Hello all,
I'm on my third or fourth reading of the Level articles and I can't tell whether or not the inconsistencies are intentional. There are a good few contradictions, but one that immediately comes to mind is Level 1's Communities and Entrances and Exits sections. The average reader will likely have questions about the means of operating outposts in L1.
Besides the article's advisement against settling in L1, the entrances and exits section states that there's no way into L1 except other universes. In addition to contradicting later levels (such as the Cavity) which claim to have methods of returning to L1, this also implies that a settlement would be dependent on gathering the extremely scant supplies from L1 or subsisting on what new people have on from baseline. Neither seems feasible, and I wonder if the original idea was that readers are intended to notice this and speculate how outposts stock supplies.
It seems more likely to me that people simply didn't get around to adding to Entrances and Exits after a new level is written and approved. If that's the case I'd like to eliminate inconsistencies in the existing articles at least as far as entrances and exits go, but I want to make sure there's not a reason this hasn't been done yet before I do.
While I'm at it I'd also like to run a more general consistency pass as well, shoring up less obvious contradictions and perhaps adding more inter-level material for a more cohesive read. It appears that the current floors are all liked enough to assume that they will remain — in some form or another — canon for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, I don't quite have a handle on the voice the articles are supposed to be written from. I haven't found anything about it in the writing guide, so it feels like these are probably public UNCB documents intended to disseminate general knowledge and survival tips. If this is so, the inconsistencies seem unlikely to be an intentional feature, although I see huge potential to hint at anomalies that create inter-level discrepancies in mind or in reality.
So if you've got a stake in the level articles and/or the canon, please chime in! I look forward to hearing others' thoughts on this and working together to create a cogent canon that reads smoothly and unnerves with the best of 'em.
G'nite,
K.W.