Game Universe

The Simulation Maintenance (Backstage Systems)

Project Aether is a self-sustaining ecosystem. While the player is busy purging corruption, several “Background Processes” occur to keep the virtual world functioning for the remaining human consciousness.

1. The Market Refresh (Inventory Restocking)

The NPC merchants in Aether City are actually sub-routines of the central computer.

Supply Logic: Every time the player completes a “Mind Dive” or “Reboots” (dies), the system runs a replenishment script.
Dynamic Stock: If the player has recently stabilized a specific sector (e.g., the Forest Sector), the merchants will begin stocking specialized drone parts and items that were previously locked behind firewalls.

2. The Population Cycle (NPC Behavior)

Outside of the player’s perception, the simulation manages the NPCs to simulate “humanity.”

Memory Rotation: NPCs are programmed to cycle through different “Daily Routines” (Farming, Socializing, Maintenance).
Corruption Drift: As the story progresses, NPCs the player has not interacted with for a long time have a higher chance of becoming “Glitched,” triggering new side-quests on the Job Board.

The Laws of the Digital Universe

Data Recycling (Loot & Resources)

Nothing is truly “destroyed” in Aether; it is simply repurposed.

When the player deletes a corrupted entity, its “Soul Data” is recycled into Scrap Meta or Energy Cells.
This explains why enemies always drop items—the system is reclaiming the memory addresses they were using and giving them to the player.

Chronos Protocol (Time Management)

Time in Project Aether is not linear; it is Activity-Based.

The Growth Cycle: Crops on the farm do not grow based on a clock, but based on “System Activity.” Completing a room in a Mind Dungeon or winning an Overworld battle counts as one “Tick” of the simulation’s clock.
Hub Freeze: While the player is in the HUB, the rest of the world is effectively paused. This allows the player to manage their farm and social relations without the pressure of the corruption spreading in real-time.

Automated Antivirus Responses

The player is the “Elite” Antivirus, but the universe has smaller “Utility Drones” that handle minor errors.

Ambient Cleaning: Players may occasionally see small, non-hostile robots in the 3D Overworld repairing glitched tiles or “scrubbing” visual artifacts.
The “Suspicious” Observer: The Central AI is always watching. Behind the scenes, it “optimizes” the difficulty of the next Mind Dungeon based on how efficiently the player cleared the last one, ensuring the “Antivirus” is always being pushed to its limits.

The Physical Reality (The Hardware)

The game universe exists inside a physical supercomputer on a dying Earth.

Environmental Decay: If the physical computer on Earth takes damage (storms, power surges), the Virtual Universe experiences “System Shakes” or sudden “Gravity Shifts.” These are randomized events that the player must navigate, reminding them that their world is ultimately fragile and dependent on a machine.

Universe Logic Summary

Feature	Mechanism	Perception
Merchant Stock	Post-Dive Script	Shops have new items after you return from a mission.
NPC Corruption	Probability Drift	Characters you ignore slowly start to “glitch” over time.
Enemy Drops	Data Reclamation	Enemies “explode” into currency and materials upon deletion.