Aether Web

The Aether Web or AWE, is a term used by the Dalmer to describe the virtual interconnected link shared by all Dalmer of the Empire.

The Aether Web is a form of virtual interconnectivity, where most of a dalmers’ every day administrative, social, entertainment and economic needs are fulfilled. The Web in itself is a system of interconnected mainframes, fixed, and wireless devices using data streams allowing for an incredible number of uses. The Aether web can be accessed by any Dalmer with an access provider, whether it is supplied by the government or via a private enterprise.

## Origins

The Aether Web was deployed during the end of the Cold.

The Aether web was one of the methods used to gather the majority of the Dalmer to the High King during the Cold before the reformation of the Empire. The High Kings instructions to his subjects were very specific concerning the deployment of the network. The locations of the Royal Capitals were specifically chosen among other things for the purposes of the aether web.

Each one was raised up purposefully to form a vital nexus in a continent-spanning Aether web, an interlinked matrix system of interconnected computer networks that would encompass the Dalmer Empire. Each site was linked to the next and the Dalmer were able to draw upon this vast reservoir of information and energy to manipulate untold devices and machines of great power.

The citizens of Dalmeran were also able to tap into the Aether web, and with its energies they could further aid the unknowable plans of the High King. So long as each link remained connected to an inputer, they could be used to telepathically communicate with one another over vast distances, using the formidable ability known as the Calling (a mandatory implant that grants wireless access to imperial networks). By entering specific domains of the Aether Web, the Elected Kings could communicate with ease, citizens could trade, hold councils and forums to share their ideas, thoughts, inventions, form associations, access warp networks, and countless other uses.

Some Dalmer claim the Web was created by the High King in order that he may use every one of his people as his eyes and ears in the world. While governments and corporations using the Aether Web to spy on its citizens is nothing new, it is a point made by the Empire that these practices be stamped out with some degree of prejudice, and many digital consciences are employed to combat this threat.

## Functions

The Web's main function is to be  a form of virtual interconnectivity, where most of the dalmers every day administrative, social, entertainment and economic needs can be fulfilled. This does not mean that the Dalmer are in constant communication, though they are continually bombarded by one signal after another. For what it is worth, the Dalmer actually spend a very low percentage of their time tapped into the Web. Many use it only two or three times a year, though it is probable this will become more and more frequent as they make use of its many functions.

## The Dalmer and the Aether Web

Not all Dalmer can access or even understand the web with equal skill, and only the most powerful can manipulate it for their own purposes. The gathering of the Dalmer into the aether web was the achievement that defined their race. Several high-level powers allow Dalmer to access and use the Web, and all Dalmer may learn the art of accessing the web, which allows them to tap into it with greater ease, and even send messages to other Dalmer.

### Digital conscience and the Aether Web.

It is possible for a Dalmer to upload their consciousness into the shared Aether Web via a brain scan. This is not quite a form of immortality, as what remains on the Web possesses a rudimentary sort of sentience, as much an echo of the Dalmers personality as anything else. There is no evidence to suggest that the Web remnants of a Dalmer's personality have any sort of strong ambition or self-awareness, other than being a collection of ideas and memories that fire off when appropriate stimuli present themselves. Whatever "intelligence" remains is incomplete, somewhat broken and rather difficult to reason as it no longer has the context of a body and a separate set of memories.

Transferring of consciousness to the aether web is possible. Although a conscience can inhabit the web and a physical frame at the same time, this is completely illegal in the Empire. Uploaded consciences’ and AI can access the Aether web, and can navigate it as if it were an actual world.

On the aether web, one can, among other functions, access preserved memories and information stored within it.

## The other races and the Aether Web

Few of the other races know of and even less understand the nature and purpose of the web, though most agree that Dalmer “magic” is somehow involved. One of the more popular theories is that the web is made of Dalmer who no longer exists in a physical form, but instead is a psychic entity.