The Gap

The Gap: A Tear in Time, Space, and Memory

In the depths of the Drift, where the laws of reality fray and the known cosmos fades to unreality, The Gap exists as an absence—a vast psychic wound where time and space were ripped from existence. It is not a tangible place but a void, one where history, memory, and causality were devoured by an unseen force.

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"The Drift is strange, unpredictable... but the Gap? The Gap is wrong. It's not just missing—it was stolen."
— Captain Erran Vol, Edgebound Explorer

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The Nature of The Gap

The Gap is a scar on the fabric of existence, felt most acutely within the Drift. Starfarers navigating its depths report sensations of wrongness: a psychic unease that gnaws at their sanity and bends the laws of space and time around them. Attempts to chart the Drift during the "missing" epochs return nonsensical coordinates, impossible anomalies, or empty voids that consume probes without a trace.

1. The Erasure of Time: The Gap obliterated entire millennia from the timeline. No species, no archive—whether digital, psychic, or physical—holds a complete record of the lost era.
2. Spatial Ruptures: While the Gap’s core effects manifest as an absence of history, its presence has warped the Drift itself. Those traveling through certain Drift currents experience temporal anomalies, phantom echoes of long-lost civilizations, or encounters with impossible star systems—remnants, perhaps, of what reality once held.

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"The Drift folds around the Gap like scar tissue around a wound. Sometimes, it leaks."
— Kalli Trenn, Drift Navigator

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Theories of Its Origin

Scholars, explorers, and Drift navigators speculate on the Gap’s true nature, but its origins remain unknowable. Among the most debated theories are:

• A Rift Beyond Time: A catastrophic event ruptured the continuum, pulling entire millennia out of time and scattering their echoes into the Drift.
• Celestial Intervention: Beings of unfathomable power—possibly Drift-born entities—tore a segment of reality from existence, hiding it where only shadows remain.
• The Drift as a Catalyst: Some theorize that the very creation of the Drift destabilized the boundaries between time and space, tearing a wound so deep it could not heal.
• The Paradox of the Forgotten: A more unsettling theory suggests that the Gap exists because it must—a psychic paradox, where the act of forgetting sustains its existence.

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"They say the Drift leads everywhere. What they don’t tell you is that sometimes it leads to nowhere."
— Jarek Fenn, Voidwalker

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The Psychic Scar

The Gap’s influence is especially potent among psychics. Sensitive minds report a humming absence in the Drift, like hearing a song with its chorus torn away. Even the Drift’s psychic currents, which normally teem with impressions of distant stars, civilizations, and thoughts, die away near regions where the Gap is felt most strongly.

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"I’ve drifted close to it once. My thoughts stopped. Not silenced—stopped, like I was no longer me. Like I’d never been."
— Velka Shyre, Psychic Adept

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Explorers of the Void

Despite the danger—or perhaps because of it—those known as Gap Divers and Drift Voyagers obsessively seek out its remnants. Ancient ruins, spectral star systems, and fragments of forgotten technologies occasionally appear as Drift anomalies. For some, the Gap is a challenge: a mystery to solve. For others, it is a warning.

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"Some answers are lost for a reason. If the Gap took something from us, ask yourself: do you really want it back?"
— Dr. Mara Quorren, Temporal Theorist

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Cultural Impact

The Gap has become more than a mystery; it defines the limits of knowledge. It casts a shadow across science, religion, and exploration. Was the lost era the golden age of the galaxy? Or was it something so dangerous that even reality itself rejected it?

One truth remains: the Gap exists, and its echoes can still be felt where time and space come undone.

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"The Drift bends the rules of reality. The Gap breaks them."
— Common phrase among starship crews