Reality Engine

Reality engines are the among most commonly used technology in the multiverse, and can be found anywhere from the lowest universal settlements to the largest multiversal empires.

Description
Reality Engines usually appear with two components. A storage container of Protean Husks, and a control module that constitutes that actual engine. The control module usually varies in hspae and appearance, but will usually constitute of an interface and linking beacon.

A Reality Engine acts as a way for a being to manipulate reality in a preset range. Within its range, a Reality Engine has power reality and its laws, including matter and energy manipulation and space-time. A Reality Engine is able to manipulate it's domain's timelines and edit matter and energy in and out of the region of its control.

History
The first Reality Engines started as Zero Space control nodes in the millennia before the First End. Designed as a way to edit the laws of reality so as to allow trivial FTL travel, the first such nodes started as a great success. With the loss of Point 00 after the First End, however, the Zero Space nodes were lost, and a new way of technologically manipulating reality needed to be found. After the Ascension Wars, the first Weave architects were able to obtain several Protean Traces from the Void, and begun to experiment with their capabilities. In time, research revealed that the a synthetic version could be manufactured by Transcends and Outer Gods, known as Protean Husks. The Husks, while unable to be converted into nearly any type of matter or energy like that of Traces, were more suited to use as components in reality-warping technology.

Following this development, the First Weave Nodes were constructed, alongside smaller such Reality Engines. For the next aeons, Reality Engines have become a staple part of life for those living in the Weave, to the point it was regarded as an essential part of life.

Mechanism
A Reality Engine has two main components; a control module, and a store of Protean Husks. When the control module has been activated, the container of the Protean husks releases its payload. The Protean Husks spread over a region of space-time determined by the control module, before then entangling themselves into the fabric of reality. Once all the husks have been entangled, the control module is then 'embedded' into the husks. Once embedded, a Reality Engine cannot be removed from its universe. The amount of power a Reality Engine possesses relative to other reality warpers depends on how much a region of space-time has been saturated with Protean Husks, with those having complete saturation over multiple universes being able to rival that of an Outer God (like the ones used in Weave Nodes). Reality Engines that reach universal range require an large amount of Protean Husks, usually several trillion units where only a few hundred are needed for an engine with galactic range.

Most Reality Engines are much weaker than those possessed by Weave nodes, with standard engines not reaching past universal range. Galactic versions are the standard for small settlements in a post-Tor Weave. Planting a Reality Engine in universe usually signals one's intent to have a permanent settlement within that universe, as its nature prevents its removal from the universe in which it was embedded.