Lecture notes from a scholar's presentation.

You ask why I got into studying imagenae? It all started when I cursed out generations of my ploo deskmate's ancestors.

— Dr Soda

On the Formation and Evolution Hypothesis of Imagenae, this was the first lecture topic that came to mind when I was invited back to Graphia Academy. It was my third-grade summer essay, and since then, I've formed an inseparable bond with science. Due to the turmoil of the Cindearth Age and the Canvas Age, the evolutionary history of imagenae has been lost to time, but based on mythology and the physiological structure of imagenae, we can still glimpse into their ancient secrets.

The Cellular Automaton Hypothesis

Within the Intelligentsia Guild, cellular automaton is the mainstream hypothesis. In the era before Graphia created imagenae, everything in Planarcadia would gain life whenever the Phantasmoon was full, joining the revelry during the Phantasmoon Games.

During this period, Phantasmoon will trigger humanity's “Wishpower,” which, strictly speaking, is the energy driven by the Path of Elation. This energy permeates into surrounding substance. The inherent primary device within Wishpower then supplies behavioral templates to this substance, whether discrete or aggregated. Here, from the triad of energy, substance, and behavioral patterns, regulated living machines thus emerge, known as “strangelings.”

From plants to appliances, any substance infused with Wishpower can come alive. Lacking sufficient intelligence, they gather by instinct and disperse once reaching a threshold, much like modern wispae. Therefore, they tend to remain in primitive life phases, cycling from simplicity to complexity before collapsing back into elementary patterns.

It is not until Graphia invents imagenetic technology that the conundrum of forming complex structures in natural imagenae is overcome. By artificially designing their forms and imbuing them with narrative pulse, these imagenae are given a robust skeleton capable of supporting vast amounts of substance and energy. These complex behavioral patterns and skeletons, in turn, create the necessary conditions for intelligence to emerge, ultimately giving birth to the imagenae as we know them today.

Spirit-Bone-Flesh Hypothesis