any reversal is possible.
The world will be fully consumed by the pale in 27 years (I put it here because you may or may not believe that shivers and harry are reliably sourcing this information)
And now my personal speculation about the pale:
A quick and easy point: it’s confirmed that the pale has a measurable EMF “exhalation” frequency that varies with proximity. Strong enough EMF pulses can actually tamper with magnetic storage- radiocomputer filaments! Electronics! Fortress Accident data loss! This gives us a tangible explanation for why pale can delete data :)
This may also explain its ability to cause radio interference- radio frequencies are just a subset of EMF frequencies, so it’s possible that pale exhalation on *just the right frequency* is what’s responsible for the entroponetic crosstalk we get on radios sometimes
The pale canonically has an atomic structure, but it also has wave properties, so it’s possible that the pale has wave-particle duality on its subatomic level, like photons do
Based on this, entroponetics is likely a very similar field to quantum mechanics, which might be an interesting source of ideas for anyone (like me) who wants to explore pale-related possibilities
The pale could be a manifestation of raw patterns. That’s why math “forces dimensions” on it- it rationalizes or “tames” the patterns, which allows it to be manipulated to a certain degree.
There are several references to the pale that refer to mathematical concepts and patterns, saying that the world dissolves into “a tangle of azimuths and cosines” as it blends into the interisolary pale- more on this later
Steban comments that the pale is commonly theorized to be nostalgia or “historical inertia”, but it’s largely agreed that it’s “the past” in a broad sense. Thinking about the idiom that history repeats itself, it could be that history/the past is part of the pattern that comprises the pale, and that it’s also the type of pattern most readily perceived by people (people don’t viscerally *perceive* math, for example, but we experience memories)
To first define entropy: Chemically speaking, “the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. (per encyclopedia britannica).” Physically speaking, it’s a measure of randomness or disorder in a system. Less work/less order = more entropy; it’s a physicochemical “winding down” of a given system
It’s commonly thought that pale is the entropic force, but what if it’s the opposite? (Keep in mind the chemical definition: less ability to do work = more entropy) Consider: the pale as less entropic, a cleanup force, recycling the potential lost by death and destruction in the universe. This in part explains why a dead person’s memory is present in the pale- their potential has been recycled into the pale in the form of their memories (their life’s *pattern*)
Enthalpy is a related concept to entropy and is defined as the total energy contained within a system. Holding the system enthalpy constant- saying the universe will always have the same amount of total energy, no matter what, according to thermodynamics- results in an entropic tug-of-war between the pale and the world. The pale wins through sheer inertia (again, inertia is mentioned specifically in game)
Overall: think of the world as “cooling”, losing heat and energy through war and death and complacency. Think of the pale as steam and heat, melting down old materials to start it all over again. (Kim says, *through entroponetic interference*: “it’s been a long, cold winter.”)
Consider: the pale as a sinusoidal function, eternally repeating. The pale recycling the universe to start a new cycle, “spending” itself, resulting in pale not being present in the beginning. Then, as the new things begin to settle- with the advent of the human mind, specifically- the pale reforming, slowly reclaiming potential, eventually ending the cycle to start again.
In comes CCP and magpies. Consider: CCP as a backwards transmission from the next “cycle” (after all, pale has no sense of time). Magpies as *pattern-sensitive* people who are able to decode CCP into something useful called novelty. They reach into the potential of the next cycle to build the potential in their current one- this paradox could be what creates more pale, because (and this is where it gets weird, I apologize) doing this retroactively increases the total amount of energy/work/potential in the current cycle to have been reclaimed by the pale for the next one.
Think of the pale as the compost bin for every single thought in the universe. The pale is the exact right size to compost every little atom and thought in the universe, and can hold nothing extra. But magpies reach into the future, the next cycle, and bring in extra. This paradox forces the pale to grow to accommodate the additional material, which also increases the starting potential of the next cycle. This process allows each cycle to accumulate minor changes from the previous one, which can snowball over many cycles.
Furthermore, to the inframaterialists’ point: revolutionary action would be such a radical shift in inertia that it would increase the potential in the world, forcing the pale to pause/shrink to “balance the equation” in terms of pale-vs-world thermodynamics. So maybe they’re right after all :)
And some diagramming, to explain the utter bullshit I’ve just dropped:
i was reading up on entropy for a writing project and thought "whoag this is just like the pale from DE" and then realized that the scientific field around studying it in universe is literally called entroponetics. thought canceled weve come a full circle
hello ms pizza could i perhaps procure that one lore graphic about the pale that someone at ZA/UM put out (the one with novelty and magpies and suchlike; I’ve searched all over and I can’t find it anywhere)
thank you!
Sure, here it is on its author's website! Author who was contracted by ZA/UM for (excellent) design stuff. I am, however, contractually obligated to point out every time that that specific theory would in fact appear to be bollocks. Or, rather, perfectly fine in-universe theory, as it purports to be, but it does not bear out in practice, looking at alllllll instances we know of of the pale expanding AND receding, and the thematic thrust of the worldbuilding overall. If anyone's itching for a solid deep dive into what pale expansion might mean, I would strongly recommend Ghelgheli's article here:
"Yes, everything is possible for this world."
Alternatively, last I heard we have it on good authority that the pale "is and is not the blood of the void" so there's that I guess.
i got this shivers check - not for the first time, but for some reason this time it really struck me how shivers is essentially entroponetic crosstalk, but in harry’s head
Is anyone else completely and totally enraptured with The Pale and entroponetics?? That entire discussion with Joyce had me so fascinated -- and then the church, and Soona, and The Swallow? There’s so so little that we know about it, and it takes a psychic conversation with the Insulindian Phasmid to even learn that it arrived at the same time as human life did. I want to know more. I want to know e v e r y t h i n g about it.
Where did it originate? Why? It’s expanding, but at what rate? What happens to organic and inorganic matter if it’s left in the Pale long-term? Why does it erase data? How? I need more. Does it spread sporadically, with little Swallows appearing, or is it like a blanket being pulled over the area? Can humanity survive the Pale? Are there people still living there, or is it a blight (maybe like the Shadow Fold in Shadow and Bone)?? I need to know more.
I am so obsessed with it that I literally have the Pale and Swallow concept art printed out and hanging on my wall. If they released these as actual prints I’d literally buy it so fast. Or even like an entroponetics textbook. Hell, I’d buy and play an entire game dedicated to discovering the Pale and its origins and what it does/is/quantifying it in some way. It’s so genius and I am obsessed.
