The Fringe

The Fringe refers to outer edges of perceivable existence; a place where events from the past and future pass into probability and potentiality to become only fractionally real. It is a liminal, Schrödingerian space in which events are not entirely certain and exist in multiple simultaneous versions. Situations relegated to The Fringe have still invariably happened, but it becomes anyone's guess when, to what degree, or to what what extent they affect central reality. A healthy universe has a small Fringe and is not typically influenced by its presence.
Due to the ceaseless actions of large scale, high Caliber beings, the PT universe has had to contend with all manner of alterations, distortions, and retcons. This existential abuse has resulted in frayed timelines and phantom scenarios, particularly when the act of one powerful being is in direct contradiction to another. As situations are re-organized, backstories are changed, meanings befuddled and plots wiped backwards or forwards through time, The Fringe grows to encompass the ruined remains. Between 1992 and the present day, both The Writer and The Director have made use of The Fringe to store unwanted history and even reduce the potential development of an undesirable outcome. Unfortunately, this wreaks havoc on lower calibers, as a large Fringe space exerts constant gravitational pushes and pulls on the "pure" timeline they use to understand the world in which they live. The Fringe is not a true obliteration of a concept, but a dilution of that concept into others and a loss of solidification towards what that concept embodies. As such, things within it are mutated, mutilated, desiccated, and eroded, but not destroyed; they become echoes of memory no one can quite place, but continue to remember nonetheless.
Many PT events have been lost to The Fringe, making a complete chronological timeline difficult and reducing the accuracy of all archived data on the given subjects. This includes information regarding The Voices, Noreply, and a place Down the back. It also includes vestigial timelines such as the one where a collection of people named John invented most elements of the universe and the one where Reagan slowly consumed DC.
It is hypothesized The Symbol may create alterations by "fully realizing" the surrounding Fringe space. A less popular hypothesis theorizes The Symbol and The Fringe are the same basic concept, but in wildly different forms.
Category:Phenomena
Category:Neutral